What is failure? What is success? Please tell us Mr. flag Humping Party representative? Because our Flag Humper in Chief doesn't even know what the objective is. Please enlighten us.RuskiSTL wrote: ↑11:16 PM - Mar 07"Critical analysis".... any proof that Iran ever obtained operational s400s? Any proof of US jets being shot down over Iranian sovereignty? If they could shoot them down over Kuwait, as many OSINT videos show then why aren't they being shot down over Iran?JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑11:09 PM - Mar 07What a loser you are. Critical analysis of the government, including the military, is called being a citizen. This country needs more citizens and less flag humpers like you right now.RuskiSTL wrote: ↑8:48 PM - Mar 07Blinded by hate for your own country, spouting non-sense.
Iran never received the s400 from Russia. If they did, Israel wouldn't have achieved air superiority immediately like they did in June.
If Iranian air defense was capable of this, how did it manage to shoot down such advanced jets beyond their own borders in Kuwait but perform so terribly in Iran?
"We cannot win this war." "We cannot win a war with Russia."
Man, you really hate America. The last 4 years have been the best advertisement for US and Israel military tech imaginable. I sure wouldn't want to be equipped with the Russian and Chinese junk that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia have been fighting with. Not to mention the Rafaels that Pakistan downed.
You say we cannot win wars. But maybe you missed it, we re-established ties with Venezuela this week. American Airlines is restarting flights from Miami. Sounds like winning to me.
Would love to see that "analysis". Or all you've got is name calling?
Seems you are projecting your desires for US military failure rather any proof. Scary what partisanship has done to this nation.
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Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. BootlickersRuskiSTL wrote: ↑8:48 PM - Mar 07Blinded by hate for your own country, spouting non-sense.moorlander wrote: ↑5:40 PM - Mar 07They haven’t been shot down before because this is the first engagement against against a 2nd tier military with strong air defense. Not just sandal wearing farmers with rpgs and aks.
Odds are high these 4 planes were shot down by Iranian air defense. Most likely s300 or s400 batteries.
We cannot win this war. Just like we cannot with the war with Russia. And no nation will ever trust us because we cannot be trusted in a negotiation.
With the poor preference of the f15e I’m concerned they may limit additional production. Problem is we need a work horse fighter. The f22 and f35 are some of the best fighters in the world but they are “pavement princesses” that require something like 6 hours maintenance for every hour of flight time.
Iran never received the s400 from Russia. If they did, Israel wouldn't have achieved air superiority immediately like they did in June.
If Iranian air defense was capable of this, how did it manage to shoot down such advanced jets beyond their own borders in Kuwait but perform so terribly in Iran?
"We cannot win this war." "We cannot win a war with Russia."
Man, you really hate America. The last 4 years have been the best advertisement for US and Israel military tech imaginable. I sure wouldn't want to be equipped with the Russian and Chinese junk that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia have been fighting with. Not to mention the Rafaels that Pakistan downed.
You say we cannot win wars. But maybe you missed it, we re-established ties with Venezuela this week. American Airlines is restarting flights from Miami. Sounds like winning to me.
Anyone know what kind of missiles Boeing makes out in St Chuck?
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Bulk of their work there is the Joint Direct Attack Munition kits. Those attach to GBU missiles for guidance.
GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb
Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles for the Navy
GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb
Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles for the Navy
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@JaneJacobsGhost Quit that bootlicker name-calling crap, and I'll take this one...JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑1:52 PM - Mar 08Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. Bootlickers
Regarding the F-15E's being shot down... It looks like the 3 US Strike Eagles and 1 Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet were all targeting a large swarm of incoming Iranian drones. When the Hornet fired its AIM-9 missiles at the drones, it switched its locks from the drones to the Eagles, as they have a larger infrared signature. So, they were shot in the back by friendly fire in uncontested conditions. Does this end their perfect record? Likely depends on who you ask, but I don't consider this "friendly fire" shootdown to be air combat.
@RuskiSTL Yes, it's confirmed to have been a Kuwaiti F/A-18 and not a SAM system, S400 or otherwise.
