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daskrolator posted:Speaking of Harpoons, 40th anniversary last year. "Originally built in response to the U.S. Navy's urgent need for an all-weather, long-range, anti-ship missile during the Cold War," Actually, development of the Harpoon started as an anti-submarine missile back in the 1960s, when (all?) Soviet missile subs had to surface to launch their missiles. That's why the pop-up maneuver (which newer blocks don't do), so that the missile sees a larger aspect ratio of the target during the terminal stage. It wasn't until a few years after that they decided it would be a general-purpose anti-ship missile.
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Apr 11, 2012 04:38
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Speaking of Harpoon (the missile), I find it interesting that there are rumblings that the USAF is starting to place more emphasis on the sea control mission of the BUFF as part of the whole AirSea Battle construct. Everything old is new again. Defense consolidation always makes me chuckle..."Boeing legacy program." I think my favorite is when the current owner/manufacturer of a product originally competed against it and then wound up buying the competition, like Raytheon and Hughes with the AIM-120. And for some reason I just thought of this picture...  Yes that is a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter and no it is not a photoshop. It's the USCGC Mellon, the first and only USCG Cutter to be outfitted with and launch a Harpoon. The USCG Commandant at the time had a hard-on for surface warfare and apparently wanted the Coast Guard to be like a junior Navy, so he had this brilliant idea to outfit all the high endurance cutters with Harpoons, CIWS, and an anti-submarine suite including sonar and ASW torpedoes. The way I heard the story the firing of the Harpoon actually bent the keel of the ship, which quickly brought an end to this whole hare-brained idea.
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Apr 11, 2012 05:03
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iyaayas01 posted:The way I heard the story the firing of the Harpoon actually bent the keel of the ship, which quickly brought an end to this whole hare-brained idea.  Seriously? For some reason I guess I always thought ships would be sporting the AGM-84, but I guess they'd have a variant specifically for surface-surface missile launchers just like they have a specific submarine-variant.
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Apr 11, 2012 05:42
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Insert name here posted:Also since apparently all I do is talk about dumb video games in this thread anyone have any book recommendation on the Korean War? I know next to nothing on this war and it makes me feel bad. Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 by Martin Russ
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Apr 11, 2012 07:58
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iyaayas01 posted:I hear The Coldest War by James Brady is an excellent memoir. For the air war component, it is very hard to beat either The Hunters by James Salter or The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James Michener. Both are novels but both are heavily based on the personal experiences of both authors. JudgeJoeBrown posted:Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950 by Martin Russ Breakout ($0.32 used on Amazon) absolutely rules and is a great tactical level description of a decisive campaign, and The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam ($0.39 used on Amazon) is an excellent full-war history. Both are cheap enough than anyone with even a passing interest in the Korean War could and should buy both. I can't recommend them highly enough.
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Apr 11, 2012 09:33
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Nebakenezzer posted:Well, there goes another illusion: I always figured the gun barrel would last the Battle of Stalingrad without much trouble. So when tanks are operating, they have to have crates of barrels back at base as replacements? When a barrel is worn, can it be refurbished? Pimpmust posted:I think I saw a youtube clip of a Leopard 2 up in Boden with a wooden "Abrams" nailed to it, saw any of that? Since someone seemed to appreciate what I wrote about the gun laying, there are a few finer points to aiming with a leopard: -The gunner's computer has twist knobs for input of side wind and ammunition temperature. -there's a mirror at the muzzle that the gunner's sight can look at as a point of reference to determine if the barrel is straight. If not, this can also be compensated for to a degree by twisting knobs on the computer. -If there was no recent laser-measured range, the computer would revert to "zero", which was at 1200 meters. With this elevation you'd hit a tank-sized target anywhere out to that distance and some ways beyond, though I couldn't say how far. We were instructed to shoot without lasing at short ranges (for fastness). It seems that it's common in the world of tanks that the commander must grant permission to the gunner to shoot every time, but we didn't train that way. The gunner was always assumed to have a blanket permission to fire. While lasing and laying, he'd commonly call something like "tank, shot's coming!"