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Posted
5 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

I read that the drones cost about 500 bucks each and that they launched 117 of them, meaning 64k in drones did seven billion dollars in damage.

I keep thinking that our 15 billion dollar aircraft carriers might be a foolish "Maginot Line" type investment. 

They still have value for projecting power in 2nd and 3rd world countries, but a full blown war in Taiwan would likely see several carrier groups having an HMS Prince of Wales moment. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

I read that the drones cost about 500 bucks each and that they launched 117 of them, meaning 64k in drones did seven billion dollars in damage.

I keep thinking that our 15 billion dollar aircraft carriers might be a foolish "Maginot Line" type investment. 

CVN's aren't a defensive weapons system - they're power projection. The US policy for the last six or seven decades has been power projection as foreign policy.

Since we're giving up on foreign policy the CVN's were a bad investment

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Posted
2 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

They still have value for projecting power in 2nd and 3rd world countries, but a full blown war in Taiwan would likely see several carrier groups having an HMS Prince of Wales moment. 

Wanna bet?

Posted
3 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

They still have value for projecting power in 2nd and 3rd world countries, but a full blown war in Taiwan would likely see several carrier groups having an HMS Prince of Wales moment. 

I’m not super worried about a cargo ship full of FPV drones swarming a carrier underway and ready, so the Ukraine scenario isn’t a likelihood.

Carriers move and are a long way from anywhere that can launch an attack, even China is going to struggle with real time-targeting. And that’s before the active and passive defenses come into play.  

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Posted
I’m not super worried about a cargo ship full of FPV drones swarming a carrier underway and ready, so the Ukraine scenario isn’t a likelihood.
Carriers move and are a long way from anywhere that can launch an attack, even China is going to struggle with real time-targeting. And that’s before the active and passive defenses come into play.  

Every coastal refinery in Texas and Louisiana, however….
That shit keeps me up at night.
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Posted
35 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’m not super worried about a cargo ship full of FPV drones swarming a carrier underway and ready, so the Ukraine scenario isn’t a likelihood.

Carriers move and are a long way from anywhere that can launch an attack, even China is going to struggle with real time-targeting. And that’s before the active and passive defenses come into play.  

Yeah I don't think people realize how effective a carrier task force is at not only defending itself, but preemptively striking before it can be struck.  I'll admit our Navy has had some issues lately, the other thing people seriously underestimate is a military tradition.  China has never done shit and until it does, I just can't see it.  We have no idea how effective their weapon systems are, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts their training, command structure, etc are going to lead them to struggle to use them effectively. 

Not terribly relevant, but as a student of history, especially military history, and a veteran who trained officers from military's around the world, training, command tradition, and NCO experience are huge factors in effectiveness.  There is a reason the British military is still one of the most effective in the world despite it's size and budget.

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Posted

This drone attack is so awesome to read about and see amateur footage from civilians. A couple more attacks like that and the Russians won't have an air force left. It will be interesting to see how Putin responds, they have plenty more weapons to use. We could be in for a wild escalation over the next few days. 

FB_IMG_1748987539918.jpg

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Posted
7 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

I read that the drones cost about 500 bucks each and that they launched 117 of them, meaning 64k in drones did seven billion dollars in damage.

I keep thinking that our 15 billion dollar aircraft carriers might be a foolish "Maginot Line" type investment. 

The Maginot Line may be the most misunderstood military legend in history. 

It was designed to deter the Germans from directly invading France, and force them to go through Belgium, so the French would have time to react and defeat the Germans without laying waste to their beloved country.

The plan actually worked to perfection, as the Germans were forced to go through Belgium. The French then proceeded to screw up the campaign for a myriad of other reasons. 

So while the legend of the folly of the Maginot Line endures, it doesn't deserve it's reputation. 

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Felix said:

Yeah I don't think people realize how effective a carrier task force is at not only defending itself, but preemptively striking before it can be struck.  I'll admit our Navy has had some issues lately, the other thing people seriously underestimate is a military tradition.  China has never done shit and until it does, I just can't see it.  We have no idea how effective their weapon systems are, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts their training, command structure, etc are going to lead them to struggle to use them effectively. 

