Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

BTW, to follow up, the State Dept. website has taken down the article praising Mar a Lago as if it were some sort of traditional govt retreat like Camp David. Said it was never the intent to promote the Trump-owned, $200,000/year private resort...

[Dr. Strangelove]

White House denies House Oversight Committee's request for documents re: Michael Flynn

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/330410-white-house-rejects-oversight-request-for-flynn-documents

[froot loops]

The cover up is in full swing.

[crashcourse]

so was hernandez

[SeattleLionsFan]

Is that a joke about a guy who killed himself?

[Jeff Buchanan]

Its not a stretch to see armed drones taking over close-support roles from artillery and air assets IMO.

The days where whole arty companies are require to protect the front line from massive charges of enemy troops are long gone. Our guys need quick, precise strikes, directed from points as close to the fight as possible. A drone pilot and a Sgt with a laser designator could be more valuable- and safer- than a whole section of field guns. And cheaper.

The latest strategic approach to the battlefield encompasses every current and potential weapon into an integrated and coordinated system. There are elements of this present now in the command and control segments of the battlefield but this strategy is way more encompassing.

For example, old timers like me, who flew EA6As and Bs, first and second generation airborne, piloted jammers, are just starting to give way to this all encompassing Electronic Warfare model where multiple platforms that have EW capability are used in this sort of synergistic way to produce more effective neutralization of an enemy's air defense and ground based Command and Control systems. It's been a battle between future concepts, not all of them anywhere near fielded, and keep what has been working for a long time. The battle is over though mostly driven by purported cost efficiencies in fielding platforms that are completely integrated.

For example, the F18G has some jamming capability but not anywhere near as powerful as the EA6B but if you can link 24 of them together and control what their jamming targets are, bingo. Then you link another squadron of drones carrying jammer payloads to this with targets possibly being communications within the air defense system and another level of EW is laid on. The F35 has even "better" jamming capability; EW experts I talk to don't believe a word of the marketing garbage.

The way you decide what your targets are and how to jam them is by having sophisticated airborne receivers that can resolve positions of critical nodes in the enemy's surveillance, targeting and communications equipment. Then, once resolved and the way the radar or communications signal is working, the jammers are automatically tuned to the right frequency and pointed at the node. Traditionally, this was done by assigning a few airborne EA6Bs to an operating area where air and ground operations were being conducted. The B's posses the capability to integrate two aircraft by data link. In my time, it never worked very well. Maybe it got better. I don't know.

It's effective but it is not as effective as bringing multiple platforms into the arena and using them interdependently and coordinated from some point in space. Platforms might include ground based jammers, ships, aircraft, drones, satellite systems all being controlled by an airborne or space born platform. It's all very interesting but the argument has been, from the standpoint of most old timers involved in EW, pie in the sky stuff.

The Navy no longer operates the EA6B and the Marine Corps phases out it's last squadron of them in 2018. There is going to be a huge active jamming capability gap before some of this new technology is fielded and proven to operate better than anything in the past. It's a big bet and a lot of EW folks are worried about it because in every conflict, EW has proven to be a decisive combat element if not THE decisive element.

It's like you're saying Hoss, we need a lot of less expensive stuff that we know works. The EA6B worked. Upgraded versions of the F18s and F18Gs in huge numbers would have worked but now the Navy and especially the USMC has put all their eggs in the F35 basket and no one is happy about it. The F35 costs about 2x as much as the F18 and there will be less of them. Because of it's stealth profile, the F35 carries less ordnance than the less stealthy F18 and now, many people are questioning the value of stealth which 20-30 years ago was everyone's gold standard.

[Da Geezer]

crash:

one of the biggest reasons people like me voted for trump is because of socialism

when you have less then 50 % working supporting over 50% of the rest of the country you're talking socialism

True. But when you say such a simple observation, the froots here inevitably reply that Americans want more government, or even that as many Rs as Ds are on welfare. When we had a discussion on that matter a couple of days ago I found the following compilation of graphs:

https://www.amren.com/features/2015/10/welfare-whos-on-it-whos-not/

81.5% of black families with children are on welfare. 76% of native Hispanic w/ children are on welfare.