- only a cease-fire command would stop him, and if the commander said nothing he took the shot. I realize that rules of engagement is frequently subject to change and very much a local thing, but the ones we used for practice gave the gunner a lot of leeway to decide what he was actually seeing and whether he should kill it or not. The gunner has a better sight (though situated slightly lower) than the commander has, and will almost always have a slightly better view of the target (even if the commander looks at the gunner's IR picture he'll see it on a television screen rather than through stereo eyepieces, giving his eyes a lower quality image). I guess the way we trained was adapted to the task of repelling waves of Soviet armor - computer simulated threats were T-72, BMP or Hind, and the gunners knew the appearance of these vehicles just as well as the commanders did... Also I thought I'd mention the auxiliary firing setup: If the gunner leans over to the left from where he normally sits there's a rather hard-pressing trigger; a big (red!) magneto/coil button that will generate enough of an electrical pulse to make the gun go off. There's also a small one-hand joystick that directly controls a secondary, much smaller set of DC motors laying the gun, as well as a monocular sight bolted directly to said gun, no gyroscopes or tilting mirrors involved. We used the small joystick/motors all the time for non-scary control of the turret after switching off the big and potentially people-killing motors, but we never trained with the the backup sight at all. I heard a story of a Danish leopard 2 crew somewhere in the Balkans that for reasons I can't recall wanted to act as an artillery piece rather than as a tank. The gunner's computer won't let you measure and fire at distances over 4000 meters, so the Danish guys had to radio someone who had to call someone who knew how to use the backup sight reticle properly. I cannot in any way vouch for this story actually being true. Invalido fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 10:37
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Insert name here posted:Also since apparently all I do is talk about dumb video games in this thread anyone have any book recommendation on the Korean War? I know next to nothing on this war and it makes me feel bad.
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Apr 11, 2012 14:48
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Invalido posted:I heard a story of a Danish leopard 2 crew somewhere in the Balkans that for reasons I can't recall wanted to act as an artillery piece rather than as a tank. The gunner's computer won't let you measure and fire at distances over 4000 meters, so the Danish guys had to radio someone who had to call someone who knew how to use the backup sight reticle properly. I cannot in any way vouch for this story actually being true. It seems like running out of elevation travel would be a problem too. If one were in command of a MBT but had always wanted to grow up to become a howitzer gunner, is parking the tank on a hill an effective way to get a higher elevation? Do the sights well-handle this misuse of steep hills?
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Apr 11, 2012 16:41
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Frozen Horse posted:It seems like running out of elevation travel would be a problem too. If one were in command of a MBT but had always wanted to grow up to become a howitzer gunner, is parking the tank on a hill an effective way to get a higher elevation? Do the sights well-handle this misuse of steep hills? I can't speak of modern MBTs at all, but back in the 50s American armor did this all the time in Korea.
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Apr 11, 2012 18:05
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MagnumHB posted:Crimson Sky provides a nice overview of the air campaign including extensive coverage of its lesser known/less glamorous (but more interesting to me) aspects (stuff other than MiG/Sabre duels). Bully Able Leader gives a more personal perspective from an F-51/F-80 pilot early in the war. I can also second the recommendation for The Hunters. There is also this book, although I haven't read it yet. Thanks for these, I'm planning on doing some in depth reading on historical airpower and I hadn't looked into books about the Korean War yet.
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Apr 11, 2012 23:17
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grover posted:688 Attack Sub was by far my favorite cold war video game. Man, I played that for endless hours as a kid. I never could beat the final mission, though. I'd get the nukes off and evade the ships, but the Akula would always come out of loving nowhere right as I was about to win and sink me. Nobody could beat that mission, including the guy who wrote the game. Now I'm jonesing for Harpoon, dammit.
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Apr 12, 2012 08:06
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That was some kind of Last Starfighter bullshit right there. Beat it and they show up at your house and give you a 688 class commission.
