Lawman

While I get the joke, go get the NGIC briefing on Ukraine and focus on the logistics and sustainment sides of it. (The non sexy stuff people ignore). We have hard number data now on just how much of a force multiplier a single forklift or K loader is because we are watching a peer military do without it. When I think of just how many pallets of stuff moved on Ramps at Bagram or Taji for a war where sustainment of ammunition wasn’t really a concern. Now imagine the same scenario without the automation and organized work gangs of 18-23 year olds who don’t want to be there and are poorly supervised. That is gonna be a major make/break point beyond simply having enough ready munitions in stock (the current shiny thing of focus). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Anybody that questions palletized ramp offload vs other options, go compare a Sherpa/Osprey/47 onload and offload of cargo to a C-12 or Dornier. Not pax’s and luggage I mean pallets of commo and tough boxes they need to do a job at a location. A single forklift can do the work in minutes that takes at least an hour because no only do you have people shuffling up a set of stairs with a yeti cooler of crap at a time, they can’t just turn around and back out. Also compare them as jump platforms or airdrop cargo because let’s face it that’s gonna be a big part of your customer option. Unless you can get a pallet sized sliding door on the side we shouldn’t even entertain the idea of a logistics platform that can only be loaded by hand. If it can’t be loaded up with a 10-15K fork loader it’s going to cost time and sortie rate as we unpalletized stuff that was delivered by big ramp aircraft to stick it in this and take it to a location only accessible by seaplane that then has to be unloaded again. If it’s being unloaded in a zodiac, try putting one of those through the door of the previous listed planes. Let alone carry the motor of it without accidentally dropping it down the stairs. And a rear ramp gives you an option to simply low pass and push floating supply pallets to be recovered to the beach by the receiving group. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Look everybody can agree the PBY is a classic design that has beautiful lines, but even in the time it was flying it was nowhere near the best flying boat available, just the most iconic. There have been a host of designs since then more suitable to tasks/mission sets we are now taking about. Not to mention a lot of understanding about aerodynamics or structural engineering for such designs. If this is first and foremost a logistics platform, using a sea borne scout plane as the base of design is a horridly bad idea. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We were still directly actioning on targets from the Neptune Spear intel 4 years after the fact. That wasn’t just national building, it was dismantling active efforts by AQ and its leadership network. That’s part of the misunderstand we were there to make a democratic country. That was a secondary goal to all the stuff going on in numbered task forces. If we’d said that publicly it would have been honest, but that’s a harder sell to people. “Why are we still there?!?!?” “Well Mr and Mrs Wisconsin suburban voter… there are still a lot of S-heads that need killing.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s funny that right now Russia has had to pull their Navy back into safe havens even further from where they could steam BEFORE they invaded Crimea. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you have any idea how many prepared sites for supporting dispersed operations we maintained in Europe during the Cold War or currently maintain in Korea as various echelons? Do you know how many places in the Indo-PACOM theatre we have agreements but don’t prepositions at because it’s 3rd and 4th order contingency locations? Some of its shadow guessing. Drop some connex’s and a dirt runway you never intent to use and out yourself in the RedFor commander… gonna spend some Tactical Ballistic missiles on site A, B, C?… what about this other guy. Hey look we depleted your strike capability with deception ops. Or maybe we go there with intent from the balloon going up. Either way it’s effective. This isn’t new. This is prudence of let’s not write/staff/support an O-plan while the war is actually ongoing. That’s been a true nature for strategic planning not just for us but for every major power as long as power has been expeditionary (British Empire with things like the China squadron, German General Staff, US War plan Orange/red/yellow for USA, etc).

