Wildman

A-10s were shooting unguided rockets (mostly Illum) and did drop a few Mk82s while I was there...but no the F-15Es were loaded with 1 GBU-31, 3 GBU-38and, 3 GBU-12s. They had the cannon and it was used VERY sporadically...a bit of laughing point between teh A-10 and F-15 guys at standup every morning.

The mighty pool reduced to feckin' PICTURES....sadly I see we've given way to the ADAD crowd...I blame Twitter, if any of you pathetic wretches could string even that long of an idea together.

British update: They still speak English with a bad accent. They still have bad teeth. The Scots are still North of them and the French still feel superior.

Problem is that it isn't "updated" constantly during an attack. The JTAC passes a 9-line for ONE target, which can be used again for a restrike. For example (from real life, some of the details omitted). A fire team with JTAC has been going house to house...its about time to egress and they call up the F-15E and say "I think they are going to hit us from that compound up there as we leave." F-15 pilot: "No way, we've been buzzing the town for an hour now, their not that stupid" JTAC: "I'll pass you a 9-line anyway, just in case" F-15: takes the 9-line and sure as shiite, a couple of mortar teams run out from the compound and start setting up and firing.. JTAC: Orders the 9-line is a go F-15: Orbit out to about 10 miles and start ingress...Drop several bombs...no more bad guys. Bottom line, is even with a confirmed 9-line is still took 5-7 minute to put bombs on target. Now imagine trying to get the 9-line, confirm your looking at the right target in the pod and then starting your run to the IP and then the inbound attack run I do wish that teh Air Crews in CMSF modelled the pod better, and tracked targets movement as they approach and automatically adjust for the targets movement, but given the classification of some of that, its not surprising that this is on area that BFC is guessing on. 5-7 minutes is pretty average from a cold start of the 9-line to bombs on target...remember aircraft just dont attack from any old direction, its always on a very specific inbound radial to minimize the chance of misguide and killing your own guys. Rune, Your right about the GBU-15, but its dropped so rarely and its mostly used to hit targets or SEAD assets while staying out of SAM range, its not a tactical weapons..at least very often. Now all this being said...I too wish I could pick the weapon to be delivered as I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the JTAC calls for a particular weapon right now, and the pilot will comply unless he doesn't have it aboard.

or maybe it hit the guy and "kicked up chucks"....I'm glad that he had that "CM" moment and I for one am not going to try and disect his vision.. I only hope he has more and more "CM" Moments...they are what relationships are built on you know

there isn't an instance that WEGO will give you better than RT, it really is just a matter of taste...I find myself quickly overwhelmed in RT and like the slower WEGO pace....its not better, just different and I'm glad that we have a choice in the matter.

I assume that Obama has just dialed you up for not only foreign affair advice but as SECDEF as well...good, I'll be glad to see the war change on a dime with your keen insight. The attack happened in Pakistan, outside NATO control...unless you think we should just take over Pakistan? India would throw in with us I'm sure. First of all, this had zero impact here and second the Pakistan gov't is not going to be please at the press/world view of more destabilizing terrorists/patriots on their own soil. So yes, I will go out on a limb and say there will be an effective response. The assembly areas were poorly guarded, the insurgents recognized this and attacked the weakness. I doubt the same attack will work on this scale again...unless Pakistan throws in the towel on the fight overnight. I'm assuming the mantle of "doom and gloom" fits too tightly to just shrug off though.

If we can let airlines go bankrupt and be merged with no "goverment bailout" then I see no reason to give one to the "big 3". Declare bankruptcy, break the Union contract, renogiate cut costs...once they somehow get rid of the pension funds...ala the airlines...they will be in a much better place financially. I forsee bankrupt car companies and the FGDA (I forget the federal pension fund that Northwest sold their pension fund too) picking up the tab...which amounts to a bailout...but of much smaller proportions...and the companies are now is amuch better cost/profit area to actually move the tooling to more fuel efficent vehicles. I'm not sure about all of you, but my next car will be a smaller more fuel efficient vehicle...and until the "Big 3" finally make a decent midsize car no amount of money will save them.