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Apr 12, 2012 08:32
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Invalido posted:Yes, I got the impression that they could be re-chromed. Understand that as a conscript these kinds of things weren't part of my education but rather something I asked some career officer about out of curiosity. His answer is all I can tell you, whatever that's worth. Might have been during Operation Bøllebank in Kosovo back in -94, although they were Leo 1A5s rather than 2s. A Swedish UN OP was under artillery fire but was denied air support, so a Danish Leo 1 column moved in to assist. The Danish commander, bless his soul, decide to follow a generous interpretation of the ROE and the column returned fire with 72 rounds destroying several Serb artillery pieces, an ammunition dump and a few bunkers. That certainly would explain why a Leo would ever want to pretend to be a howitzer.
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Apr 12, 2012 09:20
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Frozen Horse posted:It seems like running out of elevation travel would be a problem too. If one were in command of a MBT but had always wanted to grow up to become a howitzer gunner, is parking the tank on a hill an effective way to get a higher elevation? Do the sights well-handle this misuse of steep hills? You could certainly use some hill or hole to make the barrel point higher than would be possible on flat land. The problem lies in figuring out just where the gun is pointing. I think the tank sights would be fairly useless for this (seeing only sky). A smartphone could act as compass, inclinometer, ballistics computer, GPS... Stroh M.D. posted:Might have been during Operation Bøllebank in Kosovo back in -94, although they were Leo 1A5s rather than 2s. A Swedish UN OP was under artillery fire but was denied air support, so a Danish Leo 1 column moved in to assist. The Danish commander, bless his soul, decide to follow a generous interpretation of the ROE and the column returned fire with 72 rounds destroying several Serb artillery pieces, an ammunition dump and a few bunkers. This must surely be it! From what I read on wikipedia, the leo1A5 was an upgraded version with fire controls/main sight quite similar to that in the leo2, so the part about the problems caused by the 4000 meter limit may still be true... It's an annoying nerf and there ought to be a bypass around it for those special occasions. Another flaw that I personally found really annoying was how the co-axial MG fired while the main turret switch was set in "stabilized" mode (i.e. the gun being slaved to either gunner's or commander's gyroscoped sight). The MG fire/no fire criteria were the same as for the the main gun, or at least set waaaay too strict for the purpose of suppressive fire while on the move. If we drove fast in rough terrain and wanted to machine gun with any success, the loader needed to manually depress the big lever that in turn depressed the trigger on the machine gun. If the gunner held his trigger down, all you'd get was little unimpressive bursts of 1-3 rounds every now and then as the gun passed through the very narrow window of acceptable firing solutions for hitting things far away. The thing is, as a tanker I obviously don't care if my MG fire spreads far and wide - I want spread! I want any soft-skinned enemies ahead of me to keep their heads down, and I have lots and lots of 7.62 to pour every place I'm even suspicious about. If i had to fight in a leo2 and that stupid thing wasn't fixed, I'd make my own jury rigged pedal switch or something for the gunner if at all possible. Nerfed tanks forsooth!
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Apr 12, 2012 10:23
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Invalido posted:You could certainly use some hill or hole to make the barrel point higher than would be possible on flat land. The problem lies in figuring out just where the gun is pointing. I think the tank sights would be fairly useless for this (seeing only sky). A smartphone could act as compass, inclinometer, ballistics computer, GPS... You probably had some sort of quadrant sight that never came out of the armory that would allow indirect fires. A tank would make a pretty lovely indirect fire weapon since you could never alter the charge behind the round(artillery/mortars can) leaving only inclination to adjust the range the round travels. http://www.trngcmd.usmc.mil/G4_Docs/Public%20Downloads/CMR/Principal%20Characteristics%20of%20Ordnance%20Equip%20%28E%20TAMCNs%29.pdf see pg 140 Invalido posted:Another flaw that I personally found really annoying was how the co-axial MG fired while the main turret switch was set in "stabilized" mode (i.e. the gun being slaved to either gunner's or commander's gyroscoped sight). The MG fire/no fire criteria were the same as for the the main gun, or at least set waaaay too strict for the purpose of suppressive fire while on the move. If we drove fast in rough terrain and wanted to machine gun with any success, the loader needed to manually depress the big lever that in turn depressed the trigger on the machine gun. If the gunner held his trigger down, all you'd get was little unimpressive bursts of 1-3 rounds every now and then as the gun passed through the very narrow window of acceptable firing solutions for hitting things far away. The thing is, as a tanker I obviously don't care if my MG fire spreads far and wide - I want spread! I want any soft-skinned enemies ahead of me to keep their heads down, and I have lots and lots of 7.62 to pour every place I'm even suspicious about. If i had to fight in a leo2 and that stupid thing wasn't fixed, I'd make my own jury rigged pedal switch or something for the gunner if at all possible. Nerfed tanks forsooth! Not really all that important. You're more likely to be operating in support of infantry as a base of fire for their assault. Besides that: bounding over-watch and the advantage of out ranging most infantry portable weapons. Sit out or range and lob HE or bound in closer and deliver accurate coax fires. vains fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Apr 12, 2012 |
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Apr 12, 2012 11:45
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Veins McGee posted:Not really all that important. You're more likely to be operating in support of infantry as a base of fire for their assault. Besides that: bounding over-watch and the advantage of out ranging most infantry portable weapons. Sit out or range and lob HE or bound in closer and deliver accurate coax fires. Counterpoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQxR1FXta8 Lots of MG firing on the move. If they were over rough terrain (instead of on a highway, lol) in leopards they would be pissed they can't spew MG all around at will.
