The Islamic state

[kebabking]

if you want the top trumps answer, the A-10 is in trouble for two reasons - thr first is that the USAF have always hated it because its not pointy and doing mach 2, and the second is that while its very good at doing its job, its job is, in airpower terms, niché, and unlike an F-16 or an F-35 it can't do any job outside of its primary job.

while the USAF had the budget to operrate a vast fleet of fighters, and a vast fleet of bombers, and a vast fleet of A-10's, the niché aspect wasn't a problem. now the USAF does not have that budget, a platform that can only do one job - however well - is in danger. to a large degree, the A-10's role has been left behind by technology - in the late 1970's and 1980's, the only way to hit a tank was to fly at treetop level and blow it up at very close range, now any aircraft can carry a targeting pod and a couple of laser guided bombs and its a tank buster. moreover, when the A-10 was designed/built, being at low level made you safe from SAM's, and its armour kept it safe from guns. now, its being at medium and high level that keeps you - ish - safe from SAM's, and guns can't reach you anyway.

much as i'll be sad to see it go, in the resource envelope the US faces, its the aircraft that has to go...

 

[butchersapron]

Yup aware of him . Bad puppy.

let me find out more on this and get back

Have a look at the Joanna Paraszczuk stuff - and more here, she's making a good name for herself tracking these people - she's also worth a follow on twitter.

Here's some signs from Hesekê , just liberated by SDF (YPG+Arab and other non-kurd allies)

 

[mauvais]

if you want the top trumps answer, the A-10 is in trouble for two reasons - thr first is that the USAF have always hated it because its not pointy and doing mach 2, and the second is that while its very good at doing its job, its job is, in airpower terms, niché, and unlike an F-16 or an F-35 it can't do any job outside of its primary job.

Mmm-hmm. But at the moment, the typical missions being asked of the US are niche themselves. Not much use deploying an all singing, all dancing multirole air superiority fighter against the mighty air force of ISIS or the Taliban, is it? Or even much of the broader spectrum of capability of the USAF. But a slow, armored flying gun for CAS aligns reasonably well with the present need, as evidenced by its high usage rate in the fight against IS (11% of USAF sorties when only deployed for half that time).

 

[kebabking]

Mmm-hmm. But at the moment, the typical missions being asked of the US are niche themselves. Not much use deploying an all singing, all dancing multirole air superiority fighter against the mighty air force of ISIS or the Taliban, is it? Or even much of the broader spectrum of capability of the USAF. But a slow, armored flying gun for CAS aligns reasonably well with the present need, as evidenced by its high usage rate in the fight against IS (11% of USAF sorties when only deployed for half that time).

the problem with that view - and its something thats very understandable - is that the USAF is trying to configure itself for the next 30 or 40 years with a limited pot to produce assets from. the phenomenon is called 'fighting the war, rather than a war' and leads to a specialized force which is great at fighting these kind of operations (permissive air threat, minimal ground threat), but shit at fighting a state-on-state war.

in fact, the A-10 is now no better - cheaper perhaps - at CAS/interdiction than an F-16 with a targeting pod and a JDAM sitting at 15,000ft, but an F-16 can self-escort, it can drop its bombs and suddenly its a very fast, very manouverable fighter, and unlike an A-10, its bloody good at getting to where its needed very quickly.

the death of the A-10 can be laid squarely at the door of the guided bomb. when the A-10 was the dogs danglies the only way to hit anything was to fly low and use a gun or an unguided bomb at close range - if you dropped 6 unguided bombs from 15,000ft you'd be lucky if 3 of them landed within 500 metres of the target, but the advent of the guided bomb means than any aircraft can achieve what an A-10 does, but it can do so much more safely from 15,000ft than an A-10 can from 300ft, and as importantly, it can do something very different tomorow. thats the A-10's weakness, its a one trick pony, and it can now only be used within relatively benign situations.

 

[brogdale]

Graeber on the post-Paris reactive posturing...

 

[butchersapron]

Utter nonsense from him - that would have unleashed arab/kurdish war on the outskirts of ISIS areas to the benefit of ISIS and assad. PKK/YPG taking over the areas around Aleppo, Homs and so on - fantasy child. Seriously embarrassing and naive series of posts.

