So suppose alien craft orbit earth

[Hauldren Collider]

I don't see the USAF or Navy with 6 burning hulks in place of their aircraft. Maybe the USMC were the ones underestimating the cavemen?

And I'm sorry. The cards are not stacked in their favor. You can see that from the kill ratios, if nothing else.

[Colon™]

My thought is, if they were out to explore earth, they would probably try to land in an area near civilization, but far enough away to avoid too much contact -



North Korea.

I hope they'd as stupid to actually land on earth. NK is a particularly good place, within striking distance of the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and American armies.

[Hauldren Collider]

NK may possibly be the best place (for humans) for aliens to land. There isn't much there to **** up, and as Colon points out, they're in easy range of five large military powers.

[regexcellent]

Marine aviation pioneered the concept of close air support during the Banana Wars and air assault/vertical envelopment (troop insertion via helicopter) during Korea.

Ah yes I see that Marines have perfected vertical envelopment

Don't underestimate the Mujihadeen. That was a point of emphasis at TBS to not underestimate an enemy in an asymmetrical war. In many ways, the cards are stacked in their favor and they can be very clever and skilled at what they do. They're not cavemen.

Yeah and if every marine's a rifleman they should have had enough dudes on hand to pull security for a bunch of $50 million jets.

[Dr Strangelove]

I truly don't understand why the Marines have their own air force. It's just politics.

[pchang]

They are willing to put their aircraft closer to the front. Reduces reaction time and increases time on station. The drawback is that they are more vulnerable to counterattack/sabotage that way.

[Dinner]

Ah yes I see that Marines have perfected vertical envelopment





Yeah and if every marine's a rifleman they should have had enough dudes on hand to pull security for a bunch of $50 million jets.

I see those things flying around here just about every day.

[regexcellent]

They are willing to put their aircraft closer to the front. Reduces reaction time and increases time on station. The drawback is that they are more vulnerable to counterattack/sabotage that way.

Everything in this post is false.

[DinoDoc]

I hope they'd as stupid to actually land on earth. NK is a particularly good place, within striking distance of the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and American armies.

It also has the benefit of containing nothing anyone cares enough about to hesitate blowing up.

[Hauldren Collider]

I truly don't understand why the Marines have their own air force. It's just politics.

It is probably the single most egregious redundancy in the entire military.

[regexcellent]

It also has the benefit of containing nothing anyone cares enough about to hesitate blowing up.

Worth noting here that the North Korean government is probably among those that wouldn't mind blowing it up

[Dr Strangelove]

They are willing to put their aircraft closer to the front. Reduces reaction time and increases time on station. The drawback is that they are more vulnerable to counterattack/sabotage that way.

Aircraft, even Ospreys, require time and distance to reach altitude, so close placement isn't really desireable.

[Sava]

If hostile aliens wanted to destroy us, I imagine they would be able to do it without us even knowing about it... and I doubt they'd bother talking to us beforehand.

Does a cheetah communicate with a gazelle before killing it? No.

[Aeson]

Ants on the other hand are known to take slaves and domesticate other species ... and even if we get lucky and do get a feline alien species invading, house cats like to play with their food.

[molly bloom]

But how many of those do we have?

S.H.A.D.O. is our friend :