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Apr 12, 2012 12:32
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Veins McGee posted:Not really all that important. You're more likely to be operating in support of infantry as a base of fire for their assault. Besides that: bounding over-watch and the advantage of out ranging most infantry portable weapons. Sit out or range and lob HE or bound in closer and deliver accurate coax fires. Any non-desperate mechanized armor assault by the Swedish army would include CV-90 vehicles (comparable to the Bradley) supporting with infantry, 40mm auto-cannon and whatever else - there are lots of versions on the same chassis. Still, an MBT's intended role is as the tip of the spear, and is a priority target for anyone capable of killing them. I ideally wouldn't have to worry about threats to my flanks or rear that much, because CV-90 and infantry would be there to deal with that. Anyone in front of me with a TOW-like weapon on the other hand... In wooded terrain (where I trained most, Boden representing) we'd typically end up laser-tagging each others tanks at 200 meters or so, sometimes much closer. The 800 meter range of the co-axial isn't that limiting in the type of terrain most common in the northern two-thirds of Sweden, especially since infantry trying to hide from you is really hard to detect compared to tanks... In the simulator software we trained with however the terrain was all central european-looking fields and villages, and most engagements were well out of MG range. Sabot for armor and helicopters, HE for trucks (though they'd kill the BMPs in a pinch), repeat hundreds of times...
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Apr 12, 2012 14:56
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Stroh M.D. posted:Might have been during Operation Bøllebank in Kosovo back in -94, Oh dear lord. quote:The Danes watched the tanks' infrared searchlights try to find and target their Leopards, but easily stayed out of their sights. The T-55s were sitting targets, but the U.N. tanks never opened fire against them: under U.N. rules of engagement, they are not allowed to attack Serb tanks unless sensors show that the opposing cannons are warm, meaning that they have recently been fired." This is Les-Aspin stupid.
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Apr 12, 2012 17:15
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Phanatic posted:Oh dear lord. Good guy logic right there.
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Apr 12, 2012 17:16
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Apparently the ROE was written by George Lucas.
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Apr 12, 2012 17:21
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mlmp08 posted:Apparently the ROE was written by George Lucas. But the Rebels were the terrorists! And the Empire shot at anything they wanted. 
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Apr 12, 2012 17:24
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movax posted:Good guy logic right there. Definitely. The ROE was mind-blowingly stupid and completely inappropriate for an unconventional conflict. The UN forces were only to fire if fired upon and then only if they really felt it was needed. There were no provision for what to do if the belligerents simply waved at the peacekeepers and then proceeded to ignore them and slaughter the civilians they were supposed to protect. Which happened. Many times. It should come as no surprise that the ROE was violated systematically as a result. I recall claims that the Swedish contingent decided to respond to war crimes with proper force. Stories circulate over here in Sweden that the Brits, who were initially skeptical of the seeming aggressiveness of the Swedes, hade a change of heart after Stupni Dor and Vares. Supposedly they nicknamed the Swedes the "shoot back batallion" or the "no-nonsense batallion" as a sign of respect.