Thought you might find this post I found amusing. BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II US Ranked 4th After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II. "Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule-- our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking." Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event." German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces." 22. Posted by marcus f Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:17 am EST Report Abuse The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2." Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines. Sounds like some of the arguements I've heard from the grogs around here.

Just buy Battle of Britain Wings of Victory (WoV) from A2ASimulations...and fly the most realistic dynamic campagn, flight models...all with abou 300 aircraft in the air at the same time.

BigDuke, Some great points there, however, as always a differning opinion will disagree The one and half regional conflicts is THE defining factor in programing money for weapons systems, as well as, the entire size of the current force. The need to fight one like equipped enemy to a standstill while simutaneously winning against another like equipped enemy is in essense the worst case scenario in which we could ever find ourselves, and give us operational flexibility to meet conflicts that are not that intense. The only reason the military today has been able to handle OIF/OEF deployments is the size of the force which is designed under the 1 1/2 theory. Cruise missiles with less than 400-600 mile range are about in production, the JASSM and the AF had the CALCM for 1,500mile plus tracks...the problem with cruise missiles that size is the START treaty, as they could be used to carry nukes they fall under that treaty and are restricted in numbers and other issues. Second is that any air breathing cruise missile is very susecptible to AAA/SAM/IADS that are still in good working order. They are still air breathing missiles and that brings their speed (currently) to the subsonic range. There are technologies out there that will mature into a whole new family of weapon systems, SCRAM engine, the Airborne Laser will eventually lead to something, UAVs will get better, but until the human/machine interface becomes more complete UAV just are not viable. BVR is extremely good as long as you have good data on the enemy in time to launch from range, most aircraft shoot downs have been within eyeball distance with short range missiles and guns due to the need to ensure that the target is indeed an enemy. You want more infantry, however, the personnel costs the military incures is the highest bill that they pay, far above any single weapons system. If the arguement to remove the pilot and the human from the air, wouldn't the same arguement work for ground forces? Why should a M1 have a crew? or a RC Humvee with a Javelin on a remote? I will agree that the Air Force has too many officers, by about 20% in my opinion, but most of those are projected not for state side tours but to ensure a viable pool for deployments and lately filling critical joint logistics roles. The Air Force could use its current pool of people a bit more smartly in my opinion. Bottom line is the current model requires the F-22, no other plane will fit the bill to replace the current 30 year old crop of F-15s that we currently have. There is no other weapons system in development or anywhere near reality that would offer comprable capabilities of the F-22, and with that in mind 180 is not enough to replace the near 500 aircraft they are designed to replace, heck I don't think the 380 the Air Force wants is enough, but that number will provide enough of a force multipler that the older F-15 aircraft that have turned into BVR missile boats will be able to get through to shoot down the bombers/attack/older enemy aircraft.

BigDuke, I agree with your premise that in the future the manned fighter aircraft needed today will be obsolete. I personnally just do not see that day anywhere during the operational lifetime of the F-22 or even the next generation of aircraft, ergo building the correct amount of airframes to sustain the needed effect to meet the National Command Authority agenda is an imperative. Do I think that the F-22 is overpriced, yep, do I think that Congress' waffling is a direct cause of the balloning price, yes. Do I think there is a suitable replacement either near ready or even ready for deployment in the next 10 years, no. Your right in the fact that we've already made this decision, but now we are starting to second guess the exact need. Given that the current stance of all military planning is still one and half major regional conflicts the total number of F-22s projected are not enough to meet that planned threat. Now we can/should/will/do debate if that is an accurate measure to plan to and that is a completely political question, but one that has been consistent throught Presidents from both parties for over 30 years. There is no other option on the table, imagine if the Germany had decided in 1942 that it was too late to spend another 2 years developing a new tank (Panther) and pushed all productivity into the Tiger and PzIV series exclusively (which accurately models the F-22/JSF synergy), the imperfect weapon would have served admirably and with greater numbers may have turned the tide on the Eastern Front. The same thought easily holds true for the F-22/JSF combo, like it or not they are what we have for the forseeable future so not building enough because there might be something better out there in 20 years is not a viable defense option. You assume the Senator from New York will make a rational decision as long as it doesn't touch his district, but automatically assume that any Air Force professional will be unable to recognize an ineffective airframe and continue to push on for fear of their career. All I can tell you is myself and other officers I work with certainly are not afraid to point out flaws in our methods and decisions, in fact, I don't believe any company so rigoursly reviews its every action to determine where errors were made and where practices need to be improved. Can you imagine a debrief the likes the Army and AF give themselves after every engagement happening in corporate America? If they did I"m pretty sure that the current financial crisis wouldn't have happened. Rereading your answers, do you find any military program or weapon system worth spending money on? and how would it fit into a coherent defense strategy? Its all well and good to talk about the imaginary UAVs that fire hordes of AiM-120s into the helpless F-22s but where are those weapons systems? The current crop of UAVs are not capable of that despite their ability to actually carry the missile there are no radars to guide the missile on the birds. What weapon system is worth the money for you? I ask because you stated that spending the money in this time of financical crisis was irresponsible, which leads me to believe that no weapon system would meet the criteria to be built in this "crisis".

