Leaderboard

You have very valid questions and observations. Obviously Putin horribly underestimated Ukraine and world resolve to help them and Russia has paid a horrific price for his decisions. That being said I don't think his entire play on Ukraine was to have a launching pad for the rest of Europe. If Putin gets Ukraine he will own the bread basket of Europe and have another major bargaining ship to shape the behavior of other countries. He is already doing that with energy, control the food supply as well and he has some big sticks to get his way.

Nukes. It doesn't go beyond that.

It's been a long time since I was a UPT IP, but I always had a simple hypothetical for the tanker guys I flew with that were debating the assignment. You can adapt this to whatever your current airframe is. If it was a Wednesday, middle of the day, and I came to your desk and told you that I had a pattern only sortie about to step, and you had no beans left, no requirements, nothing in your desk job that required you to skip the flight; basically, if you did it you would be doing it for nothing other than to hop in the plane and fly a little. It hasn't been a while since you've flown, and you haven't been flying your ass off. Just... Do you *want* to fly? If the answer to that is "hell yeah," then you're probably going to enjoy UPT. If you're the guy who would rather use the time to catch up on some low priority tasks, or maybe hit the commissary so you don't have to after work, or whatever other simple life and career tasks we all have, then it's probably not for you. Bottom line, if you just fucking love flying airplanes, it's hard to get a job as good as upt. If flying planes is just how you pay the bills, then moving your family to the least exciting cities in America is probably not going to be particularly fulfilling.

Offensive power on the ground maneuver is predicated on the same advantage/disadvantage ratios that have existed since the time of Alexander. Technology can soften those numbers but they never get away from the requirement of say an attacker to employ a 3:1 or better 5:1 advantage to take the ground effectively. What technology does do well is allow you to extend influence over the ground (say as far as indirect fire or drones can range). The Russian Army is not capable of fighting that way because to effectively maneuver an advantage force you don’t really need a body count to body count, you need an element of size vs an element of size, so when we say 3:1 advantage what that means really is a battalion attacks a company, and better yet 5:1 a Brigade attacks a company. Since the Russians are pretty much inept above the size of a battalion task group, Ukraine can field Company+ size elements with reinforcing enablers like fires and drones, and achieve parity with the attacker which is never something that pans out well for the attacker. And that is why the Russians adopt positional warfare, it’s not by choice, it’s by their own inept ability to wield what is largely still an army of convicts and peasants with too few competent officers and no NCO corps to effectively train and use them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Russia has lost twice as many casualties as the US did in WWI. It looks like Ukraine has casualty rates at about 60% of Russia's if US estimates are accurate. If Russia keeps at it, a year from now they will have more losses than the US did during WWII. There are some interesting parallels to WWI: -Initial estimates were a war that would last weeks, not years -Russia (and everyone else) overestimated Russia's offensive power -Everyone else underestimated Ukraine's defense -Battlefield has become relatively stable without considerable advances by either side and thousands are dying for yards of ground

It’s absolutely in all the theatre commanders “top 3.” And I’ll say they are absolutely motivated and aware of how far they have to go to be what they need to be. Like lines of effort it is directly discussed not “NATO” interop but Poland specifically and it makes sense when you look at potential and demonstrated commitment. They also have economics to take advantage of that most of the legacy Euro partners don’t. Poland has the potential to become the most powerful land force in Europe and potentially a joint force though id argue that takes a second decade to achieve and doesn’t run concurrently. Problem is they’ve got a decade of culture shift to do to train and equip that force, and until then they really aren’t any better prepared to do anything against a flood of tactical groups coming across their border than the Ukrainians were those first few weeks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Update for all y’all: non-prior/off-the-street hire at a heavy reserve squadron: AFOQT/TBAS: October 2022 Reserve Recruiter Contact: November 2022 MEPS: December 2022 Interview/Job Offer: March 2023 IFC1: May 2023 Package sent to July UFT board: June 2023 Package approved by UFT board: August 2023 In-Processing @ Randolph: October 2023 OTS: November 2023 SERE: February 2024 UPT Start: April 2024 UPT Complete: Oct 2024 FTU Start: Jan 2025 Projected FTU Complete: April 2025

Neither the Russians or then Ukrainians have executed a general mobilization. They still have chips to play in the form of people even with the casualty rates they have taken. What they won’t have is the industrial capacity combined with the personnel necessary to execute any kind of sustained positional warfare. So should they want to execute follow on seizures of land post “Victory” in Ukraine, they will not only need to solve those problems, they will likely need to make an entire shift to their military culture to execute a Decisive maneuver victory over whoever they choose to go after next. While that’s easier to do against the Moldovans or Latvians than say Poland. They are still European. Or even scarier, they could just go sit and wait until we find ourselves occupied in the other side of the world and then pick their moment. Seize parts of NATO territories with minimal fight then wait for the Spanish and Italian forces to dither about whether they are willing to fight Russia over some Baltic farmlands…. Prove the alliance hallow without us making up its main body, then carve off chunks at a time. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Working on his Kamala impression I guess.

As much as I've enjoyed reading US army field manual dissertations on ground warfare, you may want to refrain from getting triggered here. I have made no arguments. I have asked what I thought were logical questions to your previous comments. I asked these questions because I'm curious how Russia could feasibly invade the rest of Eastern Europe (not just the Baltics) after conquerimg Ukraine based on their causulty rate. I understand they wouldn't necessarily go to plaid and line up the ass clowns along the borders from Estonia to Romania and sound the bugle. A more succint way to phrase my questions would be; if russia conquers Ukraine, taking into account current casualties/km of ground seized, how will they have enough ass clowns/or equipment left to to push into eastern Europe? Anti-Trigger Warning: I'm very pro Ukraine.

