F35 - superfighter or lame duck?

[Silver Cat]

Say nothing about that stupid conception of RLOAD (Retaliatory Launch Only After Detonation), which seems to be very attractive to the Democrats and other enemies of the USA.

https://armscontrol.ru/pubs/en/change-low.pdf

 

[AZrailwhale]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke. With modern sensors "preemptive war" is impossible. One side will have warning seconds after the other launches.

 

[Silver Cat]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

Why they should?
It's people who feeds the government.

With modern sensors "preemptive war" is impossible. One side will have warning seconds after the other launches.

Seconds? May be even minutes. But it is insufficient to Launch Under Attack. Especially with the Russian hackers freely working in the American military nets, and Sleepy Joe as the President.

 

[Silver Cat]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

 

[Silver Cat]

Ok. There is another opinion why the US Air Force needs cheap and effective 4.5 generation bomber-fighters (descendants of F-16 and F-15) rather than expensive and ineffective lame ducks like F-35.

The Air Force May Build a 4.5-Generation Fighter Jet to Replace the F-16

This wasn't supposed to happen.

www.popularmechanics.com

As for me - F-36 must be able to launch AAM LRs, and effectively use cheap unguided bombs.

 

[AZrailwhale]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

 

[Silver Cat]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

 

[22lcidw]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

 

[Vrenn]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

It's not an out of date idea. Hence the AT-6 and the A-29. Both are quite deadly in a non contested theater like the Middle East. And they do it for a fraction of the cost of even an A-10. And, Gawd Forbid if you total up a F-35. The AF bought the AT-6 to go with the T-6. The AT-6 has the advantage of being as fast as an A-10 but it can slow way down and escort slow moving Rescue Choppers when it needs to. Plus, the range and loiter time is many times that of the A-10 which is flying that mission right now. Both the Navy (A-29) and the AF (AT-6) misses the A-1 or the AD very badly. When Vietnam ended, it was never replaced.

 

[Dayton3]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

It's not an out of date idea. Hence the AT-6 and the A-29. Both are quite deadly in a non contested theater like the Middle East. And they do it for a fraction of the cost of even an A-10. And, Gawd Forbid if you total up a F-35. The AF bought the AT-6 to go with the T-6. The AT-6 has the advantage of being as fast as an A-10 but it can slow way down and escort slow moving Rescue Choppers when it needs to. Plus, the range and loiter time is many times that of the A-10 which is flying that mission right now. Both the Navy (A-29) and the AF (AT-6) misses the A-1 or the AD very badly. When Vietnam ended, it was never replaced.

The A-10 was fully intended to replace the A-1 Skyraider.

 

[Vrenn]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

It's not an out of date idea. Hence the AT-6 and the A-29. Both are quite deadly in a non contested theater like the Middle East. And they do it for a fraction of the cost of even an A-10. And, Gawd Forbid if you total up a F-35. The AF bought the AT-6 to go with the T-6. The AT-6 has the advantage of being as fast as an A-10 but it can slow way down and escort slow moving Rescue Choppers when it needs to. Plus, the range and loiter time is many times that of the A-10 which is flying that mission right now. Both the Navy (A-29) and the AF (AT-6) misses the A-1 or the AD very badly. When Vietnam ended, it was never replaced.

The A-10 was fully intended to replace the A-1 Skyraider.

And it never really did. It always lacked the range. An A-1 had enough range to do a 4 hour loiter time if need be after flying a few hundred miles to it's target. It was slow enough to fly ahead of the Rescue Choppers, help subdue the area allowing the Choppers come in and do their pickup for downed pilots. If you ever watched a flight of A-1s operate, it was like a flight of angry Hornets or pissed Bees. It was the only Piston Attack Plane introduced into service during the Jet Age because we lost the ability when so many P-47s and P-38s were removed from service and the P-51 was inadequate. Although the F-4U still did an adequate job in Korea.

The AF never did really like the A-10. Then again, the AF never was a big fan of ground attack like the Marines were. But the AF had the A-7E that did a great job, much better than the A-10. And could defend itself against enemy fighters push comes to shove. The A-10 has always been a one trick pony. It's underpowered, doesn't carry much gas, has to trade fuel for range or loiter time or munitions load. It ends up really having a combat radius of only about 150 miles of useful range giving it an hour loiter time. The A-1 could fly at least 300 miles, have a full munitions load, do a 4 hour loiter time and still get home. Both AC were tougher than nails but the A-1 came back with tree limbs in it's cowling and missing parts all the time.

