OK, with that (and the  first gulf war scud interceptions) why don't you enlighten me who does it better?

Ir's all about you right? LOL While my comment was directed to liberals in general, since you felt guilty enough to bite, I'll respond. The left loves to spend, that's no secret, except like to spend on things that mostly have no chance of offering a tangible return for every American, as military spending does.

Funny you mention the  A-10 which some in government wanted canceled... until the 1st gulf war. Anyway, this aircraft, while IMO is good, needs to operate in an environment with control of airspace assured (with planes like the F-22). During the first gulf war, the A-10 was the the type most shot down (4) with the AV-8 Harrier sharing top spot with it. The A-10 flew 14.8% (8032) of total coalition sorties flown and had the 3rd highest number of AC (132) by type. The F-16 flew 24.2% (13,087) of total coalition sorties and was the largest AC type used (244). Both aircraft first flew in the early 70's (A-10 1972, F-16 1973). Both the F-16 and the F-18 (second highest amount of AC (175), second in sorties (17.3% / 9388) had less casualties

I was on hand for a portion of test flights of the F-18 in 1979 (the project began years prior). This aircraft is still in use (with some improvements). Lets put it in perspective. This range of time is like taking a Curtis Jenny into battle in WWII. The B-2 has been operating with impunity since the Balkans conflict(s) and will be for decades to come. The price is high, theres no doubt. How much will the US learn from these aircraft to keep us on top? That's anyones guess, but I guarantee it will be more than any nation that doesn't spend the money (how many military aircraft has Canada built since WWII? Easy to criticize when you're not even a player). In fact lessons have been applied to the F-35 (with a substantially lower price tag). If these B-2s have a life half as long as long as the B-52, it will be a good investment. (B-52 were shot down in Vietnam, no B-2 has been lost in combat). I'm sure some liberals back in the 50's thought the money spent on B-52's was too expensive then and the money would have been better spent on some entitlement program. They probably never thought they were interfering with future liberals talking points for success stories as to why we shouldn't modernize. As hard as many liberals make it for defense-minded people to advance military science, they sure like to point back to it's past successes in order to derail its future. If liberals had their way the Army's best weapon would be the Mk1 Type III throwing rock.

Sure proper environmental controls must be present to apply the B-2's coatings. The same is true for you when you get your car painted. Your links are correct... most aircraft facilities outside the US are substandard, good job pointing that out. Good thing we have an aircraft that a tiny crew can fly to anywhere in the world to perform its mission. Who else can make that claim? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Again, as I said in my last post, I have no problem with military spending on programs that have actual practical applications on the battlefield or (as an added but not necessary bonus) off the battlefield in the civilian world.

What I was trying to illustrate in my previous post was that some military programs are usable, relevant to your defense and have benefits for the civilian world. But some are also completely useless, or, are based on promises that are not able to deliver. The A-10 works because it's designed for one single purpose- to support units as small as the platoon level...or even squad level... on the battlefield. No other fixed wing aircraft can do this as effectively as the A-10. While the F-22 and 35 and even the F-18 (and the F-18 is one of my favorites, I have no argument with the benefits and powers of the F-18) can do some ground support, they're better at ruling the skies or hitting fixed, static targets with larger payloads. The A-10, absolutely, needs to have clear skies to do his job. Air to air is not it's forte and it was never intended as such.

Let's use an analogy- what was the primary technological challenge that drove Western powers in an arms race at the beginning of the 20th century?

Battleships. There was a massive race between the major powers to see who could build the best battleship. Primarily, the real challenge was in having a moving platform, with a turreted moving gun, able to track and hit another moving object. The developments that came from the battleship arms race had all kinds of major benefits and impacts for both the military and civilian world.

It was also so incredibly expensive that the British joked about going bankrupt if the fleet got wiped out, and so on.

The U.S was also in on the fun and much of the taxes at the time were popularly explained as going to pay for all those Battleships, you know, to keep the Spanish at bay (hyuck hyuck)

But here's the kicker. While the Battleship race was necessary -at the time- and had profound effects both on and off the battlefield, it was only relevant so long as battleships were relevant.

A few years later, carrier-borne aircraft effectively proved that Battleships were no longer the kings of the ocean and were actually, extremely vulnerable despite their massive firepower. Now, there were many admirals, both in the U.S and Japanese fleets who didn't like the idea that the Battleship wasn't king anymore. There were admirals and defence contractors who argued that instead of putting battleships in support roles to carriers, the technology needed to be improved so that battleships could adequately defend themselves against air attack.

