Lawman

See there is a difference between “Viewing this from the Russian perspective” Vs “Being empathetic and even sympathetic to the Russian perspective (read propaganda).” If you believe there is any way Russia isn’t responsible for MH17 you either don’t have current access to a vault and the widely available materials on SIPR discussing it, or you’re just a loon buying their BS story about the Uke’s doing despite all the evidence to the contrary (both open source and not). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think you’re new wave rebranded isolationist BS is no less dangerous than the “it’ll all be ok” crowd that was laughingly dismissing Romney in the debates when he suggested Russia is our #1 geopolitical foe. I think your entire presence in this thread is to do little more than try to play at being some sort of omnipresent intellectual when really you don’t realize your misgivings being the guiding beacon of what we should do (cut them off and let’s see) is more likely to result in a wider conflict not head it off at the regional level it currently resides in. Your apologist sentiment/statements for former exploited Russian satellites recognizing the reality and running to NATO because never again being a great example of that. Oh how dare the Czechs and Poles or Latvians want to actually stay sovereign. What a god damned crime. They should recognize they have old ties to respect and be more Hungarian in their outlook. I would rather back Ukraine despite all their rotten apples in the cart than see yet another example of Russian aggression go unchecked and be successful in its results for their end goals. And you and others are flatly getting in the way of that with your “yeah but what if they attack our transport ship” bullshit from earlier. We tried isolationism or rather “that’s a Europe problem” before. The end result was us getting into wider conflicts both unprepared and more expensively than smaller sooner conflicts would have cost. That was the reason we changed our mindset the last 70 years. Turns out just having nukes and oceans between us and conflict isn’t enough. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Oh so now you can’t read English or understand my meaning. 1. You’re deliberately hiding behind some feigned concern for money or widening risk of war when reality is you’re afraid to just publicly state what you mean. You don’t think we should be supporting the Ukrainian government/military. You hide behind concerns or pretend to just be bringing up talking points for discussion. Your participation in this thread seems entirely built in trying to lessen the validity of the cause we are supporting or hollow out the value of the support others are calling for. 2. Now you want to play the bullshit “if you think we should help why don’t you go volunteer” card. Really you are recognizing you’ve had to show some of your hand and are losing ground on the argument that somehow you and I are both agreeing to limits. We’re not even in the same library much less the same page when my argument is make real effects that translate to dollars spent and Russian combat power eroded and you’re masking an argument in the belief we never should have been giving them this kind of serious assistance in the first place. Not to mention it’s completely silent to that huge apparatus of military power we keep moving making bold political noise to the Russians like Atlantic Resolve. I’ll let you take a guess what I’ll be doing with my brigade in the near future… 3. To be more succinct, stop dancing around and being a tool and just say what you mean. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You’re getting called out directly for your side-walking point attempting subterfuge to your intent because the Tucker Carlson “I’m just asking questions” BS is transparent to anybody paying attention. “There is a limit” ignores this was neither NATO nor Ukraines fight in escalating this to an actual military conflict nor is the continued presence of NATO and international aid “prolonging the conflict” somehow a bad thing. I’ll remind you when this started people were against the aid we’d sent before the conflict, much less the javelins and other immediate means we kicked forward to give them a chance. Had we simply admitted openly to the limits you and others are now saying we should respect or inferring we passed Ukraine would currently be a protectorate of the Russian federation and Zelenskyy would likely be facing a public show trial within Russia accusing him of a range of things from Nazism to crimes against humanity. It’s not costing NATO lives or it’s costing NATO to absorb this conflict is blindly ignorant to the volunteers that have gone across the border to aid or the work of all those nations who are absorbing the refugee crisis. Or the ongoing efforts of our own military with actions like Atlantic Resolve which exist entirely to respond to the last decade of Russian aggression. As to why we shouldn’t be openly stating the limits of our assistance in any way is that telegraphing where the finish line is to Russia right now is stupid. Our (US, NATO, Uke, etc) unified resolve is something to calculate in the Kremlin as same as their casualty figures or the presence of equipment on the battlefield. To say nothing of the wider message it sends to both our ally’s and opponents around the world that we are willing to back the non nuclear power in a territorial conflict. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Except we can simply go back over the history of your participation with this conversation and infer exactly what you’re trying to sideward advance of the point you want to make. You’ve reminded us about government debt, inferred the Ukrainian government is somehow uniquely dishonest, advanced the idea that somehow our aid packages could be targeted in the open seas, questioned whether our actions would widen the conflict… Look just come out and say you don’t think we should be supporting Ukraine in this. At least that would be intellectually honest. Zelenskyy and his supporters are going to advocate to get every piece of aid and advantage available. Somewhere right now is a guy arguing we should give them TLAMs and B1s if we look hard enough as absurd as that idea is. That’s their job… ask for the moon and get a good ways too it. But don’t sit here and pretend mine or others acknowledgement that those are politically driven arguments for the point of getting some aid as saying we all think that we should now be questioning the expense of any aid to them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The fun part of a Nikki Haley campaign will be watching all the gymnastics from the “you have to vote for a woman of color” crowd who treated that as the only qualification that mattered. Suddenly they’ll be supporting old white guy because “well yeah… but not that one, she doesn’t count.” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

No I’m saying you inserted an article which builds on a Bullshit premise as to why it’s necessary to “prove our support” with a modern fighter so that the Ukrainians can support their armor in the field. Now why you did that is your own reasons, but it’s absolutely BS to say we are somehow halfhearted in our support for Ukraine this many billions of dollars and months into the fight. Given that we are now facing calls to limit the amount of dollars we can give from within our own countries it’s more important than ever to achieve the maximum dollar value for the assistance we are given and dismiss bullshit like that article for what it is. If somebody is trying imply the Uke’s haven’t received aid in achieving or even achieved some form of air superiority with the equipment on hand (to include the very best ground based systems we own) than please explain why the Russian Air isn’t running around their country wholesale the way we would be in the same place. Why are we see them deliberately choosing to adopt toss bombing in salvos to achieve little in actual accurate effects and expend all the effort and ordnance for a sortie that does little to effect the ground. Surely if air superiority didn’t favor the ground and survivability isn’t in question they wouldn’t adopt such tactics right? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can’t wait for them to validate that thing because it’s one of the potential game changer toys we keep playing with in Warfighters. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What’s the lead time to establish a trained Viper pilot. What if I give you every 3rd guy is a former Mig29 or other high performance aircraft pilot. Ok now let’s compare that with the time to train a system operator in any air defense system… They are taking rounds against their infrastructure now. Yes we can give these guys access to the NATO stock of 4th Gen aircraft but acting like just having high performance aircraft is “how we achieve air dominance” is ignorant whether you are reading about it in a rag like Telegraph or saying it as anyone that has been to the Party wearing a US uniform. If the argument was they need X because they’ve expended their hole stocks of Y that would be a different argument. They aren’t making that argument. They are trying to pretend we haven’t given anything that solves the problem and the tanks will somehow be exposed to some massive losses from air power the Russians have yet to demonstrate any capability at doing. Viper or something similar is a very small part in that massive mechanism we wield to achieve Air Superiority and dominance our way (from the Air primarily). Pretending they have all or some of the other facets of what makes that achievable and the missing link here is us giving them Vipers/Mirages/Tornados/god damned spitfires is ignorant at best. And the other issue with that article is it alluding to the idea that the Uke’s haven’t created a storm of problems for the current Russian air threat both with the systems they had on hand and the ones we are giving them. Acting like the thing that Russian air has been waiting on is the presence of modern NATO armor to get off its ass and be part of this fight is ignorant of all the burning bent hulks of what used to be a Fullback/Frogfoot/etc littering Ukraine over the last few months. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We’ve sent million of dollars worth of air defense systems ranging from PAC3 to Geperd to MANPADS like Stinger. “Oh no we won’t give them Vipers” seems like a statement of ignorance considering their military model doesn’t attempt to achieve Air Superiority through air platforms. Haven’t done anything to give them Air Dominance… tell that to Russian Fullback, Hokum, and Frogfoot drivers. I’m sure the reason we are seeing the Russians resort to massed drone and cruise missile bombardment or lobbing pods full of rockets at high angle Blind has nothing to do with the danger of exposing their manned platforms to the battlefield. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Some SAP/STO planner: “Dammit…. People are gonna find out about the Earthquake gun!” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