Not terribly relevant, but as a student of history, especially military history, and a veteran who trained officers from military's around the world, training, command tradition, and NCO experience are huge factors in effectiveness.  There is a reason the British military is still one of the most effective in the world despite it's size and budget.

If anything, the attack reveals how technology, combined with imagination, can overcome a mindset that is stuck in the past. I am afraid our military mindset is firmly stuck in the past, with gigantic task force groups and huge, vulnerable weapons platforms. I think technology has evolved to the point where an imaginative enemy can overcome our defenses by employing asymmetric attacks, like 911 and this drone attack on Russia's strategic arsenal. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

What all these attacks has (along with the attack on the Cole, or for that matter Pearl Harbor) was that they hit the adversary in a way that was unexpected where they thought they were safe. And there are a lot of lessons here that are valid for us.  We have a lot of vulnerable airfields, including places we are or would want to be in the Pacific. Our HUMINT is frankly degraded. Our port security is shit.  This type of stuff can happen to us, but not because we are investing in great capabilities but because we can do what the Russians did which is get lazy and complacent and believe that the enemy won’t reach us. 
 

But we shouldn’t overestimate what this means. I promise Ukraine would rather be fighting this war with F-35s and B2s. 
 

A good step one would be to ditch the useless Golden Dome idea and get real about border/port security instead of performative deportations. 

I agree with this post 100%, except for the Golden Dome part, since I don't know much about it.

A few years ago, one of our national news shows snuck a large amount of radioactive matter into Baltimore harbor to prove that there is no screening. They easily got it through. Imagine someone setting off small nukes from a cargo ship.

Since we live in an open society, the Chinese have been conducting a decades-long infiltration of our energy resources, power grid, defense internet, military technology. Heck, they stole highly-classified computers from Los Alamos, but we did arrest spy who was there. They may not even have to fight our military to defeat us enough to take control of Taiwan. Just cause havoc in the homeland. 

Yes, like us, they are also idiots, but we are woefully unprepared for the kind of war that can and probably will be fought. 

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Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

What all these attacks has (along with the attack on the Cole, or for that matter Pearl Harbor) was that they hit the adversary in a way that was unexpected where they thought they were safe. And there are a lot of lessons here that are valid for us.  We have a lot of vulnerable airfields, including places we are or would want to be in the Pacific. Our HUMINT is frankly degraded. Our port security is shit.  This type of stuff can happen to us, but not because we are investing in great capabilities but because we can do what the Russians did which is get lazy and complacent and believe that the enemy won’t reach us. 
 

But we shouldn’t overestimate what this means. I promise Ukraine would rather be fighting this war with F-35s and B2s. 
 

A good step one would be to ditch the useless Golden Dome idea and get real about border/port security instead of performative deportations. 

Russian oligarchs also stole a lot of money meant for weapons, which degraded their armaments.  Do we have someone like that in charge?  

I would think a lot of drones could also be launched from aircraft carriers, or really, anywhere.  A golden dome is Trump admitting publicly that he wants a golden dome, or enough gold to create one, which won't be used for defense of any kind.  Drones are next level guerrilla warfare.  If the US employs them, and we do, I'd think we're more than aware of their capabilities.  My fear is that Putin will ask Trump for drones, missiles, whatever, and Trump will comply with some bullshit excuse about Ukraine striking Russia, going on the offensive and prolonging the war.  

Edited by Mdhorn
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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

I agree with this post 100%, except for the Golden Dome part, since I don't know much about it.

A few years ago, one of our national news shows snuck a large amount of radioactive matter into Baltimore harbor to prove that there is no screening. They easily got it through. Imagine someone setting off small nukes from a cargo ship.

Since we live in an open society, the Chinese have been conducting a decades-long infiltration of our energy resources, power grid, defense internet, military technology. Heck, they stole highly-classified computers from Los Alamos, but we did arrest spy who was there. They may not even have to fight our military to defeat us enough to take control of Taiwan. Just cause havoc in the homeland. 

Yes, like us, they are also idiots, but we are woefully unprepared for the kind of war that can and probably will be fought. 

