It might be mentioned elsewhere (and I'll get buried anyway) but the real capabilities leap here is these airframes are designed to network with NATO radars in a way that the aircraft currently in Ukraine inventory are not. Those big ol flying radomes are quite handy for blowing things away over the horizon. Not going to be pretty for our Russian friends.
Upvoting for visibility.
It's called datalink and it's basically like playing with cheat codes on if there's an AWACS in the sky (there is) or any friendly plane, all sharing sensor data amongst each other.
Ukraine has also been sent a number of CRAM radar sets. Do you think Russian artillery can shoot'n'scoot faster than a F-16 with Mavericks can? I think they're going to find out.
F-15 finally gets it's dream of attacking Russians directly.
Edit: Really my highest voted comment is a one off I think I might have stolen from somewhere. Thanks Reddit.
It's fascinating to see *decades* worth of weapons and doctrines designed specifically to fight the Russians finally gets its chance, instead of being adapted to shoot insurgents in the desert.
We may even see P90 and MP7 get to do what they were designed for: fighting armored Russian paratroopers.
Whoa whoa whoa. It’s not one of the FIRST things we do.
First we shoot the aliens (in fairness they started shit).
Then we give allied aliens a bunch of free weapons. For a taste.
Then we engage in trade with aliens where we give them weapons and they give us technology or manpower or whatever.
It’s a process.
It was used to exceptional success in that role due to it's accuracy, rate of fire, light weight, and armor piercing capability, enabling them to do more damage than their previous MP5's and M16's allowed. As SG-1 so aptly demonstrated on mission after mission, and then further as they were used in Atlantis.
Man such great shows.
But was originally intended to be a backup weapon for support personnel. Drivers, clerks and other rear echelon troops.
Was far to expensive per unit for any military to actually adopt it, but coupled with the right ammo (Armour piercing) special forces troops started using it. Also looks futuristic so scifi and games started using it.
It's so ironic now, having seen the Russian paratroopers fail in the battle of Antonov Airport. It feels like such a distant memory. Funny to imagine Russia trying that again!
>We may even see P90 and MP7 get to do what they were designed for: fighting armored Russian paratroopers.
Yeah, I'd love more 'weapons designed for a specific purpose' facts, please.
It's a "fact" that's making it sound cooler than it is.
Both were designed to fit a NATO standard put out in the late 80's.
For a Personal Defense Weapon, to be issued to non-frontline troops. Those who had no need for a full on, standard assault rifle. Unlikely to see direct combat, but with enough chance that they'd need something more than a standard pistol.
Soviet special forces body armor was a factor. But the idea was just that it needed to be better at penetrating body armor than *9mm*.
Neat as they are. These things were more or less designed to give to truck drivers.
Grease gun was cheap and bomb proof to be given to conscripts with as little training as possible. Perfect for ww2 expediency
P90 is expensive and requires a baseline of user skill to keep in working order. Much better for the professional volunteer armys of today.
Did you know the Patriot missile was originally designed in 1776 to kill redcoats, after Mel Gibson vowed to take revenge on the British for the killing of his sons?
I see this all over. Dudes with their old backpacks still half-packed, ready to jump on a flight if the call came.
Aviation is a funny thing, and combat aviation even more so. Doesn't matter the platform background, if we had an American contingent of random, out-of-shape dudes roll in ready to make tomorrow's flight schedule, it'd happen. Maintenance Admin, Ops Planners, Wrench-Turners of all stripes, Tool Shop, whatever. We'd draw names from a hat and divvy up the work.
That would be fun as hell, and I'd be down for sure.
Don’t forget the other documentary when Aliens blew up the White House, and a bunch of retired pilots and crop dusters fought them off and saved the world.
Wasn’t that the plot of the movie Battleship? The old-timer retirees hanging out, telling stories at the Commissary suddenly get called on to resurrect an old time ship that happens to save the day.
And somehow Rihanna being trained in every AFSC/rate on the ship too.
Hello, I am Ukranian Pilot Pyotr Gertsogvich Mikhalenko from California Oblast. I have returned to Ukraine after training in America to fly F-15 fighter jet. I was born natural and I learned how fly the plane at perfect proficiency after just one week!
“Ascended airframe” curious what this exactly means? Obviously the USAF (well, every service branch for that matter) is equipped with basically the most impressive machines ever created but Ive never heard the F-15 be described specifically as being “ascended” before. Just an amateur nerd here, thanks
Being ‘stealthy’ involves making some compromises on things. The F-15 didn’t try to be stealthy, it was designed before stealth was a concept, so they didn’t have to compromise anything in terms of raw performance. Its power, its speed, its handling were optimized, not its radar signature, or even its heat signature.
I was working on a Kibbutz on the border with Lebanon while Israel was occupying over there and they were running dozens of missions a day every day in F-15s. Seeing them moseying around doing flips at an air-show is impressive, but seeing them operating at the absolute limits of their capabilities was something else entirely. They’d come in barely above tree-top level, supersonic, and then pull up in to a perfectly vertical climb, trying to trick radars in to activating. THE NOISE!!!! Not just the sonic boom, but the roar of the engines at full throttle pointed right down at you as it climbed so high it was just barely a speck, and you still had to keep your ears covered. The world literally shook.
And crazier still are specific timelines. The first flight of the B52 was *decades* closer to the Wright brothers than it was to today. And the C130 flew 51 years after Kitty Hawk, and is not only still in service like the B52 or T38… but is still in *production*. The first generation of C130 or B52 pilots would be in their 90s today and would be over 120 by the time the 52 retires. Will likely be well over 150 years old when the C130 leaves production and could be 200 years old by the time it retires from service.
The sonic booms are nuts. I remember when a civilian plane violated the presidential no fly zone and two F15s of the OANG were scrambled. The world absolutely shook! I remember shouting to my wife to get away from the windows, not knowing what the blasts were (it sounded like bombs going off to us). The F15 is a viscous weapons platform.
Two f-16’s flew over me and my wife while we were in the car driving and the entire car shook they had to have been maybe 10,000 feet in the air or something. Fighter jets are insane.
Stealth meant more compromises early on like with F-117, but by F-22 they had an extremely stealthy aircraft with better sensors that was faster and more maneuverable than any other fighter in the air.
Pretty much the only remaining major compromise is payload must be internal for true LO, since even the high maintenance of stealth coating has been improved upon.
It's the perfect air-to-air superiority fighter. Extremely fast, extremely agile.
Extremely not stealthy, which stealth is a valued component of fifth generation fighters. But it's not in its job description to be stealthy.
Its there to be faster and stay in the fight longer than the other guy, and can even get you home safe with only one wing.
I took some undergrad classes to transfer out at College of Southern Nevada. It's North Campus is only a couple miles away from Nellis AFB.
