Once again, you are throwing nonsense arguments. A military should prepare itself against the most powerful opponents, not some second or third world nations. That is called complacency.

So....into the sunset. Mr. Rogoway, your blog is the best thing I’ve ever read on the internet! Well written, factual articles and the best damn comments section in the history of web!

Its rather simple; neither side is crazy enough to escalate it into a total war, and even if that would occur, neither side would be crazy enough to risk mutually assured destruction as the result of a nuclear exchange.

I think that is a horrible complacency; a limited conventional war can erupt between the superpowers quite easily. Two most prominent locations are the Baltic states and the South China Sea.

Cluster bombs are illegal*, WPs and fuel air bombs are just nasty.

Well said!

I agree with that, with a slight alteration - I think it is the whole of the DoD trying to get more shiny new toys and for that it is slashing the things perceived as unnecessary. Two best examples are A-10 and frigates.

They are more likely to polish off an SA-18 and shoot at that A-10.

I agree 100%. It’s just that I get pissed off when people defend A-10 in a completely wrong and ignorant way, often by painting it as some sort of a miraculous weapon with a big gun that goes BRRRTTTT in the face of everything. People often tend to judge things based on the looks or the presence, missing the wider…

I thought it was an inside joke i didn’t understand.....

That’s a really bad pro-A-10 argument. Any cannon armed aircraft or helicopter can do what you have described, and you won’t really risk any aircraft (A-10 included) to attack an enemy armour formation with strafing runs in order to score some mobility kills, as a proper armour unit usually brings some proper AAA.

I don’t really understand what do you mean with the second sentence. Of course that the gun is still very useful, I just wanted to point out something that many people here don’t really understand.

Thinking about the current situation and using it as a template for the future acquisitions is a horrible flaw characteristic of the DoD’s post-Cold war thinking.

The A-10s gun has lost its usefulness against the latest tanks; it is the other weapons that do the trick.

But the only thing that can protect it from the IADS is SEAD. CAS in a full scale war is a pretty complicated, multi-layered thing.

No, the new ones have to be built, as aside from the new wings, everything else needs a replacement, engines being the foremost thing, followed by the F-16 sourced software.

The OP is a great joke, but the follow up is very confusing. YF-107 sucked, B-25 was great and there is a very good reason for the A-36.

Attack boat is nothing strange, but ask yourself why does an LPD need to carry an ASW helo.

He is with us in the spirit.

Ghostrider, no more pings, pattern is full.