The A-10's mission never came to fruition. The original mission was to take out heavy armor in Europe going against the Warsaw Pact. That never happened. Especially when the Heavy Armor's avionics reached a point where the A-10 had a pretty poor chance of surviving the attack in a contested Battle Front. So they changed to another series of missions that it could do. The one mission it could do was ground suppression in uncontested fronts. Is it effective? Ask the British who went through an attack by an A-10. Oh, it's effective, you bet. Forget about all the other ordinance it carries (almost every other fighter can carry that) but the one strafing run with that friggin gun was murderous. Oops.

The A-10 took over the mission that was supposed to go to the AC-130 which does it much better and with much more control and safety. The AC-130 would have never taken those shots. The AC would have identified that it was friendlies and moved on. But had it not been friendlies, the AC would have spent less than a minute and wasted the whole convoy and every person even the fleeing ones.

Now for fire suppression. The A-10 makes passes which puts the heads down. The AC takes their heads off even under cover. The A-10 can make a mistake and hit friendly forces when operating too close. The AC can fire with a couple of meters from friendly forces. The A-10 can only make a few passes. The AC is there until the job is done. Remember, the first shots fired by the US for DSII was done by an AC-130 clearing the way for a unit of Special Forces. The AC had to loiter there, already have the targets picked out and wait for the go.

With the introduction of the AT-6 into the AF, the A-10 really is just millions a year of dead weight since they have expanded the AC-130 fleet. Notice, the F-35 doesn't even become part of this equation.

 

[AZrailwhale]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

It's not an out of date idea. Hence the AT-6 and the A-29. Both are quite deadly in a non contested theater like the Middle East. And they do it for a fraction of the cost of even an A-10. And, Gawd Forbid if you total up a F-35. The AF bought the AT-6 to go with the T-6. The AT-6 has the advantage of being as fast as an A-10 but it can slow way down and escort slow moving Rescue Choppers when it needs to. Plus, the range and loiter time is many times that of the A-10 which is flying that mission right now. Both the Navy (A-29) and the AF (AT-6) misses the A-1 or the AD very badly. When Vietnam ended, it was never replaced.

The A-10 was fully intended to replace the A-1 Skyraider.

And it never really did. It always lacked the range. An A-1 had enough range to do a 4 hour loiter time if need be after flying a few hundred miles to it's target. It was slow enough to fly ahead of the Rescue Choppers, help subdue the area allowing the Choppers come in and do their pickup for downed pilots. If you ever watched a flight of A-1s operate, it was like a flight of angry Hornets or pissed Bees. It was the only Piston Attack Plane introduced into service during the Jet Age because we lost the ability when so many P-47s and P-38s were removed from service and the P-51 was inadequate. Although the F-4U still did an adequate job in Korea.

The AF never did really like the A-10. Then again, the AF never was a big fan of ground attack like the Marines were. But the AF had the A-7E that did a great job, much better than the A-10. And could defend itself against enemy fighters push comes to shove. The A-10 has always been a one trick pony. It's underpowered, doesn't carry much gas, has to trade fuel for range or loiter time or munitions load. It ends up really having a combat radius of only about 150 miles of useful range giving it an hour loiter time. The A-1 could fly at least 300 miles, have a full munitions load, do a 4 hour loiter time and still get home. Both AC were tougher than nails but the A-1 came back with tree limbs in it's cowling and missing parts all the time.

The A-10's mission never came to fruition. The original mission was to take out heavy armor in Europe going against the Warsaw Pact. That never happened. Especially when the Heavy Armor's avionics reached a point where the A-10 had a pretty poor chance of surviving the attack in a contested Battle Front. So they changed to another series of missions that it could do. The one mission it could do was ground suppression in uncontested fronts. Is it effective? Ask the British who went through an attack by an A-10. Oh, it's effective, you bet. Forget about all the other ordinance it carries (almost every other fighter can carry that) but the one strafing run with that friggin gun was murderous. Oops.

The A-10 took over the mission that was supposed to go to the AC-130 which does it much better and with much more control and safety. The AC-130 would have never taken those shots. The AC would have identified that it was friendlies and moved on. But had it not been friendlies, the AC would have spent less than a minute and wasted the whole convoy and every person even the fleeing ones.

