kalvasflam

Gawd, Battle Fever J... cheesy ship, but does that bring back memories. It was the Sentai I watched. I forgot about Gundam series, Hmmm, I like the Lily Marleen (0083), Musai (classics), and in CCA (Rao Lola)

Heh heh, tell the media that. What you say is true. But let's face it, as a general statement, you don't see much non US equipment in wars. Well, at least the media in the US doesn't cover it well. Mis, that statement was from the point of view of Airbus, which incidently doesn't have much if anything to do with the military consortium of Europe. But I used it as a general statement, since EU is now this big homoginized happy family.

OMG, can that Andromeda and Dark Nebula command ship be any more overgunned? Each turret has four cannons. It's like a regular Andromeda, and then getting injected by an overdose of steroids. As for favorite ships: B5: Whitestars, Shadow battle crabs, EA Warlock Startrek: Defiant (all the other ST ships are a bunch of pansies) Yamato: Desslok's flag ship during Comet Empire, Triple deck carriers (like WWII carriers)

The thing about the French is that they just don't care much geopolitically who they sell to, after all, no one really cares about them. The fact that they're an annoyance to the US is just part of the sales package. Buy Rafales... it will tweak the noses of the Boeing, (since we're having trouble in the commercial segments and besides, the US doesn't like to sell its hardware until 20 to 30 years after initial introduction) I wonder how much they were asking for the Rafales. I think one reason that people still want to buy US hardware is all the advertising the US hardware had in the last decade. It's a bit misleading since the USAF/USN is more about how to use equipment than the quality of the equipment itself... so if you want sales pitch for military aircraft, it would go something like this: US: Our hardware wins wars, see recent conflicts Russian: Our hardware is cheap and easy to replace, (see recent conflicts) European: Our hardware isn't as cheap as the Russians, it hasn't won any wars recently like the American hardware, but we don't like the Americans, so please buy us. Chinese: We don't sell planes just yet... please call back in two decades, but by then, we'll be your high tech/low cost manufacturer of any military hardware.

I thought the whole concept of keeping Henderson around was a bit dumb. Shoot him in the legs... both of them. Sure, he might be able to get his henchmen to carry him to the chopper, but he'd be far less mobile and needing a doctor. And what would homeland security do but sweep this stuff under the rug later. Now, the final set of bad guys, that was interesting, Logan suddenly makes a little more sense. But I wonder what this talk about 18 months ago was all about. Hmmm, wasn't that when season 4 ended. Oh... finally, let 24 make hijacking seem dangerous, heh heh, Jack is taking a risk, because these days, anybody who starts a hijacking is likely to fall prey to the passengers unless he can convince them that he isn't planning to crash the plane.

Exactly, the reason, the Japanese wanted one decisive engagement, and they were being denied that, and so they were forced to dance to the American tune: Here is a favorite site of mine, I think far superior to Wikipedia: http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm It talks about the battles in some details. I think the problem with the IJN was that they could never have won through attrition warfare. Remember, Yamamoto knew ahead of time that his only chance was to cripple the US in such a way that its political will to fight collapsed. Otherwise, they would be grounded under by the US economy. With the Solomons, it was a slog, but if you're only done through 1942, most of those were Japanese victories, in 1943, that's when the tide really turned. Guadalcanal essentially put a majority of the US cruiser force out of action (either sunk or requiring major repairs). The problem for the Japanese was that even if they were getting a 3:1 kill ratio, they would still lose at the end of the day. In Guadalcanal, if you had read through Sam Morrison's books, it clearly talks about the Japanese trying a couple of times to bring off a decisive engagement. Remember, they sunk the Hornet and the Wasp in the general area. They lost a couple of carriers. What mattered is what a precetpion of a decisive engagement is. In IJN terms, it was one massive battle to determine who the champ is. To the USN, it was a long grinding campaign to start whittling away some of the Japanese advantages, and building up for their own decisive tactical battle, which occurred in the form of Marianas, and then Leyte in 1944. You know what it really came down to? Oil. Japanese in the guadalcanal campaign tried to run these idiotic Tokyo express, that was tactically very successful, and a disaster strategically. Because those destroyers wasted far more fuel than a conventional transport in bringing in troops. But what choice did the Japanese have? Their merchant marine sucked, no real amphib capabilities, and with the skies under contest, they couldn't guarantee the safety of the few transports they did have. Never mind the fact that the US sub force started to rape the Japanese merchant fleet (such as it were). See the battle of Bismarck seas to understand why the Japanese opted for these high speed destroyer runs. So, the point here is that because they didn't bother with Australia, they gave the Americans the important advantage of having a land base close to the battlefield from which to launch their troops. After all, if the USN had to cross the Pacific to deliver all those marines and army divisions, it would be a lot tougher than how they did it going from just Australia and New Zealand. Remember, Marianas was technically speaking decisive too. It was just that the odds were so lopsidedly in the USN's favor, it didn't seem like it. And no, Japan could never have won an attritional war with the US. Not when the other side is outpacing you in production, and your fleet mobility is always in question because of oil. As for Kirishima and the Hiei, their original mission was to bombard Henderson field on Guadalcanal, to put it out of business long enough so that the IJN could run more troops in to take Guadalcanal and deny the Americans their airbase, which was a real threat to the IJN surface forces. Had the IJN planned out their conquest to go all the way to Australia/New Zeland, then there wouldn't have been a MacArthur threat at all. Then, it's a matter of crushing some native islanders on a bunch of small islands to hold everything west of Hawaii. Now, suddenly, it becomes a different ball game. There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. The whole point of the war was Indonesia, not Phillipines, because Indonesia is where the oil was. The conquest of Phillipines was a necessity for Japan because they couldn't leave an entrenched enemy inside their line of communications. Remember, the entire reason for Japanese going to war was because the US had cut off their fuel supply to try to force the Japanese hand in China. No oil, then the IJN couldn't operate, and that meant it would be highly vulnerable to US naval forces. They should've concentrated their forces to take Australia/NZ, even if it meant siphoning off troops from in China. It would've given them a huge geographical advantage. As you rightly pointed out, the IJN was overextended. But they had the ability to keep that from happening had they taken out Australia and New Zeland along with the rest of SE Asia. Then, the nearest point of US assault comes from Hawaii. And that's a long distance to go to for naval operations, and it would've really helped to whittle down the submarine threat, and secured the interior of the IJN lines of communications.