Thumbnail.  "Golden Dome" is Trump's masturbatory fantasy of implementing Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, which is geared to protecting a much smaller landmass from aerial attack from low-trajectory artillery and short-range missiles, I.e. weapons fired by neighbors.

Attempting to implement it here is foolhardy, both because of the size of our landmass and that we won't be attacked with artillery or short-range missiles.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Thumbnail.  "Golden Dome" is Trump's masturbatory fantasy of implementing Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, which is geared to protecting a much smaller landmass from aerial attack from low-trajectory artillery and short-range missiles, I.e. weapons fired by neighbors.

Attempting to implement it here is foolhardy, both because of the size of our landmass and that we won't be attacked with artillery or short-range missiles.

Thanks for the update. Is it supposed to have any strategic capabilities against ICBM's? 

Posted
Just now, TreatyOak said:

Thanks for the update. Is it supposed to have any strategic capabilities against ICBM's? 

Yes.  The only way it makes any sense at all is a relatively narrow focus on intercepting the kind of threats we actually might face, including hypersonic missiles.  We're already half-decent at that, but I think things had stalled out a bit over the last 20 years or so.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yes.  The only way it makes any sense at all is a relatively narrow focus on intercepting the kind of threats we actually might face, including hypersonic missiles.  We're already half-decent at that, but I think things had stalled out a bit over the last 20 years or so.

“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
Winston Churchill

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Posted
13 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Thumbnail.  "Golden Dome" is Trump's masturbatory fantasy of implementing Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, which is geared to protecting a much smaller landmass from aerial attack from low-trajectory artillery and short-range missiles, I.e. weapons fired by neighbors.

Attempting to implement it here is foolhardy, both because of the size of our landmass and that we won't be attacked with artillery or short-range missiles.

I expect it to cost an ungodly amount, and when that bill becomes an issue in a year or two, he pivots to protect only southern Florida with it, and call it "Cost Savings, Small Government!"

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Posted
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
Winston Churchill

“…provided a traitor is not in charge, but that goes without saying” - Churchill, probably
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Posted
2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Thumbnail.  "Golden Dome" is Trump's masturbatory fantasy of implementing Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, which is geared to protecting a much smaller landmass from aerial attack from low-trajectory artillery and short-range missiles, I.e. weapons fired by neighbors.

Attempting to implement it here is foolhardy, both because of the size of our landmass and that we won't be attacked with artillery or short-range missiles.

Implementation is not the goal. Just fund it and leave the rest to the adults. 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, Slacks said:

Implementation is not the goal. Just fund it and leave the rest to the adults. 

Trump definitely wants both of his tiny hands in the pool of money for it.  If it operates anywhere close to the way he thinks, it won't be operational at all, and won't be built.  His tariffs are all over the place, and pretty difficult to pin down.  The only thing we know or can gauge about them is what we pay for food and services, which have increased, along with our debt.

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Posted
12 hours ago, Mdhorn said:

Russian oligarchs also stole a lot of money meant for weapons, which degraded their armaments.  Do we have someone like that in charge?  

Absolutely.

 

Enjoyed this blurb as a nice dog at Trump

Quote

A former commander of U.S. Army Europe, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, posted: “For months, some believed that Ukraine didn't 'hold any cards.' Many of us have refuted that claim, saying an inflection point—due to failing Russian war economy and continued lack of Russian leadership adaptation, but especially due to a continued strong Ukrainian government, military and population support and will mixed with their innovative use of Special Operations, un-crewed systems (various drones), and fiber optic capabilities to counter Russian EW—would soon be felt on the battlefield. The coordinated and synchronized attack today, which appears to have decimated much of the Russian air fleet that were based over 4,000 km from the front line, is showing that Ukraine certainly has many aces in the hole.”

Hertling’s comment that some thought Ukraine didn’t hold any cards is a reference to President Donald J. Trump, who ambushed Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28, warning him that Ukraine must cut a deal with Putin because Zelensky didn’t “have the cards” to win the war. With that meeting, Trump signaled that U.S. policy, which has supported Ukraine since 1994, would change to favor Russia.