Hilllary won the black vote by 80%, (88-8%), Obama won it by 87% in 2012 (93-6%) and by 91% in 2008. I don't know how one could make a better case for the effects of interest group politics. When the government pays more for people not to work, surprise, the market gives you more people not working. The same holds true for SS Disability. When you lower the standards for qualification for payments, you get more people claiming disability.

None of this is new, or even shocking. What is new is the tolerance for what is basically fraud. This is no longer a "social safety net". It is a lifestyle that is passed generation to generation. The various forms of victimology, or the desire for "social justice", are simply the best the progressives can come up with for taking from those who work and giving to those who don't, or taking from the productive and giving to those who "work" for government.

[froot loops]

I never said anything like that, so STFU you POS.

[CGVT]

Most Black people believe that more whites are on welfare, and most white people that more Blacks are on welfare. So who's right? Well, here are the facts according to a newly released 2016 report by the US Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Commerce, CATO Institute.


Number of Americans receiving welfare assistance: 110,489,000
Number of Americans receiving food stamps: 41,700,000
Number of Americans on unemployment insurance: 10,200,000
Percentage of the US population on welfare: 35.4%
Total government spending on welfare annually: $131.9 billion

So how many Blacks vs whites?

Well, believe it or not, the numbers are actually about the same. There are just about as many whites on welfare as there are Blacks.

Percent of welfare recipients who are white: 38.8%
Percent of welfare recipients who are black: 39.8%

(Note: Many people confuse these statistics. This does not mean that 38.8% of all white Americans, and 39.8% of all Black Americans are on welfare. It means that 39.8% of all the actual welfare recipients are Black, and 38.8% of all the welfare recipients are white.)

And contrary to popular belief, a lot less immigrants are on welfare.

Percent of welfare recipients who are Hispanic: 15.7%
Percent of welfare recipients who are Asian: 2.4%
Percent of welfare recipients who are Other: 3.3%

(Note: Again, this does not mean that 15.7% of all Hispanic Americans and 2.4% of all Asian Americans are on welfare. It is referring to the percentage of welfare recipients)

Those numbers might shock you but the numbers don't lie, and these are federal government statistics!

[Wild Hoss]

Jeff,

There is a lot to unpack in military procurement, but for our narrow conversation here....its possible that the F35 might prove to be a backdoor savior by being such a colossally expensive failure. Its garnered a lot of public attention for being, basically, built to survive the procurement process itself. Meanwhile, proven and useful systems like the Warthog are shitcanned to make room for it in the budget. If anything, we should be building a new ‘Hog, not a new F22...we fire missiles at caves and huts now, not MiGs.

JMO, but at this point the manned aircraft industry is shot...the corruption and monopolization has overwhelmed the process. Save some serious anti-trust busting, its almost inoperable. But, we can learn from our mistakes there, and hopefully prevent them from repeating in the sphere of drone technology. Much easier for smaller firms to compete in that arena, and the smaller per-unit costs provide the opportunity for more niche-based development.

There still seems to be robust competition for light weapons, and vehicles. IDK about shipbuilding, but I’d be surprised if it were much different from aircraft given the $ involved.

[Wild Hoss]

Blacks are poorer than Whites. Film at eleven.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Da Geezer posts obviously incorrect statistics without any critical thought from a white supremecist magazine. What a shock!!!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amer...ance_(magazine)

[froot loops]

Yeah not a surprise. I wish I would have known and I wouldn't have clicked on it.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I just assume that anything posting such racist drivel is racist. The fact that Geezer "just happened upon it" was only further confirmation. Then a brief perusal of the website and talk of White Identity kind of cemented it in my mind (and others too apparently).

[Jeff Buchanan]

There are folks crossing the line here on rule 2. Posting that a contributor here is POS is an example.

Also, transgender people like Catlyn Jenner make me uncomfortable, racists make me uncomfortable some aspects of right wing politics make me uncomfortable as do extreme left wing stuff, but people holding these views need to have the ability to speak about how they feel, what they believe without getting heckled off the stage by snowflakes. That is a healthy and an important environment to preserve.

I think we had a link to a pretty good NYT piece about that.

Carry on.