If those "ass clowns" can't push through Ukraine, then how are they a threat to push through Europe? Would that not spread their formations more thinly than they are in Ukraine? Would it not also move them further from their base increasing their logistical issues? Are the Russians holding a massive amount of formations back that could overwhelm Eastern Europe, but who are not currently being employed against Ukraine?

Yup, that looks like one helluva post AF gig They tried to sell an F-104 upgrade but the F-5 beat it in the race https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CL-1200_Lancer Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gotcha. I'll probably buy one of the kid sized rifles, since I'd like to start them at around 6, and I can just cycle them through it until they are big enough for the grown up guns. Got a few years before I need to worry about that. That Marlin 1894 though... That might be a more immediate concern

Unknown, but zero active duty American casualties and Russia will be unable to fight a peer/near-peer for a generation.

Small update in UCT info: Track system is no more, looks like new classes can drop any airframe with no EWO/WSO/SO tracking necessary. New ACJ FTU is being stood up so those should be dropping again in the near future. Tons of RC-135 and C-130 drops recently, but still plenty of WSO’s. OA-1K is alive and in the near future for CSO’s.

Thank you for proving my point. You missed the central point about the contradiction: If these Generals are such shitheads and “swamp dwellers”….then why did Trump hire them if he “knows the best people. Great people.” In fact, he only “hires the best people.” The answer, is, he was bullshitting, which he admitted to on the Rogan podcast yesterday: Rogan: “how did you know who to appoint?” Trump. “Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have any experience. I was there 17 times in Washington, but never stayed over. But I didn’t know anybody. I was a New York guy. I was a New York builder andI knew that whole world. But I didn't know the Washington world too well. And all of a sudden, you're supposed to be appointing top people. It’s the biggest mistake I made.” He found out he would have to take recommendations from advisors. He discovered that there were important reasons why politicians typically got hired. He mentions that some of his hires were “bad.” Joe asks how, and he answers “bad or disloyal people.” So this is a decent example of a core reason that many people are appalled at Trump’s candidacy: He’s fundamentally too foolish and arrogant to know what he’s getting himself into, so he just tries to make it up as he goes. …possibly the biggest example of “fake it till ya make it” ever. And worst of all, as he fumbles around faking it, he makes decisions based on ego and self-interest. That’s it. That’s the lense through which he sees life. And I know……people will say he was already President and we survived. That’s true. And I’m sure many will disagree with me, but I simply think we got lucky. I do. He’s in way over his head. A lot can go wrong in another 4 years. I posted about this before, but I’ll summarize again: Every single time people claim that Trump is smart, it’s by implication. Just like you did. “He must be smart, just look at how rich he became” or some such example. It is absolutely stunning that people don’t recognize him as an idiot. It is, to me, his most obvious and pronounced trait. Instead of implication, try using direct observation: Just listen to him speak (unscripted). Does he ever say anything that only a smart person could say? He rambles. He rants. He complains. He calls his enemies names. He never says anything that demonstrates knowledge, wisdom, vision, or expertise. To me this is the most fascinating part of politics, and it just gets more intense every campaign: The way people convince themselves that their candidate is the polar opposite of what they actually are. If you read 1984, the chapter about “Doublethink”, ….holy shit….it is profound. I’ve talked to many Trump supporters who call him brilliant, ….when he’s obviously stupid. They call him an Alpha male…..a guy with man-tits, a combover, and makeup. A guy who Harris was able to toy with just by saying people were leaving his rallies early. They actually think he’s religious… he doesn't know a thing about the Bible or the core tenets of Christianity. They’ve convinced themselves he cares about people and is selfless, ….. he obviously only cares about himself…… Rogan’s first question was: “what was it like right after the inauguration, actually being the POTUS?” And Trump goes into a stream of consciousness about how opulent and luxurious the bedrooms in the White House were. Mentioning the responsibility, a sense of duty, the trust imparted by the American people, the hope and pressure to do a good job on behalf of American people. …..anything like that….. It doesn’t even occur to him. For nearly 3 hours, the guy talks about himself, complains about criticism towards himself, complains about other people doing “terrible jobs” and “destroying the country,” etc. Like I said before, he’s faking it. But even in faking it, he’s not smart enough to fake caring about other people. It never occurs to him to praise other people or show gratitude or appreciation. It never occurs to him to mention colleagues, coworkers, friends, his wife, or people that have helped him. He never speaks of his confidence in Americans as people. He never even hints that pride and the success of the country are dependent upon other people. He just makes nonsense threats that the country will literally “cease to exist” if he’s not elected. I just find it remarkable that AF pilots, who ostensibly target “Humble, Approachable, Credible” as a measure of good leadership, can doublethink themselves into applying those traits to Trump. But….as they say, my personal opinions and .50 cents will get you a can of Pepsi at the snack bar. So, I’m going to bow out of this until after the election. I’m sure many will be happy about that. But……for all the downvotes and videos of my mom and accusations of TDS, here’s the crazy thing: If we were in a squadron together, we would get along great. I know, because many of my closest military bros and lifelong friends are Trump supporters. We rarely had spirited conversations about politics, but when we did, it never affected or soured the friendship. More often we’d have conversations about family, flying, tactics, sports, etc. The internet is a cesspool. I’m sure you guys are good solid bros, pilots, officers, and people. (…..the jury is still out on HeloDude if I’m being completely honest….but maybe.) Cheers