In the end, reason won out. The battleship, while still useful and necessary, was no longer the vital primary tool of the nations' naval abilities, and money was better spent on the new frontier of carrier technology and naval aviation.

The same argument applies to the evolution of ground warfare; the tank started out as a supporting role for infantry, as they lumbered up on trenches along with the infantry. The French believed after WW1 that infantry and artillery was still the king of the battlefield, so they built the maginot line with massive fixed defenses that would have turned any frontal infantry assault into a slaughter.

The Germans realized that tanks were a whole other animal, and with their infantry in a supporting role to their armor they simply went around the Maginot line.

Now this is all fine and well, you're smart folks so I'm sure you know all this, and probably in better detail than I do.

The point that I'm trying to get at, is that technologies like the ABM shield and "super-aircraft" that are supposedly going to be capable of doing everything under the sun, are like trying to build a maginot line in space.

It's a bill of goods, that's been sold to you fraudulently.

Let's look at the F-35, or the F-22. Sure, in air to air they'll probably rule the skies. However, they will absolutely suck at close air support on the ground, which is what's desperately needed..... last I checked Al Qaida doesn't have too many Mig-37's. The F-22 and F-35 suck at close air support because they fly very high, very fast and there have been multiple instances in Afghanistan where high altitude aircraft have dropped one or two thousand pound bombs on wedding parties, entirely by mistake. What's needed is something that can fly low enough, slow enough, be pretty maneuverable, take a hell of a pounding and put a hell of a lot of ordnance on enemy positions that are right next to friendly forces. But, the F-35 is being marketed as something that will be able to "do it all"

Also, these planes are being marketed as stealth aircraft, or having some stealth characteristics. This is nice, but also misleading as both aircraft will need to turn on their radar if they want to see what's around or shoot anything down- thereby making them a nice big target the moment they do.

Now back to the ABM shield. In this discussion we've already come to an agreement that the current ABM technology is only good for shooting down missiles from 20 or 30 years ago. Modern ICBM's fielded by other nations can easily outsmart the system, and it will always be easier and cheaper to build a missile that can fly faster and make unpredictable evasive maneuvers than it will be to build a  missile that can reliably and accurately track and shoot down that missile. Also, this system is designed solely for taking down the big boys- big missiles, flying at high altitudes and so forth.

What if someone built a small UAV that would have a small radar cross section, fly very low at night to deliver a nuclear weapon? The ABM shield would be completely useless against something like that and the only realistic deterrent would be hyper-vigilent conventional air defenses and a LOT of luck.

This is why the ABM shield, in it's present form, is already obsolete and doomed to failure. It's like those admirals who insisted the Battleship would still be king of the seas if only enough R&D were sunk into it to make it impervious to aircraft attack. And even if it could be done, it would be so incredibly expensive as to not be practical anymore.

Aircraft like the F-22 and F-35, again, while they're heli-cool and super-awesome, will simply end up flying around in circles at high altitudes while something like an A-10 or UAV will end up doing the dirty work of providing close air support to a platoon bogged down in an urban environment, which is really what the airforce has been badly needed for over the last 8 years!

And if someone really, really wants to use a nuke on a city, there's plenty of other ways of getting it in there than launching a 1960's or 1970's era ICBM. Therefore, rendering the ABM shield useless.

Funny that you mention missiles. It has been my understanding that Iran's main treath to international oil shipping wouldn't be missiles, but mines.

While a strike of missiles could hurt quite a few ships, it is doubtful that the U.S. wouldn't be able to take out the missile installations (either ship- , plane- or truck-mounted). It would hurt the oil shipping and drive the speculations to a sky-high, but it would be a (relatively) short spike. You can know when there aren't any more missiles to be launch.

Is the Sunburn missiles man-portable, like Hizbulla's and Hamas'? If they are meant to aim at ships more than 50 km away, and hug the sea, I doubt it. So U.S.'s intelligence capacities and its air power would be able to take them out with (relative) ease. It would hurt, yhea, but it wouldn't hurt as much as mining the Gulf.

The problem with mines is that they can be deployed by any freaking boat, so the U.S. would have to take out even fishing boats and coastal patrol ships. You never know how many mines are left on the territory, and it takes large-scale effort to "clean" the area, without ever being 100% sure that everything is safe.

It's going to skyrocket insurance premium for oil tankers for YEARS. Even if only 1 ship will explode because of mines, they just stired much more problem on the world's economy than they could with a perfectly modern missile impliment.

And Russia will benefit of it all, and it's in nobody's interest/security to see scenario happen (except maybe Israel, as previously stated). But then again, I have just read very interesting analysis about Iran's defensive posture that rings right, especially when I read comments like "They just want to kill all americans and Jewish".

In short, Iran has a defensive interest in posturing as unpredictable, unstable and threatening.

If that were the case, why would the Russians even care?

Latest update by STRATFOR (please note that FSU = Former Soviet Union, Russia's desired sphere of influence needed to its defense)

Ergo, it's not a choice. You will play political chess with the Russians again, and you have to adopt the same winning tactics than in the cold war = forcing it to commit itself with regional support around the world to destabilise the U.S. They are already re-establishing military supplying of Cuba's leadership, done the same with Venezuella.

But I am not worried. As I said, I have trust in the U.S.'s capacities to win such games. In retrospective, Bush (or his team of advisor, depending on who you think called the shots) acted rationally on many topics, and Obama will act rationally too, and make sure the U.S. will prevail in the end.

Paladin77: Vietnam was did not make you look weak, except to yourselves. The only way the world might have been inclined to think the U.S. were weak was because of cultural osmosis. As far as I know, you haven't seen regimes actually changing allegiance because of Vietnam. (I am not talking of regime change, but of regime actually deciding to scuttle US's alliance).

Oh, and IF your analysis is true (which I think you are, again, deep in "wrong" territory), isn't that a good thing that Russia though you weak and attacked Afghanistan - and ruined itself on it? You provoked Russia to commit itself and spend ressources. They did the same. It was a number game as long as no one panicked (*cough* Cuba Missile Crisis *cough*)

Ohh.. the CMC. Yhea, Kennedy's appeasing Russia then sure was a bad move, eh? It would have been much better if he had kept strong, and never flinched on a single issue.

They don't like the idea of the U.S. to commit themselves to a country on their border with such enthousiasm. BMD was such commitment.

I see what you mean, The F in the designation stands for fighter, the primary role is fighter, that can also do some ground attack. The A is for ground attack, helicopters, UAV, and the obsolete A-10 that saved my butt are for ground attack. To protect the ground attack planes you need a fighter cover above. It is called combined arms team. Just like infantry and tanks are part of the combined arms team. YOu can't assult with tanks alone or infantry alone, you need infantry to hold the ground, tanks in support ground attack planes above and fighter cover. For missiles you need a layered defence, you seem to think that one missile system will do it all. That is not how it works. We are working to take out missiles in three phases. The boost phase, we can take out a quarter to half the missiles launched. in flight we take out a bunch more and then in the terminal phase we take out what is left. the systems Mr. Obama just ended was for the flight stage. This means we have to do more in the terminal phase which is the hardest phase to take out. Don't think that one system is the be all and end all, it is only a part of an intergrated system.

Arty, while your last post was entertaining (and probably in line with the average persons knowledge of weapons systems) it was far from how it really works. As Paladin stated above, it takes many components to make a successful offense and defense. No single system is ever the answer. However, in the case of nukes, they can be the final word.

FYI, the proper designator for the F-18 (which I use for brevity) is F/A-18. It was purposely designed for both air superiority and ground attack right from the start. In fact it replaced the A-6 and most recently the F-14. As for the F-22 (a pure fighter) and the F-35 (a multi-role fighter which will eventually replace the F/A 18 and AV-8) any ground attack mission should be fine. Why? Largely because of the munitions used. Since people the world over are upset when Ahmed's goat gets killed in an air strike, the US uses an abundance of persuasion guided munitions (let's hope any future enemies are do conscientious). A balloon (//sarcasm) could deploy these in the areas we are currently fighting in.

UAV's could be rigged to launch a nuke (provided the user has the technology to make nukes the in small enough size like the US or Russia can). Many nations have UAV's. Few (if any) have UAV's comparable to those of the US (Global Hawk, Predator). Even, these can only operate in areas of air superiority, or against an unsophisticated enemy. They do have a small radar cross-section, but are far from immune from SAMs. Your nuke capable UAV scenario is basically fantasy for the foreseeable future.

Anthony... sorry your OP got so off target.

BTW F-22's never have to turn on their radar to engage. AWACS (an other aircraft, including other F-22s) can supply targeting data hundreds of miles away (Just imagine if you knew this aircrafts classified abilities). Remember layered defense/offense.

[sarcasm]But see, now that we are no longer "evil" and willingly disarming ourselves, nobody could possibly still want to attack us. it is a win-win[/sarcasm]

(note, that sentence was false and stupid, but that is what they seem to think)

I also don't get the whole "lets only develop weapons for fighting technologically inferior guerilla opponents" and discard any development of conventional weapons... the sole reason why we do not USE our conventional weapons anymore is because we actually managed to improve them to the point where others do not wish to attack us. If we let those fall behind, we become a tasty vulnerable target, and will be attacked. It is really simple actually.

Very well. Please do explain to me how I was incorrect about the Battleship vs. Carrier debate, or the Maginot line. Or, tell me why I'm wrong about the French pre-WW2 belief about tanks and infantry. Or please, explain to me why the A-10 is such a terrible close air support aircraft, and show me another aircraft that has a better record (again, emphasis on close air support, NOT dropping bombs on buildings)

Or, explain to me why I'm so incredibly stupid when the ABM shield has yet to succesfully be tested against an actual, valid ICBM, any flavor will do.

What do I mean by this? Every single test, every.single.test. has been done with the deck stacked very heavily in favor of the interceptor.

The operators know the launch time and location of the missile

The operators know ahead of time the missile's target, it's course, what trajectory it will take.

The missile follows a plain jane arc, no evasive maneuvers or course deviations.

Even then, the interceptor can't hit the missile everytime.

Throw in instances in which the interceptor never even left the ground because of various software problems (those officially don't count in the tally though, so don't worry) and things aint looking so hot.

If they were really serious about this program, a great test would be if an independent team was brought in to launch a dummy warhead at, say Alaska (cause folks would get antsy over anything flying over the mainland) and to see what would really happen if there was no prior warning.

Would the launch be detected properly? How effective would they be at actually pinpointing the target of the strike? And of course, if the missile made a course deviation, would the interceptor actually still be able to hit it?

Because NONE of the above has ever been accurately tested, no one can say. And the above test will never happen because companies like Boeing have too much dough on the line!

And I've never disputed this. However, you have current weapons systems in the works, like the F-35, that will supposedly be able to do everything in it's "multi-role"

But, don't listen to me. I'm just a know-nothing. Instead, listen to Pierre Sprey, one of the fellows behind both the F-16 and the A-10:

"Even without new problems, the F-35 is a “dog.” If one accepts every performance promise the DoD currently makes for the aircraft, the F-35 will be:

Overweight and underpowered: at 49,500 lb (22,450kg) air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 lb of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter.

 At that weight and with just 460 sq ft (43 m2) of wing area for the air force and Marine Corps variants, it will have a wing-loading of 108 lb per square foot. Fighters need large wings relative to their weight to enable them to manoeuvre and survive. The F-35 is actually less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 “Lead Sled” that got wiped out over North Vietnam in the Indochina War.

 With a payload of only two 2,000 lb bombs in its bomb bay – far less than US Vietnam-era fighters – the F-35 is hardly a first-class bomber either. With more bombs carried under its wings, the F-35 instantly becomes non-stealthy and the DoD does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for years.

 As a close air support attack aircraft to help US troops engaged in combat, the F-35 is a nonstarter. It is too fast to see the tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to withstand ground fire; and it lacks the payload and especially the endurance to loiter usefully over US forces for sustained periods as they manoeuvre on the ground. Specialised for this role, the air force’s existing A-10s are far superior."

http://www.counterpunch.org/sprey09092008.html

And of course, the unit cost. You're going to be paying at least 250 Billion for these puppies, or more. You certainly payed a lot of moolah for the F-22, over 350 milion for each single fighter-

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/105059/op_ed:-putting-lipstick-on-the-f_35%3F.html

The way you explained it it seemed more like the US had committed themselves to a country on their border with such a useless weaponry.

This is easy, are you sure you want me to do this?

Battleships were around before the aircraft carrier. The state of the art weapon at the time was the battleship. Poorer nations could not afford a capitol ship and found a cheaper way to do war. Carrier warfare was in its infancy while battleships were a proven weapon and only the brightest in military strategy could see the usefulness of the new weapon to exploit the weakness of the capitol ships. The treaty of WWI limited the number and size of capitol ships but there was no restriction on aircraft carriers. You are looking at things in 20/20 hind sight. It is like blaming the dead passengers of the titanic for not knowing it would sink the first time at sea. By your logic as soon as an aircraft carrier was built the world powers should have scrapped the battleships and made the untried carrier the new capitol ship. When war broke out there was no time for anyone to make the change over. In fact we did not finish the change over until the Korean conflict 4 years later.