 

[DrRingDing]

The seps have just bombed a shed load of IS's fuel trucks. Over 100. Not their oil fields mind.

 

[butchersapron]

Graeber on the post-Paris reactive posturing...

Those tweets reveal a real failing of the western left - all they can see is kurds -and all they see when they see kurds is PYD/YPG/PKK. The sunni arab working class who initiated the revolution and have borne the brunt of the counter-revolution rarely appear. And if thye do it's only in relation to how they view the kurds.

 

[mauvais]

the problem with that view - and its something thats very understandable - is that the USAF is trying to configure itself for the next 30 or 40 years with a limited pot to produce assets from. the phenomenon is called 'fighting the war, rather than a war' and leads to a specialized force which is great at fighting these kind of operations (permissive air threat, minimal ground threat), but shit at fighting a state-on-state war.

Yes, of course, and this kind of anything-might-happen fortune telling is a main reason why military procurement is the expensive, slow, heavily compromised mess that it is - you might argue unavoidably so.

But, and easier to say in retrospect of course, this is with limited exception the war that we've been fighting since the Balkans, and at some point when your three decades are up - halfway there now - someone probably ought to admit that the Cold War's legacy priorities of, say, stealth and NG A2A fighters didn't turn out to be much cop in an era so dominated by fragmented counter-insurgency, and probably succeeded by unmanned aircraft to boot, where perhaps expanding low cost, continuously operable, ruggedised capabilities might have been more valuable. But they'll never be held accountable because who could have predicted what wars we'd fight? Apart from all the people that did, I guess.

This thing is probably a derail, but there's a long piece in support of the A10 here - ultimately amateurish but makes some interesting points.

 

[brogdale]

Those tweets reveal a real failing of the western left - all they can see is kurds -and all they see when they see kurds is PYD/YPG/PKK. The sunni arab working class who initiated the revolution and have borne the brunt of the counter-revolution rarely appear. And if thye do it's only in relation to how they view the kurds.

Agreed, but in Graeber's case he has been consistent in his support and championing of the Kurds. I agree that that has probably led to a somewhat blinkered naivety, but his tweets do express a justifiable anger at the hypocrisy and impotence of the 'West'.

 

[butchersapron]

Agreed, but in Graeber's case he has been consistent in his support and championing of the Kurds. I agree that that has probably led to a somewhat blinkered naivety, but his tweets do express a justifiable anger at the hypocrisy and impotence of the 'West'.

The west, in the guise of the USAF, would be required to get his fantasy even across the Euphrates though. Without the USAF, there wouldn't even be a base to leap off from. It's silly easy answer time from him.

 

[butchersapron]

It's a bit i knew about rojava before you

 

[teqniq]

ISIS Online Presence Retreats to the Dark Web After Recent Paris Attacks

 

[Crispy]

This thing is probably a derail, but there's a long piece in support of the A10 here - ultimately amateurish but makes some interesting points.

Keeping the train off the tracks:

The WWII-Era Plane Giving the F-35 a Run for Its Money

 

[DownwardDog]

the death of the A-10 can be laid squarely at the door of the guided bomb. when the A-10 was the dogs danglies the only way to hit anything was to fly low and use a gun or an unguided bomb at close range - if you dropped 6 unguided bombs from 15,000ft you'd be lucky if 3 of them landed within 500 metres of the target, but the advent of the guided bomb means than any aircraft can achieve what an A-10 does, but it can do so much more safely from 15,000ft than an A-10 can from 300ft, and as importantly, it can do something very different tomorow. thats the A-10's weakness, its a one trick pony, and it can now only be used within relatively benign situations.

The A-10 community have always been the leaders in the clubhouse when it comes to blue-on-blue as well...

It's amazing it's still around given its utter irrelevance in the age of the PGM and the UAV.

 

[DownwardDog]

Keeping the train off the tracks:

The WWII-Era Plane Giving the F-35 a Run for Its Money

Cites Pierre Sprey, therefore it's crap.

 

[butchersapron]

Graeber on the post-Paris reactive posturing...

That's like the a-team. The more i think about that series of tweets the worse they get.

