And F22s. And B2s. And Tomahawks. And that’s before you get to the main body of our air component after the former have shattered Russia’s underperforming IADS.
Out of how many missions? And how many U.S. troops were lost as a result? There were tens of thousands of missions (41,000 in the first six weeks). And I'm sure a large number of the pilots were recovered as well. Just running that many missions on a short turnaround time will result in aircraft lost due to mechanical failure. Quit whining. War-time flights are not like running Delta Airlines or United Airlines. Edit: Actually, the U.S. only lost 17 fixed-wing aircraft in Iraq in 2003-2008 (the rest were helicopters). No pilots of U.S. fixed-wing aircraft were killed as a result of being shot down by the enemy. List of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the Iraq War - Wikipedia
Next you're going to tell us that the U.S. military loses in checkers AND chess to the Chinese and Russians. Apparently there are some intangibles that the war games do not simulate very well (or they are out-of-date). It may be possible that the U.S. military has lost a little of its edge since the end of the Cold War. We scaled back on military spending for several years in the 1990's. (It would be asinine to suggest that the U.S. military is in a free fall.) Well guess what? The Russians scaled back their spending even more. So much so that a lot of their weapons and equipment is from the 1980's. China is a big unknown. They have some fancy hardware, but no real experience in warfare since their little excursion in Vietnam in the late-70's, during which they lost to a military that was severely weakened after fighting with the U.S. for over a decade. Our only experience in dealing directly with the Chinese military is with their jet pilots near their borders, and those pilots are extremely reckless and unprofessional. I doubt that translates very well to winning a war.
Ukraine is the only country in the world that can claim to be "battle-hardened", as there haven't been that many wars between different countries in the last decade. Russia can only claim to be "battle-softened", by the way that Ukraine is handing their asses to them and driving them back to Russia, not to mention causing practically the entire country of Russia to head for the exits to avoid being drafted.
Yep. And I’m hearing that Ukraine is prepared to recognize the legitimacy of these annexations and surrender. With no other choice the U.S. Congress and UN General Assembly are prepared to follow suit. Russia has won.
Of course Ukraine won’t surrender. Your dementia-in-chief won’t let it. The point is that Putin has flipped the script. As of Friday, any Ukrainians in the annexed territories will be occupiers to be ousted. And any attacks on said territories will be regarded as attacks on Russia. Therefore, gloves off.
Alot of Russian boys are going to die for their Czar. I'm hearing Germany is now considering sending Leopards. As far as the farce of munitions supply I find it inconceivable that the US and the Western European military industrial complex cannot keep Ukraine in a steady state supply of munitions and hardware. (Provided Congress / Senate approve expenditures). Especially when you compare it to the sorry state of the Russian economy and there broken down logistics capabilities. I do realize that Russia is not helpless in that regard and, as in the past, may respond with immediate munitions and heavy weapons infrastructure expaansion, but its a different world from WW2. Churning out 10's of thousands of T-34's that use a hammer and a pipe wrench to run the transmission is not viable today. Weapons are far more sophisticated. Perhaps our friend Uftaipan could break it down for us with his expertise but the way I see it, in a conventional sense, this escalation will be a big loser for Russia for the following reason: First, lets get Nuclear OFF the table, while it could happen that makes no sense for any side in this conflict. 1) I believe Putins biggest "Ace" is a hope and belief that witholding Energy and hoping for a cold winter will "freeze out" Western European and Ukranian resolve. 2) Russia does have an advantage when it comes to "casulty count" in that culture has a history of throwing life away in almost limitless proportions to acheive political objectives. While that was once true for Europeans (WW1) that is hardly the case now. This paragraph will be controversial on this forum but the way I see it, Putin has been working the US and the World for years with social media to weaken NATO and Western Democracy. Conservatives on this board can take it any way they want but Italy just elected a far right "Putin type", Donald Trump was "buddies" with the totalitarian and the Faux News entertainment section continues to spout "support" for this guy. It was and is discouraging to me that the Russian disinformation campaign was as successful as it was in the US. Trumpers better come to the realaization that it is not Democrats that are the primary threat to Western Democracy, rather totalitarian powers, (See Russia and China) and many others, around the world. Trumpers - You have been "played" and betrayed. Republicans, I'm not saying you have to vote Democrat, but how about voting for REAL REPUBLICANS that don't support Vlad Putin! Unless of course Republicans want to go quasi facist and quasi capatalist ....... embracing a titular "strongman" type. Should NATO and the US remain politicaly united in this conflict, it may be possible to STAMP OUT the curse of the old communist Soviet Union, once and for all.
You are still missing the point. “Flipped the script” with whom? Nobody who matters is buying this. It literally changes nothing. And the tool that Russia has left in its box to “take the gloves off” is nuclear weapons. If Putin gives an order to use a nuke, he will be taking off the crown, not the gloves, one way or another. He has two realistic choices: negotiate a full, face-saving withdrawal and maybe get a few of his conditions met; continue to settle the matter by force of arms and risk losing everything, including his head. That’s the deal. The cute, little “(gasp) They’re attacking Russia! That’s against the rules!” doesn’t mean a thing. You appear to be the only person here who views the move as anything more significant than mockworthy.
The Russians are buying it. And since the US and NATO can do nothing to stop them, they are the only ones who matter.
Leaking natural-gas from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines is erupting like geysers in the Baltic Sea, Danish military video shows
how do you sabotage a line over 200' deep on the bottom of the sea floor? Did someone turn up the pressures too high and cause them to fail or ?? this is a major problem and hopefully the valves on the supply side can be closed and the pipeline isolated to stop the leak quickly, unless Putin doesn't want it to stop and this is environmental terrorism
