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  • #61
    Originally posted by 100% Wolf View Post
    What about the Swiss in places like Egypt? How will they be protected without a global Swiss empire?
    Other countries use their own military assets to evacuate their citizens. Egypt is not the best example since the situation there enabled most Americans to leave via non-military means, as did most other country nationals. Military aircraft were still used in the evacuation, however. For example, Greece sent 3 C-130's to evacuate Greek citizens in Egypt.

    We're not the only country to use military assets for evacuations and in dire circumstances without access to civilian airports, you have no choice but to send military helicopters.

    Evacuations are a small part of what the US military does, anyway. They're small operations in comparison to the humanitarian and peacekeeping missions.
    "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
    "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

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    • #62
      And which does Iraq fall under? "Humanitarian" or "peacekeeping"?
      "My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
      "The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud

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      • #63
        Originally posted by Patroklos View Post
        Also HC can you pull the SOF dick out of your mouth? For every SOF mission there are thousands of conventional forces providing support or directly participating alongside the operators. SOF has their role but pretending they are some majic bullet rather than just one of many tools limited to very specific and narrow subset of uses is as stubit as those who claimed nukes made all other forces obsolete or the Air Force claiming we could dispand the Navy. I also don't think you have an appreciation for the about of money SOCOM spends and how unaccountable they are for it.
        Fair enough. I'm sure you know more about it than I do. However the general principle of fewer troops who are individually more competent seems reasonable to me.
        If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
        ){ :|:& };:

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        • #64
          Originally posted by Patroklos View Post
          And reg you will find no greater critic of the LCS than me but lacking armor is not a weakness, there is not a single modern surface combatant of note that has anything more than anti spall/fragmentation layering. Some flight decks are sometimes "armored" as in reinforced to contain crash damage, but that's not what you meant.
          Okay, thanks. I read some article (lol) which stated that the LCS has poor protection so I figured that meant armor of some sort.

          Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post
          Gee. If only we had an expeditionary ready reaction force capable of quick global response using combined arms assets with air, land, and amphibious capability that cut its teeth in counterinsurgency operations way back during the Banana Wars, through to Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan. If only...

          The US Army is obsolete. The Marine Corps is not a redundancy. It is built to fight America's future wars.
          This is the most cliched thing I think I've ever read.
          expeditionary
          reaction force
          global response
          combined arms
          assets
          air, land, and amphibious capability
          counterinsurgency operations
          future wars

          Next you're going to be telling us about the OODA loop and how you shoot, move, and communicate. (EDIT: I forgot, it's "shoot, move, communicate, survive, adapt" or something now, they're always adding letters) My eyes are rolling so hard you could hook them up to a dynamo and power Las Vegas.

          Just to play your game, you do realize the Army also has several divisions of light infantry, which are designed to deploy rapidly in brigade-size chunks by air?

          The interservice rivalry thing is pretty dumb.

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          • #65
            Originally posted by Guynemer View Post
            WE ****ING DON'T.

            We don't get to dictate to the world how to live. We have enough goddamned problems of our own.

            Maybe if it was harder for us to go to war, we wouldn't be in PERPETUAL ****ING WAR.
            **** the Haitians. **** the Japanese. **** the Filipinos. Right, Guy? They don't need our food, water, and medical supplies.
            "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
            "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

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            • #66
              Because a military trained and equipped for war is the most cost effective means to provide humanitarian aid.
              “It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

              ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

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              • #67
                Originally posted by pchang View Post
                Because a military trained and equipped for war is the most cost effective means to provide humanitarian aid.
                You tell me who else has the rapid response, security, and logistical capabilities. I'm waiting.

                In the Philippines, in the span of 20 days, the USMC, USN, and USAF transported 4 million pounds of relief supplies to 450 sites and evacuated over 21,000 people.
                "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
                "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by pchang View Post
                  Because a military trained and equipped for war is the most cost effective means to provide humanitarian aid.
                  Like Guy said. Hammers and nails.
                  If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                  ){ :|:& };:

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post
                    You tell me who else has the rapid response, security, and logistical capabilities. I'm waiting.

                    In the Philippines, in the span of 20 days, the USMC, USN, and USAF transported 4 million pounds of relief supplies to 450 sites and evacuated over 21,000 people.
                    Why do we need jets that take off vertically and armored amphibious fighting vehicles to do that?