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Apr 12, 2012 18:45
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Invalido posted:Perhaps not super important, but retardedly sub-optimal and limiting. Reconnaissance son, they're the tip of the spear. Tanks aren't eyes, although they have great optics, they're fists or w/e analogy you wanna make. The recon element should gain and hold contact until heavier forces can be brought to bear. Because of the backblast and then optics whiteout, most TOW-like weapons need a standoff of a couple hundred meters. But, Javelins(fire/forget) or rockets don't.
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Apr 13, 2012 01:39
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Stroh M.D. posted:Might have been during Operation Bøllebank in Kosovo back in -94, although they were Leo 1A5s rather than 2s. A Swedish UN OP was under artillery fire but was denied air support, so a Danish Leo 1 column moved in to assist. The Danish commander, bless his soul, decide to follow a generous interpretation of the ROE and the column returned fire with 72 rounds destroying several Serb artillery pieces, an ammunition dump and a few bunkers. Bosnia, not Kosovo.
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Apr 13, 2012 02:39
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Perhaps GiP would be a better place for this post but since this thread has somewhat become Cold War/Modern Military thread I'll ask here. Among other retarded poo poo spouted by someone I have to deal with in person they told me, "Obama has cut the military in half." I tried to be nice and said that I was pretty sure there have been reductions but certainly not "in half". Of course they came back with it being "definitely in half". Any good sources for proving them wrong?
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Apr 13, 2012 04:40
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FY11 Defense Appropriations: $658,784,000,000 http://democrats.appropriations.house.gov/images/stories/pdf/def/FY11_defense_summary.7.28.10.pdf FY12 Defense Appropriations: $633,300,000,000 http://www.appropriations.senate.go...e%20Summary.pdf vvvv I was converting from thousands of millions. Armyman25 fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 04:52
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Armyman25 posted:FY11 Defense Appropriations: $658,784,000 No joke, you left three zeros off the end of your numbers.
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Apr 13, 2012 05:01
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Ok find one from the last Bush year. I just googled but I'm a huge retard so...
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Apr 13, 2012 05:16
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Totally TWISTED posted:Perhaps GiP would be a better place for this post but since this thread has somewhat become Cold War/Modern Military thread I'll ask here. More to the point, which is that the defense budget should be as big as it needs to be to meet the requirements outlined in the National Military Strategy (which in theory should be derived from the National Security Strategy), which should ideally be based on a realistic appraisal of the threats and challenges facing the U.S., the defense budget today, adjusted for inflation, is larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. The defense budget under sequestration (which takes us all the way back to...FY 2007 levels! Quelle horreur!) is still larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War the U.S. needed to be able to deter major theater war in Western Europe and keep the North Atlantic open in the face of determined air and submarine opposition, all while maintaining forces on the Korean Peninsula sufficient to defend South Korea and be able to maintain LOCs from the U.S. to the Western Pacific, while simultaneously keeping enough forces in reserve to respond to any trouble the Soviets or anyone else tried to start in the Middle East. Oh, and we had to maintain a nuclear stockpile that was several orders of magnitude larger than the one we have today. Since that level of threat is absolutely ludicrous compared to today's worldwide environment, it's kind of hard to see how a rational, threats and capabilities/ends and means based analysis could support a budget larger than the one we had at that time. So what I'm saying is that the issue is not money (we could cut the defense budget by 40% and still be fine), the issue is how we choose to allocate it and how we choose to spend it. Basically anyone who bitches and moans about how things are going to be terrible if sequestration occurs is missing the forest for the trees...and unfortunately that includes pretty much all of the top leadership in DoD as well as the majority of the relevant members of Congress (Armed Services Committees, etc). That's not to say that sequestration won't be extremely painful, but that's because of idiotic decision-making and asset prioritization within DoD, not because the budget will be too small. \/\/ I was gonna say, holy poo poo that FY09 number looks incredibly low \/\/ iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 05:27