 

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Posted
14 hours ago, TreatyOak said:

If anything, the attack reveals how technology, combined with imagination, can overcome a mindset that is stuck in the past. I am afraid our military mindset is firmly stuck in the past, with gigantic task force groups and huge, vulnerable weapons platforms. I think technology has evolved to the point where an imaginative enemy can overcome our defenses by employing asymmetric attacks, like 911 and this drone attack on Russia's strategic arsenal. 

I would almost agree with you on land, but sea operations are an entirely different animal.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Felix said:

I would almost agree with you on land, but sea operations are an entirely different animal.

I am no military expert, but there are so many examples throughout history where a country thought their military was invulnerable and they were defeated by a highly motivated, craftier enemy. Today, as always, technology has changed the game.

When the 1991 Gulf War commenced, the Iraqi computers, which they had purchased from the French, mysteriously stopped working. Who is to say that our military technology doesn't have some aspect that the Chinese are able to manipulate?  

Posted
6 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

I am no military expert, but there are so many examples throughout history where a country thought their military was invulnerable and they were defeated by a highly motivated, craftier enemy. Today, as always, technology has changed the game.

When the 1991 Gulf War commenced, the Iraqi computers, which they had purchased from the French, mysteriously stopped working. Who is to say that our military technology doesn't have some aspect that the Chinese are able to manipulate?  

It's true. I'll just point out that most of the asymmetric warfare successes against our forces have been done during exercises by our own forces.  This is what military planners do in a professional officer corps.  I served in the 80s and 90s. Vietnam was very fresh in Army minds then and the Cold War was wrapping up.  Our force structure has changed significantly since then, and it seems to me those changes are focused on smaller conflicts against less sophisticated enemies.

All that being said, the main thing that separates the western armies and particularly ours, is the the professional nature of the officer and NCO ranks and I doubt the training tempos are any less than they were when I was in.  We trained intensely, as realistically as possible, and as a combined arms force.  I won't even get into logistics.  Technology is constantly changing so there are always challenges, but I never found our officers to be hidebound in any way.  Sure we have our doctrines and we train to those, but a large part of our training was leadership training and that training taught all levels of leaders to be prepared to act when the plan failed or unexpected things happened and our ability to adapt on the fly is probably our greatest strength.  Company level officers and NCOs are not only encouraged to act as needed to accomplish the mission, but given the tools to take control of a bad situation, and the best field grade officers trust their teams and act to support them, even if it's off plan. Many times in training ops the guys on the scene were driving the bus and the higher level commanders were providing support and coordination to the guy at the tip of the spear instead of trying to drive the bus from a CP a mile behind the front.

 

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Felix said:

It's true. I'll just point out that most of the asymmetric warfare successes against our forces have been done during exercises by our own forces.  This is what military planners do in a professional officer corps.  I served in the 80s and 90s. Vietnam was very fresh in Army minds then and the Cold War was wrapping up.  Our force structure has changed significantly since then, and it seems to me those changes are focused on smaller conflicts against less sophisticated enemies.

All that being said, the main thing that separates the western armies and particularly ours, is the the professional nature of the officer and NCO ranks and I doubt the training tempos are any less than they were when I was in.  We trained intensely, as realistically as possible, and as a combined arms force.  I won't even get into logistics.  Technology is constantly changing so there are always challenges, but I never found our officers to be hidebound in any way.  Sure we have our doctrines and we train to those, but a large part of our training was leadership training and that training taught all levels of leaders to be prepared to act when the plan failed or unexpected things happened and our ability to adapt on the fly is probably our greatest strength.  Company level officers and NCOs are not only encouraged to act as needed to accomplish the mission, but given the tools to take control of a bad situation, and the best field grade officers trust their teams and act to support them, even if it's off plan. Many times in training ops the guys on the scene were driving the bus and the higher level commanders were providing support and coordination to the guy at the tip of the spear instead of trying to drive the bus from a CP a mile behind the front.

This is great info from an actual expert. Good to hear and know. It sounds like the US military is governed, as in the past, with practicality, which is great news.

Thanks

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Satchel said:

Steve Bannon is big mad over Zelensky keeping Trump in the dark and wants the US to withdraw its support and arrest Lindsay Graham.