@moorlander The F-15's perfect record isn't from fighting peasants. That's just silliness. And I agree fully that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a fight between the West and post-Soviet Russian imperialism. And we very much can stop them, but it's a question of scaled retaliation with a nuclear power with eyes on placing tactical yield weapons along the Suwalki Gap. And maybe kompromat, but that's undetermined.
It's also likely that Russia will grind to a halt. There's a great article in The Economist recently likening Russia's current economy to being in the "death zone", that altitude for mountain climbers where they cannot get enough oxygen and their bodies eat themselves. Russia's economy is so beyond just being their military industrial complex that a complete and total economic collapse is very viable.
Meanwhile, for the sake of this conversation getting out of this thread, we need to address what "winning" this war with Iran means... Is it the overthrow of the Islamist Revolution and the dislocation of the Ayatollah? Is it total annihilation? My big question is whether we can have a real change in government prior to it turning into a war of attrition, which I believe Iran wants.
My big concern: Will we stop active combat before the global economy - yes, including our own - takes too great a hit? We are currently in the midst of the largest oil disruption in history: the 20% of global oil currently disrupted doubles the Suez Crisis as the largest oil disruption in history [10% global capacity]. This will directly lead to spikes in inflation, like 75bps added to Headline CPI. I'm also more concerned than most with attacks on the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, considering that their needs for proactive post-war reconstruction could lead to considerable reallocations of assets currently invested into the broader US markets and especially into Artificial Intelligence. And if the wells need to be capped even on a temporary basis, then we will be looking down the barrel of considerable delays in their reopening.
As I'm typing this, the President said the "war is very complete." Does this mean that we'll let the Son of the Ayatollah be the new Ayatollah and stay in power going forward? Beyond that, is that the President going back to acknowledging that this is a war with Iran and not just a special military operation?
As with all things, time will tell here...
Whether you're hawkish or dovish, IDGAF. I'm here to talk about Boeing.
And EVERYONE needs to stop with the name-calling. Especially because so many of you are so bad at it.
Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, let's get this thread back on track and stop having us debate amateur wargaming. Cheers
You're just proving JJG's point. You had nothing to say about the guy saying moorlander "hates America" or the fact he brought this conversation way further off topic than anyone else but you have something to say about JJG calling a bootlicker a bootlicker. I guess the shoe fits though.gone corporate wrote:@JaneJacobsGhost Quit that bootlicker name-calling crap, and I'll take this one...JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑1:52 PM - Mar 08Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. Bootlickers
Regarding the F-15E's being shot down... It looks like the 3 US Strike Eagles and 1 Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet were all targeting a large swarm of incoming Iranian drones. When the Hornet fired its AIM-9 missiles at the drones, it switched its locks from the drones to the Eagles, as they have a larger infrared signature. So, they were shot in the back by friendly fire in uncontested conditions. Does this end their perfect record? Likely depends on who you ask, but I don't consider this "friendly fire" shootdown to be air combat.
@RuskiSTL Yes, it's confirmed to have been a Kuwaiti F/A-18 and not a SAM system, S400 or otherwise.
@moorlander The F-15's perfect record isn't from fighting peasants. That's just silliness. And I agree fully that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a fight between the West and post-Soviet Russian imperialism. And we very much can stop them, but it's a question of scaled retaliation with a nuclear power with eyes on placing tactical yield weapons along the Suwalki Gap. And maybe kompromat, but that's undetermined.
It's also likely that Russia will grind to a halt. There's a great article in The Economist recently likening Russia's current economy to being in the "death zone", that altitude for mountain climbers where they cannot get enough oxygen and their bodies eat themselves. Russia's economy is so beyond just being their military industrial complex that a complete and total economic collapse is very viable.
Meanwhile, for the sake of this conversation getting out of this thread, we need to address what "winning" this war with Iran means... Is it the overthrow of the Islamist Revolution and the dislocation of the Ayatollah? Is it total annihilation? My big question is whether we can have a real change in government prior to it turning into a war of attrition, which I believe Iran wants.
My big concern: Will we stop active combat before the global economy - yes, including our own - takes too great a hit? We are currently in the midst of the largest oil disruption in history: the 20% of global oil currently disrupted doubles the Suez Crisis as the largest oil disruption in history [10% global capacity]. This will directly lead to spikes in inflation, like 75bps added to Headline CPI. I'm also more concerned than most with attacks on the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, considering that their needs for proactive post-war reconstruction could lead to considerable reallocations of assets currently invested into the broader US markets and especially into Artificial Intelligence. And if the wells need to be capped even on a temporary basis, then we will be looking down the barrel of considerable delays in their reopening.
As I'm typing this, the President said the "war is very complete." Does this mean that we'll let the Son of the Ayatollah be the new Ayatollah and stay in power going forward? Beyond that, is that the President going back to acknowledging that this is a war with Iran and not just a special military operation?
As with all things, time will tell here...
Whether you're hawkish or dovish, IDGAF. I'm here to talk about Boeing.
And EVERYONE needs to stop with the name-calling. Especially because so many of you are so bad at it.
Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, let's get this thread back on track and stop having us debate amateur wargaming. Cheers
Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk
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It’s a rare day I disagree with you Gone Corporate. Your analysis on the Ukraine/Russia war I couldn’t disagree with more.gone corporate wrote:@JaneJacobsGhost Quit that bootlicker name-calling crap, and I'll take this one...JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑1:52 PM - Mar 08Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. Bootlickers
Regarding the F-15E's being shot down... It looks like the 3 US Strike Eagles and 1 Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet were all targeting a large swarm of incoming Iranian drones. When the Hornet fired its AIM-9 missiles at the drones, it switched its locks from the drones to the Eagles, as they have a larger infrared signature. So, they were shot in the back by friendly fire in uncontested conditions. Does this end their perfect record? Likely depends on who you ask, but I don't consider this "friendly fire" shootdown to be air combat.
@RuskiSTL Yes, it's confirmed to have been a Kuwaiti F/A-18 and not a SAM system, S400 or otherwise.
@moorlander The F-15's perfect record isn't from fighting peasants. That's just silliness. And I agree fully that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a fight between the West and post-Soviet Russian imperialism. And we very much can stop them, but it's a question of scaled retaliation with a nuclear power with eyes on placing tactical yield weapons along the Suwalki Gap. And maybe kompromat, but that's undetermined.
It's also likely that Russia will grind to a halt. There's a great article in The Economist recently likening Russia's current economy to being in the "death zone", that altitude for mountain climbers where they cannot get enough oxygen and their bodies eat themselves. Russia's economy is so beyond just being their military industrial complex that a complete and total economic collapse is very viable.
Meanwhile, for the sake of this conversation getting out of this thread, we need to address what "winning" this war with Iran means... Is it the overthrow of the Islamist Revolution and the dislocation of the Ayatollah? Is it total annihilation? My big question is whether we can have a real change in government prior to it turning into a war of attrition, which I believe Iran wants.
My big concern: Will we stop active combat before the global economy - yes, including our own - takes too great a hit? We are currently in the midst of the largest oil disruption in history: the 20% of global oil currently disrupted doubles the Suez Crisis as the largest oil disruption in history [10% global capacity]. This will directly lead to spikes in inflation, like 75bps added to Headline CPI. I'm also more concerned than most with attacks on the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, considering that their needs for proactive post-war reconstruction could lead to considerable reallocations of assets currently invested into the broader US markets and especially into Artificial Intelligence. And if the wells need to be capped even on a temporary basis, then we will be looking down the barrel of considerable delays in their reopening.
As I'm typing this, the President said the "war is very complete." Does this mean that we'll let the Son of the Ayatollah be the new Ayatollah and stay in power going forward? Beyond that, is that the President going back to acknowledging that this is a war with Iran and not just a special military operation?
As with all things, time will tell here...
Whether you're hawkish or dovish, IDGAF. I'm here to talk about Boeing.
And EVERYONE needs to stop with the name-calling. Especially because so many of you are so bad at it.
Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, let's get this thread back on track and stop having us debate amateur wargaming. Cheers
But back to Boeing.
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Kid, I don't dance when you sing. You have something to say, you say it, but don't expect me to.StlAlex wrote: ↑9:03 PM - Mar 09You're just proving JJG's point. You had nothing to say about the guy saying moorlander "hates America" or the fact he brought this conversation way further off topic than anyone else but you have something to say about JJG calling a bootlicker a bootlicker. I guess the shoe fits though.gone corporate wrote:@JaneJacobsGhost Quit that bootlicker name-calling crap, and I'll take this one...JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑1:52 PM - Mar 08Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. Bootlickers
Regarding the F-15E's being shot down... It looks like the 3 US Strike Eagles and 1 Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet were all targeting a large swarm of incoming Iranian drones. When the Hornet fired its AIM-9 missiles at the drones, it switched its locks from the drones to the Eagles, as they have a larger infrared signature. So, they were shot in the back by friendly fire in uncontested conditions. Does this end their perfect record? Likely depends on who you ask, but I don't consider this "friendly fire" shootdown to be air combat.
@RuskiSTL Yes, it's confirmed to have been a Kuwaiti F/A-18 and not a SAM system, S400 or otherwise.
@moorlander The F-15's perfect record isn't from fighting peasants. That's just silliness. And I agree fully that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a fight between the West and post-Soviet Russian imperialism. And we very much can stop them, but it's a question of scaled retaliation with a nuclear power with eyes on placing tactical yield weapons along the Suwalki Gap. And maybe kompromat, but that's undetermined.
It's also likely that Russia will grind to a halt. There's a great article in The Economist recently likening Russia's current economy to being in the "death zone", that altitude for mountain climbers where they cannot get enough oxygen and their bodies eat themselves. Russia's economy is so beyond just being their military industrial complex that a complete and total economic collapse is very viable.
Meanwhile, for the sake of this conversation getting out of this thread, we need to address what "winning" this war with Iran means... Is it the overthrow of the Islamist Revolution and the dislocation of the Ayatollah? Is it total annihilation? My big question is whether we can have a real change in government prior to it turning into a war of attrition, which I believe Iran wants.
My big concern: Will we stop active combat before the global economy - yes, including our own - takes too great a hit? We are currently in the midst of the largest oil disruption in history: the 20% of global oil currently disrupted doubles the Suez Crisis as the largest oil disruption in history [10% global capacity]. This will directly lead to spikes in inflation, like 75bps added to Headline CPI. I'm also more concerned than most with attacks on the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, considering that their needs for proactive post-war reconstruction could lead to considerable reallocations of assets currently invested into the broader US markets and especially into Artificial Intelligence. And if the wells need to be capped even on a temporary basis, then we will be looking down the barrel of considerable delays in their reopening.
As I'm typing this, the President said the "war is very complete." Does this mean that we'll let the Son of the Ayatollah be the new Ayatollah and stay in power going forward? Beyond that, is that the President going back to acknowledging that this is a war with Iran and not just a special military operation?
As with all things, time will tell here...
Whether you're hawkish or dovish, IDGAF. I'm here to talk about Boeing.
And EVERYONE needs to stop with the name-calling. Especially because so many of you are so bad at it.
Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, let's get this thread back on track and stop having us debate amateur wargaming. Cheers
Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk
LET'S GET THIS GDMF THREAD BACK ON POINT!!!!! Mods, this is ridiculous.
Be happy to talk off this thread with you all day, learn from each other here. Cheers buddymoorlander wrote: ↑9:15 PM - Mar 09It’s a rare day I disagree with you Gone Corporate. Your analysis on the Ukraine/Russia war I couldn’t disagree with more.gone corporate wrote:@JaneJacobsGhost Quit that bootlicker name-calling crap, and I'll take this one...JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑1:52 PM - Mar 08Where are the resident “centrists” to condemn Ruski for taking this thread off topic? I guess that’s reserved for Alex and me. Bootlickers
Regarding the F-15E's being shot down... It looks like the 3 US Strike Eagles and 1 Kuwaiti F/A-18 Hornet were all targeting a large swarm of incoming Iranian drones. When the Hornet fired its AIM-9 missiles at the drones, it switched its locks from the drones to the Eagles, as they have a larger infrared signature. So, they were shot in the back by friendly fire in uncontested conditions. Does this end their perfect record? Likely depends on who you ask, but I don't consider this "friendly fire" shootdown to be air combat.