This one is fun. The strategy was sound and the system was well designed, the problem was they did not extend the line around its entire border. Being friends with Belgium the French did not want to offend its friend so it only put up the line on the border with Germany. Poor execution of a good strategy. Germany seeing the weakness exploited it by taking Belgium first then entered France through that border. You may not have heard of this word, it is called innovation. Each time you build a weapon it is generally believed to be worthless until it is tried in battle. The radar invisible aircraft were untried and we worried all the way until they came back a few times unhurt.

I am not saying you are totally wrong just ignorant of the facts. Tanks were new just like aircraft carriers. In WWI when they were first used they were not that much help because they only traveled at a top speed on flat ground at 3 miles an hour, had to be completely still before they could fire and without infantry support they were in danger. It was not until the 70’s did anyone come up with an integrated strategy that worked using tanks and infantry, During the 6 day war Israel sent out tanks without infantry and the tanks were slaughtered with a new anti-tank weapon. After that was seen then Israel put troops with the tanks and things changed rapidly. The same with air defense, Israel sent out planes without support of troops and ground attack aircraft and ran into the SA-6 and got their butts handed to them. Once the Egyptian strategy was seen for what it was Israel adjusted and the advantage was lost. Germany did the same thing, they did not build a heavy tank till almost the end of the war and paid a heavy price for it. The light tanks that were used in the beginning of the war worked so well because it was a new strategy. Once the strategy was figured out, countermeasures were created and Germany lost.

It is a great weapon, without it I would not be here to argue with you. It is at the end of its life and has been replaced. We could use it in Iraq and Afghanistan because they had Soviet weapons that are easy to defeat as long as we had control of the air. The Apache is the replacement for the Warthog. The A-10 was designed to do one thing and one thing only, cut Soviet tanks in half. We called it the Fairchild can opener. The apache does the same thing only different. It can hit a target without the target knowing it is being attacked until just before they die. The Apache is a better weapon but was untried until the gulf war.

Okay, the data as I pointed out before is old data that has been out for decades. Like the CIA you only hear about the failures not the successes. To further confuse things you are getting data from 25 different weapons systems that make up the ABM shield.

This is partially true. In the beginning the tests were don’t to see if it could be done. Once it was proven to be practical then they give it harder and harder tests. I is called “TESTING”.

Yes, so we don’t accidentally launch against Russia or China, or anyone else we have to set up a test window. It does not prove anything if they have the system in New York and they launch on Florida.

This is not true, they knew the target and approximate time of the launch window. The two submarine launches were free fired. The system was set on auto and acquired and destroyed both of them.

Another test was done on an old satellite, it was a success. This was done to prove that the anti-satellite weapons of the USSR that are still in orbit could be taken out when we need to do them. Two launches from missile silos were done and one was hit the other was not. Well not destroyed, it hit the missile but not hard enough to take it out. Those were launched from California over Hawaii.

Again, you are looking at 1980’s data. Lets just say it has been refined.

Yeah, been there done that only instead of Alaska we chose Hawaii because you can program the missile to miss the islands and hit the sea so people don’t get hurt.

May I suggest you watch American news media, all the above that I wrote is unclassified and has been released to the public. Some of it is on the military channel if you can get our cable stations.

Arty, as I pointed out before the F-35 has been designed differently than the F-4 Phantom There are three or four F-35’s the one for the Marines has different capabilities than the one designed for the Air force .The savings come in by the commonality of the general parts. Engines and tires and the like are all interchangeable between branches. The Marines version can’t fill the role of and air superiority fighter as well as the Air Force variant. We are just using the same frame and basic parts, the branch specific parts are what makes them different. The Air force variant does not have VTOL capabilities the Marines do. All have the proven ability to super-cruise. That is to fly supersonic without using afterburners which fixes the problem with the Harrier as like the A-10 is a subsonic platform. It has a radar cross section of the F-117 stealth fighter, making it very hard to spot and or hit. There are other things that you don’t need to know but it is not near the lead sled.

Funny the Marine variant is able to hover over the battle field like a helicopter that means it is not too fast for ground support. The article you linked was flawed heavily either by ignorance or design to prove their points. As I pointed out the A-10 was replaced by the Apache. Payload is a problem because when they go out fully loaded they are easy to spot on radar. Usually we wait till we have control of the air before we do that.

Back to the point at hand, the removal of the missile shield from Europe was a bad idea because it makes us look weak and when we look weak we get attacked. The system works well, as I have stated and is only one part of a three part system.

I am not sure I get your point. Can you rephrase?

You seemed to be arguing that the US are deploying a known useless system in a way that would threaten Russia, despite the fact that the system used to threaten Russia was known to be useless.