Now for fire suppression. The A-10 makes passes which puts the heads down. The AC takes their heads off even under cover. The A-10 can make a mistake and hit friendly forces when operating too close. The AC can fire with a couple of meters from friendly forces. The A-10 can only make a few passes. The AC is there until the job is done. Remember, the first shots fired by the US for DSII was done by an AC-130 clearing the way for a unit of Special Forces. The AC had to loiter there, already have the targets picked out and wait for the go.

With the introduction of the AT-6 into the AF, the A-10 really is just millions a year of dead weight since they have expanded the AC-130 fleet. Notice, the F-35 doesn't even become part of this equation.

The AC130 can only operate when both enemy fighters and AAA have been totally suppressed. It's a big, slow, vulnerable target. The A-10 is survivable and can operate without AAA being suppressed. It's designed to take damage and bring it's pilot home.

 

[Vrenn]

About 10 minutes after the Russian begin their preparations, the US will begin theirs.

Sure. And the first step of those "preparations" will be the question to Sleeping Joe: "With all due respect, sir, we are going to start, with a 99% possibility a nuclear war, which we are going to lose with a 70% possibility, sir. Even if we win, it will cost us at least 3 million of American lifes, sir. Is this "Ukraine" worth it? "

Doing the preparations does not mean that both sides are required to go to Nuclear War.

The preparations must be done long before the war is started. And one of the most important "preparations" should be "Sell all those flying iPhones to our allies (or even enemies), and start a crush program production of real fighters and interceptors with LR AAMs to be able prevent "free rides" of the Russian bombers"

At some point, both sides will come to their senses.

If the Russians will try to annex Alaska, the Americans won't "come their senses". So are the Russians about Crimea, Donbass and Ukraine.

But let's say they don't. The flight time of an ICBM from launch to impact is somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes. And both sides won't launch their Submarine assets saving those for a counter strike it they are smart.

The accuracy of SLBMs highly depends on navsats. And nav- and comsats have snowball chances to survive first days (may be hours) of a serious war. And this means that the Russians will use at least part of them in the first strike at the point blank range, by supressed ballistic trajectory. As well as Tu-95 with CMs from Venezuella. And Poseindons, attacking Ohio submarines at stations, too.

And the flight time for the bombers already in place will be about the same from orbit to strike. That means that even if the US is 10 minutes behind Russia, the first batch (the heaviest) will be launched.

This decrease flight time to five minutes, and if the USA are ten minutes late - the Launch Under Attack is not possible.

The US won't win but Russia will lose even worse.

Hell, no! First exchange of nuclear strikes may be catastrophic (like Pearl Harbor), but it does not mean the end of the war.

Then there is the Naval Assets. And Russia is so far behind there that they don't even need to be counted. As for blackmail after that, there won't be anyone to blackmail or any reason to blackmail as the US and Russia will cease to exist as Governments.

Why? I mean, yes, Joe Biden is not exists as the President even now, but somebody is (and will be) doing his job. Anyway, there is the nation, there are Generals, political leaders, governors, etc.

It's a no win situation for both sides.

Highly depends on your pre-war objectives. For example, if the returning Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine wad the only US goal, then, if after the Mutual Destruction of Russia and the USA, Ukraine will retake those lands, it will technically mean, that the USA won.

You operate on the premise that Russia is invincible. Not even close. They couldn't even defeat a small group of US Troops in Syria. They got their asses handed to them but were allowed to cart their dead off afterwards.

I don't say, that Russia is "invincible". I say, that there may choose "escalation for de-escalation" to prevent violations of their interests, or "preemptive strike" to prevent "uncontrolled escalation".

Second, you honestly believe that you russians could actually WIN a Nuclear exchange? While we go back to the 18th century, your country goes back to the stone age. But for much of Russia, that's not a great stretch.

I depends on your definition of the terms "to win" and a "nuclear exchange". Nuclear exchange is just a part of a war, important, of course, but not the only one. They could actually "prevail" (if they are clever and lucky and Americans are stupid and unlucky) after the first nuclear exchange. To WIN the War, they need to force the USA to sign a peace treaty and American readiness to sign such a treaty will definitely depends on what exactly the Russians demand. There is one scenario if they demand "unconditional surrender", another - if they want Alaska, third - if they demand to withdraw American forces from Europe. And the postattack bargaining need the tools for the "in-war detterence", "postattack blackmail" and "protracted war".