NO, You'll take the scourge and you'll like....ungrateful plebs

I tried to parse just the portions of the arguement that I felt needed addresses. First of all you point out to the battlewagon arguement that the Navy was not capable of formenting the next doctrine or technology that would eventually be needed for the NEXT war. Since it was the Navy, maybe not the battleship officers, but the NAVY that continued to develop the airplane into the role and power it is today, I would say that the military mind/doctrine/experts are exactly the people to tell you what you need to know and build for future defenses. Unless you think the Senator from New York is suddenly the most knowledgeable person around to discuss the uses and needs of Air Power. I'll say right now that the Air Force as as a whole is not monolithic in its desire to have the F-22, but it is in its desire to provide the best in not only the Air Superiority realm, but in all realms of air and space. Air Superiority is but one piece of the Air/Space battlefield. Others include electronic warfare against communications, kinetic with dropping bombs, strategic lift, Tactical lift, ISR assets...all of which are enabled by complete Air Superiority. Unmanned aircraft are no where near ready for high-speed combat. Not to say that eventually the interface between man and machine will allow unmanned fighters/aircraft that day is no where in the near/medium future. First the communication channels that information and control depend on are able to be comprimesed. We just haven't encountered an enemy determined to meet us on the electronic warfare front. All it would take is a satalite shoot down or comm channel interference and then suddenly the UAV is a mindless, uncontrolled drone. Second, puting a strictly money comparision is a giant strawman, the UAV issue is easily countered if you have Air Superiority, which includes air and ground counters. If we continue to have Air Superiority then the fastest way to take care of 4,6, or 20 UAVs is to destroy the center from where they are controlled, which could be done by one F-22. By this arguement, why have Tanks since that tank could easily be destroyed by a cheap ATGM? That arguement has been around for the last 50 years and tanks still exist and are still viable. Third. The ENTIRE US air,sea, and ground doctrine is predicated on complete Air Superiority, period. The first steps in any OPLAN is to gain Air Superiority, though the destruction of the enemy Air Forces and the Integrated Air Defences. Right now, we could do that against a like equipped enemy, barely, but in the future that will not be the case. I don't believe the Army has any plans or TTPs to operate under a significant air threat. Its obvious your a proponent of More is Better as every positive example you provided is a mass produced weapon that fits into an attritive method of warfare and if that is your yardstick then you are correct in your assumption of the F-22 value, and since F-16C Block 50s are still relatively cheap we should just start cranking all those aircraft without making any others, ignoring the conditions the F-16 needs to be successful. There are combined arms in the Air as well as the Ground and the F-22 meets those needs for the forseeable future against all forseeable threats. Now we can argure what the forseeable future may hold, but not moving technology and capability forward is not an option in my book.