amen to that, Nimitz did an outstanding job in leading pacfleet and putting up with MacArthur. Based on what I've read, he was one of the most affable individual in the navy, but more than that, he knew how to get results from his people. Other note, it's too bad that the rest of the Nimitz class got named after a bunch of politicians. (although some of them were really leaders, but Carl Vinson and John C. Stennis? Give me a break) As for Nelson, he was charisma personified in the days of the best days of the British navy. His band of brotheres (fellow captains) were quite legendary, it's a very odd tribute that he died on the day of his greatest triumph, but there are worst ways to go out than on the top of your game.

Some very good reasoning. I think though that the Japanese may have better been able to consolidate their gains in the key battle area (South Pacific) where things truly mattered. The fleet that would have come out from Pearl if the US hadn't been hit would still not have matched the Japanese forces qualitatively in early 1942. Witness Guadalcanal for example, where the IJN dominated earlier on, and lost really thru attrition. To me, Japan fought the equivalent of a two front war with just one force. They needed to fend off MacArthur's counterattack from Australia, and stop Nimitz's navy from pounding across the central Pacific. I think it would've been better if the Japanese had entirely eliminated the MacArthur threat by taking Australia or cutting the communications lane to Australia. There the carrier formation in the early days could've made a big difference, possibly even in taking out MacArthur himself and eliminating the southern US sub force that caused so much grief later on. The only area that they lacked if they were to take on Australia was the amphibious elements. They certainly had troops enough in China to do this. The fact that they didn't I think was a big mistake. In failing to conquer the southern front, the Japanese effectively brought about Guadalcanal and the destruction of the IJN surface forces. As far as the US plans, I believe it called for reinforcement of the Phillipines with the Pac fleet in Pearl. That would've been a disaster I think, because IJN strategy there involved whittling down US forces as they crossed the Pacific with night time torpedo attacks, air bombardment, and ultimately a decisive engagement with battle wagons. In the first two areas, the Japanese dominated in 1941 and early 1942. How that would've played out in reality though is just something we all have to speculate on. In regards to Germany, the allies always considered Japan to be a secondary issue to be resolved after Germany was history. But in the European theater, the navy was not quite as important. The ships needed in the Atlantic were destroyers, and escort carriers, not full blown battleships and fleet carriers. In the end though, it didn't really matter since the US economy produced enough for both theaters.

Success is based on how close they actually came to victory. Comparatively, the U-boats did much better in WWI in terms of how close they strangled the Brits. There is no doubt they succeeded in hurting the Brits, but they didn't come nearly as close as they did in WWI in putting down the Brits.

