Wow. That entire post was tinged with racism.

Yes yes yes, we know, Russian military so strong that other countries surrender at the very thought of fighting Russia. Just like all those US destroyer sailors who supposedly went AWOL (according to Russian media) because an Su-24 overflew their ship.

I fear I probably came off much more knowledgeable than I actually am. I’m just good at sounding smart.

Especially since, at the point that you’re running a submarine vs. submarine exercise, you’ve already given the opponent the knowledge that there’s a submarine there in the first place. As offensive weapons, that’s their most valuable aspect.

You could even argue the Russians would be on firmer legal grounds.

Yes, nuke the largest city of a non-nuclear NATO member (with a likely nonexistent weapon). That’ll go over well. And it’ll make it TOTALLY impossible for Russian Black Sea traffic to pass through.

They can maybe do that with the Black Sea Fleet — steam their ships straight through and see if anyone stops them, but they can’t do it with civilian traffic, unless they’re planning on escorting every cargo ship with a Russian surface combatant, like the US during the Tanker War. I doubt they’d do it, and it would…

With the Russian economy hurting as much as it is, ending oil and gas exports to Turkey is likely to hurt Russia as much or more than Turkey. And it might even result in Turkey looking elsewhere for their longterm energy needs, which is bad for Russia.

Russia isn’t going to actually attack Turkey over this. All it means is that Putin will have to apologize for the Fencer overflight, swear that they’ll try reeeeeally hard not to overfly Turkish territory THIS time, and everyone will move on.

Um, yeah...this whole thing started not just because the Fencer flew into Turkish airspace but because the Russians were bombing Turkmen who were aligned with the Free Syrian Army. Russia doesn’t give a shit about ISIS except for the appearance of attacking them.

It would take starting a war or at least an international standoff. If the Turkish navy and air force don’t want Russian ships passing though, Russian ships won't pass through. No need to block it physically.

A story that has since been discredited...at least the way Lawrence told it

::sits back, waits for all the sock puppets to talk about what pirates the Turks are::

Not mentioned in my previous post is the fact that, in fact, during Desert Storm an escort accidentally hit a B-52 with a HARM that locked onto its tailgun radar. But that was also from very close range.

It’s a good question. I was actually wondering that myself. Even if we presuppose that HARM can lock onto an aerial jammer, HARM isn’t designed to maneuver with moving targets the way AAMs are. HARM can hit targets that turn off their radar or jammers by continuing to the last known position, but obviously, that’s not…

I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue that the US has any advantage in diesel subs. In all the bells and whistles, electronics and optronics, sure, but not in the basic knowhow of building a short or long distance AIP diesel sub.

You certainly know better than I. Our military and civilian leaders have (or, had, hopefully!) convinced themselves that they’ll never again have to confront a peer or near-peer threat.

This is one of the saddest sports video compilations I’ve ever seen.

On top, the “ASW module” for the LCS is totally ineffective and a complete waste of money... bring back the Knox or Perry class, dammit.

And it’s used for other systems. Full stop.