I have such a hard time on where to start countering this mindset. Lets start with the gun film. We have no idea on the parameters of the fight, for all we know that was a 4 V 1 fight where the F-22 wasn't allowed to use BVR to attrict the Hornets...so if you place a great plane in its weakest arena and it is shot down that invalidates the entire plane...so because a M-1 was destroyed by an RPG-7 in OIF then obviously we need to not build any more of those outdated tanks. Second, there are other methods of increasing certain flight profiles and areas of existing aircraft. The F-16 you showed is no longer the 9G nimble, cheap fighter that it was originally designed to be and is at the end of its ability to be upgraded. Air Superiority is a much different flight regime that needed for CAS and other issues. Yes the Army does already have GPS and Laser guided munitions...and against a more modern counterfire threat they wouldn't be able to bring consistent and persistent coverage, and certainly nothing beyond the 20miles from FEBA range (ATACMS and MLRS excepted but those munitions are limited). As for the cost, the F-18 still has short legs and can't reach northern Afghanistan from the boat in the South. Its a Jack-of-all-trades aircraft and gets thrashed consistently against more specialized aircraft. Bottom line is, IF the production had gone through as designed your cost would be in the sub $100M per range, we would have three times as many. Your right, in an Afghan or OIF scenario they are not needed...but neither are a lot of equipment. Are MLRS? or tanks? or long range Artillery? You go to war with what you have and right now other countries have reached equipment parity with a large percent of our aircraft and only our higher degree of training in addition to the global reach provided by other non-fighter aircraft that continue to provide the edge in our Air superiority. We aren't buying new versions of old aircraft because there are aircraft which are generations better that our pilots deserve to be flying...When you do go to war (which being prepared for helps prevent) you want the best equipment and right now the purely politcal fighting between non-Air Force experts and the Air Power experts is draging EVERY Air Force program down. Quite frankly we need the people in charge to actually listen to the people who have been trained in Air Power instead of playing political oneupmanship.

Well of an Air Force Maintainer that has worked/managed B-52/F-15C/F-15E/F-16C/CJ and even Singaporian F-16s let me tell you that not only do we need the F-22 we need a whole hell of a lot more that just 188. The reasons are multitude, but let me throw out some off the top of my head that I've seen personally. 1. I just watched the Indian Air Force bring new SU-30s with forward canards and the helmet mounted sites with Aim-9X equivilent to prep against the 390th Wild Boars (F-15C). Lets just say that we won, but it wasn't because of the OVERWHELMING superiority of the F-15C. We all have to face theat there are aircraft out there that match many of our fighter capabilities. Where they fall short is the global reach we have, with Tankers and Cargo aircraft. 2. There are 177 or so F-15C/120 or so F-15E/ several hundred F-16 all scheduled to be replaced with 188 F-22s and how ever many JSF aircraft we can squeeze out of Congress. Now even if the aircraft are three times as effective (and they are...we sent the 390th to Tyndall to help DFCT against the Raptor and go tore to shreads) they still obey the laws of physics and can only be in one place at a time, that fact alone should be the driving arguement to get more. 3. The age of the current fleet. The F-15C Air Supiority Fighter is OLD, most are 80-81 year group and many are about to get retired. One just fell apart in the sky and when we looked at others, many had similar cracks. The F-15E Fleet goes from 85 to 90 to 2001 year jets. The A-10s are at over 8000 flight hours and only were designed for 4000, the F-16 are so overloaded they are no longer the nimble fighter they were, but are a VERY effective bomb truck now, but many of the Block 40 CCIP aircraft are 20 years old. 4. Of course the F-22 is complex, its a complex airplane...or is an uncomplex airplane that has been out of production so long you can't get parts any better...or an old airframe that is down for several weeks while a depot team arrives to replace the wing because the cracks on the Wing pins are unrepairable? 5. If "good enough" is the mantra of the US Armed Forces, then Why did the M1 get upgunned, or go through an electronics upgrade...or why the Stryker, or anyother major military program happen at all? 6. Gates and the Air Force don't get along, not one little bit. Of course we could have been like the US Army that didn't buy War Reserve ammo for over 10 years and have a $20B war reserve shortfall and buy 5.56 and 7.62 ammo from the Isrealies. 7. Gates had better get used to new and more expensive programs, cause sure as shootin' the Army and Marines are developing new programs now. They have to be to recover the HUGE loss of material they are experiencing due to the heavy use they are seeing in combat. I'll bet money the Army isn't going to sit here and say the M1 is the pinnacle of all tank development and just ask for more, they will have a new design on the books. 8. If the F-22 had been allowed to progress as intended 8 years ago the average cost of the aircraft would be 1/3 of what it is now and we STILL would have spent less than we will by the time we purchased 188. Bottom line, its evolve or die. The airframes the Air Force is using are OLD and TIRED, but its easy to ignore because we are not filling body bags with Airmen, but if you want to see what fighting without Air Superiority is like, just fire up a good scenario and play RED and realize there is NOTHING you can do to hide or counter the effect of losing Air Superiority. I've not heard a soldier yet tell me that we've TOO many airplanes.