@RuskiSTL Yes, it's confirmed to have been a Kuwaiti F/A-18 and not a SAM system, S400 or otherwise.
@moorlander The F-15's perfect record isn't from fighting peasants. That's just silliness. And I agree fully that the Russo-Ukrainian War is a fight between the West and post-Soviet Russian imperialism. And we very much can stop them, but it's a question of scaled retaliation with a nuclear power with eyes on placing tactical yield weapons along the Suwalki Gap. And maybe kompromat, but that's undetermined.
It's also likely that Russia will grind to a halt. There's a great article in The Economist recently likening Russia's current economy to being in the "death zone", that altitude for mountain climbers where they cannot get enough oxygen and their bodies eat themselves. Russia's economy is so beyond just being their military industrial complex that a complete and total economic collapse is very viable.
Meanwhile, for the sake of this conversation getting out of this thread, we need to address what "winning" this war with Iran means... Is it the overthrow of the Islamist Revolution and the dislocation of the Ayatollah? Is it total annihilation? My big question is whether we can have a real change in government prior to it turning into a war of attrition, which I believe Iran wants.
My big concern: Will we stop active combat before the global economy - yes, including our own - takes too great a hit? We are currently in the midst of the largest oil disruption in history: the 20% of global oil currently disrupted doubles the Suez Crisis as the largest oil disruption in history [10% global capacity]. This will directly lead to spikes in inflation, like 75bps added to Headline CPI. I'm also more concerned than most with attacks on the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, considering that their needs for proactive post-war reconstruction could lead to considerable reallocations of assets currently invested into the broader US markets and especially into Artificial Intelligence. And if the wells need to be capped even on a temporary basis, then we will be looking down the barrel of considerable delays in their reopening.
As I'm typing this, the President said the "war is very complete." Does this mean that we'll let the Son of the Ayatollah be the new Ayatollah and stay in power going forward? Beyond that, is that the President going back to acknowledging that this is a war with Iran and not just a special military operation?
As with all things, time will tell here...
Whether you're hawkish or dovish, IDGAF. I'm here to talk about Boeing.
And EVERYONE needs to stop with the name-calling. Especially because so many of you are so bad at it.
Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, let's get this thread back on track and stop having us debate amateur wargaming. Cheers
But back to Boeing.
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Boeing’s moon rocket faces uncertain future under Trump’s NASA
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/boeing-s-moon-rocket-faces-uncertain-future-under-trump-s-nasa-13886340.html
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/boeing-s-moon-rocket-faces-uncertain-future-under-trump-s-nasa-13886340.html
Interesting update on the MQ-25. The military tested out fitting it with a cruise missile.
https://theaircurrent.com/defense/us-na ... al-tanker/
https://theaircurrent.com/defense/us-na ... al-tanker/
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What’s the point of these anymore? Why are we using our treasure to purchase a single $139MM drone when with the same money we could probably purchase 100,000+ cruise and loitering drones with significant payloads?
I’m not saying we need throw out jets, cruise missiles and high end drones altogether, but it feels like the approach needs to change.
Not to mention the US military should be dedicating significant resources to quickly finding a cheap way to shoot down dumb drones. Honestly, this should have started in 2023.
I’m not a military kit research bug so maybe this stuff is ongoing
I’m not saying we need throw out jets, cruise missiles and high end drones altogether, but it feels like the approach needs to change.
Not to mention the US military should be dedicating significant resources to quickly finding a cheap way to shoot down dumb drones. Honestly, this should have started in 2023.
I’m not a military kit research bug so maybe this stuff is ongoing
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^Respectfully, you're perhaps unaware of what's going on here. Boeing's MQ-25 was presented as an unmanned refueling tanker, meant ostensibly to loiter and fill the tanks of our fighters. For example, our F/A-18E/Fs and F-35s on missions along the First Island Chain, extending their range over the Pacific to defend Taiwan while keeping our supercarrier task forces out of the range of the PLA's hypersonic glide vehicles. Now, we're seeing that these are not just refueling platforms but potentially premade collaborative combat aircraft. After all, if it can carry a gas nozzle, then it can carry a LRASM, right? This not an expenditure of treasure on a single drone. Instead, it's the advent of a new combat jet.
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I agree that the US needs to step up on the development of cheap drones. It's pointless to have billions in budget and equipment that can be easily destroyed by swarms of cheap drones.
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That makes sense but it sounds like putting an old hat on top of an older hat. The paradigm has shifted.gone corporate wrote: ↑4:05 PM - 11 days ago^Respectfully, you're perhaps unaware of what's going on here. Boeing's MQ-25 was presented as an unmanned refueling tanker, meant ostensibly to loiter and fill the tanks of our fighters. For example, our F/A-18E/Fs and F-35s on missions along the First Island Chain, extending their range over the Pacific to defend Taiwan while keeping our supercarrier task forces out of the range of the PLA's hypersonic glide vehicles. Now, we're seeing that these are not just refueling platforms but potentially premade collaborative combat aircraft. After all, if it can carry a gas nozzle, then it can carry a LRASM, right? This not an expenditure of treasure on a single drone. Instead, it's the advent of a new combat jet.
All the king’s tomahawks and all the king’s F-35s have failed to achieve a single strategic objective against Iran. Iran controls the skies in the strait of Hormuz and the a significant portion of the Arabian peninsula.
Iran’s drone and cheap ballistic missiles have forced us to “withdraw” (this how people losing wars say “retreat”) from basically all of our Persian gulf bases.
We can’t maintain our position as the hegemonic superpower like this. We can’t pay for it. Something has to give.
And now the navy is retreating all the way to Diego Garcia
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Well put. I couldn’t agree more.JaneJacobsGhost wrote:That makes sense but it sounds like putting an old hat on top of an older hat. The paradigm has shifted.gone corporate wrote: ↑4:05 PM - 11 days ago^Respectfully, you're perhaps unaware of what's going on here. Boeing's MQ-25 was presented as an unmanned refueling tanker, meant ostensibly to loiter and fill the tanks of our fighters. For example, our F/A-18E/Fs and F-35s on missions along the First Island Chain, extending their range over the Pacific to defend Taiwan while keeping our supercarrier task forces out of the range of the PLA's hypersonic glide vehicles. Now, we're seeing that these are not just refueling platforms but potentially premade collaborative combat aircraft. After all, if it can carry a gas nozzle, then it can carry a LRASM, right? This not an expenditure of treasure on a single drone. Instead, it's the advent of a new combat jet.
All the king’s tomahawks and all the king’s F-35s have failed to achieve a single strategic objective against Iran. Iran controls the skies in the strait of Hormuz and the a significant portion of the Arabian peninsula.
Iran’s drone and cheap ballistic missiles have forced us to “withdraw” (this how people losing wars say “retreat”) from basically all of our Persian gulf bases.