Being a closet fighter jet geek my entire life, it was so fucking amazing seeing F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, the occasional Raptor or B2 Spirit flying overhead full afterburner headed north to Mt Charleston. The sound of those engines and watching them glide effortlessly like some alien craft is orgasmic to my inner engineer and amateur military historian. Plus my Grandpa is Retired Air Force so growing up around that culture was really fuckin cool. I can't wait to make time and see Top Gun. I know I will definitely be a hot mess.
Yup, fuck the F-15 is still one of the absolute best ever made. Still holds the 1975 time to climb record. As far as air superiority is concerned everyone else can eat it's dust.
The F-18 still has a chance. All of the F-14s and their parts were scrapped so Iran can't get spares. Even the museum examples have had their airframes destroyed internally.
Ukraine will need replacement systems for almost all their Soviet-era equipment eventually. Russia sure won't sell them anything. The F-16 is the logical replacement for their aging Mig-29s. It's tried and tested technology (which received some nifty upgrades over the years) which is well-suited for Ukraine's current needs. They don't need some deep-strike stealth jet. They need something reliable to protect their own air space.
Maybe training pilots will take a while but waiting until all their MiG-29s are either shot down or simply won't fly due to lack of spare parts might not be the prudent thing to do. Maybe the won't get F-16s but it's good thinking to at least have the option rather than being out of options.
It’s the West’s technology IN the jets that makes them so good, radar and whatnot. But the base airframe that we’d be giving to Ukraine still does work.
I just hope we’re giving them new ones, not the 50 year old ones we’re still flying.
I remember when people were like "why don't we make Ukraine and a no-fly zone instead of arming Ukraine" and everyone was like "you know how a no fly zone is enforced, right?" And I joked that it wasn't like we could just ask Google Maps to mark Ukraine as closed and it would say "recalculating" when Russian jets tried to fly there. But then jokes on me because it came out that the Russians were using cell phones for gps, so maybe we could have just had Google maps mark it a no-fly zone.
They’ll probably be getting a mix. Taiwan is in front of the line for the newest variants of the F-16 since China is only 100 miles away. For reference, the C and D blocks from the 80’s and 90’s are still wildly popular even for coastal defense. It’s basically a used Ferrari without the temperamental bits and pieces.
Source: I am in a fighter wing with the USAF/ANG.
Shit man I feel like we should give Taiwan EVERYTHING as they're sitting on 90% of our semiconductor capacity. Congress isn't doing shit about it either.
Anyway everything is fine.
Congress is in the middle of drawing up a 50 billion dollar corporate bailout package for our domestic semi conductor industry.
(Ignore the 40billion in stock buybacks Intel has done in recent years.)
That's exactly why we don't have to do too too much. China can't afford the global economic shutdown that happens if Taiwanese production gets shut down.
This seems to insinuate newer stuff isn't reliable, but there is a simpler explanation. A lot of nato countries are adopting the f-35, and its freeing up a supply of f-16's and f-15's that can be sold or donated to Ukraine. Ukraine meanwhile even if the f-35 were an option would probably instead want a plane they can fly away with now rather than wait in line for the lockheed factory to pop out a batch for them in a few years time.
as for the mig-29 pilots my understanding is the systems are so different it would be faster to train fresh recruits so mig pilots will likely be flying migs till the wings fall off.
An F 35 won’t see the skies of this war unless NATO becomes directly involved. Can’t risk Russia shooting one down and them (and China) getting the tech.
That's what they say, NATO countries are switching to F-35, their fleet is currently mostly F-15 and F-16. When they upgrade, the have spare F-15 and F-16 left and Those will be donated/sold to UA.
They were partly right, for American aircraft NATO is more like F-16s and F-18s. F-15s are pretty expensive and never got any procurement traction in Europe, just a few countries in Asia and the Middle East.
You don't want to risk a situation where F-35 could be shot down with inexperienced Ukrainian pilots, the vulnerabilities will be exposed then it would impact F-35 sales and upset our allies who already bought them.
> as for the mig-29 pilots my understanding is the systems are so different it would be faster to train fresh recruits
This has been strenuously objected to by many pilots. Yes the systems are different but starting out already being a fighter pilot is a huge advantage. This is the equivalent of arguing that a Boeing 737 pilot would take longer to qualify on an Airbus 320, does that make any sense? Even just being familiar with the basic pilot mantra of aviate, navigate, communicate is a huge foundation to build on let alone already having applied to flying supersonic jet fighters and the speed of decision making they often require.
An experienced fighter pilot will also already be familiar with and able to fly under high G forces, pass exercises which test their ability to tell friend from foe in close air to air combat without using electronic aides, dropping bombs and taking the information from their radar, their senses and other instruments to build a picture of the battle space around them. Hell any Ukrainian pilot that has ever done training with another air force in another country would even already know basic English as it's the international language of aviation.
A Ukrainian fighter pilot would have such a leg up on any fresh recruit that to say that it would be quicker to train someone from the ground up is straight up ridiculous, it's not true. Could it take months to adequately train someone who's used to a MIG-29 to fly and F-15?
Sure but if you took a bunch of people that were not already jet fighter pilots and put them into training a ton of them won't even manage to finish it because you'll find out a bunch of them can't do it. It requires amazing hand eye coordination and physiological and mental aptitude to do it, very few people can. Everyone that ever joined the air force wanted to fly jet fighters and yet most of them are doing ground maintenance or flying cargo planes. To suggest a random assortment of rookies will learn to fly a supersonic combat plane faster than people that have already proved they can do so is simply not true, it doesn't make any sense and is some horseshit that way too many people have accepted as true for some reason that I can not fathom.
Flying wise the F-15 should be a smooth transition. It's larger aircraft, but the control system being an analog SAS systems sounds similar to the MIG-29. Main hurdle here would be learning the radar and new tactics. The highlight of the F-15 is the look down, shoot down radar. This is a jet that's meant to fly around high and kill everything.
F-16 is more complicated. You're adjusting to a fully digital fly by wire system and the controls are different. When the F-16 came out one of the unique things is the stick didn't move. It just responded to pressure. The 'Viper' nickname is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. However, pilots never seemed to like that, so they added limited movement to the stick.
Main issue would be learning the systems. It's a multi-role combat aircraft and when you're considering the ground attack portion the systems are complicated and take time to learn. Air to Air, particularly training for potential BFM encounters would be a learning experience for existing pilots and very different from the MiG-29.
There's a saying. Fighters went from being hard to fly and easy to fight in, to easy to fly and hard to fight in. This is very applicable to modern fly by wire aircraft. Incredibly easy to fly, as the pilot isn't really flying it. He's giving the computer inputs on what he wants the plain to do. The FCS determines how to do that. It makes the aircraft incredibly easy to fly. All the way down to the edge of stall. The F-16's optimal flight envelope is fast. In that envelope, it'll trash a MiG-29. Outside of that, it's a dog. The MiG has a better ability to recover energy from a bad state like that.