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                    • #70
                      Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                      Fair enough. I'm sure you know more about it than I do. However the general principle of fewer troops who are individually more competent seems reasonable to me.
                      SoF are competent at what they do, but they are no more competent at kicking in doors than others might be at refueling a jet on a pitching deck or laying concrete for the pad under mortar fire those SOF helos will take off from.

                      They do interesting and badass things I'll give you that. But that just means you hear about them more often than there actual battlefield value might otherwise warrant. Which is not to say they are unimportant, but the public impression of them is a carefully crafted and maintained myth peddled by the SOF community themselves to get more money and freedom to operate unaccountably. And since the senior leadership are unabashed self aggrandizing attention whores who thnk the military image is just a Facebook page they encourage it.

                      Originally posted by regexcellent View Post
                      Okay, thanks. I read some article (lol) which stated that the LCS has poor protection so I figured that meant armor of some sort.
                      That could include a lot of things like the fire main design, the crew numbers in regard the damage control parties, the ability to isolate casualties or to fight with major systems down. Lots of stuff.

                      When you try and change long standing operating procedures you generally have unexpected follow on effects as I am sure all of us know. One of these for the LCS but not limited to it is the current fetish for having the smallest crew possible. What this causes in the case of survivability is that a piqué operational tempo everyone has to be standing a watch to be combat effective leaving no flexibility for doing things like putting out a fire or dealing with flooding.
                      Last edited by Patroklos; February 25, 2014, 00:47.
                      "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

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                      • #71
                        I actually don't agree with Guy's level of military size, I think we benefit from having a much larger military than anyone else for reasons I don't care to go into here, because that's not really where the debate is right now. What I'm getting at is that we can achieve our foreign policy goals, even the misguided world cowboy police ones, while still cutting large numbers of retarded defense boondoggles that are sucking up huge piles of money. Such as the entire Marine Corps.
                        If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                        ){ :|:& };:

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Guynemer View Post
                          And which does Iraq fall under? "Humanitarian" or "peacekeeping"?
                          Shut up or I'm gonna liberate the shit out of you.
                          If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                          ){ :|:& };:

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                          • #73
                            Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
                            I actually don't agree with Guy's level of military size, I think we benefit from having a much larger military than anyone else for reasons I don't care to go into here, because that's not really where the debate is right now. What I'm getting at is that we can achieve our foreign policy goals, even the misguided world cowboy police ones, while still cutting large numbers of retarded defense boondoggles that are sucking up huge piles of money. Such as the entire Marine Corps.
                            The Army barely gets involved in humanitarian missions. They had no presence in the Philippines and their role in Operation Tomodachi was virtually nonexistent.

                            Yeah get rid of the small rapid deployment force. Because the future is in big conventional, slow-mobilizing land wars in Asia where we need a ton of artillery and tanks.
                            "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
                            "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post
                              Other countries use their own military assets to evacuate their citizens. Egypt is not the best example since the situation there enabled most Americans to leave via non-military means, as did most other country nationals. Military aircraft were still used in the evacuation, however. For example, Greece sent 3 C-130's to evacuate Greek citizens in Egypt.

                              We're not the only country to use military assets for evacuations and in dire circumstances without access to civilian airports, you have no choice but to send military helicopters.

                              Evacuations are a small part of what the US military does, anyway. They're small operations in comparison to the humanitarian and peacekeeping missions.

                              Countries don't maintain a global military presence for the sake of evacuating anyone the world from danger at any time. We should spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the military so that a few Americans won't get killed because their decision to move to a foreign country turned out to be a bad one? Seriously? If you have the assets, you might as well use them, but that doesn't make them a good investment.
                              [Pets] can't be reasoned with when their instincts kick in and they remember that they're animals. Especially dogs which are genetically 100% wolves. - Al B. Sure!

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                              • #75
                                Originally posted by Al B. Sure! View Post
                                The Army barely gets involved in humanitarian missions. They had no presence in the Philippines and their role in Operation Tomodachi was virtually nonexistent.
                                What the **** is your point? If we really needed to we could stick the army on ships. The navy doesn't need its own army.
                                Yeah get rid of the small rapid deployment force. Because the future is in big conventional, slow-mobilizing land wars in Asia where we need a ton of artillery and tanks.
                                You have apparently never heard of the Rangers. Or brigate combat teams.

                                If the world made sense there would be three branches. Anything that flies is Air Force, anything that floats is Navy, and anything that moves on land is Army. And they work together. Instead we have a kafkaesque byzantine system of duplication across four branches who fight and argue with each other like children.
                                If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
                                ){ :|:& };:

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