We’re still years (at least 5, probably ten plus) away from that though. What about in the meantime. What about the times where the missions still demand a man in the cockpit. Those mission will still be the norm even after we can reliably trust autonomous UCAVs.

Thats not what I took from that.

What did he fly? Did he talk about his experiences or write them down? If he’s shy about doing it tell him not to to turn them over except during his death. That’s the only way I could get my dad to talk in depth about his experiences in Vietnam. Dunno about your dad but it’s still a very sore subject (and I don’t…

If I understand him right he either wouldn’t have retired the most recent conventional carriers or he’s an advocate that we bring that design back. Either way hes an advocate for more, smaller decks. Im not sure how you do that but whatever. Maybe borrowing a foreign design.

ECM and SAMs are a bit like armor and weapons progression. One outpaces the other and then swaps when the other side comes out with new technology.

No clue. Probably had something to do with the CALCMs. There were B-52s operating out of Diego Garcia (and half a dozen other places) that conducted strikes during the Gulf War.

Everytime I see something like this I kick myself for not dropping my warrant packet. I’m pretty sure I could’ve gotten selected. After a bunch of deployments though I was worn out and body was in really poor shape. Nevertheless, I was 50/50 on whether or not I should ETS or drop my warrant packet. Pretty sure now I…

They’d have to leave any protective SAM bubble to engage those aircraft and would be very easy prey for protective fighters. The countermeasures can be launched more than 500 miles away.

Im very aware of the way the MALD would be used in conjunction with drones, anti-radiation carrying aircraft, and electronic countermeasures.

Emissions are emissions. Fixed or mobile it doesn’t matter. If any enemy knows you have fixed SAM sites they whack them preemptively. If they’re mobile they just have Wild Weasels standing by waiting to kill them. Mobiles SAM units are also have very limited capabilities. If you want to deploy any serious SAM system…

“Another plan had these operators laser-designate the sites for attack aircraft to strike. The General rejected these plans due to the inherent risk of ground forces being compromised by unforeseen factors.”

Those are still absolutely mandatory. Want an EIB? Want to go to some high-speed schools? Night land nav, day land nav, or both, is still a prereq or part of the curriculum for all of it.

I’m sure someone will chime in with specifics on the GAU-8 30mm. What I do know is that it’s SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the 30mm you find in the Apache and everything else. It’s 30mm on steroids.

It’s real easy to coordinate stuff when you have 2 chess pieces instead of 2,000.

Edit: A few people already mentioned the Hornet and Foxbat.

I think they were pretty grateful. The Gulf War was a bit before my time but during half a dozen deployments during the GWOT i found myself in Kuwait for various reasons for a day or two from time to time. Locals would continually stop us and thank us. Not just the richy richy ones either.

I honestly never had any issue with MREs. I think the longest I ever had to eat them though was 63 days with a few breaks.

Haha only? Considering each burst is only a few seconds and results in a dead tank/truck/arty/helo that’s a crazy amount of ass.

They didn’t even use banks under Saddam. Some of the rural areas would entrust it to the village elders who acted as a pseudo bank. For the most part people just stashed it at home. Turned into a bit of a headache following the fall of the regime.

If I remember correctly all the old stocks of napalm were destroyed around the turn of the century. All that’s left is the MK 77 (and its variants) that use a different chemical composition (that contains willy pete) but does the same thing.