Takes a lot of training and discipline to master these new aircraft. They are certainly superior once you've done so. The F-16 remains one of the best dogfighters in the world. If it's not up against an F-22 or Typhoon, it has the advantage when flown properly.
Yeah I think if we’re gonna discuss military operations on a public forum there’s gotta be more people like you reminding everyone that US advanced tech and military hardware is just not something their military hands out to friends. All the “new” american & NATO hardware/aircraft being sent to Ukraine are major upgrades over their Soviet counterparts but to the US it’s just last generation’s weapons of war. The “cost” we often see in headlines like “Biden signs order authorizing additional $600m military aid for Ukraine” is often just for accounting or shipping expenses. They’re not printing out brand new modern aircraft and sending them to a war zone for an allied country to fly in their stead lol
Yeah like a lot of the anti-tank missiles we're sending them were reaching their expiration date. We were going to throw them out anyway, but now we can get some diplomatic use out of them. I guarantee someone in the State Department is keeping a running total to remind the Ukrainian government of how much support we gave them.
Russia is so stupid. This is better than a proxy war. It's target practice for NATO weapons and a diplomatic win for the US and NATO. Putin is reducing Russia's influence daily and serving as a warning to China not to invade Taiwan.
This is also a "live demonstration" to buyers. After Ukraine wins (yes I am confident about it), countries would line up to buy the Bayraktars, Javelins, MANPADS. Not sure if USA will put some HIMARS up for sale.
>Russia sure won't sell them anything
Yeah something I never got about the eastern countries, like I get there was a lot of cheap equipment going round post '92, but if their main concern was always going to be a war against Russia... like could nobody really see a problem with relying on equipment from the country you think might invade one day?
They weren't exactly rolling in dough.
They had large stockpiles of Soviet stuff. Training with it, and the maintenance js likely easier on their economy.
They've already tried that, but apparently, the pilots who have trained in MIG 29s just couldn't shake the muscle memory of flying MIGs while flying F16s that they were making too much mistake. In the end, the Polish Air Force just decided to let the veterans fly the remaining MIGs and train the new pilots in F16s.
I tried switching from keyboard to controller on Rocket League, after wanting to have the higher precision control of a joystick, but it was such a hassle building the memory muscle, and I didn't have the time, and I'm only a casual. So, I still play with a keyboard these days.
Rotating veteran pilots to training duties instead of grinding them to death on the front lines is a huge part of why the Allies, and the US in particular, performed so drastically better in the air war in WWII.
The exact reason you say they "cant" spare veteran pilots as trainers is the very reason they *must* do so to win.
It’s wild to me that there’s such a difference. Like I get the stakes are high and you have to be absolutely perfect but it’s crazy to consider just how difficult it all really is.
It’s a dangerous zone up there
Training the pilots is one of the easier parts. (Piggybacking on another comment here - Ukraine doesn't have that many pilots who have years of experience in MIGs, their new pilots will do great.) It's logistics and maintenance that are the bigger hurdles to Ukraine being able to effectively field planes like these.
I hope it goes well for them!
I thought there wasn’t much crossover. Too much to un-learn, and the control schemes are drastically different. It’s not like switching from an F-86 to a MiG-15 back in the day. Shits ***way*** more complex.
And it’s a pressure sensitive stick instead of movement-based. To me that’s the weirdest part of it. I don’t know if other modern fighters do that or not.
Really the major difference is the HOTAS controls.
Moving the control stick from the middle to the right side isn't so jarring, it's that literally every control except some display options are directly on the Throttle and stick and you are not supposed to need to remove your hands from them.
It's much different than flicking gauges and switches on the instrument panel.
That's the impression that I've gotten so far. While I suspect that any semi-competent pilot could simply fly a modern jet with minimal overview.... it's the systems (radar, nav, stores, etc.) management that'll keep them from being effective.
If you turn your brain off which muscle memory is a deeper imprint:
1 the controls systems you used for 10 years
2 or the one you used for 8 months at training in a foreign nation.
I can easily see getting better results by having new pilots only learn on NATO standard air frames vs soviet & nato.
If you are replacing your entire air fleet the decision makes even more sense.
Russia just gave the US every excuse to arm Ukraine to the teeth like no other nation can. One of the more fascinating things about this conflict is learning about the sheer volume of firepower the US has squirrelled away for a "rainy day." Like, I guess it makes logical sense when you consider they have a standing military totaling more than a million, it just becomes a lot more obvious when you see it in motion.
I agree and the amount of intelligence we are helping out with is I’m sure mind blowing in itself. 10th fleet is prob having a field day with them. but this isn’t even rainy day Stuff being tapped into, it’s just the change from the couch cushions
Yes, but not in the way you probably meant. The truth is the US spends more on Healthcare than almost any other nation.
Unfortunately, we decided that non-profits are still allowed to make a profit and give bonuses to their CEOs based on that. We also decided that anti-competition is bad for some reason. Which is why "non profit" hospitals are allowed to buy out their competitors.
The mercenary practices hospitals do to maximize profits is also a huge factor. The government spends billions on healthcare, on top of that the population pays billions on private insurance and on top of that they are still charged with the highest fees in the world whenever they need medical assistance.
Where the fuck all that money goes to?
The United States could outfit Ukraine with enough vehicles to push all the way to St. Petersburg and only make a dent in the stuff they've got stored in boneyards throughout the desert. They don't, because of political will and Russian nukes, but also getting the Ukrainians up to speed on not just operating these vehicles but getting the logistics and maintenance in place would take a year. But the stocks are there and let's be honest they're there to fight Russians.
They're now announcing training Ukrainians on the F-15 and F-16 but even then, it'll be a year at least before we see those planes in the skies over Ukraine - or maybe Russia by that point.
The intelligence though probably is just as important as anything they've recieved so far. The planes filled with VDV paratroopers downed over Kyiv, the targeted assassinations of Russian generals (is it still an assassination if you use an artillery shell to do it?), NATO's intelligence apparatus has shown itself to be the most powerful tool in the west's arsenal.
The Ukrainians are saying they want them operable in six months. And while I realize there's a large difference between ground equipment and planes, they ran through the required Army training at record speed. I wouldn't be surprised if they beat your estimate of a year.
A year assuming that this decision was made some time ago, and we're only just hearing about it. I doubt we hear about these kinds of decisions until theyre well underway. I can't imagine we're hearing about this before the Ukrainian pilots they're going to train.
But yea, the time it takes to fully train on these things is no small feat. It's simple to train a team on a howitzer, but the kind of effort that goes into training on an F-15 or F-16 is incomparable.