That’s a bit overly simplistic. CAS is any air delivered kinetic effect that impacts the ground forces elements of maneuver requiring the enhanced coordination between air and ground elements to mitigate risk. That’s why it changes relative to the weapons employed and not just a range or place. Air delivered high dud munitions for example would require a far wider margin of separation/coordination over an APKWS delivered at high angle. Same is true for our fires from the ground to the ground. 155 is different than an ATACM even though it’s all “fires.” You can be doing AI and still be well short of the FSCL. See all the stuff we did striking isolated pockets of resistance that our ground forces bypassed during things like the 03 invasion. If they weren’t supporting a maneuver unit in the conduct of a developing or direct fight, it was by default AI. Or you get into those weird “shaping” ops like using you guys to knock out a bridge when a unit realizes it’s flank is about to be rolled up. You are technically out of contact, so it stops being CAS even though it’s obviously an immediate consideration to a maneuver unit (whatever echelon). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We had to explain to our Brit exchange guy that the phrase, “silly c*nt,” wasn’t nearly the benign comment he was used to culturally. Thank god the guy doesn’t smoke too… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d say the same congressional zombies that have done things like hobbled the Raptor buy to <200 planes that have spent the last two decades screaming at people with stars on their shoulders at the mere suggestion of retiring the A-10 are doing exactly that. It is truly insulting as a guy in a green uniform to have somebody comfortably sitting in Congress and accuse another service tasked with a collection of missions that they “don’t care about the ground force.” Then after making their loud popular point they simultaneously cut back on the assets that deliver air supremacy I need to actually prevent a mass casualty event, or sign off on retiring our MTI capability, or don’t force a mass infusion in the collection tools critical to execute effective mission planning…. CAS is an effect. If a JDAm/Griffen/SDB II/etc is coming off a plane the ground force won’t care in the end what that plane (or robot) it is. They want timely application at the point of friction to maximize maneuver. That is all. Some of the most effective and timely CAS that I have relied on to change the outcome of the S show was delivered by a non pointy nosed aircraft. A damn Cessna could be doing it, just get it on target. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It only stays unlikely in a game of balanced deterrence where the CCP looks across the water toward that Island they think is theirs and that Sea they believe is their beach, and then pause to remember that isn’t a given. Being equipped and capable of fighting is critical to them coming out of that pause with a changed mind. If they look out into that same environment to see a US military equipped and trained to fight real good in sub Saharan Africa or Southcom but not to take their A2AD and D2SOE, brush it aside, and cripple their infrastructure and military capacity they won’t feel that way anymore. We can teach an F35 to do CAS. We can’t teach AT-6 or some other Coincentric acquisitions platform like MRAP to do an effective multi domain LSCO fight. I mean we could try… but we will get some pretty predictable results. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Being less effective at the most likely war and losing it results in more S-head people in S-hole places continuing to do S-actions. Being less effective and losing the most dangerous one results in us either picking through the ashes for our daily meal or celebrating Glorious Leader’s birthday. I know which one I’d call higher stakes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

One service is showing up to a combined arms fight with all three elements of the combat arms fight. The other very much isn’t and is making a commitment to engage in that fight with support from air assets. The entire Active Duty Marine Corps has 24 total HIMARs. The conventional Army had that many between 1st and 2nd SBCT at JBLM alone. The services are not congruent, even in names of unit types. The Army fight will be shaped around the Division as the maneuver element of action with the Armored Division of the engaged Corps being the vanguard of its advance. That hasn’t been the case for 20 years as we went to a BCT model doing wide area security. The bleeding edge capes of CAS will be far less important than effective AI or, what has largely just been assumed and forgotten about, Air Superiority for that units success. The guys at schoolhouses like to quote the famous “855 rounds of HE 155 to kill a tank company….” They need to understand it’s not 1982 anymore and update their thinking. There are shells in our M109s that will do just that in a single battery 6. More importantly the ground force organic firepower equation has changed from the Fulda scenario. Weapons like Javelin didn’t exist when that method of Air Land Battle CAS was modeled. The ground force even in light infantry or SBCT is capable of holding in the defense to a far greater degree, provided the Air can hobble THIER combined arms capability (IE take out their artillery/Fires/C2). That isn’t in the close engagement, it’s 4-40Km deep from the FLOT, and it’s protected by semi to fully autonomous IADS elements and directed by drones. We are far more likely to have a condition resulting in loss because we let the drone target a key element of the formation and had Red fires/aviation cause mass casualties in an assembly area than we are having to lean on organic fires because CAS wasn’t as available or plentiful as we have grown accustomed to. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The Marines and the Army are not the same CAS customers. One service is divesting it’s self of tube artillery, armor, and basic at anything that delivers a weapon at range with precision that isn’t either a Hellfire missile or GMLRs fired off a truck (that they have limited numbers of). The other is less interested in CAS than it is in shaping operations. And before anybody points at the last 20 years of stupid as an example of how much the Army needs CAS, we could provide the effects desired from a Drone or persistent light weight Bronco style aircraft in Afghanistan and meet 90% of the mission requirements. For the other 10% a small slice of a wider population of advanced aircraft are more than capable of meeting the SOF raid requirement. The Army isn’t investing in M1299 or rapidly increasing capes in fires munitions for no reason. And it’s not so we can better provide immediate close fires, it’s so we can cause a mass casualty event two phase lines deeper than the point of advance while a reinforced Armor Division punches into the enemy support zone with concentrated application of mobile protected firepower. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That’s just the point you’re trying so blatantly to step around. The method the justice department is charging him under negates the ability for him to ever be touched with that stuff again. He doesn’t even have to enter a plea to the Felony gun charge. It just goes away. And the whistleblower did testify, about documents, and they nearly had to hold the FBI director in contempt to get redacted items from that testimony. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is an FBI whistleblower testifying to congress that the DOJ has been taking action to limit and protect the son of the President, but you’re happy so I guess he’s wrong. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The fact you can look at those charges and refer to that as “not protection” shows how in the bag you are for “it’s ok and I’ll pretend I didn’t see it when my party does it.” Again, between this or Clinton deliberately destroying her server hardware to deny investigation immediate access and somehow that isn’t obstruction… Right bro. Totally on the level. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Go buy a gun illegally and not pay millions in taxes and see how many misdemeanors and dropped charges you get? He pled guilty to basically nothing. The gun charge doesn’t require a plea, and under the diversion now he can’t be charged with anything pertinent to the case because that would be double jeopardy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Given some of the issues in shipping out their current agricultural output, it won’t matter much. The Sea Lanes are effectively closed and those agreements to let their stuff pass fell apart. The countries all sharing land borders won’t let the Uke’s sell into their local markets because of the devaluation it is doing to their crops by ballooning the available supply. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