Third, you honestly think we need to send manpower to either Georgia or the Ukraine? Nope. They have the manpower. They lack the equipment and training and that is being provided right now. The Russian Military knows this and that is why they have removed their ground forces from Ukraine and are training Rebels. Sacrifical Lambs. Enjoy your vacation, it won't last much longer.

Both Ukraine and Georgia don't have enough manpower to defeat Russia. To be honest, most of Ukrainians and Georgians don't want to "defeat Russians".

Fourth, there is so much unrest in Russia right now even poisoning opposition isn't working.

Really? Oh, man...

I suggest you be very careful that none of your stray shots don't hit an American in Ukraine. That would release one hell of a hornets nest and the question you should ask yourself, do you believe that part of Ukraine is worth the total destruction of Russia?

You see, to make such a treat, the USA must to have such possibilities (to be able to win the war, and then - to win the peace). And, what is more important, yes, at least in their declarations Russians are ready to escalate up to the "large-scale war" (in which literally everything will be used). Ukraine is much more important for Russia than to the USA. May be, even more important than Mexico and England for the USA.

If you think the USA would ever sign a peace treaty with an aggressor, you don't understand Americans. Terrorists managed to kill about three thousand Americans and we've overturned more than two governments and killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of terrorists and sympathizers in return. If you murdered American civilians with a first strike, we'd use every weapon at our disposal to destroy Russia.

This is one of reasons why the first strike should be the "counterforce" one, and the attacking side should avoid to hit populated cities.
Ok. Let's play the game. You are Joe Biden, and this is year 2022. You ignored Russians signals and just stressed them more, than than could tolerate, so they decided to make the preemptive counterforce strike. After the first strike the USA lost all their silos, almost all strategic bombers, a significant part of the Ohio submarines and very roughly less than one million of citizens (near half of them - civilians). Weakened and uncoordinated "reflex retaliation strike" was successfuly repeled by their ABD. Right now you have 160 warheads, and you don't know how many of them will be able to hit their targets with unknown accuracy. Putin have, say, six thousand nukes. He demands to remove all American forces from the Eastern Hemisphere, or he will start a "countervalue" strike, in which, say, 75% of the USA citizens will be killed, and leftovers will be occupied by Russia, China and Bolivarian Union.

What are you going to do? To swallow a pill, and save the USA as more or less independent state, or make a useless gesture and destroy few Russian cities (and therefore - thousands of American cities and, may be, even the very existence of the USA)? Are you ready to fight not only for the last man, but for the last woman, children, transgender, non-binary person, whoever else, too?

There is only one problem with your scenario, when you launch, the USA is going to flush every silo and launch every bomber before your counterforce strike can land. It's called use it or lose it.

No. It's called "Launch under attack" and it was not very reliable plan even in the better times. Many modern American "strategists" (especially the Democrats) more concerned with the "prevention" of the war, than with winning it.

View attachment 467456

And anyway, it can be tricked out, especially if the US Administration and high military and intelligent stuff will be incompetent and self-confident as they accustomed to be.

After those massive US strikes land, whomever is in charge of the US forces at that point will evaluate what targets remain in Russia and use submarine launched missiles to kill them. There will be no winner in that scenario, just survivors of the nuclear winter that follows and since all of Russia is north and cold already, there won't be many survivors for the Chinese to kill when their survivors invade.

There are no "winners" in the exchanging of strikes, one can only "prevail" in it. And yes, if the one side is really ready, and another is not, the side which demonstrate better readiness - will "prevail" in the battle, and may even win the war (and write conditions of peace).
Then, "nuclear winter" is false-scientific crap, at least because it absolutely ignore emission of CO_2 and H_2O during those fires. In the matter of fact, nobody has reliable climate models even to calculate changes of the climate in the "normal" situation. But if the one side has Ministry of Reserves and another has not, if one side has rich and defenseless neighbors (like China and EU), and another side - has not, then, of course, one side can prevail after unpredictable climate change.