Perhaps a building that only fits over the trench mesh could be made that is placable by the user...This shows where the unit actually took the time to build/dig/cover themselves. Heck then you could have trenches that are really just ditches and then part of the ditch that was improved defensively. Not sure how easy it is, but if it acts like a unit then the FOW affects it...the hard part would be coding in the placement restrictions.

Yes if anything I wish there was a command to grab a causalty in the middle of the street and pull him to cover, instead of exposing another man to sit and perform buddy aid in the middle of the kill zone. But once again, is it a game breaker and worthy of Charles coding time...no.

Just because he worked on it doesn't mean he LIKES It.

I personally would love Napoleonics...but I dont think that these are Steve and Charles' idea of a good time. I also like the idea of HAMMERS SLAMMERS.

Given that the B-61mod11 (the new penetrating tactical nuke) wasn't even fielded then and that the average tactical yield is 100+KTons...I'd say that someone doesn't know diddle squat. However, we did drop old Vietnam era M117s in both DS and OIF/OEF out of guam and diego off of B-52s, partly because the boom still works and its cheaper to use them than demil them....and you thought the Air Force couldn't be frugal.

If you want go to www.frugalsworld.com a bunch of sim heads there are in a friendly corporation that would probably help you out.

Yes, the type of bomb is important. But not really which airplane dropped it as long as it hits where its supposed to. Kind of like some of the issues with Arty, I'd like to see the ability to drop bombs out of LOS...but that could get real unbalancing and "gamey" pretty easy. Personnally I'd like to see a "weapons free" area (where you want the airplane to search for targets) to define...or a "weapons safe" (where you are). To do it right would require some micromanaging...its not that BFC can't do it...but how feasible it is and where it is on "the List".

No there isn't and that's because from a grunts perspective there is no difference. It doesn't matter what dropped the bomb, just what bomb dropped. I agree that there needs to be some changes to make air more realistic, but I would rather have wholesale changes to accurately reflect the multitude if weapons available. Right now airpower is the one asymetrical force the US has at its disposal and I can't use it exactly how I see in in the daily targeting pod video I watch. Where we are is a good start, but the required changes will (in my uncomputer educated opinion) be difficult to do. I don't JUST want a counter to tell me how many bombs I have, I want to help BFC make the air piece of this game as accurate as everything else.

To some extent this could be true but there are three distinct delivery systems and profile for each type of weapon. For every bomb there is 1. Unguided 2. GPS 3. Laser seeker Each one has a different CEP and target set, much of which overlaps...but for example. Your JTAC has a T-64 in sight and you call in a F-16CJ...realistically it should drop a GBU-12 as the onboard (or JTAC held) laser holds the target even if moving. Ok, but what if he doesn't have a GBU-12 but instead has a GBU-38 or 31 (JDAM). In that case it should drop wherever your pointer was when you clicked "confirm" regardless of what happens in the mean time. What if he was carring Mavericks...(we won't even go into the three to four distinct types of Mavericks each with a different seeker head type). Realistically, the plane should come down and pop the tank...albiet with a higher friendly fire chance than an LGB. To make it realistic, you would have to pick 1. The aircraft 2. The weapon 2a. Each type of weapon seeker would need to have a different air deliver profile 3. Target (or Target Area) 4. Direction of Attack axis because of the danger close. I'm not saying that Air Assets don't need changed, or at least made more realistic/user friendly...I'm just trying to point out the problem is much larger from a coding standpoint when you peel back the onion.