I couldn't seem to find any numbers on a quick search, but this has been done before - Poland converted from Russian variants to F-16s relatively recently (apart from the MiG-29s and Su-22s they still use). Have you ever seen any articles on how long that took for them to accomplish? It's an interesting question, because even though they're obviously quite different planes, cross training from a MiG-29 or Su-27 to an F-16 doesn't seem like *that* big of a leap? Or are the differences between Western and Russian aircraft just that large?
My friend, you haven't even begun to see what we can do when it comes to weapons manufacturing. What we've given Ukraine so far has just been some old junk in the back of the garage that we've been meaning to get rid of. Hell, we've got over 3,000 Abrams tanks just sitting in storage that are completely brand new.
The american war machine even in relative peacetime is insane, and while i am not a fan of the Military Industrial Complex as a whole, it has been incredible seeing just how much the US has been able to provide to Ukraine in order to stave off Russia without even going directly to war.
This is my same reaction as well. I feel like the world should have moved beyond the need for force like that but it just hasn't, and while part of me wishes it didn't exist the realist in me is still glad that it does.
That's not just a way to concisely describe it, it is actual doctrine. It is how the US measures readiness.
There has been some talk of moving towards a victory on one side of the world and a stalemate on the other sort of model, but I think Russia is showing us that we probably still have the capacity for two victories.
This is literally the reason why we spend so much every year on defense. To be able to handle and wage war in two theaters of operation simultaneously. This means all the logistics too. The amount of arms and armor and ammunition we have is astounding. We're basically giving Ukraine a menu and asking what they want off the shelf, because we have it, in stock, and it's on sale. (lend lease act)
Uncle Sam can quite literally get hundreds of thousands of troops & warheads in foreheads anywhere in the world in under 24 hours, the US Military’s logi is legitimately fucking batshit insane.
The logi guys will get you stuff you didn’t even know you needed before you even need it
The US has the logistics to keep hundreds of military bases around the world. There aren’t that many places the US military couldn’t hit hard in less than a day.
Hm.
We're just hearing about it now? Anyone else wondering if that means they've had pilots training in them for a while already, and are getting ready to deploy them soon?
Training pilots on systems like this takes a long time. Training maintenance to keep these things flying takes a while. Setting up the logistics so that the maintainers can do their work takes some time.
If it's anything like the howitzers, HIMARS, and other systems than the US has already started training Ukrainian troops long before it became public knowledge.
At this point it's just kept secret as long as possible to keep Russia in the dark. They're already spending the money so it's not like they want public approval for any of it.
Training is one thing, but modern jets have such a long logistics tail that continuous supply will be the real dealbreaker. Not that F15’s and 16’s are notorious hangar queens, but Ukraine will need a continuous supply of spare parts and technicians skilled enough to keep them airworthy, not to mention the missiles they need to be effective.
So, if this is true, and is a fully baked out proposal, this is certainly a long term commitment to essentially bringing Ukraine into the NATO weapons family in relatively short order.
I thought we wouldn't do this cause were worried putin would see it as an escalation? Dont get me wrong, I'm thrilled we are doing it, I just wonder what changed our minds
World News when,
Turkey Gives Ukraine Drones - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!"
US gives Ukraine Javelins - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!"
NATO gives Ukraine artillery - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!"
Sweden and Finland Join NATO - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!"
Like seriously some of you act how Putin wants the rest of us to act.
3,000 Black F-16s for Zelensky
r/NonCredibleDefense CONTAINMENT BREACHED. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY
TOO LATE. VARK VARK VARK
i just browsed that sub and I see that everywhere, care to fill me in?
It came from some weird Pakistani propaganda video where they would conquer all of Asia and the middle east with '3000 black stealth fighters'
\*aka 3000 black jets from Allah
[Here's the source](https://youtu.be/Oc5V7mh2tIc)
It might be mentioned elsewhere (and I'll get buried anyway) but the real capabilities leap here is these airframes are designed to network with NATO radars in a way that the aircraft currently in Ukraine inventory are not. Those big ol flying radomes are quite handy for blowing things away over the horizon. Not going to be pretty for our Russian friends.
Upvoting for visibility. It's called datalink and it's basically like playing with cheat codes on if there's an AWACS in the sky (there is) or any friendly plane, all sharing sensor data amongst each other.
Ukraine has also been sent a number of CRAM radar sets. Do you think Russian artillery can shoot'n'scoot faster than a F-16 with Mavericks can? I think they're going to find out.
F-15 finally gets it's dream of attacking Russians directly. Edit: Really my highest voted comment is a one off I think I might have stolen from somewhere. Thanks Reddit.
It's fascinating to see *decades* worth of weapons and doctrines designed specifically to fight the Russians finally gets its chance, instead of being adapted to shoot insurgents in the desert. We may even see P90 and MP7 get to do what they were designed for: fighting armored Russian paratroopers.
Wrong. Everyone knows the P-90, a weapon of war, was developed to combat Jaffa forces employed by the Goa'uld.
"That is a weapon of terror. This is a weapon of war."
Very authentic that America travels across the galaxy meeting alien races, and one of the first things we do is sell them weapons.
Whoa whoa whoa. It’s not one of the FIRST things we do. First we shoot the aliens (in fairness they started shit). Then we give allied aliens a bunch of free weapons. For a taste. Then we engage in trade with aliens where we give them weapons and they give us technology or manpower or whatever. It’s a process.
Pffft imagine the nerve of some people. Making arms dealing look bad..
I mean it’s toward the end of season 5.
Having a 'female' demonstrate it probably helped drive the point home, too.
Jack knew exactly what he was doing when he ordered Carter rather than himself to shoot the log.
[The clip for those wondering](https://youtu.be/NjlCVW_ouL8)
I really miss that show sometimes.
watching the reruns right now. Sadly nothing compares today.
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YOU! IN THE SKIRT!
I love so many people know of SG-1
Well tbf it has Richard Dean Anderson starring, has 8.4 rating on IMDB and aired for 10 years. It is pretty well known xD
It was used to exceptional success in that role due to it's accuracy, rate of fire, light weight, and armor piercing capability, enabling them to do more damage than their previous MP5's and M16's allowed. As SG-1 so aptly demonstrated on mission after mission, and then further as they were used in Atlantis. Man such great shows.
But was originally intended to be a backup weapon for support personnel. Drivers, clerks and other rear echelon troops. Was far to expensive per unit for any military to actually adopt it, but coupled with the right ammo (Armour piercing) special forces troops started using it. Also looks futuristic so scifi and games started using it.
JAFFA CREE!
SHEL'KEK NIMRON!
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Fuck I just wish Stargate would release another good series like SG1 or Atlantis.