We can’t maintain our position as the hegemonic superpower like this. We can’t pay for it. Something has to give.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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That's not really about drones directly, so much as it is about the Cheney administration outsourcing logistics. The Navy has virtually no auxiliaries anymore. They're all a part of the US Merchant Marine now, and that means civilians. We don't have enough hulls, but we really don't have enough mariners. The Navy isn't meeting its recruitment targets, sure, but that's nothing next to the shortage of mariners with the licenses required to operate the ships in Military Sealift Command. So there's no way for the navy to operate long term without a base very close by. We're short of oilers, replenishment ships, ammunition ships. We're extremely short of ships capable of underway replenishment, which is what you need to keep ships on station. Yeah, drones are a problem. Sure, putting everything in expensive platforms is a problem. But even if we had boatloads of cheap drones, we don't have the boats to carry them. Our allies have some, most notably Japan and South Korea. But they're not really interested in sending them to fight a war they didn't sign up for.JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑2:15 PM - 10 days agoAnd now the navy is retreating all the way to Diego Garcia
You figure that the navy wants three ships for every one on station. If you have a carrier deployed, you generally want one coming home, one going out, and one in drydock getting maintenance. You can push it to two for every one for a while, but it means shorting maintenance. But even that requires relatively short deployments, since ships only have so much space for stores. Even nuclear carriers need fuel for all the planes flying missions. They need munitions. They need food for the crews. They need mail coming and going to keep those sailors sane. And for that you either need to pull your ship off station periodically, or you need to replenish at sea. To do that you need replenishment ships on station and ships coming and going to replace them. Ships in port loading, undergoing maintenance, and so forth. And we don't have anything like enough to keep a fleet on station in wartime conditions for much more than maybe four to six months at most, and even then, only fairly close to a base. The Middle East is a difficult spot. We don't have a lot of bases there. Bahrain is inside the strait, which makes it useless right now, since there's no way to supply it. Djibouti is problematic for somewhat related reasons. Maybe we could build something up in Oman, but it's not optimal either. And beyond that, there just aren't any good islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean until you get to Diego Garcia. That's just the closest useful base.
Now we could build a merchant marine, but it's going to take enough years you might as well call it a decade. At least. We could train up mariners, but that to is going to take years. A decade, really, to get enough. And auxiliaries aren't sexy. They're cargo ships, more or less, with some defensive arrangements. Container ships. Tankers. Bulkers. Things we decided we'd let South Korea build instead of us. We could buy some. But honestly, to make enough for what we need it would take China probably five years or more, and they're cranking ships out so fast they might as well be printing them. (Kaiser probably sold them the plans for the printers.)
Anyway, it's a mess, but I wouldn't blame Boeing for that. Blame Cheney. Blame Trump. Heck, blame Nixon. He's involved.
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Totally agree. We’re a supposed maritime power that doesn’t build and boats or operate any merchant vessels. And don’t even ask about ice breakers. What a joke.
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Trump opens door for foreign-built Navy ships. It could get complicated.
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/08/what-would-integrating-foreign-ships-into-the-us-fleet-look-like/
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/08/what-would-integrating-foreign-ships-into-the-us-fleet-look-like/
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Wasn't that the point of tariffs to bring production to the US but at the same time building of ships is considered to be sent to other countries? How does that make sense? The "national security" card is played all the time for anything, but this is not???BarryGlick wrote: ↑1:43 PM - 9 days agoTrump opens door for foreign-built Navy ships. It could get complicated.
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/08/what-would-integrating-foreign-ships-into-the-us-fleet-look-like/
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^He gets competing suggestions from competing interests and tends to act on whatever someone last said, so consistency isn't going to be the name of the game.
On the other hand, we need frigates yesterday, and it's going to take time to build up our yard capacity, and we'll need hulls to ramp up training, so maybe there's room for an "all of the above" solution, just so long as there are still incentives to build domestic. Imperial Japan initially bought their navy from foreign builders, all while slowly building a healthy domestic maritime industry, to which they eventually pivoted. Same with China's PLAN more recently. Buy foreign to get started and build domestic as soon as you can. It's a bit embarrassing that we've come to this pass, but it's best to recognize it now and take action.
On the other hand, we need frigates yesterday, and it's going to take time to build up our yard capacity, and we'll need hulls to ramp up training, so maybe there's room for an "all of the above" solution, just so long as there are still incentives to build domestic. Imperial Japan initially bought their navy from foreign builders, all while slowly building a healthy domestic maritime industry, to which they eventually pivoted. Same with China's PLAN more recently. Buy foreign to get started and build domestic as soon as you can. It's a bit embarrassing that we've come to this pass, but it's best to recognize it now and take action.
- 9,732
Boeing was awarded a $134,000,000,000 F-15 contract in STL. this IDIQ goes until 2037, it includes foreign military sales.