Things are heating up in the Donbass

[Drinkthekoolaid]

The battle of Conoco fields says you're wrong.

And we weren't talking about armor and tanks, we were talking about artillery.

That is why a single F35 can conduct a more effective bombing mission than 1000 WWII B17s

In fact, a single flight by a single F35 can do what would take all 1000 of those B17s flying half a dozen times to do.

Now, admittedly an F35 needs a lot more support than a B17, and it's pilot a lot more training than a B17 crewman.

But, not 6000 times as much.

So, you are out ahead.

People all seem to forget that modern warfare is all about logistics. Tactics and even strategy are solved problems.

So, if you are responsible for logistics, do you want to transport 100,000 artillery shells, or 50 smart munitions?

You're making a lot of correct points. I'm not disputing everything you say.

But to make the same WW2 comparison on another level, many instances of the military specifically not calling in airstrikes on things like machine gun nests because it was not an efficient use of air power it was cost prohibitive.

Fast forward to Ukraine are you going to waste a 1 million dollar smart munition to kill 4 guys in a trench bunker or are you going to lob a few cheap dumb artillery shells or a cheap 20k drone?

Atacms and smart munitions are great for targeting command and control centers and supply depots or armor but not the best usage for small units.

Who is building more of the cheap 20k$ drones?

 

[spat]

A genuine question as I honestly have no idea

Do you think that if SHTF big time, we could really produce a massive supply of weapons in a short time?

Do we still have that capability?

Do we still have enough in house manufacturing capabipity that could be switched over?

I hope so !

We didn't have that capability in 1938 either, the US army were using trucks to simulate tank combat because they didn't have tanks.

By 1945 we were pumping out weapons and ammunition at a greater rate than the rest of the world put together x10.


Remember, every industry was retooled. All the automakers just stopped making cars for the civilian market. It all went to the war effort.

Singer stopped making sewing machines and started making machine guns.

Literally every factory was retooled.

Now, we have some cultural challenges, and we're not manufacturing as much here as we used to, but if you couple a widely recognized existential threat like WWII was with the same sort of national unity we saw on Dec 7th, 1941 of Sept 11, 2001 we would shift drastically.

Our industrial capacity today is orders of magnitude greater than it was in 1938.

 

[spat]

You're making a lot of correct points. I'm not disputing everything you say.

But to make the same WW2 comparison on another level, many instances of the military specifically not calling in airstrikes on things like machine gun nests because it was not an efficient use of air power it was cost prohibitive.

Fast forward to Ukraine are you going to waste a 1 million dollar smart munition to kill 4 guys in a trench bunker or are you going to lob a few cheap dumb artillery shells or a cheap 20k drone?

Atacms and smart munitions are great for targeting command and control centers and supply depots or armor but not the best usage for small units.

Who is building more of the cheap 20k$ drones?

I am saying that the all in cost for delivering a $1M smart munitions is *cheaper* than the 5000 $500 artillery rounds it takes to accomplish the same mission.

Just because it costs $500 to produce one in a factory in St. Petersburg doesn't mean it only costs $500 to deliver it to the front line in Ukraine.

The logistics costs for all of it dwarf the production costs. People who concentrate on the production costs are missing the big picture.

Imagine giving Germany a 1000 M1 Abrams tanks in 1944. You'd think they would suddenly dominate the war, but they wouldn't.

They'd probably not even be able to use them, because they couldn't even keep the tigers in fuel, and one Abrams would burn the whole divisions monthly fuel allotment just getting across the compound.

Remember, this is the Russian military who ran out of gas just trying to drive their troops *to* the battle in the first couple weeks of this fiasco.

Doesn't matter if they've got a stockpile of a billion rounds in Moscow, if they can't afford to deliver them to Ukraine.

 

[holdover]

The battle of Conoco fields says you're wrong. The Russians tried that and it turns our they got their asses kicked and the US troops were just fine.

Battle of Khasham - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

No. your talking apples and oranges again . 1st I said a division. second one side had total air dominance , the had no air assets at all. the outcome was predictable

According to the U.S. military, the presence of U.S. special operations personnel in the targeted base elicited a response by coalition aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers.[6][14][7] Nearby American artillery batteries, including an M142 HIMARS, shelled Syrian forces as well.[14

You cant apply this incident to a 1000 mile long front . We cant bring that kind of firepower to bear everytime someone shoots at us , We dont have the assets. Take away the air power and that situation would have been very different .

 

[spat]

No. your talking apples and oranges again . 1st I said a division. second one side had total air dominance , the had no air assets at all. the outcome was predictable

According to the U.S. military, the presence of U.S. special operations personnel in the targeted base elicited a response by coalition aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers.[6][14][7] Nearby American artillery batteries, including an M142 HIMARS, shelled Syrian forces as well.[14

You cant apply this incident to a 1000 mile long front . We cant bring that kind of firepower to bear everytime someone shoots at us , We dont have the assets. Take away the air power and that situation would have been very different .

A conflict in the foreseeable future that the US doesn't have absolute air supremacy is just not a realistic scenario.

You're talking about a simultaneous assault along a 1000 mile front like this was WWI trench warfare. That's just not going to happen.

You're not even fighting the last war, you're fighting 3 or 4 wars ago.