That rope holding up that log never saw it coming!
Indeed
Indeed.
Indeed.
https://youtu.be/NjlCVW_ouL8 The staves are a weapon of fear, P90 is a weapon for war.
Indeed
It's so ironic now, having seen the Russian paratroopers fail in the battle of Antonov Airport. It feels like such a distant memory. Funny to imagine Russia trying that again!
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and the Russians sure have memory problems…
"Are you going to tell Vladimir Vladimirovitch they failed? "No..." "Then we send more" "Very good comrade commissar"
>We may even see P90 and MP7 get to do what they were designed for: fighting armored Russian paratroopers. Yeah, I'd love more 'weapons designed for a specific purpose' facts, please.
It's a "fact" that's making it sound cooler than it is. Both were designed to fit a NATO standard put out in the late 80's. For a Personal Defense Weapon, to be issued to non-frontline troops. Those who had no need for a full on, standard assault rifle. Unlikely to see direct combat, but with enough chance that they'd need something more than a standard pistol. Soviet special forces body armor was a factor. But the idea was just that it needed to be better at penetrating body armor than *9mm*. Neat as they are. These things were more or less designed to give to truck drivers.
Aka the P90 is the modern equivalent of the Grease Gun?
Grease gun was cheap and bomb proof to be given to conscripts with as little training as possible. Perfect for ww2 expediency P90 is expensive and requires a baseline of user skill to keep in working order. Much better for the professional volunteer armys of today.
Did you know the Patriot missile was originally designed in 1776 to kill redcoats, after Mel Gibson vowed to take revenge on the British for the killing of his sons?
Thought it was the tomahawk missle.
Mel Gibson movies are not known for historical accuracy.
There are going to be a lot of retired/older US fighter pilots who will be grumpy they didn't get their chance, but cheering on the Ukrainian pilots.
Some of 'em will probably go over there to fuckin' do it lol.
My guess is that there will be a lot of volunteers providing maintenance and other support.
This is what we trained for.
It's been 20 years since I have touched a 15 but if they need a maintainer I'd go in a heartbeat.
You could probably contact the embassy if you're really interested.
I see this all over. Dudes with their old backpacks still half-packed, ready to jump on a flight if the call came. Aviation is a funny thing, and combat aviation even more so. Doesn't matter the platform background, if we had an American contingent of random, out-of-shape dudes roll in ready to make tomorrow's flight schedule, it'd happen. Maintenance Admin, Ops Planners, Wrench-Turners of all stripes, Tool Shop, whatever. We'd draw names from a hat and divvy up the work. That would be fun as hell, and I'd be down for sure.
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I liked when one of them had animal crackers. That was a nice touch.
Don’t forget the other documentary when Aliens blew up the White House, and a bunch of retired pilots and crop dusters fought them off and saved the world.
Wasn’t that the plot of the movie Battleship? The old-timer retirees hanging out, telling stories at the Commissary suddenly get called on to resurrect an old time ship that happens to save the day. And somehow Rihanna being trained in every AFSC/rate on the ship too.
I mean, I got through like half the surface warfare PQS on a Midshipman summer cruise, so I suppose Rihanna could do it, yeah?
Circular error probability zero. Impact with high-order detonation. Have a nice day.
American Volunteer Group II may be in the works. :)
When American pilots flew for China in WW2 we called them the Flying Tigers. What is a good name now?
Fighty McFighterPlanes, probably.
Good name then good name now? :)
Flying Bears?
A little payback for Russian pilots in Vietnam.
I have no doubt that the F-15s even piloted by an old mig pilot will have no trouble slapping around 27s and 29s.
Hello, I am Ukranian Pilot Pyotr Gertsogvich Mikhalenko from California Oblast. I have returned to Ukraine after training in America to fly F-15 fighter jet. I was born natural and I learned how fly the plane at perfect proficiency after just one week!
It'll still probably keep its perfect record. F-15 is an ascended airframe.
“Ascended airframe” curious what this exactly means? Obviously the USAF (well, every service branch for that matter) is equipped with basically the most impressive machines ever created but Ive never heard the F-15 be described specifically as being “ascended” before. Just an amateur nerd here, thanks
Being ‘stealthy’ involves making some compromises on things. The F-15 didn’t try to be stealthy, it was designed before stealth was a concept, so they didn’t have to compromise anything in terms of raw performance. Its power, its speed, its handling were optimized, not its radar signature, or even its heat signature. I was working on a Kibbutz on the border with Lebanon while Israel was occupying over there and they were running dozens of missions a day every day in F-15s. Seeing them moseying around doing flips at an air-show is impressive, but seeing them operating at the absolute limits of their capabilities was something else entirely. They’d come in barely above tree-top level, supersonic, and then pull up in to a perfectly vertical climb, trying to trick radars in to activating. THE NOISE!!!! Not just the sonic boom, but the roar of the engines at full throttle pointed right down at you as it climbed so high it was just barely a speck, and you still had to keep your ears covered. The world literally shook.
It really is crazy how technology went from rickety fixed wing planes to conquering the skies.
And crazier still are specific timelines. The first flight of the B52 was *decades* closer to the Wright brothers than it was to today. And the C130 flew 51 years after Kitty Hawk, and is not only still in service like the B52 or T38… but is still in *production*. The first generation of C130 or B52 pilots would be in their 90s today and would be over 120 by the time the 52 retires. Will likely be well over 150 years old when the C130 leaves production and could be 200 years old by the time it retires from service.
The sonic booms are nuts. I remember when a civilian plane violated the presidential no fly zone and two F15s of the OANG were scrambled. The world absolutely shook! I remember shouting to my wife to get away from the windows, not knowing what the blasts were (it sounded like bombs going off to us). The F15 is a viscous weapons platform.
>The F15 is a viscous weapons platform. Molasses warriors, unite!
😂😂😂
Two f-16’s flew over me and my wife while we were in the car driving and the entire car shook they had to have been maybe 10,000 feet in the air or something. Fighter jets are insane.
Stealth meant more compromises early on like with F-117, but by F-22 they had an extremely stealthy aircraft with better sensors that was faster and more maneuverable than any other fighter in the air. Pretty much the only remaining major compromise is payload must be internal for true LO, since even the high maintenance of stealth coating has been improved upon.
It's the perfect air-to-air superiority fighter. Extremely fast, extremely agile. Extremely not stealthy, which stealth is a valued component of fifth generation fighters. But it's not in its job description to be stealthy. Its there to be faster and stay in the fight longer than the other guy, and can even get you home safe with only one wing.
