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The F-22, Domestic Jobs, and the Military-Industrial Complex
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Why does this make it not a victory? It was too easy so it didn't count? We only get points for difficulty? Complete the game on Medium for the extended ending?
You seem to have some really warped sense that military conflict cannot involve anything other than brutal and bloody ground combat with substantial losses on both sides. It doesn't matter if our Intel services helped take out the military, it doesn't matter if they took the tanks out of the fight before we got a chance to blow them up, it was still a military victory.
Also, you are aware that the military often uses satellites way up above 30k feet to identify military assets? And amazingly enough, they can do it. I'm not entirely sure about the technology, but they have some crazy telescopic shit they can pull.. it really is the future.
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
Well talking about the first gulf war here, you know the one where we just "glassed them" (not nuclear, but won with air power), Saddam had a few top of the line air assets in the first gulf war, including some top notch anti air batteries and T-72 tanks which were comparable to the M1 of the day. There were actually quite a few armored engagements as well.
We could have won the second gulf war the same way, flatten the military from the air, make demands that are possible to adhere to (not "leave the country!" to Saddam, which would be a death sentence), and we would have gotten it.
The first gulf war was the most one sided conflict in human history, by no metric is that a failure.
no occupation
Gulf War 1 the Iraqi air force stay on the ground, only rising up to make a run for the Iranian border. Big victory there. The T-72 lacked proper ammo to put up a fight, several of them where equiped with training shells for god sake. The Majority of Iraqi tanks where T-55 anyways.
What I am trying to say is don't go around saying "We are the best, USA, USA, USA", when the enemy decides not to fight on your terms. Sure not a lot of GI died from artillery shells comming out of tubes, the number that died from Artillery shells in IED? not so small.
Not to stray too far off track, and certainly not to argue with your case (Gulf War II is way to recent for me to know anything about it), but I think the T-72 would be more accurately considered a counterpart to the M60 Patton rather than the M1 tanks it did face.
I mean, I can't say if there's no possible way a T-72 could be considered comparable to an M1, but you probably wouldn't say that an M60 Patton was comparable to, say, a Japanese Type 90 or a T-80U.
I mention this because Iraqi T-72s, if memory serves, did face Iranian M48 and M60 tanks (of which Iran has a few hundred presently in service), and, from all accounts I've heard, obliterated them completely. That probably had more to do with the fact that those T-72s back then, and the quality of Iraqi tank crews and tactics versus those of Iran at the time, since both sides used T-55 tanks, it would seem, and Iraq seemed to come out comfortably on top (even if, ultimately, it did not change the course of the war) in those battles. Otherwise, not totally unlike the situation between American M1s and Iraqi T-72s years later. Obviously, the years of unavailability of parts would make a difference for Gulf War I as well.
Just thought I'd through that out there. If I'm misunderstanding what you meant by 'comparable', I apologize--I am by no means trying to bite your head off or anything, Just wanted to point this out.
Curiously, the more capable Chieftain is still in service in Iran apparently. Essentially it was the predecessor to the Challenger and was revolutionary as it pioneered a lot of what we consider modern tank design. At a latter stage of development there were a couple test Chieftains built with Chobham armour, although they were never put into production. Because of the Iranian revolution. (believe it or not we were going to sell at the time the best tank in the world with chobham armour to an Iranian dictatorship)
Although from that development came the Challenger 1. So it isn't all bad I guess.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
At least for me, finding details on exact performance in tank-to-tank battles in the Iran-Iraq War isn't too easy. Then again, I'm not looking too hard. I'm not at all surprise that the Chieftain was a more desirable alternative in the Iran Armored Forces to, say, the T-55 or the Type 69(?) from China, or the M48/M60s the US delivered to the Shah. That being said, I don't think it did much better against Iraq's fairly-new T-72s (since it would appear that more than half of the thousand or so were lost? Granted, they could have just scrapped a new number too). Probably better than the alternatives, especially the T-55 and M48.
The lack of spare parts and costs involved. The Chieftain is, from what I've heard, an excellent-performing tank but, naturally, that comes at a logistical price and the like. And while I imagine the UK and US had no problem supplying the corrupt autocrat of a Shah we helped install with all the spare parts he needed, I'm guessing it halted after he was replaced. "Our corrupt oppressive dictator versus oppressive one", so to speak (though that's another topic all together).
In any case, most of what I've read (from admittedly old books) describe T-72s versus M48s and M60s, with the T-55 thrown in there. I could just be I've been looking at the wrong place. And I imagine the British wisely took the lessons learned when developing the Challenger (not unlike the Russian Fed. when modifying the T-90).
It probably didn't help either that the 'experienced' officer corps out in the field owed their careers to the former-Shah's favoritism. Nothing says professionalism like kissing butt to your self-appointed God-King and his secret police forces. Or having gotten your last three promotions because your daughter/son married into the Family.
My point was that an air war without an occupation is the way to go if it's possible at all to accomplish your goals that way.
I'm pretty sure less people die even on the receiving end in the long run.
I was on a massive clicking binge on Wikipedia the other day and ended up working my way through a lot of the proposed replacements for the M4. Basically, my understanding was that there was the horrible OICW boondoggle and then the XM8 trials and then another round of trials and then I got lost. Oh and basically that the M4 failed hard (well relative to the competitors) in all of those trials and Colt was like "abloo bloo we'll fix the problems by drop-forging the barrel," or something like that. Do I pretty much have it right? Is the M4 going to be replaced anytime soon?
It kind of seems like anything that could take on the 5.56 mm round and also mount a lot of M4 accessories would be a nice improvement and cost-effective, but I don't actually know anything about guns.
Is this a massive hijack? I'm genuinely interested.