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^^^I think that was for the baseline without the funding for OIF/OEF in it. FY10 $663.8 billion http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40567.pdf FY09 $612.5 Billion. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34473.pdf FY08 $647.2 Billion. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33999.pdf Armyman25 fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 05:29
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Thanks for the links Armyman.iyaayas01 posted:More to the point, which is that the defense budget should be as big as it needs to be to meet the requirements outlined in the National Military Strategy (which in theory should be derived from the National Security Strategy), which should ideally be based on a realistic appraisal of the threats and challenges facing the U.S., the defense budget today, adjusted for inflation, is larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. The defense budget under sequestration (which takes us all the way back to...FY 2007 levels! Quelle horreur!) is still larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War the U.S. needed to be able to deter major theater war in Western Europe and keep the North Atlantic open in the face of determined air and submarine opposition, all while maintaining forces on the Korean Peninsula sufficient to defend South Korea and be able to maintain LOCs from the U.S. to the Western Pacific, while simultaneously keeping enough forces in reserve to respond to any trouble the Soviets or anyone else tried to start in the Middle East. Oh, and we had to maintain a nuclear stockpile that was several orders of magnitude larger than the one we have today. Since that level of threat is absolutely ludicrous compared to today's worldwide environment, it's kind of hard to see how a rational, threats and capabilities/ends and means based analysis could support a budget larger than the one we had at that time. So what I'm saying is that the issue is not money (we could cut the defense budget by 40% and still be fine), the issue is how we choose to allocate it and how we choose to spend it.
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Apr 13, 2012 05:35
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The most hilarious thing about the defense budget is the military actually wants to draw down troop levels and their budget but Congress won't let them. No more taxes ever but no base closes ever either.
Party Plane Jones fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 05:58
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Party Plane Jones posted:The most hilarious thing about the defense budget is the military actually wants to draw down troop levels and their budget but Congress won't let them. No more taxes ever but no base closes ever either. Not to mention all the objections of the Senator from Lockheed-Martin (that is to say, all of them).
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Apr 13, 2012 06:44
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The thing I never understood about base closures/ re-alignment is the museums. Do they really need to move the Ordnance Museum?
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Apr 13, 2012 06:47
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Totally TWISTED posted:Thanks for the links Armyman. I'd question how relevant inflation-corrected dollars are as a metric, as opposed to %GDP or % of Federal budget. http://www.davemanuel.com/2010/06/14/us-military-spending-over-the-years/ http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/aug/05/randy-forbes/forbes-says-us-defense-spending-measured-against-g/ There are a lot of reasons real spending has risen (unarmored GI's were cheap, we spend a lot more now to avoid casualties, emphasis on expensive tech etc) but defense spending as % of GDP and % of the Federal budget are well below where they were during the Cold War - less than half of the '60s peak and about 2/3s of late '80s "end of the Cold War". Historically defense spending has hovered around 45% or so of Federal outlays - our current 19% is a significant deviation, especially considering how militarily active we are. The sequester is theater from both sides (iyaayas01 is spot on that any real threat is from stunning incompetence / corruption in procurement), but using historical data to imply we should spend less on defense to spend more Federal money on other stuff doesn't wash.