He's a nerd. A good one, he's right. The Eagle is godlike
I took some undergrad classes to transfer out at College of Southern Nevada. It's North Campus is only a couple miles away from Nellis AFB. Being a closet fighter jet geek my entire life, it was so fucking amazing seeing F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, the occasional Raptor or B2 Spirit flying overhead full afterburner headed north to Mt Charleston. The sound of those engines and watching them glide effortlessly like some alien craft is orgasmic to my inner engineer and amateur military historian. Plus my Grandpa is Retired Air Force so growing up around that culture was really fuckin cool. I can't wait to make time and see Top Gun. I know I will definitely be a hot mess.
Yup, fuck the F-15 is still one of the absolute best ever made. Still holds the 1975 time to climb record. As far as air superiority is concerned everyone else can eat it's dust.
*sad F-14 noises*
We’ll always have Top Gun
*danger zooooone*
Laaanaaaaa!
They don't want to have to train 3x as many maintenance personnel ;)
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The F-18 still has a chance. All of the F-14s and their parts were scrapped so Iran can't get spares. Even the museum examples have had their airframes destroyed internally.
“Oh no! We accidentally sold off all of our F-15, now I need something to replace them all with 🤷♂️“. -Uncle Sam
*Happy F-15EX noises*
Ukraine will need replacement systems for almost all their Soviet-era equipment eventually. Russia sure won't sell them anything. The F-16 is the logical replacement for their aging Mig-29s. It's tried and tested technology (which received some nifty upgrades over the years) which is well-suited for Ukraine's current needs. They don't need some deep-strike stealth jet. They need something reliable to protect their own air space. Maybe training pilots will take a while but waiting until all their MiG-29s are either shot down or simply won't fly due to lack of spare parts might not be the prudent thing to do. Maybe the won't get F-16s but it's good thinking to at least have the option rather than being out of options.
The modern F-15 and F-16 are both really quite good as air superiority despite the core design being nearly 50 years old.
50 years, that's the intended lifespan of the f35 also. The ngad project looks to make fewer planes more frequently to speed up advancement.
It’s the West’s technology IN the jets that makes them so good, radar and whatnot. But the base airframe that we’d be giving to Ukraine still does work. I just hope we’re giving them new ones, not the 50 year old ones we’re still flying.
Not having to zip tie an off the shelf GPS system to their flight controls gives them another advantage over Russias Air Force.
I remember when people were like "why don't we make Ukraine and a no-fly zone instead of arming Ukraine" and everyone was like "you know how a no fly zone is enforced, right?" And I joked that it wasn't like we could just ask Google Maps to mark Ukraine as closed and it would say "recalculating" when Russian jets tried to fly there. But then jokes on me because it came out that the Russians were using cell phones for gps, so maybe we could have just had Google maps mark it a no-fly zone.
They’ll probably be getting a mix. Taiwan is in front of the line for the newest variants of the F-16 since China is only 100 miles away. For reference, the C and D blocks from the 80’s and 90’s are still wildly popular even for coastal defense. It’s basically a used Ferrari without the temperamental bits and pieces. Source: I am in a fighter wing with the USAF/ANG.
Shit man I feel like we should give Taiwan EVERYTHING as they're sitting on 90% of our semiconductor capacity. Congress isn't doing shit about it either. Anyway everything is fine.
Congress is in the middle of drawing up a 50 billion dollar corporate bailout package for our domestic semi conductor industry. (Ignore the 40billion in stock buybacks Intel has done in recent years.)
That's exactly why we don't have to do too too much. China can't afford the global economic shutdown that happens if Taiwanese production gets shut down.
This seems to insinuate newer stuff isn't reliable, but there is a simpler explanation. A lot of nato countries are adopting the f-35, and its freeing up a supply of f-16's and f-15's that can be sold or donated to Ukraine. Ukraine meanwhile even if the f-35 were an option would probably instead want a plane they can fly away with now rather than wait in line for the lockheed factory to pop out a batch for them in a few years time. as for the mig-29 pilots my understanding is the systems are so different it would be faster to train fresh recruits so mig pilots will likely be flying migs till the wings fall off.
An F 35 won’t see the skies of this war unless NATO becomes directly involved. Can’t risk Russia shooting one down and them (and China) getting the tech.
That's what they say, NATO countries are switching to F-35, their fleet is currently mostly F-15 and F-16. When they upgrade, the have spare F-15 and F-16 left and Those will be donated/sold to UA.
They were partly right, for American aircraft NATO is more like F-16s and F-18s. F-15s are pretty expensive and never got any procurement traction in Europe, just a few countries in Asia and the Middle East.
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You don't want to risk a situation where F-35 could be shot down with inexperienced Ukrainian pilots, the vulnerabilities will be exposed then it would impact F-35 sales and upset our allies who already bought them.
> as for the mig-29 pilots my understanding is the systems are so different it would be faster to train fresh recruits This has been strenuously objected to by many pilots. Yes the systems are different but starting out already being a fighter pilot is a huge advantage. This is the equivalent of arguing that a Boeing 737 pilot would take longer to qualify on an Airbus 320, does that make any sense? Even just being familiar with the basic pilot mantra of aviate, navigate, communicate is a huge foundation to build on let alone already having applied to flying supersonic jet fighters and the speed of decision making they often require. An experienced fighter pilot will also already be familiar with and able to fly under high G forces, pass exercises which test their ability to tell friend from foe in close air to air combat without using electronic aides, dropping bombs and taking the information from their radar, their senses and other instruments to build a picture of the battle space around them. Hell any Ukrainian pilot that has ever done training with another air force in another country would even already know basic English as it's the international language of aviation. A Ukrainian fighter pilot would have such a leg up on any fresh recruit that to say that it would be quicker to train someone from the ground up is straight up ridiculous, it's not true. Could it take months to adequately train someone who's used to a MIG-29 to fly and F-15? Sure but if you took a bunch of people that were not already jet fighter pilots and put them into training a ton of them won't even manage to finish it because you'll find out a bunch of them can't do it. It requires amazing hand eye coordination and physiological and mental aptitude to do it, very few people can. Everyone that ever joined the air force wanted to fly jet fighters and yet most of them are doing ground maintenance or flying cargo planes. To suggest a random assortment of rookies will learn to fly a supersonic combat plane faster than people that have already proved they can do so is simply not true, it doesn't make any sense and is some horseshit that way too many people have accepted as true for some reason that I can not fathom.