If you can’t figure it out you’ll definitely make your Star… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To put it visually… stuff like this becomes a hell of a lot easier when your supporting bases of fire includes a tank. Then the maneuvering element comes up and steps on your neck while the S-head element dug into the objective tries to deal with that armored gun reducing their position one 120mm round at a time. Not to mention 11k roads of machine gun that it adds to the supporting fire positions. The defense would use indirect fires to disrupt the attack. Usually that’s gonna be mortars. Maybe they’ve got artillery but even then the Tank largely doesn’t care. So they have to have dedicated anti tank systems in close with them and there are only so many of those in a formation to go around. So the enemy is forced to make a decision of withdrawal out the free axis and try to consolidate a counter attack later giving up the ground, or they can stay there and be overwhelmed and try to trade out casualties to make the offensive force stall. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mobile protected firepower for the maneuver forces attempting to retake hardened objectives. Eventually all the fires in the world need to be capitalized with infantry to take and hold territory. Tanks make things that stop infantry go away quickly or draw the attentions of the defender in such a way that the combined arms maneuver has a free hand. With Abrams you also get a weapon system that can direct fire at stand-off preserving Survivability while still remaining useful. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

FLIR and an independent commanders sight for one… The best T90s the Russians had were still woefully lacking in capabilities like that across the force. T80s almost entirely across their fleet only have a single first generation FLIR for the Gunner to sight with. A tank that can potentially move and shoot at night will be a serious problem for them to deal with. Designed survivability considerations for another. Again… the most critical piece to having a viable Armor force in this attritional fight they are in is keeping the crews alive. Abrams forgoes the storage issues that an auto loading tank like T72/90 can’t adjust for. The only solution for the Russian tanks to enhance survivability is to only go with the ammo in the carousel and get all the stowed rounds out of the top turret. That cuts their total combat load in half. Abrams may only have 6 rounds in the ready rack, but if they penetrate the ammo and cook it off, you don’t lose the crew most importantly and the tank can be recovered and fixed much more easily than one whose turret blew off and burned with a belly full of molten copper/magnesium. Anti tank missiles and small ambush tactics with infantry will give Armor fits. It’s supposed to be Combined Arms for a reason. However a weapon like Javelin doesn’t really exist in a Russian formation. They’ve got a good collection of small portable anti tank guided missile systems, but again the old quantity over quality. And that’s where the fact we are also giving IFV/APCs over as well. Stuff more survivable to get the dismounted forces forward with that mobile protected firepower to take and hold objectives through mutual fire and maneuver. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ve just been seeing this ridiculous “the M1 needs jet fuel!” Bullshit for so long it’s maddening so no if you’ve got the general gist that this tank absolutely will run on diesel (because that’s what JP8 is formulated to basically be) no man you’re miles ahead of a whole lot of idiots out there right now. I’m just truly amused at people they think that’s this unbelievably difficult problem to solve in a war where long range cruise missiles are routinely hitting hospitals and schools causing mascal events. Getting the right formula of gas in trucks to tanks that can be used is not nearly the long pole in the tent right now. Christ we can source them fuel trucks too. Oh wait… somebody will be along to freak out about how that’s gonna be an impossible logistical problem. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You guys realize the biggest thing that makes a fuel FXX vs FXY is the additive detergents added after refinement right? Look we’ve got charts on what to do when you run an engine in F24 vs local source off road class diesel or mixes there of. There are defined protocols on ground engines where I can mix a 55 gallon of F24 with regular run of the mill diesel and it’s literally no change you treat it as standard F24. And before anybody asks yes there are more viscous forms of fuel out there, F24/JP8 was a deliberate compromise to get a common fuel across land/air in NATO. The Ukrainians will absolutely get through this and if the difference is a 690 hour TBO on a part instead of a 700 hour, that’s not really going to make some earth shattering difference. Oh and for all the gas an M1 uses that’s on the move. It uses less than a T72 when squatting in a DFP, and unlike a diesel that turbine can be fired and slammed on the move without having to regularly cycle to keep the engine warmed. I’ve watched them actually burned less fuel than the non APU equipped Leo’s (and likewise the 72) in field exercises doing static defense because in the winter especially they had to run the engines at idle all the time to keep from having issues related to cold starts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The absolute most aggravating part of this is there staffs are really the ones that F this up and face no consequence. Nobody honestly thinks Trump or Biden etc went and got boxes and packed their office do they? No of course not that’s the staff flunky job. So why the hell after these things happen do we not crucify them and revoke clearances. My regimental S2 pulled up some of Hillary’s staff after the whole thing and they all still showed up in JPAS. Like holy hell we will crucify a good Soldier for plugging the printer in the wrong color cable… but hey you actively ignored and moved stuff either through neglect or deliberate effort… oh no big deal. Please by all means keep your lively hood. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How many Blk30-40 Vipers are out there. And while people think Omg brand new systems, remember that used to be the norm in a conflict. Look back at how many aircraft we went from paper to actively on the front lines with in WWII or Korea or even Vietnam. Hell even outside conflict look how many times the primary fighter for the USAF/Navy changed in the 50-60s. It is not some impossible hill to climb. And if it’s worth real effective qualitative advantage in combat power at the front because these aren’t unproven systems, they are known quantities. We can teach a kid with literally no experience with a tractor or a drivers license to not only be a soldier but be a loader in an M1 in a sum total of weeks. We can absolutely take guys with workable experience in their systems and rapidly grow them to the system we give them. They are worth the logistical burden because of the capability gains and the ability to keep that training nested in survivable combat forces. That’s going to be critical in this attritional fight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You know what’s a lot more important than the tank…. The people you spent umpteen man hours training to effectively use a tank. If you don’t understand the massive survivability advantage Leo/Challenger/Abrams enjoy over the old Soviet designs and the logistical component of people actually familiar with and able to use the system you are hopeless in understanding it is well worth the logistical impact on needing more fuel or track pads or being heavier and putting more strain on recovery/engineering/bridges/route planning…. Oh no it’s got a new shell…. One that has to be loaded and comes in a single contained piece vs the multi piece shells for the carousel auto loader…. Oh and we can battle carry a fuel load of them instead of going with only the 20-24 in the floor because we are concerned about cooking off a wet stored round in the T64/72 turret…. Do you realize how much of an improvement that would be? About 6 ish months ago the big comment was “why are we sending them HIMARs what could they possibly do with it.” Those same critics are now telling us how they can’t use a “jet fuel powered” tank because of their vast experience working with Armor. And this isn’t about getting this capability to them tomorrow, which guess what we are doing sourcing T72 and 64s from NATO stocks. This is getting the ball rolling on a capability issue that will give the Russians absolute fits in the 6-9 months from now it takes to start fielding it. It’s not the one or the other option you’re calling it. The Russians have absolutely nothing comparable in parity to an Abrams or a LEOA5 or later. They’ve expended the best of their Armor. They are pulling 55s out to put them into service. Putting a Battalion of modern western armor anywhere is a serious problem for them they can’t easily solve, same as a half dozen GMLRs are giving them fits. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think people are missing the point he was rightly making. The people saying “it uses a chinook engine!” Or “it runs on jet fuel” don’t know what they hell they are talking about. Yes it’s a turbine, but it runs on the NATO common air ground fuel (F24) same as every other piece of equipment we own. It’s not unique like we have separate fuel trucks for it amongst every other vehicle in an Armor unit. You fill the M88 and Bradley off the very same trucks. Those are both conventional diesel engines. And it’s not a god damned chinook engine like so often parroted on the history channel. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Who told you this bullshit…? JP8 is low sulfur diesel. We run our gators, helicopters, generators, and tanks off the same fuel. I’ve literally watched fuelers use our FARP to also service the generators and Humvees from the same truck that has the single point running to the aircraft. It’s literally a fundamental requirement of our entire logistical model for ground forces in NATO. It’s been that way before my dad was in the Air Force. You can also run a number of non specific fuels similar to our cocktail in the M1. There are power pack inspections and different maintenance checks that have to be done, but it was literally built to fight a ground war in Europe. One where logistics would be limited and the primary Armor would need to be able to scavenge as well as use what was planned. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How many years passed between the Russia attempt to annex anything in Georgia and their bleeding in Afghanistan? Never mind the ridiculousness of comparing Afghanistan and Georgia with the conflict going on in Ukraine or the potential one in other Soviet Satellites like Poland/Czech etc. How many years did it take for the Old Bear to come out of its cave with teeth borne and attempt to seize territory? Because if this conflict in Ukraine resets the clock to even half that before the Russians can restore any sort of actionable conventional combat power we are getting off stupid cheap. We are also setting a very fine reminder to any other global leaders with ambitions of glory that maybe we aren’t going to just roll over and let you have country X, Sea Y, Straights of Wherever the hell…. And yes letting them off the hook in Georgia and Crimea (which some of us were screaming about then) did nothing but embolden them into the conflict you see today. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The system of life you enjoy is build around the framework that for the last 70+ years a developed country could not annex another developed country by force of arms without global repercussions (See Desert Storm). Failing to get off our collective asses and do something about Russia attempting to upend that system absolutely impacts your ability to “do normal stuff.” Because right now the accepted global norm is at the near bank of the Rubicon in what the accepted global status quo is. Throwing up the isolationist “not our problem,” is crossing that to the other bank which would be an entire new paradigm in the global status quo. One that will very well likely require us to get directly involved in a conflict of arms vs what is now a relatively simple matter of giving a somewhat friend the ability to hobble a definite opponent. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dark humor is best humor…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk