Okay, based on the data presented, I will stipulate that the A-10 can **** up a steel elephant. Enemy tanks are roughly equivalent to a tomato can (for protection) when subjected to a 3-second blast from the 30mm cannon. In other words, the A-10 will deliver bad guys to the gates of heaven or hell faster than you can…

Uhhh... how about giving the Jordanians what they need? How about launching real airstrikes against ISIS targets, and not just the superficial bullshit we've done up to this point? We have literally unlimited air power that ISIS is completely powerless to stop. We could be running round-the-clock bombing raids on ISIS…

It actually says the exact opposite of that. If it was saying the problem was QME, they wouldn't have written the letter telling Kerry and Hagel to get off their ass and give Jordan what they need.

Except Jordan and Israel kind of get a long. (When looking at the den of insanity that is their geopolitical neighborhood, is it that hard to believe that two relatively stable regimes would look out for each other?)

3.5. Hell, even France at this point would be a plausible candidate for stepping in and providing material support to Jordan. One of the more embarrassing aspects of this entire tragedy is that the French seem more motivated to confront this scourge than we do. Le sigh.

This is one of the more uninformed comments I've seen on the Foxtrot Alpha side.

It absolutely will not. Not in the least. It would take a whole lot more than a few JDAMS and targeting pods to upset the balance of power against Israel — especially considering that we readily sell such weapons to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt.

Tell ya what Tyler, if anyone asked me to take a drive over and drop shit on those brutal bastards, the airplane I'd take would have more than one fucking engine.

My God, I worked with "Spanky" for nearly 10 years at the Weapons School and had no idea he could speak in complete sentences. Just kidding...Lt. Col Clifton is the real deal. Great article!

You're not any better off. Why don't you educate yourself before chastising someone else?

What? Just about every combat aircraft in the US military *can* carry nuclear weapons. It doesn't mean that they always do, or actually, ever have...

I always liked the add I saw while in the military from Lockheed on one of their fighter.

The short answer is that the area-denial weapons capabilities of our likely adversaries are getting better and better every day, and the US Air Force needs to be able to penetrate those defenses without losing planes or pilots in order to accurately strike designated mission targets.

The advantage guns have over missiles is they are immediate. This is perfectly obvious for tanks. If you come over a rise and spot an enemy tank you can shoot it immediately, while it will take 15 seconds or more to fire a missile - which is why tankers have refused to give up their guns for 50 years now. If you know…

On the ground in those countries it's nowhere near that cut and dry. One day it's a school, the next day the Taliban are using it as a HQ, the day after it's a school again. There are no such thing as "military targets" in a COIN operation. Everything is a civilian target. It's just a question of whether or not there…

That's pretty irrelevant. If the person doing the targeting has selected the wrong target then it doesn't matter what's being used. That doesn't change the fact that the US goes to unparalleled levels to do it's best to try and prevent the wrong people from being hurt.

Except for the part where this is an article largely talking about how we're finding ways to kill less innocents by pointing out how the skeets self destruct if they fail to find a predetermined target.

That's how Dad did it. That's how America does it. And its worked out pretty well so far.