Did the Pentagon throw the games just to get Congress to fund the F-22 for production?
Really, what the hell's the difference? We stopped being a country that stood for anything a while back. At least if we get the F-22 into production, we'll keep standing for high-technology slaughter, eh?
Posted by dj moonbat at November 28, 2005 08:38 PMNice mix of anti-Christian and anti-American agitprop. You've taken this site to a new level.
Posted by Hindu at November 28, 2005 08:40 PMFUCK NATIONS AND THEIR WEAPON SYSTEMS. Unless the world finds an off-switch to the global war machine, the coming century will make the trenches and gases of WWI; the blitzkrieg, Holocaust, and A-bombs of WII; the Cold War and its proxy hot wars; bloody partitions, Pol Pot, Dirty Wars, rape camps, etc. ALL LOOK LIKE CHILD'S PLAY.
Lk t r nt, th wrld wll nvr s pc ntl th Prnc f Pc Jss Chrst rtrns t stblsh hs kngdm.
[Editor: ignore=off]And bringing about the Apocalypse accomplishes this how?
Posted by pessimist at November 29, 2005 05:55 AMAh yes Hindu any weakness in our military (perceived or real) should be ignored, dismissed and covered up.
I mean what purpose would it serve to question and examine our level of military advantage or readiness? You might actually find a problem, solve it and make our military better.
Perish the thought. Pish Tosh dude!
Posted by j swift at November 29, 2005 07:33 AMThe Pentagon is definitely trying to slant the spin on this story. First off, the Indian Su-30 fighter would approximate more the F-15 air superiority fighter than the multi-purpose F-16. The USAF bought both the F-15 and F-16 in order to get a mix of high-capability and low-capability fighters. If they're now claiming that the lower-capability F-16 might be beat by the best non-USA fighter available, then they're just trying to manage the spin. If they had said the Su-30 was whipping the F-15, then this story might be more significant. As it stands, it's USAF blow.
The F-22 is definitely on the chopping block and the figher mafia running the USAF is afraid, very afraid, and plainly willing to lie or do anything to get approval to go ahead with the buy. Hey, some general's cushy post-retirment billet at the F-22's contractor is on the line with this one. Let's focus on what's priority, children.
Posted by PrahaPartizan at November 29, 2005 07:54 AMJust to keep the weapons junkies interested, war games in Canada did pit the F-15 against the Su-27 and other Russian aircraft flown by Russian pilots. According to the gun camera films, no F-15 survived.
If I were a country whose leaders were afraid that the US had designs on my national assets, whose planes would I buy? Whose military would I want training my pilots?
Posted by pessimist at November 29, 2005 08:11 AMI think India's approach to education is different than ours. We've decided to abandon left-brained education. We no longer value math and science. We no longer care about our kids having the ability to solve problems. Heck, we're a country that now outsources all the "tough stuff."
Frankly, I'm not surprised that pilots from India can out think our pilots on the battlefield. I bet the Chinese pilots can, too. As a nation, we're no longer "hungry" for success. Much like a 2-time Super Bowl champ who has lost a little drive on the football field. We're an affluent country. We're obese. We're lazy.
There was a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee yesterday that also makes this point.
Learn the right stuff
Re "Back to substance?", editorial, Nov. 15: Although I'm slightly over 50, I attended a Cal State school in the early 1980s. I am in that group of students forced to take a smorgasbord of subjects to get their degree. I remember having to take a variety of courses that had little to do with my engineering program, but I excelled in them because I was hungry for the traditional "university experience." I even followed up with a liberal arts master's degree.
But you know what? All that personal enrichment doesn't mean diddly squat to the HR gatekeepers. I was laid off from my job in the early 1990's military downturn. I found what private industry really wants in engineers: Precise, focused, trained and experienced in a specific product line. Do you know where they were (and still are) getting such engineers? India, Pakistan and every other country that has schools that teach only technology, not "Gilgamesh."
If you can get industry to hire students with "well-rounded" educations, then I'll stand up for The Bee's call for more "intellectual" courses. Maybe we can require that all H1B visa applicants pass exams covering the Western classics, women's suffrage movement and "Gilgamesh."
- Bill DeBussey, Elk Grove
Your post was a good one, muck. Now what do we do about this situation?
I encountered a blurb in researching this post covering a new high-tech 'campus' for something like 15,000 IT professionals, a large percentage of which were intended to work for American companies. I'm sure that the author of that letter you present would agree that something needs to be done here to keep things like this campus over there from taking even more of our jobs.
I'm more worried about the loss of these jobs than I am those that "only Mexicans are willing to take".
But refresh my memory: didn't you say once that we Americans need to improve our education and our skills to keep these jobs? It sounds to me like the letter author tried to do that very thing - and we can see from his experience just how much good that did him. What say you to that?
Woah...muck scores a great one.
Excellent post.
Posted by SnarkyShark at November 29, 2005 01:44 PMI take it these were dog fighting excersises. So my question is how common are dogfights between modern planes? I was under the impression that most confrontations would be settled with missles before the planes ever saw each other. Besides you can't really hide airfields.
Posted by Tyler at November 29, 2005 03:22 PMWell, just to play your game here, if this was football we'd fire the coaching staff.
There are multiple issues. It's not really about keeping existing jobs here. The American economy has always been about innovation. Once we've figured it out, we're ready to move on to other things. We can let other countries make our shoes, fleece pajamas, cars, and write computer programs.
I'm wondering if a country's mentality is a societal evolution thing. Are we at the stage Old Europe was a few decades ago? Do we not want to put in the effort anymore?
Are we comfortable with our existing cheese, and don't want anybody to move it?
Posted by muckdog at November 29, 2005 04:36 PMWe're an affluent country. We're obese. We're lazy. Posted by muckdogIt is Republican ideology: soft, fat, greedy, win by cheating, let others do the work, take the profit, whine victimization, spout religious nonsense, and practice bigotry. Posted by Mike at November 29, 2005 05:37 PM
the only reason dogfighting hasnt been common recently is that most recent wars have been between a vastly superior-inferior enemies. the inferior guy (say Iraq) loses his air force early on.
but if you had two equivilent air forces fighting you'd see more dogfights.
Posted by polimorf at November 30, 2005 05:44 AMWhile its a bad idea to let dogfighting skills totally wither on the vine in favor of missile skills - as we learned in Vietnam, there's always going to be a place for dogfights - the Indian exercises prohibited firing without being in visual range which took away the USAF's large advantage in BVR air combat. 2004's exercises had the same restrictions. As Trent Telenko notes in the linked page:
"The USAF avoids visual range air-to-air combat if it can help it. This is because exercises have shown that two modern fighters with well trained pilots, modern off bore sight dog fight missiles and helmet mounted sights to aim them tend to commit mutual suicide when they come in visual range of one another. The ground combat ditty "That you can see you can hit, and what you can hit you can kill" applies in spades to visual air combat."
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