If we never updated anything that muscle would quickly go away, the air force needs new jets or we have no deterrence.
ie when the technology exists and the finished product is there and the army doesnt adopt it, how is it they're going to agree to take on a research project to create something that doesnt yet exist
The obvious conclusion being, that absurdities like the F-22 are a waste of money. Obviously you can't just up and halt the development of military aircraft if you want to maintain an edge, but the cost per unit and the massive cost of maintenance make such a plane irrelevant when no one else is even anywhere near being able to compete in terms of performance or quantity.
Hence the conclusion: spend less money, and build a plane with evolutionary refinements to keep the brains which know how to do this sort of thing stimulated and maintain the US technological edge, and get rid of the expensive stuff which simply has no application at the moment (it's pretty clear that the radar adsorbing skin and cockpit both need to not be on a production fighter right now). Because if a new cold war does emerges, the US will have an incredibly long warning if someone else starts mass producing high-tech air superiority fighters.
An even bigger waste of money is the B1 and the B2 which will still spend billions maintaining when we still have the B52 which is practically the same and far more reliable. The Air Force wastes money all over, and this is one of the few things I think they did right with their money. This is an investment that should last a long time.
I know this cuts out a lot of the manufacturing that's done in individual states, which is where the political impetus for weapons development really comes from, but it's clearly ridiculous. Is there a reason we can't subsidize crazy technologies on a smaller scale and then mass-produce them when and if it's appropriate?
Ok here's my question. What would be the cost if we, while continuing to fund R+D to keep prototype cutting edge planes, we didn't order planes until the older ones are no longer viable and superior choices?
Do we need to push production on fighters before they're ready and before they're economical? Why not wait another 2, 3, maybe 5 years, perfect the fighter, make sure everything works just fine and then order them, while they're also cheaper?
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
But - it makes precisely zero sense to be trying to turn out a super-high tech fighter when there isn't a cold war on and a major power isn't remotely close to the same technology level. The sensible thing is to build something that's as cost-effective as possible and let the really cool stuff be rolled into it as it becomes reliable and mass producible (aka evolutionary improvements).
I mean some of the numbers in this thread have made me gawk a lot - if you can have an F-16C/D for ~USD$20 million then it is just madness to then go and build something performing the same role for USD$200 million when there's no operational use for it, and it's going to kill you on maintenance. It would be a lot better to do something somewhat like the F-35 (although that has similar problems), which is build a plane with evolutionary refinements for a modest increase in unit cost.
I'm of this viewpoint because of how many actual army and marine soldiers are killed and how little money is put into thinking about their safety. Yes a pilot is a bigger investment than a grunt, but that doesn't mean the grunts life is worthless - the pentagon doesn't seem to agree.
... or go with drones, then the pilots are safe and we have lots of extra money for things that really save lives.
Imagine if we'd put $65b into infantry defense (better bullet proof armor) and IED resistant vehicles. Perhaps thousands more soldiers would be alive today.
Would removing it even affect losses though? How many fixed wing aircraft have been lost in Afghanistan/Iraq that would have been saved if they were not detectable by radar?
The F-22 isn't designed to bomb Afghanis - it is designed to fight aliens when the ufos come.
Well the radar absorbing skin is supposed to be for dogfights against the fleets of SU-37s and Eurofighters when we declare war on the entire planet.
Except when World War III breaks out, the ICBMs fly and nobody cares who has more conventional toys.
The F-22 was made for a war that can never happen, like most non-nuclear Cold War hardware.
You actually need more armour in an occupancy because you can't just dash in, laze some targets and then run away as the air force comes in with their guided bombs. You need to stand in the streets and take whatever the enemy throws at you.
No, the satellite can't. But individuals can. It depends wholly on the imagery analysts you have looking at your pictures, amount of reference imagery or other material sources they have on hand, and the timeframe you're looking at having the intel developed. A good analyst can make lemonade from shit if he's given the time and references. Also, good instincts, but that's something you can't really teach.
A lot of money is put into their safety, but we still went in with troops not having plates for their vests and humvees with absolutely no armor.
It's a fucking joke that private defense companies have developed IED proof vehicles but the US army isn't using any, and again, that we're still using the M-16 line of weapons. I mean yea, the M4 is great. Why the fuck are we still using it when there's numerous commercially available superior weapons? Replacing an infantry weapon is mere pennies to the defense budget, and it seems like something that has a clear direct benefit.
Also, give some more money to the folks at DARPA working out Power Armor. When Fallout's storyline comes to life I want the US kicking China's ass in Alaska.
You just preprogram it. Tell it where to go and what to do. Tomahawk Cruise missiles for instance use ground refrence points to determine where to go(hills, rivers and such). Since such data has been gathered for the entire globe via sattelite already, its a piece of cake. By the way jammers? Gives of a easily traceable signal. First target of any UCAV bomber fleet would be any place that gives gives out Jammer signals.
Its the mobile enemies that are the problem.
Oops.
Well, er, wouldn't the obvious be a radar-jamming drone that costs less than the missile?
Well, we wouldn't so much need the F-22 to do that as the F-22 would do that really well.
There's a back and forth; the F-22 is somewhat harder to kill with radar guided missiles for obvious reasons.
Of course, large, high altitude fixed-wing aircraft will be completely obsolete once any one of the line-of-sight direct energy weapon systems start working, since you can't dodge a beam going the speed of light, and a computer will not miss.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10150136-76.html
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)
Actually, yeah the Burkes and Ticos would fare better against air threats than surface threats or subs.
So...never?
You think that even though we already have non-lethal direct energy weapons and have had successful anti-air direct energy weapons tests we'll never have working direct energy weapons?
Khavall's Beginner's Guide to Music Everything(Theory Blog)