xthetenth

Or they could allow Germany to do wargames as historical so they start the war with experienced units, giving the edge in their early campaigns, but an edge that can be eroded and other nations can catch up with. Ya know, like actually happened.

Yeah, both the precision and extended range are extremely welcome.

They were probably thinking they were operating under the old school model where proving they weren't worth knocking over in a battle or two would get them regional hegemony. They probably weren't thinking about how they were facing Russia in the previous experience, a country which has literally the worst naval geography in the world. I hope they're all right. I don't think they're equipped to handle evidence that water's wet.

Low impact is a very good thing for ships. I'm a big fan of that idea.

FOOF or bust. All I'm saying is if you're not hypergolic with your jetpack fuel (and oxidizer if relevant) even in Antarctica you're not a man and you're in a society that says only men can be totally awesome.

Yeah, it's more that it's bizarre and unnatural that a design originally made by one manufacturer got elaborated on in a partnership with another, which was later able to elaborate on that in one of the very few seriously successful acquisition projects of that size in that time period (as far as getting what was asked for on time and on budget goes). And then naturally the first company goes in and plays with the avionics.

Free M60s when you suck up to NATO, so yeah.

How much jamming and disruption of the C3 net could such a thing take before the drones start fratriciding, and what ramifications will this have on the expense of the whole thing to achieve workable standards?

My question is what the hell is that frigate/destroyer?

There really needs to be something like an in depth etymological study of the F/A-18. It's super weird how it bounced around companies.

It is after the buyout. And that's neither here nor there, it's not going to change the super bug and the lightning bug being Boeing. It's the sparky bits that are Northrop Grumman, not the airframe.

The Boeing EA-18G Growler? The Prowler is probably the one you're thinking about. Also I think you're missing a big one if you're counting the Growler as a fighter, but it's understandable why you'd miss it, it's designed for that. Can't appreciate Northrop birds without it even if it's not technically invited.

Yeah, career advancement is generally behind some of the objections to Jeune École style strategies, but they actually have happened repeatedly in smaller navies with little crappy ships like the La Combattantes and various missile boats getting built and then getting casually drubbed when they come across real ships, like in Operation Praying Mantis. Of course in smaller navies, people may well consider having more commands to go around to be a very good thing (part of why it's the young school). Sensor fits and/or serious networking and C3 capabilities are pretty important to getting this sort of thing to work, and they are not cheap at all. Neither of those have the benefit of creating more impressive commands for people worried about getting stuck commanding some low level unit and having a route to top rank. A battle rifle is still a rifle that a man holds and a Panther is still a tank that carries five guys.

That was actually a bit of a problem during the Cold War, since the best stuff for winning in the periphery and ensuring a dominant position in the third world wasn't necessarily what was needed or wanted in case the balloon went up and part of the difficulty was balancing the use of force in the economic battles with the need for capability in Europe all not while breaking the bank that the whole thing was about keeping full. Weird war, but also kind of a return to maritime power strategy after the oddball World Wars, where the dominant maritime power of the period got itself stuck in in a land war.

Germans are a very literal people, and they got a bit confused when they heard somebody calling the radio their most effective weapon because of the indirect fire fragmentation capability.

You just need to take care not to bend the antenna when doing so, but it's perfectly viable. Or you know ring people to deploy indiscriminate metal chunk stabbing dispensers.

Could we just fly the Marine Corps to Ramstein and leave it there while we're being moustache twirling villains?

The biggest problem there is how low capability the seeker head of a missile is. It's designed to work not just within the range of the missile, but within the range of the missile when it already knows the target's heading and location at the moment of launch. By the end of it that doesn't have to be that much capability (there's also the question of how long the radar has to work and a bunch of other ramifications). Honestly if I were trying to use those ideas for Iran and China, the first thing would be that they'd need to be slaved to a capable set of high power radars, and would likely see significant p(k) improvements by becoming significantly more energetic, even if it came at the cost of having to have them on the ground until targets came to them (incidentally significantly reducing the problem of managing their takeoff and landing cycles). It's at that point that I think I just described an IADS. The biggest thing is that sensors everywhere don't beat stealth, because more than anything stealth raises the barrier of entry to being able to spot things. If anything, I'd think something that can move missiles to where they need to be, something like as much predator as needed with a phoenix slung underneath could be useful if it's going to be slaved to a datalink. Just make them a mobile AA reserve to add some mobile firepower to the air game, and reduce the impact of cheap and cheerful stuff like GPS targeted Tomahawk strikes and make them use more expensive SEAD munitions. There is probably some value in discussing this sort of thing in light of US sortie generation concerns in a hypothetical war against China, but I have a feeling that making them work as part of a system and being as cheap as you intend aren't really compatible. I'd compare it more to the fast attack craft craze after the INS Eliat idiocy, where everyone built a bunch of these spiffy light ships with the same missiles as the big ships but smaller and cheaper, and their sensor fits turned out to absolutely suck and they got shown up continually. For every new hotness that works, there's a lot of them that don't pan out, and cheap but blind doesn't seem to be a winner's bet in practice.

Seriously though there should be a talk about either funding your military to NATO treaty standards or buying time-shares in the US military.

Pronounced breasts for reasons other than lactation are a very very weird thing. That's not me. Strangely enough I am keenly aware of the glories of female anatomy, and my monkey brain loves to remind me of this. I'm just not over-fond of the damned thing on general principles.

That's the bit they had solved in 63, getting close enough to a missile for a nuke to break it up or hit it with enough radiation that it would fizzle. The problem was making that work within the much more complex picture of a full on battle. Picking out the real warheads outside the atmosphere, getting total precision for hit-to-kill, and overall managing the battlespace to go from just inflicting some attrition and some virtual attrition to actually stopping an attack was what killed it. And the Tomahawk has an utterly awful avionics fit, and avionics cost huge amounts of money. How much does that Tomahawk cost when you add a radar or a very sophisticated ground control system and the size to let that fit? The other problem is that the US wants to be able to fight over an enemy IADS, and drones that are fighters on the cheap are more expensive than missiles that aren't. That's where the virtual attrition on enemy defenses that stealth allows becomes pretty important, and just the ability to get sensors in there in the first place.

I'd definitely be interested.

Then it has already been said and the question was superfluous.

You can have an answer to your question or continued civility. Your call. I strongly recommend we not get into a big unnecessary snit-fit.

Filing under "Marine Corps as plot to destroy our purity of essence and sap our strength".