I can't wait until the universe gives Bannon the Rush Limbaugh treatment. 

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Posted
On 6/3/2025 at 7:21 PM, TreatyOak said:

If anything, the attack reveals how technology, combined with imagination, can overcome a mindset that is stuck in the past. I am afraid our military mindset is firmly stuck in the past, with gigantic task force groups and huge, vulnerable weapons platforms. I think technology has evolved to the point where an imaginative enemy can overcome our defenses by employing asymmetric attacks, like 911 and this drone attack on Russia's strategic arsenal. 

And France actually had better tanks than the German Mark IIIs that rolled through the narrow roads in Belgium. 

What France did NOT have is a tank doctrine that gathered tanks into a modern armored division.  The French thought of tanks simply as infantry support - and spread them throughout their forces - which prevented the ability to assemble a large French armored force in numbers sufficient to repel the German blitzkrieg.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

And France actually had better tanks than the German Mark IIIs that rolled through the narrow roads in Belgium. 

What France did NOT have is a tank doctrine that gathered tanks into a modern armored division.  The French thought of tanks simply as infantry support - and spread them throughout their forces - which prevented the ability to assemble a large French armored force in numbers sufficient to repel the German blitzkrieg.

Very true. Plus, no radios in their tanks. They used signal flags, lol. I think the WWI traumatized the French so hard that they didn't have the stomach for WW2. 

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Posted
24 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Very true. Plus, no radios in their tanks. They used signal flags, lol. I think the WWI traumatized the French so hard that they didn't have the stomach for WW2. 

Well, who needs radios when you have élan!

 

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Well, who needs radios when you have élan!

 

No that guy wasn't even born yet so no StarLink. Plus, he's a Nazi so who knows whose side he would've been on.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

More like ennui.

And then the countess I was with
Bent over with a kiss
And put a jeweled hand on my knee
I knew I’d lost the light
And I was movin’ through the night
Runnin’ from the grand ennui

Posted
31 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Well, who needs radios when you have élan!

 

I presumed they communicated by sending up puffs of smoke from skinny cigarettes and saying inappropriate - yet wildly effective - flirtatious comments at passing women.

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Posted

Back to the implications of the Ukraine drone attack: Imagine the Chinese are poised to invade Taiwan. We move our vaunted carrier battle groups to the South China Sea. Suddenly, tens of thousands of drones that are sitting offshore in container ships and/or transported into the US suddenly strike our electrical grids, military installations, the Houston fuel reserves, nuclear plants, etc, across the US, plunging the country into utter chaos. Plus, our entire commercial internet is jammed and shut down. Then the Chinese say that they have tens of thousands more drones poised to strike cities. Are we really going to fight for Taiwan? 

I don't expect this to happen. Unlike the Russians, the Chinese are smart enough to know you can achieve more power through business than through military action. However, as someone who lived in Manhattan during 911 (that was fun), I have no problem imagining some Islamic terrorist group executing this campaign. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Suddenly, tens of thousands of drones that are sitting offshore in container ships and/or transported into the US suddenly strike our electrical grids, military installations, the Houston fuel reserves, nuclear plants, etc, across the US, plunging the country into utter chaos.

Like our robust electrical grids could go down so easily….

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Posted
5 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Back to the implications of the Ukraine drone attack: Imagine the Chinese are poised to invade Taiwan. We move our vaunted carrier battle groups to the South China Sea. Suddenly, tens of thousands of drones that are sitting offshore in container ships and/or transported into the US suddenly strike our electrical grids, military installations, the Houston fuel reserves, nuclear plants, etc, across the US, plunging the country into utter chaos. Plus, our entire commercial internet is jammed and shut down. Then the Chinese say that they have tens of thousands more drones poised to strike cities. Are we really going to fight for Taiwan? 

I don't expect this to happen. Unlike the Russians, the Chinese are smart enough to know you can achieve more power through business than through military action. However, as someone who lived in Manhattan during 911 (that was fun), I have no problem imagining some Islamic terrorist group executing this campaign. 

The current administration isn't going to fight for Taiwan regardless. Purely coincidental, Trump Golf Resort Hainan coming soon.

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