Well, in terms of WWI. The Germans learned an important lesson... simply put. They had to change the paradigm of naval warfare. Surface was out, and since carriers weren't likely. They went with U-boats. Admittedly, the U-boats were not as successful as they were in WWI. But it was the right idea.

On Pearl Harbor and the possibility of it not happening. Pearl Harbor was a watershed, it represented the first concentrated use of fleet air arm against surface opponents. And it was a rousing success, notwithstanding Nagumo's mistakes. Up until then, the role of the carrier was not well defined as a strike arm, but more as a scouting and recon arm for the battle fleet. Both IJN and USN preceived the fleets that way until Ozawa, Genda and a few visionaries persuaded Yamamoto, and then the world otherwise. Had Pearl Habor not happend, the Japanese could've conceivably moved a little faster (but not much more) with the extra six carrier decks. And the US wouldn't have learned the lesson about carrier air power until later. Remember, those six decks were unavailable for about three weeks during the Pearl strike. During that time frame, the IJN still ran wild in the South Pacific. With those decks, they could've wiped out the ADBA, and the Brit fleet in India earlier. The USN would've been put off guard, because they would've moved the few carriers and a bunch of obsolete battleships to aid the Phillipines, and those may have been all wiped out. Carriers would've acted as scouts, the only reason that carriers became prime in Pacific was that they were the only major units immediately available after Pearl. In the final analysis, the IJN and Japan was doomed the second they launched Pearl Harbor. Had they played the negotiations game, they may have been a little further ahead, but strategically, Pearl Harbor didn't gain them anything more than a brief respite, and did more harm because it galvanized the Americans and taught them the lesson of naval air early on. Hawaii was never a part of their defense in depth concept. And it wouldn't have been possible to take Pearl and take down the oil in SE Asia. And oil was the strategic focus of the war for Japan anyway.

Response to Halsey, and Leyte. The IJN were both lucky and unlucky in Leyte. Lucky in that their opponent was not Spruance, but that hothead Halsey, who frankly isn't a good admiral. If I had to pick between Spruance and Halsey as naval commanders, I would've picked Spruance, not as flashy, not as loud, and not as dumb. They got through Halsey's 3rd fleet and ended up in the middle of the escort carrier group off of Samar. BTW, if you read about Halsey, he is the same fool that twice got his fleet caught in hurricanes, and the world famous phrase: "where rpt where is task force 58. The world wonders" supposedly brought Halsey close to tears. That's not a mark of a good naval commander. (I will grant that Halsey did a good job in Guadalcanal and earlier on, and his best move was to let Spruance have command in Midway). IJN was unlucky in that they were so heavily outnumbered, witness the battleship action between Olendorf and Nishimura, the latter was destroyed with exception of unlucky Shigure. The 3rd fleet crushed what was left of Japanese carrier arm, and the escort carrier group (even though some of them went down), went down swinging, and inflicted large damage against an attacking force of battleships and cruisers. The only regret was that neither the Yamato nor the Musashi saw action against Ching Lee's fast battleships. That should've been the final fight between battleships. I have no doubt that even if it was just a battleship fight without carrier aircraft, the US fast BB would've killed the Japanese surface fleet. Alas, thanks to idiot Halsey, that was not to be.

There is plenty of discussions here on airplanes. But, naval traditions goes far beyond just a century. I was curious what the board thought about who were the most notable naval commanders in history, and the best naval battles they fought. A few obvious ones: ???: Lepanto Nelson: Akibour bay and Trafalgar Spruance/Flectcher vs Nagumo: Midway Nagumo: Pearl Harbor Tanaka: Guadalcanal Mitscher: Marianas Togo: Tushima Then there were the strategic masterminds, like Nimitiz, Donitz, Yamamoto, and so forth. I know I haven't even scratched the barest surface of the topic, but thought it was an interest subject to talk about. What are your thoughts?

One movie option they could explore is what happened after season 2. I know they have a game out. But in a way, that makes it more interesting.

Couple of names on WWII ace, don't remember any others right now. Dave McCampbell, USN Saburo Sakai, IJN two great aces, Sakai had a great autobiography (?) "Samurai" it was a great book.