Yes, of course, victory can be very expensive, but the war will be finished someday, and there will be winners and losers in it. And as you said it is unsafe to allow somebody (like China or EU) remain neutral in this shooting party. That's why, very likely, the nuclear war will be World War III - the war not only between the USA and Russia, but between large military blocks. Say, between NATO+ and Shanghai Pact+. Therefore you need to divide, say, two thousands of "countervalue" warheads to two millions of cities and towns in the world. One bomb for one thousand of cities. Does it still sounds like a "Total Nuclear Annihilation" and "Assured Mutual Destruction"?

Anyway, I don't say, that the nuclear war (or even conventional or cold war) can be profitable. I say, that "preemptive war" is much more safer than "uncontrolled escalation" and "losing initiative".

A "Ministry of Reserves" for a government that can't feed it's own people under the best circumstances is a joke.

-------
Benefit of sanctions? Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, last year. It's the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

Benefit of sanctions & isolation? Covid-19 pandemic was 1st time Russian GDP survived economic crisis better than global average

Leading Moscow academics have revealed that Russia's GDP dropped less than the world as a whole during the Covid-19 pandemic, marking the first time the country weathered an economic crisis better than the global average.

t.co

---------
Russia is structurally different. 80%+ home ownership, free health care with 24/7 ambulance and doctor (even for a sniffle), incredible price parity - Big Mac $2, $US 500 billion in bank, pensions rivaling western countries, subsidised municipal travel, 20 free TV channels,
children in school 12 hrs a day with meals from the age of one for a small fee, etc.

Russia is a failed state/kleptocracy. It went right from third world dictatorship to corrupt kleptocracy in one fell swoop.

Highly depends on definitions. For example, the Earth is the third planet from the Sun, therefore any Earth state may be named as the third world state.
But it does not matter. The USA have to detter Russia - therefore the USA needs long range fighters-interceptors (with AAM LR NWs) for the nuclear war, the USA must fight local wars for achieving economical success , therefore the US Air Force needs cheap and economically effective "anti-militant" bombers.
F-35 is nothing of this.

A few years a go there was an idea to build fighter aircraft for local wars using propellers as an economical way to assist the aircraft using jet propulsion.

It's not an out of date idea. Hence the AT-6 and the A-29. Both are quite deadly in a non contested theater like the Middle East. And they do it for a fraction of the cost of even an A-10. And, Gawd Forbid if you total up a F-35. The AF bought the AT-6 to go with the T-6. The AT-6 has the advantage of being as fast as an A-10 but it can slow way down and escort slow moving Rescue Choppers when it needs to. Plus, the range and loiter time is many times that of the A-10 which is flying that mission right now. Both the Navy (A-29) and the AF (AT-6) misses the A-1 or the AD very badly. When Vietnam ended, it was never replaced.

The A-10 was fully intended to replace the A-1 Skyraider.

And it never really did. It always lacked the range. An A-1 had enough range to do a 4 hour loiter time if need be after flying a few hundred miles to it's target. It was slow enough to fly ahead of the Rescue Choppers, help subdue the area allowing the Choppers come in and do their pickup for downed pilots. If you ever watched a flight of A-1s operate, it was like a flight of angry Hornets or pissed Bees. It was the only Piston Attack Plane introduced into service during the Jet Age because we lost the ability when so many P-47s and P-38s were removed from service and the P-51 was inadequate. Although the F-4U still did an adequate job in Korea.

The AF never did really like the A-10. Then again, the AF never was a big fan of ground attack like the Marines were. But the AF had the A-7E that did a great job, much better than the A-10. And could defend itself against enemy fighters push comes to shove. The A-10 has always been a one trick pony. It's underpowered, doesn't carry much gas, has to trade fuel for range or loiter time or munitions load. It ends up really having a combat radius of only about 150 miles of useful range giving it an hour loiter time. The A-1 could fly at least 300 miles, have a full munitions load, do a 4 hour loiter time and still get home. Both AC were tougher than nails but the A-1 came back with tree limbs in it's cowling and missing parts all the time.

The A-10's mission never came to fruition. The original mission was to take out heavy armor in Europe going against the Warsaw Pact. That never happened. Especially when the Heavy Armor's avionics reached a point where the A-10 had a pretty poor chance of surviving the attack in a contested Battle Front. So they changed to another series of missions that it could do. The one mission it could do was ground suppression in uncontested fronts. Is it effective? Ask the British who went through an attack by an A-10. Oh, it's effective, you bet. Forget about all the other ordinance it carries (almost every other fighter can carry that) but the one strafing run with that friggin gun was murderous. Oops.

