The sky-high aircraft and aviation thread

Yeah I remember that one real nasty MLRS strike from a while back.

If the Russians were actually there in force this conflict would have been over in maybe a week.

And even then, weren't there rumblings that the Kremlin was reconsidering whether the material and manpower support for the various "People's Republics" in rebel territory was worth the potential political gains/losses?

Russian conscripts aren't that well trained to begin with. Besides they are unofficially involved, with the bulk of the Russian forces being there as "volunteers" thus without the support of regular SIGINT and command structure they'd enjoy otherwise, also volunteers that can bring things like MRLS, tanks and the latest ground ECM warfare kits with them. Hardly local rebels being trained to operate heavy weaponry, I am sure the separatists wouldn't be able to last as long as they are lasting if it weren't for the Russians supplying them with trained units, heavy weaponry and artillery support.

There are also plenty of reports of Russian artillery battalions firing from inside Russia and into Ukraine knowing very well the Ukrainian forces can't retaliate.

Besides, who the hell would believe that an entire platoon accidentally got "lost" while patrolling a border near a war zone?

Russia has a tradition of very well-dressed volunteers

Funny I recall said well dressed volunteers in Korea being a bunch of Chinese soldiers with tanks.

To be fair though there were volunteers dressed with migs to.

edited 28th Sep '16 10:00:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yep. Many, many, many "volunteers" flew for the Norks in that war. It was one of the reasons why the rules of engagement for the UN fighter pilots were so idiotically restrictive.

Funnily enough, the sons and nephews of those "volunteers" turned up in Vietnam as well. Doing the same sort of job, with the helpful addition of helping man the SAM sites.

And during the Iran Iraq War and the various Middle Eastern Conflicts against Israel?

^ Some of the reasons and rationales weren't justified however. Their point about air power was misinformed at best and completely off the mark at worst. The PLAAF in 1950 was barely existent. Of the aircraft that had survived the heavy attrition of WW 2 and the Chinese Civil War pre-1948, only a small handful of them were operational relative to the large quantities the Soviets and Americans had. Most of those aircraft were WW 2 vintage stuff, a number of which no longer had any logistical support. (They still had a few operational Imperial Japanese airframes such as Oscars.) Their most advanced aircraft prior to the Soviets doing a Lend-Lease of sorts with Mig-15s was the Mig-9, a straight winged jet that was little different than an F-80. The Chinese consciously chose to ignore their earlier aircraft since most of it didn't have either the legs or the firepower to really amount to a hill of beans in Korea. Especially not the Mig-9 with American Sabres flying all over the Peninsula. Sabre pilots would be running rings around the earlier Mikoyan aircraft and making mincemeat of them just as the Mig-15 did to USAF F-80s at the conflict's start.

Also the PLAAF was doctrinally ignored. The Chinese' entire military doctrine focused on defensive local tactics emphasizing infantry with modern bits like tanks here and there. They didn't get well and truly serious about stuff like air forces until after the Sino-Soviet Split which at that point we're talking about the 1960s, not the start of the 1950s and Korea.

Tom: Yeah go back and read that again and tell me the names and ranks of the people making those assessments. Here is a big hint they are in a position to have and know accurate info for a big picture and unlike you have an accurate view. Mac was pretty damn stupid and overly eager for total war without stopping to regard the bigger picture a trend common through out his tenure as an officer from the word go. Even Patton thought he was prone to going way overboard.

The same kind of accuracy and "intelligence" that led to the Bomber Gap theory? (Which in reality was patently false by several orders of magnitude.) Yeah these guys didn't have a clue how their adversaries really worked despite their rank. What intelligence they could get was often inaccurate or misinterpreted.

On the flipside Mac did understand that if everything went whole hog, you could have smothered the troubles of the Cold War era entirely instead of drawing out a festering ideological conflict that has set up problems persisting into the present day.

To put that in one perspective, Kim wouldn't have nukes today if Mac were allowed to do whatever it took to win. (Perhaps neither would the Chinese.)

When you have things like the Korean War that aren't dealt with decisively enough, you end up with problems down the road of History. Recent history is clear on that over the issue of Iraq. What we should have done is topple Saddam in 91 but we let the issue fester into what happened in 2003. Korea has festered enough that when the inevitable Korean War 2.0 (3.0 if you count that thing in the 60s) hits it's going to be bloodier and more damaging than anything Mac Arthur or Kim Il-Sung or Mao Zedong could have done in 1951.

Sabre: Its Tom you can't expect anything approaching sanity or reason.