Noyhauser, Good point, I don't know much about the Swedes to be honest... never looked much at the Grippen and its sales around the world. From what I know of the Brits, and I suppose if you look at the Tornado (the European consortium) in general, it's tough to tell whether its country specific restrictions or just a matter of not having the right capabilities for countries. Besides the Europeans, the Saudis have Tornados, I don't recall who the other exports were though, but I thought at least one other non-European country uses Tornados. The French tend to sell Mirages all over the place, Israelis, Iraqis, etc.... as long as there is decent money to be made. and now, entertainment of the day.... You may want to watch it there Kavasflam,. You might have offended some people of direct European decent with that comment you made unless you were joking with them. 391147[/snapback] My goodness, such sensitivity.... please don't get the ACLU on my case regarding my uhhhh... uhhhhh... "comment" there. Phalanx, I recall you're young, so, let me give you a little bit of advice, if you go through life worrying about offending everyone and being offended by every little comment made by someone else or hell, worrying about one party offending another at every turn, well, it's not a happy life that you're going to lead. But then again, it is your life... do whatever pleases you. PEACE. But just in case I offended those warmongering psychopaths out there with that last statement.... Just to keep it fair and balanced. WAR

Two words: WINGED WHALE

I'm not sure I would say the Russians are a "friendly" nation. 390865[/snapback] Hmmm, it's more accurate to say that the U.S. military is the best friend of the Russian armament industry, especially its aircraft industry. Since every few years, little tin pot dictators around the world need to buy new Russian planes for the Americans to shot down a few years later. If I were a Russian industrialist, I'd be publicly saying my military hardware rocked, privately cheering the U.S. military to go out and deplete the existing stock in the arsenal of any potential customers. Did I also forget to mention, that the Russians love the U.S. government because it prevents sales of truly advanced weaponary, and the unit cost of even the downgraded versions typically are higher than those of "equivalent" Russian design. The French, the Swedish, and the entire bloody European consortisum on the other hand are much hated, the bastards will sell just about any advanced weapons to anyone who has a buck... don't those SOBs have any morales? So says the Russian military industry.

Just an opinion, but somehow, I don't think SecDef is long for this world. They said that Vince Flynn had a hand in this season. Comparing this to his novels, I am starting to see some similarities, I hope they bring Flynn back in again.

The funny thing is NASA just seem so screwed up from the outside, part of me wonders if it's just Congress slowing things up, or if it's in fact NASA that's bungling the job. The shuttle is going on 25 years at this point, and they have managed to do endless studies without having an actual replacement. Then they have all these little patches for the current shuttle. The stupid ISS is still draining money like crazy, if NASA was a business, it would be bankrupt by now. I wish they end up with one or the other of the proposed new shuttle design and just move onto the next generation already. Right now, what they have is so inefficient and ineffective, that it's nothing more than a joke.

Interesting stuff... hmmm, almost makes me wonder if they could've mounted a pair of GAU-8 on it. If it's good enough for a Hog, it might be good enough for a -130. I suppose though that the 25mm is probably sufficient to kill most armored vehicles. I wonder what is the upper limitation on the type of cannon that can be loaded. Too bad, you couldn't load up a AC-130 with all the guns and a MOAB to boot. Heh heh heh heh. But I know it would be kind of a waste.

I missed it... what is the release schedule for Stargazer? Heh heh, I keep thinking starblazer instead.

For gunships, I'm not too enthusiastic about using hellfire missiles. According to some of what I've read, hellfires can take up to a minute for lock on to occur. Then you have that inevitable time frame of vulnerability where your hellfires has to track the laser beam you put on target. At which point, the firing platform needs to be tracking target (i.e. minimal movement), and becomes fairly vulnerable to AAA. This is part of the reason why you have Kiowa type scouts, they do independent lasing for you. Heck, if all you need is a launch platform, a UH-60 will be just as good. There had been modifications along those routes. For gunships, I like the idea of having a couple of gatling guns, a howizter, may be an intermediate solution would be a high speed grenade launcher of some type. Missiles and rockets aren't the type of armament for the AC-130 types. But gunships typically operate in a lower threat environment, where there might be MANPADS, but not lots of SAMs and radar guided AAA.

KC747.... Yummmm, juicy target. Is it innie or outie? I can imagine it now, fighter pilot drives over: "KC747, you will refuel us now, or we will kill you, in fact, fuel our whole squadron." After refuel, Pilot: "geez, thank, you have fuel left right? Well, I'm asking because I wanna see a nice fireball." The question on tankers is how much does it cost to operate a KC747 for example, versus a KC-10 or a KC-135. The benefit of smaller tankers is of course, not having all your eggs in one basket, in case an accident does happen.

Amazing if somebody managed to put down three migs with one phoenix, those migs must've been flying in very close formation. May be green pilots that didn't know they were getting attacked. But again, the Iranian Tomcats are kind of a joke in my estimation, they may be able to scare Afghanistan, and may put some concerns nto their neighbors, but against AWACS controlled fighters attacking from BVR, those -14s will be in trouble. In a fight against the U.S., they probably won't even get off the ground.