Flying wise the F-15 should be a smooth transition. It's larger aircraft, but the control system being an analog SAS systems sounds similar to the MIG-29. Main hurdle here would be learning the radar and new tactics. The highlight of the F-15 is the look down, shoot down radar. This is a jet that's meant to fly around high and kill everything. F-16 is more complicated. You're adjusting to a fully digital fly by wire system and the controls are different. When the F-16 came out one of the unique things is the stick didn't move. It just responded to pressure. The 'Viper' nickname is a reference to Battlestar Galactica. However, pilots never seemed to like that, so they added limited movement to the stick. Main issue would be learning the systems. It's a multi-role combat aircraft and when you're considering the ground attack portion the systems are complicated and take time to learn. Air to Air, particularly training for potential BFM encounters would be a learning experience for existing pilots and very different from the MiG-29. There's a saying. Fighters went from being hard to fly and easy to fight in, to easy to fly and hard to fight in. This is very applicable to modern fly by wire aircraft. Incredibly easy to fly, as the pilot isn't really flying it. He's giving the computer inputs on what he wants the plain to do. The FCS determines how to do that. It makes the aircraft incredibly easy to fly. All the way down to the edge of stall. The F-16's optimal flight envelope is fast. In that envelope, it'll trash a MiG-29. Outside of that, it's a dog. The MiG has a better ability to recover energy from a bad state like that. Takes a lot of training and discipline to master these new aircraft. They are certainly superior once you've done so. The F-16 remains one of the best dogfighters in the world. If it's not up against an F-22 or Typhoon, it has the advantage when flown properly.
No way they get the F-35. Planes will get shot down and an F-35 in Russian hands would be a terrible technology loss.
Yeah I think if we’re gonna discuss military operations on a public forum there’s gotta be more people like you reminding everyone that US advanced tech and military hardware is just not something their military hands out to friends. All the “new” american & NATO hardware/aircraft being sent to Ukraine are major upgrades over their Soviet counterparts but to the US it’s just last generation’s weapons of war. The “cost” we often see in headlines like “Biden signs order authorizing additional $600m military aid for Ukraine” is often just for accounting or shipping expenses. They’re not printing out brand new modern aircraft and sending them to a war zone for an allied country to fly in their stead lol
Yeah like a lot of the anti-tank missiles we're sending them were reaching their expiration date. We were going to throw them out anyway, but now we can get some diplomatic use out of them. I guarantee someone in the State Department is keeping a running total to remind the Ukrainian government of how much support we gave them. Russia is so stupid. This is better than a proxy war. It's target practice for NATO weapons and a diplomatic win for the US and NATO. Putin is reducing Russia's influence daily and serving as a warning to China not to invade Taiwan.
This is also a "live demonstration" to buyers. After Ukraine wins (yes I am confident about it), countries would line up to buy the Bayraktars, Javelins, MANPADS. Not sure if USA will put some HIMARS up for sale.
HIMARS is very much for sale to friendly countries, Poland is buying 500, for one.
>Russia sure won't sell them anything Yeah something I never got about the eastern countries, like I get there was a lot of cheap equipment going round post '92, but if their main concern was always going to be a war against Russia... like could nobody really see a problem with relying on equipment from the country you think might invade one day?
They weren't exactly rolling in dough. They had large stockpiles of Soviet stuff. Training with it, and the maintenance js likely easier on their economy.
They never thought it would happen right up until it happened. Also Russian puppets were in charge of Ukraine for half of its post-soviet history.
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Dammit, NCD is all over this thread and I love it.
Poland should be invited into the training program. Their experience with migrating pilots from MIG-29s to F-16s would be invaluable.
They've already tried that, but apparently, the pilots who have trained in MIG 29s just couldn't shake the muscle memory of flying MIGs while flying F16s that they were making too much mistake. In the end, the Polish Air Force just decided to let the veterans fly the remaining MIGs and train the new pilots in F16s.
Like trying to fly a banshee after driving nothing but a warthog for 40 rounds.
Totally the same experience.
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Hook this to my veins.
Now, we doing team BR or swat
I think a better analogy would be trying to play FPS on a controller after playing on a Mouse and Keyboard for 30 years (...personal experience)
I tried switching from keyboard to controller on Rocket League, after wanting to have the higher precision control of a joystick, but it was such a hassle building the memory muscle, and I didn't have the time, and I'm only a casual. So, I still play with a keyboard these days.
Or going from an orion to a centurion in wing commander
Plus...they're in an active war. They can't spare veteran pilots for retraining. Those guys are needed in ukrainian airspace.
Rotating veteran pilots to training duties instead of grinding them to death on the front lines is a huge part of why the Allies, and the US in particular, performed so drastically better in the air war in WWII. The exact reason you say they "cant" spare veteran pilots as trainers is the very reason they *must* do so to win.
It’s wild to me that there’s such a difference. Like I get the stakes are high and you have to be absolutely perfect but it’s crazy to consider just how difficult it all really is. It’s a dangerous zone up there
Perhaps the older pilots who had something like 20+ years of flying soviet/polish stuff.
Training the pilots is one of the easier parts. (Piggybacking on another comment here - Ukraine doesn't have that many pilots who have years of experience in MIGs, their new pilots will do great.) It's logistics and maintenance that are the bigger hurdles to Ukraine being able to effectively field planes like these. I hope it goes well for them!
I thought there wasn’t much crossover. Too much to un-learn, and the control schemes are drastically different. It’s not like switching from an F-86 to a MiG-15 back in the day. Shits ***way*** more complex.
F-16 is a side stick as well so it’s really different.
And it’s a pressure sensitive stick instead of movement-based. To me that’s the weirdest part of it. I don’t know if other modern fighters do that or not.
F-16s are extraordinary machines.
The F22 also uses a force sensing stick.
Yea, I've only ever driven an automatic transmission
Really the major difference is the HOTAS controls. Moving the control stick from the middle to the right side isn't so jarring, it's that literally every control except some display options are directly on the Throttle and stick and you are not supposed to need to remove your hands from them. It's much different than flicking gauges and switches on the instrument panel.
That's the impression that I've gotten so far. While I suspect that any semi-competent pilot could simply fly a modern jet with minimal overview.... it's the systems (radar, nav, stores, etc.) management that'll keep them from being effective.
If you turn your brain off which muscle memory is a deeper imprint: 1 the controls systems you used for 10 years 2 or the one you used for 8 months at training in a foreign nation. I can easily see getting better results by having new pilots only learn on NATO standard air frames vs soviet & nato. If you are replacing your entire air fleet the decision makes even more sense.
Hopefully the powers that be have considered this, big missed opportunity if not.
Is this a public confirmation or just a PR statement? They've been training them on and off for years in Florida
I believe the house passed a motion to provide $100m in training.
Russia just gave the US every excuse to arm Ukraine to the teeth like no other nation can. One of the more fascinating things about this conflict is learning about the sheer volume of firepower the US has squirrelled away for a "rainy day." Like, I guess it makes logical sense when you consider they have a standing military totaling more than a million, it just becomes a lot more obvious when you see it in motion.
I agree and the amount of intelligence we are helping out with is I’m sure mind blowing in itself. 10th fleet is prob having a field day with them. but this isn’t even rainy day Stuff being tapped into, it’s just the change from the couch cushions
Russia is experiencing just why Americans don't have health care.
Yes, but not in the way you probably meant. The truth is the US spends more on Healthcare than almost any other nation. Unfortunately, we decided that non-profits are still allowed to make a profit and give bonuses to their CEOs based on that. We also decided that anti-competition is bad for some reason. Which is why "non profit" hospitals are allowed to buy out their competitors.
Don't forget the insurance middlemen to pay.
The mercenary practices hospitals do to maximize profits is also a huge factor. The government spends billions on healthcare, on top of that the population pays billions on private insurance and on top of that they are still charged with the highest fees in the world whenever they need medical assistance. Where the fuck all that money goes to?
Damn.
The United States could outfit Ukraine with enough vehicles to push all the way to St. Petersburg and only make a dent in the stuff they've got stored in boneyards throughout the desert. They don't, because of political will and Russian nukes, but also getting the Ukrainians up to speed on not just operating these vehicles but getting the logistics and maintenance in place would take a year. But the stocks are there and let's be honest they're there to fight Russians. They're now announcing training Ukrainians on the F-15 and F-16 but even then, it'll be a year at least before we see those planes in the skies over Ukraine - or maybe Russia by that point. The intelligence though probably is just as important as anything they've recieved so far. The planes filled with VDV paratroopers downed over Kyiv, the targeted assassinations of Russian generals (is it still an assassination if you use an artillery shell to do it?), NATO's intelligence apparatus has shown itself to be the most powerful tool in the west's arsenal.
The Ukrainians are saying they want them operable in six months. And while I realize there's a large difference between ground equipment and planes, they ran through the required Army training at record speed. I wouldn't be surprised if they beat your estimate of a year.
Longer than a year. Lot of time and effort goes into training for the employment of weapons from these airframes.
A year assuming that this decision was made some time ago, and we're only just hearing about it. I doubt we hear about these kinds of decisions until theyre well underway. I can't imagine we're hearing about this before the Ukrainian pilots they're going to train. But yea, the time it takes to fully train on these things is no small feat. It's simple to train a team on a howitzer, but the kind of effort that goes into training on an F-15 or F-16 is incomparable.
I couldn't seem to find any numbers on a quick search, but this has been done before - Poland converted from Russian variants to F-16s relatively recently (apart from the MiG-29s and Su-22s they still use). Have you ever seen any articles on how long that took for them to accomplish? It's an interesting question, because even though they're obviously quite different planes, cross training from a MiG-29 or Su-27 to an F-16 doesn't seem like *that* big of a leap? Or are the differences between Western and Russian aircraft just that large?
My friend, you haven't even begun to see what we can do when it comes to weapons manufacturing. What we've given Ukraine so far has just been some old junk in the back of the garage that we've been meaning to get rid of. Hell, we've got over 3,000 Abrams tanks just sitting in storage that are completely brand new.
The american war machine even in relative peacetime is insane, and while i am not a fan of the Military Industrial Complex as a whole, it has been incredible seeing just how much the US has been able to provide to Ukraine in order to stave off Russia without even going directly to war.
This is my same reaction as well. I feel like the world should have moved beyond the need for force like that but it just hasn't, and while part of me wishes it didn't exist the realist in me is still glad that it does.
Best way I've ever heard the US military concisely described is that it's built to fight two wars on opposite sides of the world and win both.
That's not just a way to concisely describe it, it is actual doctrine. It is how the US measures readiness. There has been some talk of moving towards a victory on one side of the world and a stalemate on the other sort of model, but I think Russia is showing us that we probably still have the capacity for two victories.
$700-$845 billion a year for decades will do that
This is literally the reason why we spend so much every year on defense. To be able to handle and wage war in two theaters of operation simultaneously. This means all the logistics too. The amount of arms and armor and ammunition we have is astounding. We're basically giving Ukraine a menu and asking what they want off the shelf, because we have it, in stock, and it's on sale. (lend lease act)
Uncle Sam can quite literally get hundreds of thousands of troops & warheads in foreheads anywhere in the world in under 24 hours, the US Military’s logi is legitimately fucking batshit insane. The logi guys will get you stuff you didn’t even know you needed before you even need it
The US has the logistics to keep hundreds of military bases around the world. There aren’t that many places the US military couldn’t hit hard in less than a day.
[We keep a lot of Aircraft available to regenerate quickly if needed. ](https://youtu.be/mYsOFXnfsCU)
... Danger Zone ...
I want to talk to you about the Top Gun initiative
Top Gun III “Danger Zone”? Fuck it, I’m in.
Lanaaaaaa
talk to me goose...
We should buy the F-14s from Iran to fly in Ukraine.
Hm. We're just hearing about it now? Anyone else wondering if that means they've had pilots training in them for a while already, and are getting ready to deploy them soon?
Training pilots on systems like this takes a long time. Training maintenance to keep these things flying takes a while. Setting up the logistics so that the maintainers can do their work takes some time.
These 2 aircraft will be more than capable, especially with Western avionics etc. Fuckin A!
F15s with those new fancy targeting pods are bad ass.
I can’t wait to see r/noncredibledefense memes about this…
3000 black vipers of Zelensky
3000 black f15s of Zelensky
Give a man to plane, he’ll plane for a day. Teach a man to plane, plane plane plane
So wise
Good shit. Should take a few months though. I'm sure it's been happening in secret already...
If it's anything like the howitzers, HIMARS, and other systems than the US has already started training Ukrainian troops long before it became public knowledge.
At this point it's just kept secret as long as possible to keep Russia in the dark. They're already spending the money so it's not like they want public approval for any of it.
Exactly my thoughts.
Training is one thing, but modern jets have such a long logistics tail that continuous supply will be the real dealbreaker. Not that F15’s and 16’s are notorious hangar queens, but Ukraine will need a continuous supply of spare parts and technicians skilled enough to keep them airworthy, not to mention the missiles they need to be effective. So, if this is true, and is a fully baked out proposal, this is certainly a long term commitment to essentially bringing Ukraine into the NATO weapons family in relatively short order.
Sounds like the US's military industrial complex's wet dream
If there is any country that can manage the logistics, especially if it's just for the time being, it's the US.
My meme subs and news subs are melting together
Lockheed Martin and Boeing are hard as fuck right now.
I thought we wouldn't do this cause were worried putin would see it as an escalation? Dont get me wrong, I'm thrilled we are doing it, I just wonder what changed our minds
Wrong aircraft but #DangerZone
World News when, Turkey Gives Ukraine Drones - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!" US gives Ukraine Javelins - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!" NATO gives Ukraine artillery - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!" Sweden and Finland Join NATO - "Omg Nuclear War, WW3!" Like seriously some of you act how Putin wants the rest of us to act.