 

[J Ed]

Those tweets reveal a real failing of the western left - all they can see is kurds -and all they see when they see kurds is PYD/YPG/PKK. The sunni arab working class who initiated the revolution and have borne the brunt of the counter-revolution rarely appear. And if thye do it's only in relation to how they view the kurds.

I think that this is a depressingly good point and probably one I'm guilty of myself. It also reminds me of reading about Christopher Hitchens' purported Damascene conversion to neoconservativism over the first Gulf War after apparently meeting with Peshmerga fighters with pictures of Papa Bush on the windscreens of their vehicles.

 

[butchersapron]

I think that this is a depressingly good point and probably one I'm guilty of myself. It also reminds me of reading about Christopher Hitchens' purported Damascene conversion to neoconservativism over the first Gulf War after apparently meeting with Peshmerga fighters with pictures of Papa Bush on the windscreens of their vehicles.

One easy to fell into, not so easy to get out of - after all, the people we're looking for to provide some evidence of the remnants of a a revolution aren't there in one stable force. They've been battled from pillar to post with barrel bombs on one side and ISIS on the other. The local co-ordination committees persist though. They go nowhere until the regime goes.

 

[brogdale]

Russians up the ante with use of long range bombers...apparently.

It looks like Moscow stepped up its military effort in Syria even before the intention to intensify the air strikes was announced by Putin on Nov. 17.

As initially reported by Reuters, a US official has confirmed that Moscow has conducted a significant number of strikes in Syria using both sea-launched cruise missiles and long-range bombers.

The Russian MoD said 25 long-range bombers took part in the raid: 5 x Tu-160s, 6 x Tu-95MS and 14 x Tu-22M3.

According to one our sources who wishes to remain anonymous, the long-range bombers the Russian Air Force has used against ground targets in Syria early in the morning on Nov. 17 were Tu-22M Backfire strategic bombers.

The aircraft were allegedly launched from Mozdok airbase, in Ossetia, where as many as 6 Tu-22s were spotted on a recent deployment.

One for the airplane buffs/bores, possibly?

 

[butchersapron]

Why? What's the change? Are they better at hitting certain things etc

 

[brogdale]

Why? What's the change? Are they better at hitting certian things etc

Not my field of expertise, but I surmise bigger bangs?

 

[butchersapron]

Not my field of expertise, but I surmise bigger bangs?

Bigger bangs might mean bigger targets.

Where they are being used is the question. It ain't gonna be on ISIS.

 

[brogdale]

Bigger bangs might mean bigger targets.

Where they are being used is the question. It ain't gonna be on ISIS.

Yeah, I had a look at the linked tweet with the photo of the missile but the text was in arabic.

 

[brogdale]

FWIW The Indy is reporting that Russia is claiming that their cruise attack was aimed at Raqqa.

I presume Putin is selling this domestically as a retaliation for the airline bombing.

 

[hot air baboon]

...interesting if short interview on R4 this morning with author...the key take-away being the only real positive he can see in the situation is the existence of a strong Syrian national identity transcending the sectarian divisions even among Al Quaeda affiliates and consequent reluctance amongst the warring parties to see the ultimate dismemberment of the country

 

[hash tag]

I see Prince, foo fighters and u2 have all cancelled european tours as a result of this
This is not a good message to convey.

 

[Pickman's model]

I see Prince, foo fighters and u2 have all cancelled european tours as a result of this
This is not a good message to convey.

not prince or the ff but music lovers across the continent jubilant about u2

 

[butchersapron]

I see Prince, foo fighters and u2 have all cancelled european tours as a result of this
This is not a good message to convey.

First real european victory

 

[kebabking]

Why? What's the change? Are they better at hitting certain things etc

i think there are two reasons - firstly a political reason, the 'fuck me, Russians are using their big, strategic bombers!' thing that is for both domestic and external consumption, and secondly a rather more prosaic 'its what they've got'.

now - and i'm happy to be contradicted, perhaps DownwardDog will know better - the Russians never followed the Americans in converting both their big bombers and their training/doctrine to using strategic nuclear bombers as conventional bombers, and that their navigation/bombing systems didn't get modernised to use guided bombs - in effect, that Russian bombing hasn't changed much in accuracy terms from what Bomber Command was achieving over Germany in 1945.