Looks like these guys screwed up and grabbed the left-handed destroyer by mistake again.

1. I hope this plane keeps that disctinctive “Grumman” look (not that any two look very much alike)

The article argues a different conclusion, but it’s the only place I found a number attached so I went with it.

These assholes clearly grabbed the left-handed destroyer without recognizing it.

Aren’t we being just a tad cute here? If we don’t acknowledge there’s an island there, then we aren’t passing within 0-12 miles of jack shit. Aren’t we by acknowledging that we aren’t acknowledging the islands, acknowledging that there is something there to acknowledge or not? It’s the…

Well, given that the real aggreived party in the overall picture here is viet nam (china is setting up oil rigs in their economic exclusion zone and has been using its navy and coast guard to run off vietnamese fisherman), and since viet nam has built 21 of it’s own island thingies because that’s what all the cool…

yuck, mines in peacetime? that’s right up there with publicly executing foreign journalists without trial, as far as casus belli go.

You’re right, that was totally russia, my bad... I’m sure it would touch off WWIII if a chinese military vehicle ever rammed an american one.

I know right? Cheaper to drop a bridge on a smart bomb than the other way around.

Interesting tidbit, that it takes 2 fillups of tanker gas to get from Quatar to a target in Syria. I’m sure it’s a drop in the boondoggle bucket, but it seems crazy to be prosecuting this with B1s from the Gulf instead of F16s from the Med, that is not how I would run my air war.

The local militia are fish and birds, which is why china is able to roll in and set up shop.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, these guys just went out and claimed some oilfields. Pretty sure that’s relevant to China’s strategic aims.

Considering that we may be wasting our defense budget trying to sink those islands in a year or two, I think we can squeeze it in.

I mean, who would ever ram a US destroyer "innocent passaging", just minding it's own business in your terrirotial waters, who does that.

So this is as good a time as any to think about reconsidering my stance on capital punishment

That is fucking BRILLIANT. Probably doesn’t even need the magnets, just needs to be snug enough to not fly off when you toss it on the couch. Overbuilt is the way to go.

Tyler, I’m not sure what my takeaway from this should be. It sounds like the F16s are outdated and falling apart anyway, you sure you want to divert resources away from the plane that’s supposed to replace it?

Nobody wants a condom jammed in their air intake.

Do you have any bigger ones? I hate it when they don’t fit

Well that’s no help, since the prequels are not accountable to the movies that preceded them either.