But NSPlayer said we can just charge the political class with crimes whenever it’s appropriate. After all you guys are only holding Trump to a standard right? Granted it’s not a standers you’ll hold your own side too, but that doesn’t matter right? What matters is you win the next election, and that’s all this is really about. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“All you’ve gotta do to hold people accountable is take power.” Gee is that it. Well shit let’s just get right on it. Thanks you for admitting what most in the Democratic Party won’t, that they simply will not and cannot allow accountability of any of their sacred cows and will only promise compliance when they aren’t in power. Hey guys you hear that, it’s not that there isn’t a blatant protection scheme being run by the party in power to bury its skeletons in a bolt locked closet, it’s just following the rules for accountability. You can only be accountable when the opposite power is in charge. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well since it will start and stop with Trump, your proclamation this is any sort of solution to political protection is pretty hollow. The FBI was caught investigating Hunter’s 4733 violation 5 years ago. The IRS has been found doing the same. Weird how it takes so math years to figure out saying no on a yes no question about drugs was or wasn’t a lie The fact you and others repeatedly find a way to deny Hillary or Hunter or any number of other illegal acts don’t meet the criteria for prosecution is pretty well proof of that. I didn’t vote for Trump either of the times he ran, but the way you and others are enthusiastic in applauding this blatant attempt to deny him even the process of participating is pretty bold. And again, when Trumps populist movement holds to the opinion about elitist protection schemes and how the Democratic Party protects it’s self from legal prosecution it’s pretty bold of you and others to go applauding it and telling all the rest of us the charges against him are somehow unique and we are the ones that don’t understand. To the laymen you look like you’re cheerleading for the exact partisan protection and political bias you claim to be stamping out. I’ll remind you, the same week this indictment was announced, the FBI director was almost held in contempt of Congress for refusing to even answer questions about the investigation into the presidents son…. Yeah that’s some transparency. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You are completely clueless or just ignorantly blind if you think some local or state level prosecutor can just go ahead and charge the sitting president’s son. Like it’s not even hard, the guy bought and then threw a gun in a dumpster having already had a felony. He would never survive a form 4733, which lying on is a felony. So what happens now? So tell us why other than the fact you would be charging a presidents son would that crime be ignored. It’s not like gun violence and violation of firearms laws isn’t a huge concern of your party. Yes it’s severely concerning that we have for a decade now excused what we all knew to be true, that Hillary was guilty of at the very least crimes which would prohibit her participation in the political class of our country, yet somehow that’s just excuses or in some cases denied. But oh, charging Trump (when he’s the political candidate the party in power is most afraid of) is somehow our solution to decades of bad faith actions and political protection. Proclaim from the chief executive, “From this day forward we will do what we should have for the last several decades…..” No if you’re going to win, and more importantly beat Trump’s populist movement, you need to do it on the up and up. This sideways attempt at just denying him the ability to participate in the political process is being rightly called out for what it is, a shady attempt to sideways secure victory by using the weight of the executive office. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

No you don’t get to pretend it’s no big deal we didn’t charge Hillary and just call it my bad here… If you are the executive branch right now you are making the claim the justice department and the FBI are beyond the partisanship, yet your criminally offending son is somehow never facing any charges when just off simple handgun possession he has committed a felony. Your party’s previous front runner was excused. But now you just have to follow the letter of the law and charge your single biggest political rival with a felony only months after we found classified documents in your F’ing garage. They hid behind prosecutorial discretion and invented ideas of intent. Sorry, but this isn’t a “just because the let Hillary” for you. I’d happily watch Trump go to jail, provided the same government officials currently screaming about what he did were being charged right along side him. Until that comes, yeah I’d rather we not go jailing political rivals for crimes we know the other side committed. At least it would let the democratic process play out. Right now everything the screamers like Jim Jordan are saying about the weaponization of the justice department is actively happening. But hey we ignored it when the IRS was doing it, so why not let this game go on as well. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The time that Hillary would have most appropriately been charged having finished the investigation was… that’s right… in the middle of her being the front runner for the Democratic Party in the 16 election. Somehow that wasn’t allowed to happen. So no suddenly deciding to act appropriately now while simultaneously claiming this has nothing to do with partisan manipulation of the justice department just isn’t going to work here. Your in a spectrum of political demographic that keep screaming about Trump apologists or whatever label, but at the end of the day they are right. An unusual action is being applied to their preferred candidate. Notice I said unusual, not unethical or illegal or whatever, because the precedence for protection and ignoring crimes has already been set for the political class. Trump isn’t being charged because he did something uniquely wrong. He is being charged because he so brazenly and openly made the public aware of the shady crap we ignored for decades from our political caste. They are doing their best to destroy him not because they didn’t do the same, but because they are afraid of the attention to their normal actions that is now impossible to ignore. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk