Was reviewing AWAC aircraft detection ranges this evening. 265km for a small fighter, and 400km for a large. At least we’ll see them coming far enough to get high and do good work in BVR.
SpiderOfEvening
zerodarkfourty
It appears that the USMC’s EFSS automatic mortar system will be able to speculatively launch mortar rounds that the BONE can then designate onto a target, even onto a moving target. This makes indirect fire especially devastating and would give the BONE a substantial boost in its ability to mass fires.
The Sniper Targeting Pod is so far ahead of their competition the USAF, and about a dozen other countries, are ordering them without even the pretense of a competition for a 2nd source.
An F-18 SuperHornet costs about half as much per hour as a BONE. Not even close to the same capabilities just based on bomb-load alone.
Coalition pilots have reported the widespread use of MANPADs in the Iraqi theater, which explains why the A-10s are not being used more, and AC-130s with similar capabilities to the BONE, but with NO ejection seats are not being used. Ten hours can easily be streched into 24 or more with refueling, as long as another…
The BONE costs less per hour than the B-52, $57,000 vs $69,000 per hour, and has much greater capabilities than a subsonic B-52, or an A-10’s much more limited bomb load.
A running man can cover 30fps or more. Most people have a 3-4 second draw. You do the math. Personally, I think the Beretta’s safety features have probably kept a lot of friendlies from getting hurt or dead - perhaps the #1 feature to have in a military sidearm.
Grozny, Chechnya via Google Images.
Meanwhile, in Ramadi, the USAF is using B1 bombers with their new AESA that can spot a fighter at 350+km and Sniper targeting pods in favor of Warthogs because PGMs from the B1 can be used as CAS even in Danger-Close conditions. IE: our PGMs are now flying arty with precision no arty could hope to achieve.
Well shame on her for not knowing how it was all going to turn out 4 yrs in advance. Tell us Tyler, how will it “turn out” when we look back in 2020? What? You don’t know? And yet here you are advocating by implication that it’s “the white man’s burden” to go forth and Westernize the World by missing no opportunity to…
I think we’re on different arguments. Mine is that Russia is loosing it’s grip on world energy markets, to include NatGas, and that is going to make funding any new military programs very difficult.
I was able to work through the numbers based on publicly available numbers last year and it turns that annual Russian gas exports to ALL of Europe amounts to less than 5% of US net production each year.
I assume, since you cite no sources, that this is pure speculation on your part?
About 50%, but like most countries that were happy to buy cheap, reliable gas from Russia in the past, disruptions, and the constant threat of disruptions, are motivating most of Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent Western Europe (more focused on renewables) to develop their own gas fields, and build LNG terminal…
Any drone that could survive in a contested environment would NOT be cheap, nor would it be reliable, leaving the men depending on them hung out to dry. “Safe Place”, funny - and where might that be in a war with China, or even Iran?
The “firebase” is a knoll near the top of a mountain, but protected from direct fire by a high ridgeline, and they have heavy weapons like mortars, .50 BMC snipers in overwatch and automated sentries, the EFSS automatic mortar, and lots and lots of very high flying heavies at 65K ft which they are in some ways an arty…
Couldn’t agree more. I feel less threatened by the cabal of clerics running Iran having nukes than a mad-man like Putin. People with their fingers on “The Button” should have to answer to someone other than themselves.
Nice to hear a Putin shill admit that his forces are, in fact, fighting in Ukraine, despite his incessant denials. They can get all the experience they could ever desire fighting terrorists in the Caucuses, but I expect those forces he doesn’t have in the Ukraine are going to get a good ass-whipping at some point…
You keep trying to ignore the fact that Saddam was not being overthrown by a popular uprising, and Gadaffi was.