Iran has strategic missle -- threatens Israel

[Solver]

"Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force..."

Incidentally, does anyone have figures on how many undeployed aircraft are there now?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Solver
US currently has almost everything deployed.

This is what I don't understand - they say we only have something like 135,000 troops in Iraq, but I thought we had over half a million... where'd the other few hundred thousand go?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by PLATO
"Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force..."

Nothing can stop the German Luftwaffe!

It doesn't matter, really. American airpower is only effective in combination with ground troops in position to exploit it. Yugoslavia only "surrendered" when the U.S. agreed to all of Yugoslabvia's original conditions (which we subsequently broke) and when Russia threatened to cut off their oil.

[Solver]

This is what I don't understand - they say we only have something like 135,000 troops in Iraq, but I thought we had over half a million... where'd the other few hundred thousand go?

Well, the rest are probably not active duty or something like that. Is half a million the number of people in the military overall, or the number of people who can serve in combat situations?

We need MtG here.

[Kuciwalker]

I know we have something like 1.6 million servicemen. I don't know whether that's just army, or all the military, and whether it includes just troops or noncombat personnel.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I know we have something like 1.6 million servicemen. I don't know whether that's just army, or all the military, and whether it includes just troops or noncombat personnel.

Whole military, including non-coms. 9/10 of our combat divisions are currently deployed in Iraq.

[Kuciwalker]

Right, but are the entire divisions being sent, or part? We sent 500,000 troops to Iraq the first time.

[chequita guevara]

Our military was bigger then.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Ned
"Iran, supporter of baby-killing, anti-Jew terrorists "

Have you called them evil yet? Cause i think you should call them evil. You know, it's like: you so need to bring God into this.

[Flip McWho]

Yes. Let's see. Iran has been called a part of the axis of 'evil' by the president of the current most powerful nation of the world. Would you feel threatened? Would you desire to get something in your arsenal to hopefully prevent an undesirable conflict?

I do grant that they don't like Israel very much though.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


This is what I don't understand - they say we only have something like 135,000 troops in Iraq, but I thought we had over half a million... where'd the other few hundred thousand go?

Some are about to rotate in, some have just rotated out, some are REMFs who are part of the logistical chain from the US to Kuwait and then Iraq.

The Army is just under 500,000, but a majority of that is combat support and combat support services, and a majority of the manpower of the army is in units other than the ten combat divisions - Corps level units, miscellaneous command staffs, independent units for maintenance, logistics, MPs, signals, air defense, and all sorts of other stuff. Some of those are deployed, some are tied up in support roles here.

The biggest constraint on the Army and Marines is our level of sealift and airlift capacity, plus the rate of production for things like ordnance and replacement equipment. We don't have the resupply or the transport capability to engage two significant enemies simultaneously, and we haven't had for a long time.

A lot of the ten combat divisions are not deployed in Iraq, but HQ and supply elements plus a brigade or two doesn't leave much left, and you don't want to split your command and support elements between two different combat deployments, so if we did start to get our dicks in a meatgrinder somewhere else, you'd likely see some redeployment and consolidation of units first.

All of that really just collides with the hard reality that we're heavy lift constrained, so we aren't going anywhere else in any major force any time soon.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Our military was bigger then.

I find it difficult to believe we've dismissed over 300,000 troops...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Flip McWho
I do grant that they don't like Israel very much though.

Yeah, but let's face it. Aside from the U.S., who really does?

[Chemical Ollie]

Nuclear weapons are not created to be used in war, but to prevent war. Iranian nukes

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Right, but are the entire divisions being sent, or part? We sent 500,000 troops to Iraq the first time.

Some of each. In Iraq the first time, that 500,000 included USMC, Air force and squids.

We had 1 and 2 Marine divisions plus attached USMC units.

9th AF

3rd Army command
V, VII, and XVIII Airborne Corps commands
1, 3, and 24 Infantry divisions.
1, 2 and 3 Armored divisions
1st Cavalry, 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne/Air Assault divisions, 2nd and 3rd Armored Cav Regiments (which are real fat for regiments - the two units would be about division strength)

plus smaller army units and SOF units from all services.

Plus a bunch of squids.