Tom; Try again. Your so far out in the weeds you could star in survival reality show. Unlike you and Foaming Mad Mac those Generals knew better and had accurate intel but you and Mac can't be bothered by such silly things as details.

Again because you can't be bothered to actually do any real reading never mind anything in depth. Prior to the Chinese and Russians actually chipping in their air forces the US had near complete air supremacy. After they joined the fray the US lost that. The Chinese were flying more then a token force. They were flying licensed variants of the Mig-15 both local made and ones given to them by the Soviets as military aide. They received said craft before the end of the Civil War. They set up a factory in China to make the plane and received additional craft, parts, instruction, training, and help in general from the Soviets. Russians, Koreans, and Chinese all flew together against the UN air force and even then it wasn't committing a major portion of their air force unlike the US.

That was just the airpower situation. The US was by admission of many of the general dangerously committed to Korea alone and despite that commitment once China and Russia started flying their Migs they lost what air superiority they had at the time.

The person with a less of a clue on this then you Tom was Mac.

edited 29th Sep '16 6:44:05 PM by TuefelHundenIV

If.

If you tried to smother the Cold War early on and failed, we'd probably be learning of the East Asian Conflict of the 1950s as some monumental drawn-out quagmire that claimed untold numbers of lives, encouraged massive social strife and dissension, and some of the best music we'll ever have, if you believe the movies based on it.

What I think is also important is that those generals not only knew quite a bit about warfare and varying degrees about world geopolitics and strategic balances, but also generals who knew Mac Arthur very well. This was a guy that George Patton would look at and say "Damn, simmer down, Prima Donna, you ain't the Second Coming!" If anyone would know if he was misreading a situation, it would probably be these other generals who had worked with him.

Also worth noting that Mac Arthur had been a general officer since the First World War. Whatever else that said about him, it meant that quite a few of these officers would have had time to learn of his quirks and style.

edited 29th Sep '16 6:53:30 PM by AFP

How certain are you the Soviets would have actually gone whole hog siding with China? Stalin wasn't that crazy and Mutually Assured Destruction as a concept or practical technology wasn't there yet.

And are we certain the alternative is better than the alternative that turned into what is today? Tens (if not hundreds) of millions of lives culled across countless Cold War and Cold War-era fallout conflicts and purges, a fucked up crazy world that makes no sense and a geopolitical situation whose first response to anything is basically "Don't disturb the status quo, NO MATTER WHAT".

How do we know that escalating Korea would have been worse than that? For all we know, it could have been the reverse. Escalating Korea de-escalates the Cold War as people realize where they are heading and thus head to the peace table for far more permanent solutions than occurred in reality.

Tom: You see we have this thing called history. You should try reading it sometime.

AFP: Indeed Patton thought Mac was overtop and that is notable coming from a Glory Hound like Patton who thought we should have stormed the Russians with rearmed Nazis. It doesn't help that Mac earned his reputation well before he got his first star and repeatedly after getting it. Mac ordered Patton to charge the bonus army with cavalry something Patton had reservations about in general. Eisenhower then one of Mac's aides said him doing what he was doing and in person was a bad idea. Mac also ignored Hoover's order to halt the advance but ignored it and attacked anyways.

By the time Korea had rolled around and he had been canned Mac had more then earned the negative aspects of his reputation.

It's tell that the GOP, who hated Truman, dumped Mac before Truman fired him. Mac is to the Army what Steve Jobs is to the PC: a massive ego who got disconnected from reality.

No surprise that Trump spoke highly of him during the debate and tried to use his name to criticize our current policy in the middle east.

I once read this alternate-history novel about MacArthur in World War II. Basically, they didn't use the A-bomb. Patton got transferred to the Pacific Theater after V-E Day, and MacArthur put him in charge of a diversionary attack on the Japanese home islands. But Mac's main assault force got delayed by a typhoon, Patton's group advanced much farther than Mac had planned, and Patton accepted the Japanese surrender. Then he got killed in a car crash. So Patton went down in history as the big hero, and Mac faded into obscurity.

In real life, did MacArthur really refer to himself in the third person? I know he surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men, and wouldn't listen to anybody who didn't kiss his ass.

Supposedly he had an air component commander late in WWII who knew him by reputation. The general squared up and told Mac that he was gonna let the air commander do his job the way he saw best, or he'd get someone else.

So the story goes, they got on famously after that. No idea if it's true though.

CIVIL AIR PATROL ASSISTS DURING CRISIS

Article/advertising from Textron, the company which owns Cessna.

Looks like Iran has knockoff Sentinels now.