How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by dharma

At that point, yup, pretty much. How many shots were fired in anger, or ever were going to be, with nuclear war in the balance?

Who said a war would have to be nuclear? In WWII, both sides agreed, when war broke out, not to use chemical weapons, though both sides had very large arsenals of them. It is not a huge stretch to consider the possibility that the Soviets, with their overwhelming advantage in heavy armor, might have launched a conventional invasion of western Europe while issuing a declaration that they would not use nuclear weapons.

Military planning involves being prepared for the unexpected, not just what seems to be the most likely scenario. You do not ignore conventional warfare and the weapons to fight a conventional war just because many nations have nukes. The Soviet military included reading 'The Art of War' as an integral part of officer training. Doing the unexpected in a way that plays to their strengths and against the enemy's weaknesses was standard doctrine for them, just as Sun Tzu recommended. The aforementioned scenario would have fit their military mindset perfectly.
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And, if nuclear war had begun, would the Tornados have made a rat's ass worth of difference?

See above. In a conventional conflict, the protection of the Royal Navy North Sea Fleet based at Scapa Flow would have been absolutely critical. For the Soviets, using their bombers to attack, degrade, contain and destroy the North Sea fleet and other military assets in the northern UK region, as well as Norway, would have been a mission of primary importance. So yes, the Tornado ADVs were a very important asset.
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Damn straight I do. Too bad other people don't have the same one. Ever hear of something called the war in Vietnam?

Your point?
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Without a doubt. One has to believe in what one is doing. Here's our lesson for today: "important" and "meaningful" are not the same thing.

Equating Indian/Pakistani border rituals with North Sea Tornado ADV patrols in specific and the Cold War in general is too silly to merit comment. It is fair to point out, however, that the tensions behind those border rituals have broken out into full-blown war between the two nations in the past more than once, and could well result in a nuclear war between India and Pakistan at any time. The 'posturing' is a merely a manifestation of the tensions, fear, paranoia and even hatred between nations. Dismissing such posturing and all that goes with it as "meaningless" is naive and foolish in the extreme.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Your point?

You need it spelled out? Vietnam was an expenditure of huge amounts of blood and treasure—for nothing. It should never have happened. If a libertarian had been in the White House, it wouldn't.

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Equating Indian/Pakistani border rituals with North Sea Tornado ADV patrols in specific and the Cold War in general is too silly to merit comment.

You're blind. I know of no argument that cures that, so I won't try. There may be someone reading this, however, who watches that pitiful video and sees the parallels with the empty puffery at all the hostile borders of the world and gets the point. As I said, important doesn't equate to meaningful. That may have gone over your head, but it won't go over everyone's.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by dharma

You need it spelled out? Vietnam was an expenditure of huge amounts of blood and treasure—for nothing. It should never have happened. If a libertarian had been in the White House, it wouldn't.

It was miserably managed, but it achieved its political goal; to stop Communist expansion in the region. So while I would not have gotten involved, to say it accomplished nothing is plainly false. Vietnam made Russia and China realize that America was, in fact, willing to expend massive amounts of money and to lose tens of thousands of its own soldiers in proxy wars to stop their plan for world domination through subversion of third world nations, one after the other. After Vietnam, the Soviets and Chinese took a much more restrained, low-key approach.
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You're blind.

What an elegant argument! A tour de force of logic and reason.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

It was miserably managed, but it achieved its political goal

We lost a war, tens of thousands died, the economy was nearly ruined, and South Vietnam ended up as what it would have been anyway: communist. But it was a success!

I'm gonna love hearing what a great thing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by dharma

We lost a war, tens of thousands died, the economy was nearly ruined, and South Vietnam ended up as what it would have been anyway: communist. But it was a success!

Just because it accomplished a political goal does not mean it was a success in all ways. Obviously, it was not. Equally obviously, neither was it a total failure in every way.
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I'm gonna love hearing what a great thing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are.

Sure, let us talk about that. Do you want to go back to a time when nearly every Muslim nation on the planet was a state sponsor of various terrorist groups? Because that changed when we took down Saddam, and Bush said 'you are with us or against us' in the War On Terror, radically changing the political paradigm in the Muslim world. The example of Arab and south Asian Muslims voting for their own leaders and forming their own democratic governments was followed by the 'Arab spring'; with Muslims overthrowing traditional dictatorships and demanding the right to vote for their own leaders and form their own governments, exactly as Bush predicted. Coincidence? I think not.

The process is messy and nasty, just as the birth and early years of our own nation was, but there has now been a fundamental political change in the Muslim world for the first time since the end of the colonial era. We are still in the midst of the birthing pains, but Muslim democracy has replaced tyranny, and it is here to stay. Certainly a lot of Muslim nations will have to deal with Islamism, women's rights, sexual mores evolving, the rights of religious minorities, and many other tough issues, just as we had to deal with religion in the government, slavery, the destruction of Native American cultures, and other issues of those earlier times. But their is absolutely no question that Iraq and Afghanistan have irrevocably changed the Muslim world, breaking the longstanding stasis and moving them several big steps closer to the 21st century and the modern world.

So again, I would not have personally chosen to go into Iraq, though I would have gone into Afghanistan after bin Laden. And again, to say it was all for naught is obviously not true. We both would do things very differently, but we cannot close our eyes to the elemental changes in the world and pretend they did not occur due to those two wars.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Just because it accomplished a political goal does not mean it was a success in all ways. Obviously, it was not. Equally obviously, neither was it a total failure in every way.