The closest modern version of what you describe would be the TET offensive in Vietnam. An attempt to overwhelm US forces with numbers, and that was almost 60 years ago.

US forces today are qualitatively different than they were 60 years ago.

I'm not sure you quite understand by how much.

In Desert Storm 40 years ago, the Brits were the only military that could even collaborate meaningfully with us. Everyone else was relegated to support roles because they just couldn't even be useful at the tempo we were operating at. That gap has only widened.

If something like TET had been attempted in Iraq or Afghanistan it would have been an absolute massacre that ISIS or the Taliban might not have ever recovered from.

The US just doesn't lose battles, with rare exceptions we win every one since WWII, and not by a small margin.

We just get bored of fighting and go home.

 

[holdover]

A conflict in the foreseeable future that the US doesn't have absolute air supremacy is just not a realistic scenario.

Oh my God your ridiculous. Even in Afghanistan our air power couldn't reach everywhere at once

No concept of how things work . Its not like it is on TV .

If your so sure that the weapons we supply to Ukraine are so advanced how come they are losing?

 

[spat]

Oh my God your ridiculous. Even in Afghanistan our air power couldn't reach everywhere at once

No concept of how things work . Its not like it is on TV .

If your so sure that the weapons we supply to Ukraine are so advanced how come they are losing?

Sure, we didn't commit enough air power to have planes everywhere in Afghanistan.

But, we had absolute air supremacy from day one.

That doesn't mean you have planes everywhere, it just means you can put planes anywhere you want anytime you want.

Just like we didn't have troops everywhere on the ground, but we could put them anywhere we wanted.

As for why Ukraine isn't winning, well, we have been artificially limiting what they can do with those weapons, and we have been spoon feeding them *just* enough weapons go stop the Russians, but not enough to actually win.

Because our goal is to keep the war going, not for the Ukrainians to win. Ultimately it's our decision who will win, I'm not sure which way we want it to go now.

Once the opportunity to launder money runs out, then I guess we'll find out. I bet we decide to cut Ukraine loose then because that will cover up all the financial shenanigans..

Make no mistake though, we are dictating exactly the course this war is taking and we can change that course anytime we want.

 

[holdover]

Sure, we didn't commit enough air power to have planes everywhere in Afghanistan.

But, we had absolute air supremacy from day one.

We cant. We dont have enough airpower everytime somebody body runs into the enemy. The assets are prioritized . say you have a 12 man recon team with attached assets of 2 Apache and 1 one gunship for a mission . Now there is a company size element cut off and under attack , taking casualties , the commander can borrow those assets to help save the unit. Now the first recon unit runs into trouble , the air support is headed back to base to reload . After reloading they maybe allocated back to the original unit but may be overruled by field commanders in either case theres not enough firemen to put out all the fires .Now factor in losses from a near peer rival. its not going to be as easy as desert storm He also has long distance interceptors and intense anti air missiles.

Of course were comming on the field with the most aircraft . but we obviously cant bring all of our aircraft , so much has to be left to the pacific and Mediterranean, and US theaters .

Just saying its not going to be a picnic

 

[holdover]

That doesn't mean you have planes everywhere, it just means you can put planes anywhere you want anytime you want.

We dont have that.

 

[holdover]

As for why Ukraine isn't winning, well, we have been artificially limiting what they can do with those weapons, and we have been spoon feeding them *just* enough weapons go stop the Russians, but not enough to actually win.

So you think its our fault because we are intentionally withholding arms ? And the Russians are winning. What would the point of that be ? besides making a dollar ? Because in the end. the Ukraine falls. I suppose then they can arm up the Baltics and Poland

 

[holdover]

Make no mistake though, we are dictating exactly the course this war is taking and we can change that course anytime we want.

Maybe so, But losing Ukraine doesn't seem to be a good plan. No doubt NATO wanted the Crimea , that was the jewel of the whole war. That could have crippled Russia .

 

[spat]

So you think its our fault because we are intentionally withholding arms ? And the Russians are winning. What would the point of that be ? besides making a dollar ? Because in the end. the Ukraine falls. I suppose then they can arm up the Baltics and Poland

Poland *is* armed.

Poland could take Russia on their own at this point.

But, yes, that's *exactly* what the point was.

Why else do you think we pour in just enough arms to keep them afloat, but dump in so much money that we're supporting their pension fund.

It is first and foremost a money laundering operation, it always has been. Once it starts to dry up, *then* we'll decide which side we want to win.

 

[spat]

Maybe so, But losing Ukraine doesn't seem to be a good plan. No doubt NATO wanted the Crimea , that was the jewel of the whole war. That could have crippled Russia .

NATO DGAF about Crimea. Why would they care ?

You keep making the mistake of thinking Russia is anything other than the patsy in all this.

And losing Ukraine is an excellent plan if you need to cover up all the evidence of your crimes.

"Oh no, Russia won, unfortunately none of the records of how that money we gave them was spent survived..."

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

We dont have that.

In a peer to peer fight with an actual rival like china or Russia we won't be able to have fighters and attack aircraft be stationed with 100 miles of the enemy it will be too dangerous. They will need to be 500+ miles away and that will then rely on being dependent upon 60 year old tankers to give them enough gas for an effective combat radius to operate from a "safer" area.