The A-10 took over the mission that was supposed to go to the AC-130 which does it much better and with much more control and safety. The AC-130 would have never taken those shots. The AC would have identified that it was friendlies and moved on. But had it not been friendlies, the AC would have spent less than a minute and wasted the whole convoy and every person even the fleeing ones.

Now for fire suppression. The A-10 makes passes which puts the heads down. The AC takes their heads off even under cover. The A-10 can make a mistake and hit friendly forces when operating too close. The AC can fire with a couple of meters from friendly forces. The A-10 can only make a few passes. The AC is there until the job is done. Remember, the first shots fired by the US for DSII was done by an AC-130 clearing the way for a unit of Special Forces. The AC had to loiter there, already have the targets picked out and wait for the go.

With the introduction of the AT-6 into the AF, the A-10 really is just millions a year of dead weight since they have expanded the AC-130 fleet. Notice, the F-35 doesn't even become part of this equation.

The AC130 can only operate when both enemy fighters and AAA have been totally suppressed. It's a big, slow, vulnerable target. The A-10 is survivable and can operate without AAA being suppressed. It's designed to take damage and bring it's pilot home.

No, the A-10 can no longer operate in a contested area. In order for it to operate, that AAA is going to have to be taken out at a distance. And the AC can operate above the AAA ceiling. When I was with the AC, we had to operate at about 10K which was well inside the AAA ceiling but today's AC can operate at 30K which is well above the AAA ceiling. Same goes for Manpads. The A-10 below a certain altitude stands out like a barn door on fire. But SAMS are another story and neither can survive with those being active. If AAA and Manpads are present then even the A-10 is going to resort to long ranged weapons. If SAMS are present, leave that to the F-16s, F-18s and F-15Es and now the F-35s and F-22s along with the heavy bombers. Something with some very long ranged weapons and jamming ability.

It's gotten to the point now where even the
F-16 is having problems in Syria. That's why the F-15E and the new F-15EX comes into play. If they are having trouble, the A-10 will go poof.

 

[Dayton3]

No, the A-10 can no longer operate in a contested area. In order for it to operate, that AAA is going to have to be taken out at a distance. And the AC can operate above the AAA ceiling. When I was with the AC, we had to operate at about 10K which was well inside the AAA ceiling but today's AC can operate at 30K which is well above the AAA ceiling. Same goes for Manpads. The A-10 below a certain altitude stands out like a barn door on fire. But SAMS are another story and neither can survive with those being active. If AAA and Manpads are present then even the A-10 is going to resort to long ranged weapons. If SAMS are present, leave that to the F-16s, F-18s and F-15Es and now the F-35s and F-22s along with the heavy bombers. Something with some very long ranged weapons and jamming ability.

It's gotten to the point now where even the
F-16 is having problems in Syria. That's why the F-15E and the new F-15EX comes into play. If they are having trouble, the A-10 will go poof.

In the past, A-10s have survived being hit by SAMs both large and small.
And AC-130s are not going to hit anything on the ground from 30,000 feet.

 

[Vrenn]

No, the A-10 can no longer operate in a contested area. In order for it to operate, that AAA is going to have to be taken out at a distance. And the AC can operate above the AAA ceiling. When I was with the AC, we had to operate at about 10K which was well inside the AAA ceiling but today's AC can operate at 30K which is well above the AAA ceiling. Same goes for Manpads. The A-10 below a certain altitude stands out like a barn door on fire. But SAMS are another story and neither can survive with those being active. If AAA and Manpads are present then even the A-10 is going to resort to long ranged weapons. If SAMS are present, leave that to the F-16s, F-18s and F-15Es and now the F-35s and F-22s along with the heavy bombers. Something with some very long ranged weapons and jamming ability.

It's gotten to the point now where even the
F-16 is having problems in Syria. That's why the F-15E and the new F-15EX comes into play. If they are having trouble, the A-10 will go poof.

In the past, A-10s have survived being hit by SAMs both large and small.
And AC-130s are not going to hit anything on the ground from 30,000 feet.

You are incorrect. The AC can hit very accurately at 30K. It normally operates at 20K but push comes to shove, the 30K can be done. The reason we operated at 10K wasn't because the guns couldn't kill at a higher alititude it was because the bird wasn't pressurized and the main part of the crew could not operate wearing oxy rigs. Our 20mms had an effective range of over 12,000 feet, 40mm Bofars had a range of over 23,000 feet and that 105 had a range of almost 60,000 feet maximum range.

The new canons on the AC-130U and W have this type of range
25mm 2.3 miles but you are shooting down so it's a lot further. The 25 is being or already has been removed from service.
30mm range right around 20,000 feet when shot horizontally. But fired in a downward angle it's much further
105mm still has that long range of 60,000 feet
GBU-39 Smart Bomb which has a very long range. It can be dropped from 30K accurately
AGM-176 Griffin missile range of 5 miles when used from the air

The AC-130J can read your name tag from 30K and come within a couple of feet of hitting it. And he's using a shotgun approach unless he's dropping his bombs or shooting his missiles. While the AC-130J may not normally operate at 30K and will probably be between 20 and 25K in operation to get the best use of all it's weapons, it does the the option to go higher if the threat calls for it.

The AC-130J ain't it's Grand Daddy AC-130A.

And NO A-10 has survived a direct hit from a SAM. Nothing short of a Buff can withstand something like that. Near Misses still throw a lot of shrapnel and removes aircraft parts. Even the AC can't take a direct SAM hit. We lost a few to those things.

 

[Silver Cat]

Nice article.

A US Air Force war game shows what the service needs to hold off — or win against — China in 2030

American officials talked about the classified war game’s results with Defense News, just months before the service planned to release its fiscal 2022 budget.

www.defensenews.com

“We wouldn’t even play the current version of the F-35,” Hinote said. “It wouldn’t be worth it. … Every fighter that rolls off the line today is a fighter that we wouldn’t even bother putting into these scenarios.”

 

[jbander]

Military procurement bureaucrats listened to generals who wanted too much for too little. They wanted a stealth version of the Osprey that could do the VTOL stuff while flying at Mach+ speeds carrying a huge variety of armaments and payloads.

I think you mean the Harrier (AV8B), not the Osprey (OV-22).

And I for one have long recognized that the first run of just about any military equipment does not perform exactly as advertised. The M-16 was not reliable until the A1, the Arleigh Burke class destroyers were not really world class until the last of the first gens were launched, and the F-18 was originally rejected by the Navy, only being accepted after many years of upgrades and modifications.

And yes, a replacement for the Harrier is badly needed. An upgrade of the Vietnam era Harrier, even the youngest Marine Harrier II is over a decade old, and it is time to start seriously working on their replacement.

And yes, it is still needed. For a Marine Amphibious Force, this is often their only air to air defense when they are separated from a Carrier Battle Group.

I have worked with a great many pieces of equipment in the military over the years, and it had always gone through many modifications, so that it barely resembled the original models. And if somebody has a good eye, they can spot them.

That is a First Generation PATRIOT Missile launcher, a piece of equipment I am very familiar with. That one happens to be a the museum at the White Sands Missile Range (where I have inspected it in detail).

And there is a PAC III 3rd generation launcher. I can spot at least 7 differences in a 1 second glance to tell one from the other. Could the original shoot down an inbound ballistic missile? No. Could the original be rapidly emplaced with the entire Battery ready to fight in less then an hour? No. Was it able to do it's original job and shoot down enemy aircraft within 2 hours? Yes.

In short, I do not see this as a boondoggle. I simply see it as a program that is badly needed, to replace equipment that is dangerously close to the end of it's lifespan.

Agreed, These growing pains are normal.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Today's F-35As Not Worth Including In High-End War Games According To Air Force General (thedrive.com)

 

[Silver Cat]

GAO report about F-35 concludes its current sustainment costs make the aircraft unaffordable. And mission capable rates are well below requirement: In 2020, full mission capable rate was 54%, nearly 20% below 72% goal.

 

[Dayton3]

GAO report about F-35 concludes its current sustainment costs make the aircraft unaffordable. And mission capable rates are well below requirement: In 2020, full mission capable rate was 54%, nearly 20% below 72% goal.

During the early 1980s, American fighters like F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, and F-4s routinely averaged a mission capable rate in the low 50% range.

Though that isn't all it appears to be.