Ah. Let me alter my statement: we lost a war, tens of thousands died, the economy was nearly ruined, and South Vietnam ended up as what it would have been anyway: communist. But it wasn't a total failure! We made a statement!

Strong argument, boy.

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Sure, let us talk about that. ... radically changing the political paradigm in the Muslim world ... there has now been a fundamental political change in the Muslim world

Indeed. Iraq is now in shambles and falling into the orbit of Iran, while Iran (what was that about state-sponsored terrorism?) has been emboldened and is seeking to go nuclear and become pre-eminent in the Mideast. All of north Africa is going from secular dictatorship to fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship. Egypt has broken its export agreements with Israel and is becoming belligerent. Afghanistan is going from fundamentalist chaos to . . . fundamentalist chaos. Pakistan has been radicalized, and fundamentalists hold sway there much more than they did under Musharraf. Syria is a bloodbath, and the good guys are losing because we gave them hope, than failed to help them.

Hell of a job, Brownie!

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by dharma

Ah. Let me alter my statement: we lost a war, tens of thousands died, the economy was nearly ruined, and South Vietnam ended up as what it would have been anyway: communist. But it wasn't a total failure! We made a statement!

Strong argument, boy.

If that was what I said, you would have a point. And if distorting and falsifying what I said is the best you can do, then "strong argument, boy."
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Indeed. Iraq is now in shambles and falling into the orbit of Iran, while Iran (what was that about state-sponsored terrorism?) has been emboldened and is seeking to go nuclear and become pre-eminent in the Mideast. All of north Africa is going from secular dictatorship to fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship. Egypt has broken its export agreements with Israel and is becoming belligerent. Afghanistan is going from fundamentalist chaos to . . . fundamentalist chaos. Pakistan has been radicalized, and fundamentalists hold sway there much more than they did under Musharraf. Syria is a bloodbath, and the good guys are losing because we gave them hope, than failed to help them.

Hell of a job, Brownie!

Yes, the whole area is almost as f'ed up as America during and after the Revolution. I hope they can have the same sort of abject failure we experienced.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

If that was what I said, you would have a point.

It was, and I do. We made a statement that Russia and China would not have an easy time of it, and they eased off a bit. Great reason for a war.

Originally Posted by Ought Six

the whole area is almost as f'ed up as America during and after the Revolution.

America post-revolution and the Muslim Mideast post-Iraq. Astounding. Congratulations on the single most maladroit comparison I may ever have heard.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by dharma

It was, and I do. We made a statement that Russia and China would not have an easy time of it, and they eased off a bit. Great reason for a war.

No, you said that. I did not. I said we fought a proxy war with Russia and China. That is not a mere "statement". It was a several year long major military campaign that forced a significant shift in the enemy's plans for world domination. The old Communist adage is, "Probe the enemy with your bayonet fixed. If you meet steel, retreat. If you meet soft flesh, advance." We met them with steel, and they retreated. They were never again as bold and direct in their efforts to subvert other nations. The Communist dominoes in SE Asia stopped falling. If it were not for Vietnam, we would have lost the entire region. That is a hell of a lot more than "a statement". Again, not the approach I would have taken, but a result that cannot be denied or dismissed, as you are attempting to do.
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America post-revolution and the Muslim Mideast post-Iraq. Astounding. Congratulations on the single most maladroit comparison I may ever have heard.

Sorry you are so very blind to the obvious parallels. A long, bloody, difficult war for the rebels with the help of foreign powers. After the war, the new governments engaging in institutional bigotry and open discrimination against religious minorities. The ongoing tensions between the winners and losers, with many citizens on the losing side fleeing for their lives. The struggle between disparate factions on the winning side to establish a working democratic republic and write a constitution. The initial failure of a weak state. The reworking of the entire government into a better one with a greater emphasis on human rights. Dealing with huge ongoing schisms remaining between major factions, which in our case eventually led to one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history. We see all this unfolding before our very eyes, but you apparently see none of it.

[Glockd]

I knew I spelled Scotts name wrong. Lt. Cmdr. Michael "Scott" Speicher was at 29,000 feet at Mach .95, 100 miles from Baghdad when the nose of his aircraft suffered a catastrophic failure. Thats fancy talk for his jet was hit by an R-40 (AA-6 ACRID) AAM fired by a Mig 25 flown by Lt. Zuhair Dawood, 84th squadron IQAF. He was the first American combat casualty of the war. The official story was that he was hit by a SAM, but other guys from his flight knew a Mig got him. They had been locked up too, detected the Migs radar with their warning receivers, and tried to get AWACS to give them permission to fire.

I dont give a fuck what any shitsack says, the fuckin controller refused permission because the almighty fucking Air Force was supposed to kill Migs not the goddamn Navy. Speicher would probably still be alive if the Navy had been allowed to control the Navy and the Air Force bothered only with the Air Force and so on.

This is one of the many reasons why the Marine Corps fights so hard to retain control of its own TACAIR component and why we dont fucking trust anyone else.

[Glockd]

In 2002, an Iraqi Mig-25 also used an R-40 to down an MQ-1 Predator. The Predator fired back with an AIM-92 but the Mig evaded it.