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Apr 13, 2012 13:44
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iyaayas01 posted:More to the point, which is that the defense budget should be as big as it needs to be to meet the requirements outlined in the National Military Strategy (which in theory should be derived from the National Security Strategy), which should ideally be based on a realistic appraisal of the threats and challenges facing the U.S., the defense budget today, adjusted for inflation, is larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. The defense budget under sequestration (which takes us all the way back to...FY 2007 levels! Quelle horreur!) is still larger than the defense budget at the end of the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War the U.S. needed to be able to deter major theater war in Western Europe and keep the North Atlantic open in the face of determined air and submarine opposition, all while maintaining forces on the Korean Peninsula sufficient to defend South Korea and be able to maintain LOCs from the U.S. to the Western Pacific, while simultaneously keeping enough forces in reserve to respond to any trouble the Soviets or anyone else tried to start in the Middle East. Oh, and we had to maintain a nuclear stockpile that was several orders of magnitude larger than the one we have today. Since that level of threat is absolutely ludicrous compared to today's worldwide environment, it's kind of hard to see how a rational, threats and capabilities/ends and means based analysis could support a budget larger than the one we had at that time. So what I'm saying is that the issue is not money (we could cut the defense budget by 40% and still be fine), the issue is how we choose to allocate it and how we choose to spend it. I have to disagree with a lot of your post, you've been reading too much dangerroom. Comparisons between todays' budgets and that of 20, even 10 years ago, are incredibly stupid. Different force structures, different investment priorities, platforms at different life cycles, different deployment rates, supplemental funding, and different military benefits all are huge factors as to why some budgets seem larger than others yet are doing less. Sequestration is especially problematic because of these very factors combined with timing. To say sarcastically that it takes us back to the horror of FY 2007 levels (mind you historical DoD funding includes supplementals and OCO, something that won't exist 2-3 years from now) implies we can make the force structure, investment changes, and military entitlement curtailments on a dime, and it simply can't happen. Sequestration takes $50B out of the base budget in FY13, which elicits significantly different types of budget exercises compared to $500B over 10 years because timing is so critical. It takes years to reap the savings when making force structure changes just like it actually costs money to implement brac for the first few years of its execution. What you get out of sequestration is one of two scenarios. One of which was experienced in the late 90s where readiness was sacrificed (manifested in either accelerated OEF withdrawal or OCO funding front loading which only compounds the issue in FY14-15) combined with a procurement holiday (a holiday we could afford then but can't now). Alternatively we'll see the investment accounts gutted where every major program, including low risk legacy systems will see nunn-mccurdy breaches across the board or outright cancellations resulting in termination fees that subsequently will force more budget cuts. The latter scenario is likely because the planners know its the easiest way to get $50B in savings in 2013 without throwing the troops under the bus as we pull out of Afghanistan. That will part will come later. This wouldn't be that big of a deal if it were 1994 but every service is in a crisis when it comes to modernization. Navy's shipbuilding plan, even when lowered well below 300 is still inadequately funded. The tactical aircraft gap even with the force structure reductions announced is still gigantic and no amount of SLEPing is going to offset it. The Army is still trying to cope with both ground and rotary modernization and will still have the issue even if they cut 40% of the BCTs. We can all joke about JSF and how lovely it is but it's only spending $10B a year. Some fighter guys like to talk about waste in that they're utilizing all their fuel allocation at the end of the period to save their budget for next year, but DoD only spends around $15B a year on fuel for the entire armed services. Timing is what makes sequestration so terrible.
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Apr 13, 2012 14:26
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The Navy shipbuilding plan in particular is a complete mess, especially in light of our Navy-heavy pivot East. We're building Virginia subs, which is good because the 688s are worn out, but the VA class suffered from the same "started out simple and cheap - needed to be everything for everyone - is now expensive and big" bloat as every other major project. Frigates and cruisers are being retired (lots of budget games retiring Aegis boats early.) The DD(X) project is dead - and good riddance - but there's not really anything else in the pipeline. We're buying lots of the Littoral Combat Ships, but they're also mission creeped to all hell, not intended for blue-water ops, essentially unarmed, full of teething issues, and overall totally unsuited for traditional grey-hull roles. The Navy states it has the budget it needs for what it wants to build, so on the face, budgeting isn't a problem. But it's really unclear how what it wants to build can handle the mission it's been given.
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Apr 13, 2012 18:53
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Man, I am getting my rear end kicked in the Arctic War demo. My first indication of enemy activity is when I pick up incoming missiles. Active radar don't pick up poo poo when I turn it on, wtf
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Apr 13, 2012 19:19
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Smiling Jack posted:Active radar don't pick up poo poo when I turn it on, wtf The game does a bad job of telling you how much altitude comes into play. Sneak fighters over to where bad dudes hang out, set altitude high and turn on active radar. You have a decent chance of survival if you remember to turn them around before missiles do a manshoot/planedeath. edit: finding subs isn't going to happen without sonobouys, and the AI will shoot down your big ol navy planes if they see em
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Apr 13, 2012 19:27
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 10:08 |
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WWII Passive Air Defense masking an aircraft manufacturing facility: http://i.imgur.com/p3hSM.jpg http://i.imgur.com/HjDhP.jpg
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Apr 13, 2012 19:33
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