Centurian52

The best moment for a rebellion in Belarus is exactly when the Russian army is in full retreat towards Crimea, and in a blind panic. Give them another problem a thousand kilometers away. If they commit the last of their reserves to Belarus, THAT is when it needs to get spicy on the streets of Moscow. Be great moment for a 'Secession movement" in Kaliningrad, too. 

What part of the US? I know for a fact that anyone who went around waving a swastika where I live would be shunned. Maybe people can get away with it in private circles. But definitely not in public.

Edit: Seems I jumped the gun in thinking I was close enough. I just saw Steve's post 18 hours ago closing off further discussion on the A-10.
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Thank you for pointing this out.
I'm finally less than 24 hours away from catching up on this thread (or was when I started typing), and I hope that's good enough because I really do want to say a few things about the A-10.
Frankly, I just don't understand why people still think it's a good aircraft. What mission do people imagine it performing that an F-16 couldn't do better? Maybe it was a good aircraft in the 70s. But not today. Sure, it's far from useless. It has hard points, so it can carry missiles. And I'm sure someone will be able to find a use for any airframe that can still carry missiles. But that doesn't set it apart from any other aircraft.
Most of the meme culture around it seems to focus on the cannon, which really has me scratching my head. The cannon is basically useless. No one is getting close enough in any aircraft to make gun runs on a modern battlefield. Even if there are opportunities to use the cannon, the 20mm cannon on the F-16 can take out any target that the A-10's cannon can (neither are likely to take out a tank, both with shred IFVs (if they can somehow get close enough)).
People applaud its survivability. Why? Does anyone really believe that having a tough airframe will protect it against missiles? Being able to take a few hits from a cannon might have helped back when AA guns were the main threat. But against modern missiles? Even if it does manage to survive a hit from a missile (which may be about as likely as an M60 bouncing an APFSDS round, for all the CMCW players out there), wouldn't it be better to have an aircraft that can avoid getting hit in the first place? Don't over-focus on how few A-10s were shot down in the last few decades of operations. Few aircraft of any kind were shot down in the last few decades. Sure, only 5 or 6 A-10s were shot down in the 1991 Gulf War (disagreement between sources on whether it was 5 or 6). But remember that the Coalition only lost 52 fixed wing aircraft in that whole war. The A-10 accounts for 10% of those losses. More A-10s were lost than any other kind of Coalition aircraft (the source which listed 6 A-10s shot down also listed 5 Harriers (making it the 2nd most shot down), with the A-6E Intruder and F-16 tied at 3 each).
And it should be emphasized that flying low and slow is a bad thing. It was designed to fly low and slow because modern sensors didn't exist at the time it was designed. The Mk1 eyeball was the only way to spot ground targets, and that works best if it isn't too far from the ground and has plenty of time to look. But we have modern sensors and ground radar now. You can fly high and fast and still spot, identify, and accurately engage ground targets. Flying low and slow does nothing but make you vulnerable to everything.

Thanks for editing in a real argument.
My point is not that they can't perform the mission with **zero** losses. That would be as stupid as claiming that tanks are obsolete because they can be killed by ATGMs.
My point is that they can't sustain the mission even when pitted against limited third world air defense systems consisting of MANPADs and AAA, and would perform far far worse against a peer who has a full blown IADS.
That's why the USAF keeps trying to kill the airframe and focus resources on effective platforms like the F-35.

You can't look at raw numbers without looking at how they were used. The A-10 is built around a great big cannon, and when they flew the sort of missions where they could use the cannon they tended to take a lot of damage from air defenses before being restricted to high altitude missions.
Ergo, the airframe can't be used for the mission it is designed to perform - low level CAS in contested airspace. Every time they try it, they take so much damage that they are told to perform safer missions that other airframes would probably be better at.

While I do think the A-10 has developed a cult of personality around it. I'm not sure I would describe the A-10s as a death trap. Looking here and Desert Storm saw 20 A-10 casualties with 6 being lost and 14 being damaged. That is significantly more than any other airframe but as far as I can find only two pilots were actually killed in combat with 3 being captured.

So while there are 20 airframe losses effective pilot losses amount to 25% of that. For any U.S. flown ship that is significant but Ukraine clearly is willing/must suffer higher loss rates. So, assuming they had the logistics tail (a very big assumption), flying a bunch of A-10s wouldn't necessarily be the worst even if airframe losses were high.
 
Edit: The whole argument about Ukraine getting them is effectively moot since well.... they aren't getting any.

The cynic/sarcastic wit in me might ask, "With what, exactly?"

Dave

A recursive acronym. like GNU (GNU's Not Unix).

Have you seen the kind of missions they perform? They act as standoff missile trucks and are pretty much incapable of penetrating enemy air defenses.
The fact is that CAS missions are not being performed in Ukraine to any great extent because the environment is far too lethal.

This is the kind of mission that was attempted in 2003 Iraq, and which led to some A-10s being severely damaged before they were forbidden from low-level missions. They became missile trucks restricted to high altitude, and that's a mission damn near any airframe can perform.

The problem with A10 is not that it could not be useful to the UA. It is that introducing another unique type of aircraft, with its unique engines, avionics, pilot training, all that stuff is a huge cost and effort. In return UA would get another glorified flying Grad launcher, which the Su-25 was basically reduced to. It wouldn't fare an iota better in overflying enemy positions type of missions, gun runs etc. which no side is attempting due to them being suicidal.
All other types of missions that it could be used to perform can be done much better by an F-16.

I've not seen this before.
"This footage released by the 3rd Assault Brigade of Ukraine reportedly shows troops from the 1st Assault Battalion attacking Russian positions near Bakhmut".
Translation from the comments
0:33 Move forward for one tree! Common common!
0:47 O *uck! Well! go, go to make "200" ( to kill)! ... 20 metres to the left dugout, well watch out to the left. "Heavy" (nickname), you are forward for one tree.
1:02 O *uck! But well ( what we can do else)? We must take it under fire control and approach. Heavy and Mario, aim for the dugout and *uck on the right tree, make a dash
1:42 Kypysh ( nickname), run to Heavy's point. Heavy, Raptor, Mario, work as trio now! moving with fire! Move, move! "Heavy", throw a grenade! Well, all reload! Throw a grenade! .. Get ready, stop don't fire... Go go go!.. Come in! ..Heavy, from the right, watch out and with a shot! Mario, a grenade!
2:45 I *ucked him! - Kill him? Well done! Draw near! Where is dead body? Well done! Common guys, clear the trench completely! Mario, come to Heavy and work as duo. Raptor, come here, cover to 12. All draw near!
3:24 Heavy, be careful and watch out. COme in. Kypysh, watch out second entry
3:39 So? Are you coming out or not, blyat?! If you come out you will live. If not, we will kill you. Well, clear him comletely! Come in! Just open curtain and finish him. Guys we need to pass by, cause mortars are working at us. Look, push back the curtain with the gun barrel and shoot. Hurry!
4:24 Spread out

The A-10 requires a permissive environment to operate in successfully. In a contested environment, it's a death trap.

Look at all those pristine flat Surfaces just begging, CRYING OUT for some lovely ERA... 

Ben Hodges interview 
 

I understand that "Marine" is actually an acronym: 
Marines
Always
Ride
In
Navy
Equipment

 

This will not be very informative to such a group as this but I enjoyed it hearing from Mr. Glantz.
 

He is a fan of ISW and prints out the daily reports.

Actually the US Marines are technically part of the US Navy, but generally are treated as their own branch.

Maybe in the next aid package they can include funding for a Black Sea module - "Civil war in Russia".  With BFs track record that might be enough to push Putin over the edge.

If the war has proved anything, it's that NO ONE in the Russian Army plays CM !

My understanding is that the Chechen wars and Georgia were humiliations for the Russian army. They managed to win because they were invading very tiny countries (and they actually lost the 1st Chechen war outright). But they took far heavier casualties than they should have and the Russian army was revealed to be deeply dysfunctional. Of course then they put on a good PR campaign and made a show of "reforming" their army. By 2022 the Russian army was supposed to have been completely transformed. Far superior to how it was in 2008.
The surprise wasn't so much that the Russian army was bad, but that it was still bad. It had apparently made no real improvement since 2008. Either that or everyone just forgot how bad the Russian army was in 2008 (2014 must have been a hell of a drug).

Illia Ponomarenko and Michael Weiss owe me a new sarcasm detector! 😁  

kinda off topic, but I wonder if BFC is planning any offensive actions now that the ground it dry?  As in new releases?  In support of UKR offensives.  There's probably lots of influential military minds in RU that would be very distracted by new CM content, just in time for UKR to strike.  (hopefully UKR military minds would show more restraint).  And the RU folks would be on the forum constantly saying that RU capabilities are being underestimated.  They could be engaged there as a further distraction from planning & events at the front.

Putin: how 3-day SMO is going?
Shoigu: Russians are advancing!
Putin: Where?
Shoigu: to Belgorod

What part of the US? I know for a fact that anyone who went around waving a swastika where I live would be shunned. Maybe people can get away with it in private circles. But definitely not in public.