Lawman

We already have composite components on the current fleet. The horizontal stabilator and the entire rotor system of the 64 (to include the new tail rotor) are entirely composite. Yes from a battle damage and austere repair requirement that does suck more than sheet metal and pro seal… but when you look at the problems inherent with the new build Chinook because of the structural decision on single milled frame components, that is a much bigger potential problem. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

We’ve always maintained that capability through crypto. We did the same with partner nations during the GWOT exercised use of GPS guided munitions. Yeah we gave them to the nation for their inventory, but we held back the SKL with the codes that make it useful for a level of control. Doing so puts our say so directly into their targeting cycle. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You guys are missing the most important win for the Army with this procurement…. In picking an aircraft like the V-22 we game the system on how it’s hours count to getting an airline job, substantially solving the man power problem we are facing with the current loss of personnel to RTP. Winning…. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

“Twitter using its power to silence misinformation is ok…. They are a private company entitled to treat the discourse on their platform to what they decide is truthful and fair…” *person with non liberal slant purchases twitter and even hints at changing the status quo* Facism! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or realize there are literally more non flying stupid jobs than can possibly be staffed, and now you’ve got a population that literally can’t threaten walking papers. “Oh you didn’t make O4/5/6 and are now 3 years AZ. Well I have this opportunity at Fort Polk….” Like I said, the careerist mindset will be a lot more cutthroat. Not because you’re trying to make rank, but more because you’re trying to “stay in the air conditioning.” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It is a “wide body.” I hear that’s what really matters. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

“I’m gonna get to fly Jets right?” Let’s just admit the only difference better the 20 year old versions of ourselves and others who decided to trade it in for something is the type of couch we were sitting on when we “agreed to it.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Along with that there were way to many people with Stars on that thought Biden would reverse what was happening so who needs a plan. And then like idiots we let the State Dep come up with a plan that had no red cell review from the way it fell apart. It’s like we wanted to make it harder. I remember standing in a brief with a 2 star that told us despite the peace there was no appetite to move the group somewhere else. Our presence would be “enduring.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sadly it would also raise the collective quality of individuals at the higher echelons of career. It’s no secret a whole lot of quality people with options and brains to be successful by and large leave, especially now with the pension having been changed to less lucrative from what it was. We are left with a depleted total talent pool to make LtCols out of… now while you effectively make the careerist mindset more cutthroat you also make it far easier to S-can that guy who can barely spell and shouldn’t be running a lemonade stand much less a squadron. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No no… the fact that literally nobody in a position of responsibility resigned or was fired after people fell off our gawd damned airplanes trying to escape and you had Apaches literally herding people off the runway with their wheels (and took fire in a few occasions)…. Totally normal. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It’s funny that everybody talks all this smack about Florida, but after it totally bolo’s 2000 they UN-ed their system and it’s probably one of the best in the country now. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And how about those Cornhole halftime dancers…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Little known fact… the same was true of Comanche. Thing has exposed bolt heads all over it. But it’s black = stealth. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

If you’ve seen some of the dollar figures per meal for deployed forces, it’s very much the old $600 toilet seat game… I won’t argue there isn’t an absolute necessity for the 3rd country guys and other local contract menial labor force because we physically can’t deploy enough people to do all those tasks. We don’t have the people. But yeah we are just kind of not caring what these companies actually do with the negotiated dollar figures once the contract is written. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That is very much the kind of kinked up logic that the government is using here. Like as long as we arent also making them have sex, it’s cool to have them washing dishes and doing the laundry for nothing but food and promise to maybe go home. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

To listen to them “so what” about the fact that California and other places are banning the movement of commercial goods with diesel vehicles it’s pretty obvious they don’t actually care what it costs people to live. They’ll just blame shortages of goods and price hikes on corporate profits and move on… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I heard an interesting counter to the “you were just gonna stay anyway” crowd in the command echelons. The Command Senior Warrant for USASOC tried that, a W4 flight lead from ARSOA goes “yeah I was gonna stay! And that bonus is what I give to the family I’m not seeing… so I don’t get divorced or hit with the Me or the Army ultimatum either way that money is small potatoes compared to the millions you’ve invested in me.” Dude just stared at him blankly having completely lost the room of people being told “you were just gonna row the boat anyway so why make your life less crappy.” Nobody in that level of leadership that makes decisions about bonus money would understand people not giving themselves wholly to the Military. You’re trying to convince people who the idea of getting out never occurred and they are so disconnected they think we all feel that way. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just think we (all services) have somehow moved away from joint strategy and understanding how we interact in a combatant command, and now all our acquisition strategies seem to be very selfish. The whole public media fight between the AF COS and Army COS about long range precision fires was a good example of it. The Marine Corps wholesale abandoning where it fit in doctrine of being that midpoint between quick reaction and the long spin up of heavy forces being another. We seem to lack any desire for somebody to sit down and define a strategy of “what and where is our big fight, and how does that define what equipment we have and what we need to go get.” That’s going to get even more pronounced when the big budget axes start coming out and suddenly that thing a service bought in small quantity primarily to support another services capabilities goes away in favor of their own needs *cough JStars* *Cough C27* … oh excuse me… The Army is doing the same thing where it’s said “ok plan they can’t be there now” which makes all our stuff heavier as it’s taking more on and now we’ve made our transport and logistics problem even harder on ourselves. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“Lt Dan they got Ice-cream!!!” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is an entire domain of conflict that will happen outside the USAF vs PLAAF scenario involving the Chinese which will not just be trading and defending tit for tat long range fires and hoping one side doesn’t go nuclear first… Yes lean to your strengths and all, but the Joint Forces commander is going to ask for a lot more than just long range strike. If the Chinese put that massive body of ground and Naval forces into the fight in the region something will have to go forward and dislodge them. I’d hope since we have for over half a century planned with the idea of Air Superiority generated from the Air that we wouldn’t be suddenly changing that idea to go it alone on the ground. That’s gonna require those shorter reactive tactical range air assets that have to live close/inside of to Chinese long range precision fires, and those by extension are going to need gas to do anything useful. Suddenly not being just at the couple massive bases and getting off the normal beaten path is going to be necessary for survival of that combat power. No I don’t see any scenario where it is in our interest to go invade mainland China, but all those islands and regional partners are likely places where we need to put our people on the ground either to deter or dislodge. Since we would more than likely be responding to the aggressor, dislodge (and the offensive fires/prep it will take to make it successful) seems more likely. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

See this… this was informative to the nature of the problems. And yes to your last point some sort of roll on, “this is now a tanker!” Module like system was kind of what I was thinking. Essentially it’s what we do with a Chinook or 53 when we outfit it to be a flying FARP, we just know that outside of Osprey there isn’t clean air to drag a drogue in. Osprey there is… the question is whether the juice is worth the squeeze taking its already defined roles and adding a trick to it. Probably is, but that’s because right now an Amphib has no organic tanker, and a hell of a lot of fuel pass requirements if they want to use those F35s. But it’s a conscious decision to take that heavy lift asset and make it a gas station. It isn’t taken lightly because it’s value doing anything else is lost. I’m just curious if the idea is we need in an INDOPACOM type fight gonna need big numbers of fuel to push stuff but also need it to be able to deploy to austere locations to avoid being targeted…. Ok well here is a big ass airplane that can carry a lot and land in some places a 135/10/46 wouldn’t dream…. Maybe it’s an idea worth pursuing so let’s do the math on a reasons why it won’t work with a list of challenges to overcome. Or maybe we look in a filing cabinet and find a white paper somebody did kinda like sticking Harms on a Fulcrum. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That is one of my biggest “you’re an idiot and here is why” point for the people that look at Ecological impacts and ignore economics. It doesn’t matter how god damned clean you make the planet if the results of your actions cause the mass strife leading to some strong man lunatic in a nuclear power making new craters in Kashmir or something. You will go back on a whole lot of work with some simplistic single metric like axing carbon if you do it while simultaneously making the price of food/utilities unaffordable, amplifying water scarcity impacts by diverting from agriculture, bankrupting governments dependent on fossil fuel income to support their near crazy citizenry, etc. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So…. Morale and the wiling support of your Sol… excuse me, Airmen isn’t just some farcical concept, it’s an expendable item no different than fuel, or parts on hand, etc. The sooner leadership realizes that pissing away general moral for their own victories in “see I made an order and they followed it!” The better. The military can absolutely order all of us to do a lot of things, some of them stupid/pointless and some of them even lethal in consequence. It could by the very construct of lawful orders also institute draconian curfews and restrict all the personnel to base/post if the leadership really wanted to. We saw a lot of that kind of dumb “I can do this so I will” kind of actions when you had divisional commanders make policy like no you can’t go to a restaurant regardless of vaccination because I said so. We are only know between bad ideas and cover their ass policies understanding that dumb ideas like that are a lousy hill to chose to die on in an organization that disbanded flogging and summery executions long ago so yeah in a lot of ways you issue orders and they obey an oath. That is because the expectation those issued orders are followed is a form of capital (ie morale and support) that is finite. Yes men and women will charge up that hill or go in that no fail mission where they aren’t likely to return without vocalizing questions or stopping, that’s the accepted standard we have between our leaders and their subordinate groups that have to follow them. But they do that because you DIDNT piss away that expendable capital on dumb shit like making people do something dumb thats reasoning is built on shaky justifications because it was the politically required thing to do. Stop spending your finite resource to make your people do something just because you said so as a reason, and acknowledge it is finite. Or at the very least openly say to your people “yes this is dumb, but it’s mandated by the civilians that run this dog and pony show.” Don’t pretend it’s some secret science of risk mitigation that only people with stars understand. That’s as dumb as saying you will all write left handed now for your own safety and if you don’t there will be consequences.

When you are actively shooting as much as 60k rounds of artillery a day, nobody currently has industrial capacity to maintain that. Buying ordnance from North Korean stockpiles isn’t a sign you have this going well for you logistically. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know a couple oil field experts… So discussion as to “why is big oil recording record profits…” comes from them making a deliberate effort to grow cash reserves that had been depleted over the last few years. A large driver in doing this is the expected drop in leasable well heads and lands to do exploratory drilling under the shift in administrations. The anticipation is that with lower leasable heads the price per well will jump and the company without the free cash to go after them will be left out of the dwindling available US market. The oil companies are literally planning for the rainy day that the admin is telegraphing is coming whether they like it or not, and we as consumers are paying for it. So yes, the President does have a hand in this along with OPEC, taxes by region, and supply lines and every other talking point issue on why gas costs so much. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk