Lawman

I hear this line of stupid oddly enough from some of the very same people that vehemently defend the right of the citizenry to own spooky black plastic rifles. Saying cops should deliberately ignore a half a century of firearms technological development for the sake of “look less like the military I associate you with in my head” would be akin to saying “carry a revolver instead of a semi-auto pistol because screw actual usage and capability I want to feel better about the way you dress for work.” Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Have you ever participated in any of those training regimes? Are you just parroting the “research” of agenda reinforcing media outlets? There are in a given year ~1000 total deaths at the hands of an officer involved shooting. In that same year there are ~250 million police encounters which require an officer to go through the numbers that may result in a warning, arrest, use of force, etc. So ~.0004 percent of police interactions (most of which are responsive in nature) actually end with somebody dying at the hands of a cop. Trigger happy... right... This myth that cops somehow fancy themselves a bunch of snake eater/ranger Bn wannabes needs to go. It’s crap and the fact that they are “militarized” has nothing to do with a desire to be a military force and everything to do with needing gear that holds up to the ever expanding list of jobs we give them, having a budget that is paltry, and using the best outlet to get what you need, the military yard sale that we happily provide. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Lipstick on a pig... Look we need to accept that cheap and small/light are mutually exclusive terms. Persistence and hang time in the stack combined with the fact that a host of weapons to be carried could be dropped just as effectively from an AC-130 (ie from a non maneuvering MDS) and the sensors mean you don’t need to somehow combine aerobatic maneuver with an attempt to build SA in the battle space. For F sake, can we stop trying to reinvent the sky warrior. Those ODA’s on the ground don’t want a new take on the P-47... they want a pocket size easy to get set of options that mimic the AC-130J’s. Get a turboprop or small turbofan something from the commercial market, put sensors and non direct fire ordnance in a variety of options that can tailor to a fight, and accept the fact that gone are the days of gunning a locomotive with 6-8x .50 cals, because it’s dumb in a world of everything from rockets to bombs that will guide from miles outside the WEZ of anything expected in asscrackistan or African. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Just like moving forward forces out of Syria to avoid the cross fire of a NATO “ally” and Russian forces was fought tooth and nail by people who didn’t want us there in the first place... so will this be a “OMG Trump” issue. They want to leave, but they have to oppose leaving until they like the conditions/plan. Fact of the matter is they will never approve of any executable plan Trump has, but they know they can sport bitch the whole time and oppose him while he will leave because it’s what he said and what they oppose. They both get to play to their respective bases and make political talking points and YouTube clips for campaigning. Meanwhile we get to finally stop pissing away combat power and attrition the force no matter which group of political talking heads “wins.” Let’s do this. If I ever go back to Afghanistan it will be too damn soon. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Left June 1. The war has been pretty much over since Feb. The token drone strikes have been the best way of us yelling at our unruly children to “keep it down over there.” For the most part it’s like an agreeable breakup between us and the Taliban. We want out, they want us out, and after killing 3 generations of them continuously it won’t be shortly remembered that despite the rhetoric we have the ability to come in the night and take them like the boogie man at will. The only people clamoring for a fight is ISIS-K (reference IDF strikes on Bagram and Kabul). They are just trying to keeps us there because as soon as we are gone they are going to get spit roasted by the Taliban and the regular Afghan security forces. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think the hardest problem operating in this whole thing from a Military Orders and Mission Command perspective is the people with Birds/Stars on shoulders/Sleeves that are supposed to be making the play calls for us to take guidance from have all backed away from any decisions that have to be made. The reason they are doing that is the last great example of somebody with a Bird/Star sacking up and saying “this is my call as a commander and I’m making it,” got publicly fired out of a cannon and his Carrier taken away. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah don’t go anywhere... This green/red craziness CONUS/OCONUS stuff is just insane. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you effectively use this weapon as a short close in fight gun... Yes.... with a buttload of training. Look I love my M1A but I’m realistic about what it is. It’s entirely too heavy to be a long walk through the woods hunting rifle, and entirely too heavy bang with low capacity to be a close in fight gun or provide rapid available firepower like an AR (especially in a caliber like 300blk). It’s a bench gun or a gun that gets stashed in a trunk until needed. And it’s need it fills is hammering rounds at a semi rapid pace in that 300-500 yard block. The Socom is basically a really complicated/poor-method at making a designated marksman style rifle and you pay more for than an Archangel stock M1A precomp. It’s only advantage is “oh look how compact I am while still weighing more than any AR platform in similar performance.” It only wins a pro/con battle when it’s limited to other older style rifles (FAL, HK91, etc). It’s a solid gun, and if you’re just getting it because its different and makes louder noises at a range than you would with an AR, go nuts. Otherwise get something else on the M1A line, and go into it understanding Springfield either makes a sub MOA gun or they don’t with every one that comes off the line. You only know for sure after you shoot a box through it. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yet most of Kuwait is still built out of tents. Long term planning is hard in an organization where leaders only reap the rewards they are present for and think little of what they do now effecting anything further than 18 months out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All things Equal the manned platform will be preferred over unmanned. Yes *insert call sign here* was padlocked to just go look at something not even in the city limits of Raqqa repeatedly and not just by one task force JTAC. Yes, I’ve watched 9 lines punted from one asset to another because dudes training didn’t get it done or because they weren’t responsive enough to the dynamic nature of the target. Drones weren’t the primary VBIED killer over Mosul, the Apaches flying at Block 7-9 under them were. Or did they just imagine the 1100 Hellfires we shot into that city. You guys asked the open ended question of “does the ground force care” without actually living/knowing the ground force and you seem to have definitive answers to speak for those guys. Or you don’t buy it when somebody gives you their take. Which one of us probably has the answer and backstory as to why they feel the way they do about it. It’s not hard to know how they feel about drones vs manned aircraft and why they prefer one over the other when you actually spend time with the dude who to the rest of the stack is a callsign and suffix. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This isn’t “one time at Band Camp” crap. I’ve watched plenty of robots be either flat booted to “padlock useless building at grid....” or piss in the pool bad enough that they are pushed back for the rest of that task forces rotation when there is any other option. Remember not all of us on here are with Big Blue. Some of us live with the ground force. The guys that get all the toys are picky and they have their reasons. Whether there is an equipment limitation or other those guys design that sensor plan and there is a hierarchy to what they want if they get to pick from the whole menu. Robots aren’t at the top of it. Especially not if there is a Gunship or even a U-28 available. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Because when you compare the number of times a JTAC has had to bench a manned asset vs an unmanned one number is significantly higher than the other. It’s not that robots don’t have a place, it’s that historically if somebody in the stack is likely to go full Bozo it’s the drone. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah I think this falls into somebody sensationalizing the report when reality is “we don’t have a memo/frago for it.... yet.” In 72 hours we had procedures for masks service wide though so somebody please stop worrying about refining that crap and do some real work. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not just ground forces. Primary desire for the HAF going in with that GF aboard is that asset is both live and able to do it line of sight to all the players in the stack. SATCOM is a secondary. Ideal desire is that not only can that asset be manned, but be low enough in the stack and with a fires capability to do something about it. Hence why the Gunship is so tasked with that role. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That’s because Divisions don’t deploy as a complete set anymore. Easy way to tell the difference is names ca numbers. If they call themselves something like “Task Force Lightning” than it’s a 25th ID brigade with some supporting elements trying to sound like its badass. If it’s just some numbers... then it’s actual bad asses from somewhere in the SOCOM hierarchy and their supporting players. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You’ll never get Flag officers into the back of an OV-10. It’s cramped and there are no windows for their aide to lick. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

F that. Look how many damned times do we have to learn the same lesson on airplanes/helicopters that carry cargo (or passengers who disembark without landing). Ramps are a requirement. Period full stop. Anybody saying otherwise has never tried to put something not luggage into a “light cargo aircraft.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That guys numbers on available cargo loads were obviously limited to his experience on google. I would love to see the mission profile that has an Osprey lifting 20k anywhere in Afghanistan from the months of April-Oct with enough fuel to go anywhere outside the pattern. There is a reason nobody has come up with a “heavy lift” tilt rotor design that works. It’s because tilt rotor ACLs are more drastically effected by negative environmental performance due to the effective lift generated by the disk. That’s why the 53 and 47 are still projected out well into the middle of the century. You want to buy something to make a big impact in the log train? Let’s get more small robust/spartan interior Intra-theatre transport planes. Give us a plane big enough in cube space and forgiving enough on CG to put 2-3 randomly loaded pallets on with minimal effort to JI and move. That’s the reason the Army uses rotary wing to move stuff all the time at the cost of more blade hours and maintenance. It’s because when 2x ISUs and a dozen dudes need to go from KAF to JAF and I don’t have 3-4 days to wait to do it. Col wants that stuff up there now, and I’ve got 47Fs that can move it... unfortunately that means I take 2 chinooks doing a job to move 1/2 of a chinooks worth of stuff. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Better question... How are all these masks getting to deployed personnel at location X/Y/Z. We’re having conversations about rationing flight hours and not being able to get back filled on parts that might cause breaks in mission because of flights in/out of country. Now you’re telling me we are gonna get a C17 full of F’ing masks to some of these outlier places? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I wanted to choke a kid over here who said “this can’t get any worse” between this after losing the gym and having to go plates only in the chow hall. About smacked him, pointed at the big Charleston tail sitting on the ramp and went “You see that! Those can stop F’ing coming.” Morale is down no doubt, but this could get far far worse as far as making life suck over here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And we are closing out that show too... You act like there is an assumption we will just take the billion dollar deployments of units from the Stan and CENTCOM and transplant that to PI, African, etc... If it didn’t justify assets yesterday it won’t suddenly get the billion dollar stack we’ve become too accustomed too in recent years. We are broke, we are tired, we have to reset the military and buying stuff that would have been useful 12 years ago for a fight we are leaving isn’t going to be a big hit on the hill. It will lose its fight when people are asking to replace 25 year old armored vehicles or upgrade/replace a 45 year old 707 series of support aircraft that will be critical to a near peer fight. If your operation doesn’t justify all the help from ARSOA, U-28s, and AC-130s right now yet their mission still goes on, you’re crazy if you think there will suddenly be a JUONS that justifies AFSOC buying a bunch of light attack. Outside AVFID there is no and will be no appetite to put this thing to work. We are scaling back our SOF footprints because we desperately need too so what mass customer demand do you think is going to demand this, because they are the reason for its existence. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hate to break it to you guys but any and all desire at this point to spend money on this will die in approx 12-14 months. Afghanistan is over. The primary customer for this aircraft requirement is done doing missions. Every day that continues you move further and further from your single biggest example of justification. Nobody will care about building this capability for the next mired quagmire war. All the focus will go right back to the big war thinking and acquisitions and the best we can hope for is somebody saves all these power point briefings on a drive somewhere and is in the CSAF and others office on Day 1 of the occupation and rebuild in Venezuela/Sudan/whatever banging it into their heads we can’t afford to consume the F35 fleet flying it around for 10 years doing XCAS against Toyota’s with PKMs on them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well... back on our heads... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It could seek a rough field requirement and operate with a deliberate planning cycle to find/make one for prolonged ops. Something akin to what the expectation with 130s is. Fly in the gas when needed. A 47 or even a CV-22 acting as a FARP is 10k lbs of give easy. Heavier than that is possible, but requires a bit more thought. It wouldn’t even need to stay there as you could YoYo your FARP to a 130 and keep it airborne hold, Gas on call with an expected set up time. We already have this TTP for using RW CAS in the kind of fight we are talking about. We would just need a more restrictive set of requirements when seeking a site for it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’m curious how you would strategically position a fleet of unmanned F-16s in both a timely and useful manner. The reason these UAS platforms are built the way they are is it’s easier to crate them up and fly them in the belly of a big grey tailed aircraft than it is to try and figure out how to fly a Reaper/Pred/etc across all the airspace between us and the S-head country we need it to go too. Somebody with more F-16 experience please chime in on the level of difficulty if you were asked “get from Hill, and go to Thailand/Japan/Phil.... you can’t air refuel and also we aren’t allowed in the following countries airspace.” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk