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 Ze nuclear veapon deterrent zis essential for heute merzenary
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Apr 15, 2017 00:03
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pthighs posted:At some point we may want to get listed on the NYSE. Socotra isn't that bad of a choice, it has an airfield and a small port we could use. Depending on the political situation in Yemen in this crazy timeline we could probably score a deal to use the island as a base, likely with the proviso we support whichever factions in the civil war are still around by this time. The downside to this island is that monsoons render it partially inaccessible for about a quarter to a third of the year. power crystals posted:To hell with the NYSE, we should set up sponsorship deals where we can sell gun cam footage. An air-to-air guns kill this side of 1991 would certainly be exciting in the youtube age... Luckily the ticker GOON isn't taken yet so we're solid. For YouTube we just need to take the raw footage, edit it to the exciting bits and get an enthusiastic twentysomthing year old to put his mug in the upper left corner and give live momentary about how badass and awesome it is. We'll make millions in ads along. Also another random thing to consider if/when we can start to have a navy. For missiles do we want to try and use Armature launchers, Box launchers or VLS. The first two are common in many mid Cold War frigates and destroyers and those ships are likley going to be cheaper, but they might not be as effective as more modern ships. Conversely the VLS systems are much more versitile, but they are more expensive and those ships that we might be able to aquire that also use this system are probably going to be few and far between. Obviously this will also all depend on the ships made available to us by Yoopers, but its one of those things we might want to keep in the back of our mind. *EDIT* I was bored and wrote this up too: For the purposes of our little mercenary company, the best kind of naval force we’ll want to look at will be the United States Navy, in particular its two forms of Amphibious Ready Groups and the Expeditionary Strike Group. An Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) at its core is just three large transportation ships that are capable of putting a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) anywhere on the world and supporting it for some of its combat operations. Now we won’t obviously be sending out 2,200 to 5,000 soldiers for quite a awhile, but the ability for a small number of ships to sustain a land based operation via resupply and airstrikes is absolutely critical, especially if we want to be a successful multifaceted mercenary company. We’ll need one amphibious combat ship (likely not one of the American big decks, but luckily there are a number of foreign options and smaller beasts) to carry our soldiers and a small number of helicopters for transportation as well as combat strikes. Obviously a ship like that will be quite expensive so I expect that we won’t acquire one for some time but we should be cognizant of the need for something that can move and sustain a couple hundred soldiers/support personal around the world. If we can, getting Harriers can be a boon here as they can give us an advanced airstrike option off a theoretical amphib (though if we get one it’ll probably require some retrofitting since jumpjets melt most decks that haven’t been reinforced).  In its final form, our fleet should be fairly similar to an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). Basically this is just an ARG that has several combat ships attached to it for defense and possible strike warfare options against land targets and surface warfare options against seaborne threats. An American ESG would for example have one cruiser, one destroyer, one frigate and a fast attack sub attached to it, though this is more of a hypothetical ideal. In reality it might just have the cruiser and one or two destroyers. In our case, it’ll be even simpler, we’ll have just one amphibious ship with whatever corvettes, frigates and destroyers we can scrounge as the escorts. Those ships will likely be the first building blocks of this fleet, so we can slowly build a force of one or two smaller ships with their aviation suites before getting to a bigger ship. This will give us a flexible force that can respond to a number of threats and situations around the world and give us a good profile to present clients with for force responses. In the end this will give us a number of missiles platforms for anti0air, anti-surface and strike warfare options as well as giving up a number of platforms to land quite a few helicopters and possible jumpjets on for additional force response. IF people want I can go more into what a Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer and Cruiser are theoretically supposed to do from a standpoint in fleet configuration. Surprisingly it’s not just a matter of sticking more guns and missile on boats. I can also go into the differences between the various modern amphibious ships as well. Since a lot of this is probably a ways off I can shelve it for later if you all prefer! Jimmy4400nav fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 15, 2017 00:26
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There are thos unloved Mistral class ships, let's buy one.
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Apr 15, 2017 01:08
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:There are thos unloved Mistral class ships, let's buy one. Ah the Mistral isn't a bad choice This ship can carry anywhere between 16 to 35 helicopters (obviously depending on the size and configuration of said helos) along with 450 troops for long term voyages (likely what we'll be on), 4 landing craft or two LCACs and about 540 main battle tanks or around 40 IFVs with an additional 15 to 17 main battle tanks. It also would have around 30 hospital beds, a generous cargo hold, a good sized chow hall and even a functional gym. It also has a range of about 10,000 nautical miles assuming you don't haul rear end with it 24/7 and coupled with its missile defense systems, it's surprisingly robust enough to stand on its own for defensive operations. The downside would be getting our hands on one of them. There are only 5 in the world, the French are using three of them and the Egyptians managed to get the two they were building for the Russians. We probably would have better luck getting one of the Egyptian ones depending on the worldwide political situation. These ships also cost more than half a billion dollars so even if we can somehow convince one of their countries to part with them, its not going to be cheap and we sadly won't be able to just Fulton one out of a dry dock. Since they are so new their host countries might just not be willing to part with one of them. For a more budget friendly modern option, we could always look at the South Korean Dokdo Class, the Indonesian Makassar Class, the Italian San-Giogio Class. For extra budget concerned shoppers, we could see about getting one of the Thai or Singapore refurbished Endurance Classes. The French also have the older Foudre Class which they sold to Brazil and Chile which might be more in our budget range. For extra comedy, we could see if New Zealand wants to offload its mechanically troubled Canterbury class which takes the cake for derpiest looking amhpib.  Dokdo Class  Makassar Class  San-Giorgio  Endurance Class  Foudre Class  Canterbury Class
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Apr 15, 2017 01:59
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The Tarawa-class has been retired as of March 2015 and all remaining ships in real life are inactive and placed in the reserve, so they could conceivably be sold off by the 2020s.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:13
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Or we could.... not buy a ruiniously expensive boat and instead just take contracts with a good base?
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Apr 15, 2017 02:17
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nothing to seehere posted:Or we could.... not buy a ruiniously expensive boat and instead just take contracts with a good base? Oh come on we're talking about GOONS here. Try to keep things realistic, the only question is how ruinously expensive the boat will be.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:18
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I love that the first proposal for ships is to buy a loving amphib group.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:19
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chitoryu12 posted:The Tarawa-class has been retired as of March 2015 and all remaining ships in real life are inactive and placed in the reserve, so they could conceivably be sold off by the 2020s. I was mostly looking at smaller Amphibs since the Tarawa, while retired, is still really expensive and honestly, pretty overkill for what we need. MrYenko posted:I love that the first proposal for ships is to buy a loving amphib group. Hey to be fair, I said get a frigate or destroyer first and work our way up. I was just posting ideas to give us inspiration. I also suggested plenty of nice island spots!
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Apr 15, 2017 02:20
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Crazycryodude posted:Oh come on we're talking about GOONS here. Try to keep things realistic, the only question is how FTFY We did think that Entebbe-ing Lhasa to try and score those J-20s was worth trying after all.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:20
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Just weld a lot of sheet metal on top of a supertanker, those are cheap, right?
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Apr 15, 2017 02:23
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aphid_licker posted:Just weld a lot of sheet metal on top of a supertanker, those are cheap, right? Depending on your size you are looking at anywhere from 42 million to 115 million, and that's just for the hulk, tack on another hundred or two hundred million to convert a ship to military specs, adding in radars, missile defenses, hull integrity, avionics facilities. At that point it'd probably be cheaper to jut get an older and/or ready build smaller amphib. Plus that means less weird coding for Yooper.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:39
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nothing to seehere posted:Or we could.... not buy a ruiniously expensive boat and instead just take contracts with a good base? This. Buying a big loving ships means we have no money for cool planes. A quick note about business, amphibious ships are ridiculously expensive to operate. Here's just a few of the costs: 1) Purchasing. The Mistrals for example cost $600m a pop. 2) Escorting. Amphibious carriers are massive targets. They need 2-3 corvettes, frigates, or destroyers escorting them. Realistically, they need destroyers to provide SAM cover, since buying an LPD means we won't have enough money (or range) to operate a force of long-range fighters over them. Those are also really drat expensive. An Arleigh Burke DDG is about $1.8 billion each. 3) Fuel. These things suck gas. If we want to really be able to project power, we need to spring for a tanker that can do at-sea refuelling. More money. 4) Crew. The San Antonios have a crew of about 350 people. They have to get paid even when we aren't on ops. 5) Transport. To actually get troops ashore we need helicopters, amphibious armored vehicles, landing craft or exotic stuff like LCACs If we want a navy, let's spring for a small corvette or something. The Danish Absalom-class ships are very nice little multi-role ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalon-class_support_ship Yooper posted:Procurement Chat Let goons make proposals.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:41
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We have to be multiple theaters away from being able to afford any kind of meaningful warship. Seriously, we could outfit an entire air wing for less than it'd cost to buy the ship to put it on. As much as I want one, we should really wait. Also c'mon the ideal absurd boat purchase is a diesel-electric submarine.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:49
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power crystals posted:We have to be multiple theaters away from being able to afford any kind of meaningful warship. Seriously, we could outfit an entire air wing for less than it'd cost to buy the ship to put it on. As much as I want one, we should really wait. Think bigger. The USN is still retiring some 688s.
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Apr 15, 2017 02:59
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Bacarruda posted:This. Buying a big loving ships means we have no money for cool planes. power crystals posted:We have to be multiple theaters away from being able to afford any kind of meaningful warship. Seriously, we could outfit an entire air wing for less than it'd cost to buy the ship to put it on. As much as I want one, we should really wait. The Absalom is a good ship, the Stanflex mission module is an awesome idea too. And again, I feel I need to reiterate, I wasn't suggesting we by an amphib right away, I was saying for the distant future, as in when we have tons of money and can afford it and have an area we can base such a ship in and only after we've maybe bought a corvette or frigate or two to defend it. I was just brain storming for fun and people assumed I was talking short term. And people also started suggesting the largest and most eppensive options, I tired to show the cheaper ones (except the Dokdo, that poo poo is expensive).  For cost though the Makassar is only about 45 million and needs only another 10 or 20 million million to fully equip and outfit with weapons and sensors, so IF we ever do consider an amphib, that'd be the ticket. It also has a crew of only 120 dudes so has minimal requirements. LostCosmonaut posted:Think bigger. The USN is still retiring some 688s. Sadly the USN has a "No Selling Nuclear Ships" policy, doubly so for SSNs. Plus those suckers are 2.1 Billion dollars a pop, we could afford a whole amphib group for that price 
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Apr 15, 2017 03:01
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What if we Entebbed Norfolk 
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Apr 15, 2017 03:13
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LostCosmonaut posted:What if we Entebbed Norfolk A squad of two dozen rag tag commandos flying a mid-sized European transport into one of the most heavily guarded naval installations on the planets for the purpose of stealing a nuclear submarine from the most powerful nation on the planet...  ....Or we could see about getting a surplus Japanese or German sub, they've made a lot of decent Diesel-Electrics over the years and most have some capability to launch Harpoons as well as torpedoes. Though one sub can run anywhere from 120 to 400 million... Subs are expensive yo!
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Apr 15, 2017 03:20
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Jimmy4400nav posted:A squad of two dozen rag tag commandos flying a mid-sized European transport into one of the most heavily guarded naval installations on the planets for the purpose of stealing a nuclear submarine from the most powerful nation on the planet... The movie rights will go for enough to fund anything. As long as there's, you know, somebody left alive to sell them.
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Apr 15, 2017 03:52
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LostCosmonaut posted:Think bigger. The USN is still retiring some 688s. I was thinking quieter. We're not gonna really ever challenge another navy head on so I'm not sure the advantages of a nuke would be that useful, but with how quiet a diesel-electric can be imagine how much more fun sinking that frigate and the two freighters would have been. Jimmy4400nav posted:The Absalom is a good ship, the Stanflex mission module is an awesome idea too. My only issue with a surface warship is what's gonna defend it? Our aircraft can only get so far from shore (without the aforementioned amphib battlegroup) so if someone decides to lob a few Silkworms at it we're kinda boned.
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Apr 15, 2017 03:53
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Scour the eastern U.S. seaboard for an old U-Boat.
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Apr 15, 2017 04:51
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwJOEzCn77g  Wow. Just. Wow. The news in India has been going nuts, I'm expecting a some news clips soon(ish)! We'll let this digest and then I'll do a debrief post.
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Apr 15, 2017 05:09
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That was fuckin' beautiful.
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Apr 15, 2017 05:51
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Holy poo poo that payout is insane. Can we afford our frigate now? What a mission.
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Apr 15, 2017 06:08
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Congrats guys, we installed a theocracy! I was surprised it went that smoothly for us, I was expecting a CAP to be up by the time we got there. Luckily we caught them on the ground and that was that.
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Apr 15, 2017 06:15
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Awesome mission! I hope Wing Commander Rohan is OK. 
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Apr 15, 2017 06:28
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I hope we can sort out this whole fuel paranoia thing or else we're always going to have CAP way out of position. And you guys doubted the value of the bomb trucks. We're not pretty but we get the job done. That said, we should probably stay out of the Eastern Hemisphere for a while.
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Apr 15, 2017 06:37
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yurtcradled posted:Awesome mission! If she did can we talent poach her from the Indians? Someone that awesome more than earned a spot in our fine organization. Also with that payout we'd better drat well get another tanker and some support aircraft, think of what extended range ops can afford us  In addition, it turns out that by 2019 the USAF is planning on retiring its E-8 Joint STARS. These bad boys basically act like an AWACS but specifically for ground based targets. If we can't get our hands on a Globalhawk or other drones we might want to see if we can get one of these. Or an Embraer-99 if we feel like using the smaller version. Like Added Space mentioned, we might want to avoid Asia for awhile, China seems fairly....cheesed at the moment. We have some happy people in New Delhi though, hopefully this will lead to use getting access to some primo stuff. Can't wait to see where we go next!
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Apr 15, 2017 06:49
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Holy poo poo, I can't believe that worked! I mean, it's one thing to plan it out, and quite another to see it in action! Yooper, can you post the Losses and Expenditures sheet if you still have the end of scenario save? It won't tell us who did the killing, but it will tell us who got killed.
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Apr 15, 2017 06:52
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At least I know Nails blew something up.
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Apr 15, 2017 07:07
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Those CAP pilots turning around before they even got to the AO is hilarious. Try to imagine how that radio conversation went. That said, we should probably shoot those responsible for this embarrassment. Or send them to work for the ground mercs.
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Apr 15, 2017 07:36
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Nice one! Sonic assassin took out quite some AA. Also seconding Jimmy4400nav with the comming purchase should include a JSTAR(lite). I too I'm curious for the losses and expenditures.
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Apr 15, 2017 07:43
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Even just ten minutes in I was really impressed. It's one thing to make up words for how the mission goes, it's another to figure out how to work it into the mission system. You really put a lot of effort into this LP, Yooper. And the end... really amazing result. Excellent job with the mission! And, wow, I didn't know that you can set doctrine from waypoints. That's really handy! Those J-20s sure murdered a lot of our Indian allies. I'm surprised that the Indians still managed to get a few kills in return, though. Those air-search infrared (IRST) are a weakness of stealth fighters; you can't treat your stealth jets like they're invincible. So. Operation Strict Parenting turned out to be a crushing success! Glad to see my punny name turned out to be accurate: The Chinese sure are ... grounded.  Davin Valkri posted:Yooper, can you post the Losses and Expenditures sheet if you still have the end of scenario save? It won't tell us who did the killing, but it will tell us who got killed. Yeah, I was really curious to see this, too. I want to see how many planes we managed to hit on the ground. 
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Apr 15, 2017 07:43
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rchandra posted:If my Pilotwings skills are any indication, I can't stay parallel to a runway if it's windy (can't land in level 8). Hopefully it'll be calm! Well, this was proved accurate but still managed to drop ordnance in a tolerable fashion. (I think the ROE said to ignore plotted course? Hard to tell what exactly controls what in CMANO, as a non-player). (Yooper, Arcee has a soft c). Great work Psawhn! PR proposal: fund pensions for Indian pilot widow(er)s.
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Apr 15, 2017 08:00
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rchandra posted:PR proposal: fund pensions for Indian pilot widow(er)s. Public Relations? We're jet powered mercenaries, we ain't exactly a public business. We're not even slightly at fault here, it was some drat politician's idea to send those boys to their death. Us offering money might well seem insulting to those folks who think they died for some better reason. It's also impolite to imply that our employer can't support their own. Find some other way to ease your conscience without sticking your hand in the company till.
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Apr 15, 2017 08:23
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Well, guess I might as well join the pilot queue. If a spot opens up, put me in with callsign Psychoceramic. And good job on that last mission.
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Apr 15, 2017 08:31
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Awesome job, Yooper. In terms of mission planning, we showed our bare rear end to the enemy three times: Once when our CAP got irrationally thirsty (this one will get rectified, I know,) once on egress, and the last time when the the AEW bird was last one in the air. We really need to be screening/delousing our egressing strike aircraft and supporting our support assets at all times. Getting shot in the rear end is embarrassing. And expensive.
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Apr 15, 2017 08:34
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Jimmy4400nav posted:Plus even the smallest ones can carry several hundred ground troops, which lets us create a mobile base for ourselves in the Phoenix Command offshoot! The Phoenix Commander stated that running 12 dudes and a secrert number of PLA is already melting his brain, so "hundreds of troops" can only mean support staff/uncountable redshirts that want to replace losses in a merc outfit with a high mortality rate.
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Apr 15, 2017 08:47
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rchandra posted:PR proposal: fund pensions for Indian pilot widow(er)s. Let's drop a couple of thousands bucks and get a really silver plaque for the Indian wing's officer's mess. Maybe mount the radome of one of the J-20s as a trophy or something and give it to them. yurtcradled posted:I hope Wing Commander Rohan is OK. When she drifts back to earth in her parachute, I think we should give her a job. Psawhn posted:So. Operation Strict Parenting turned out to be a crushing success! Glad to see my punny name turned out to be accurate: The Chinese sure are ... grounded. Bravo Zulu on planning this, Psawhn. Very well done. Yooper, great execution. Glad you didn't end up needing that helmet! Jimmy4400nav posted:In addition, it turns out that by 2019 the USAF is planning on retiring its E-8 Joint STARS. These bad boys basically act like an AWACS but specifically for ground based targets. If we can't get our hands on a Globalhawk or other drones we might want to see if we can get one of these. Or an Embraer-99 if we feel like using the smaller version. Here's my wishlist from the Indians, in order. I'm sure we can get a good discount on the older aircraft and on the Indian-made birds. The Mirages are basically a must-buy. The Mirage 2000H light multi-role fighter would be a great little pickup. It's affordable ($20-25 million apiece for used aircraft). And it really brings a lot to the table. It carries a great suite of weapons. For SEAD work, it has two ARAMT anti-radiation missiles. For anti-tank work it has, four BLG.66 Belouga cluster bombs. For anti-runway work, it has four Durandals. For precision strike, it can carry two Arcole 970kg laser-guided bombs. For air-to-air work it can carry Matra Magic heat-seakers and Super medium-range R.530F SARH missiles. Some Su-30MKI Flanker H multi-role air superiority fighters would give us some great punch in the air-to-air and the air-to-ground role. They dominate in the air-to-air mission and can haul six AA-12 Adder A "Amraamskis," plus four AA-11 Archer heaters. They can also carry four KAB-500Kr TV-guided missiles, or two massive KAB-1500Kr TV-guided missiles. There is the HAL Tejas light multi-role fighter. At $24 million a pop, it's affordable. It's a pretty basic light striker and light fighter. It can carry Derby medium-range air-to-air missiles and the Python 5 short-range heaters. For ground strike it's got the 1000lb Griffin laser-guided bomb. If we want more light attack, this is a great option: the Jaguar IS attack aircraft. It can haul a nice load of four 1000lb iron bombs or two 1000lb Griffin laser-guided bombs or eighteen BAP.100 anti-runway bombs or two BL.755 anti-tank cluster bombs. Fro strafing, it has a 30mm cannon. If we replace our SK 60Bs with these, it'd be a HUGE leap forwards in capability. We need a helo for SAR and ground attack. The Mi-17V5 Hip H utility and attack helicopter is a great option. Good cargo capacity. Good ground strike ability. Tough as a brick. MrYenko posted:In terms of mission planning, we showed our bare rear end to the enemy three times: Once when our CAP got irrationally thirsty (this one will get rectified, I know,) once on egress, and the last time when the the AEW bird was last one in the air. We really need to be screening/delousing our egressing strike aircraft and supporting our support assets at all times. Getting shot in the rear end is embarrassing. And expensive. Agreed. We're getting better at mission planning,, but we need to be clearer out the drat "refuel @ X level." And having more aircraft to do CAP work will help out.
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Apr 15, 2017 09:08
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I don't think the Indians are going to be willing to sell some of the newer aircraft, especially with the losses they suffered today. Tejas is still in production, true, but we'd probably end up at the back of the queue if we wanted to order some. Jaguar might be doable though.
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Apr 15, 2017 09:36
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