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https://www.defencetalk.com/fo...
This was a thing on the old slashdot when the site was about geeky things. And don't forget
http://www.progressiveengineer...

"Fighter Drawdown Dynamics: Effects on Aircrew Inventories" - a 2009 study from RAND, says "to maintain the health of fighter units, the number of new pilots entering them must be reduced, ultimately to below 200 per year by 2016." Fighter pilots are high-maintenance - they have to fly frequently to stay good. Having too many fighter pilots for the number of available aircraft results in a big pool of mediocre pilots.

The USAF seems to be having trouble balancing their personnel pipeline.

You think defense doesn't get outsourced? Apparently the MIC doesn't think like you do. According to almost everyone in the industry, outsourcing in defense is common, increasing and the scope is widening over the whole range -- from design to manufacturing. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/January/Pages/OutsourcingUSDefenseNationalSecurityImplications.aspx http://www.defencetalk.com/outsourcing-services-helps-defense-aerospace-reduce-costs-27510/

Everyone's focused on the tail rotors, probably because the tail section is all we're seeing in photos of the crashed helo. Most of the noise, though, comes from the main rotors and engine noise reflected off of them. Whatever stealthy helo they were flying it was most likely using Eurocopter Blue Edge blades, or something similar, like this concept shows here.

The US still has stock piles of chemical weapons as well... But they will get around to destroying them.. One day.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cbw/cw.htm

One day? I guess you're at least consistent.

US gains momentum destroying chemical weapon stockpiles

The U.S. Army has destroyed more than 70-percent of its stockpiles of chemical weapons -- some dating as far back as to the World War I era -- as part of an elaborate, decades-long process slated to be largely completed by 2012, service officials said.

"As of 26 January, 2010, the U.S. has destroyed a 22,322 tons of the original 31,500 tons," said Greg Mahall, chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA).

The U.S. arsenal -- which used to include 31,500 tons of chemical weapons such as Sarin, VX and Mustard agents-- is systematically being destroyed at an increased pace, Mahall said.

Blurry ? Really ?

Check out this site : http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/j-20/p43219-j-20-first-testflightstealth-aircraft.html

For the impatient :

http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43209
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43212
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43214

I'm no aerospace engineer but I assume those pics are detailed enough to get decent analysis of its performance, at least in terms of radar avoiding shape, top speed, and maneuverability.

Furthermore, the designed is much more inspired by, and perhaps improved upon, the current generation of jet fighters, Russian and US, than anything from the 1960s.

Blurry ? Really ?

Check out this site : http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/j-20/p43219-j-20-first-testflightstealth-aircraft.html

For the impatient :

http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43209
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43212
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43214

I'm no aerospace engineer but I assume those pics are detailed enough to get decent analysis of its performance, at least in terms of radar avoiding shape, top speed, and maneuverability.

Furthermore, the designed is much more inspired by, and perhaps improved upon, the current generation of jet fighters, Russian and US, than anything from the 1960s.

Blurry ? Really ?

Check out this site : http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/j-20/p43219-j-20-first-testflightstealth-aircraft.html

For the impatient :

http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43209
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43212
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43214

I'm no aerospace engineer but I assume those pics are detailed enough to get decent analysis of its performance, at least in terms of radar avoiding shape, top speed, and maneuverability.

Furthermore, the designed is much more inspired by, and perhaps improved upon, the current generation of jet fighters, Russian and US, than anything from the 1960s.

Blurry ? Really ?

Check out this site : http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/j-20/p43219-j-20-first-testflightstealth-aircraft.html

For the impatient :

http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43209
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43212
http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=43214

I'm no aerospace engineer but I assume those pics are detailed enough to get decent analysis of its performance, at least in terms of radar avoiding shape, top speed, and maneuverability.

Furthermore, the designed is much more inspired by, and perhaps improved upon, the current generation of jet fighters, Russian and US, than anything from the 1960s.

The counter to a stealth fighter would be better radar, not more stealth fighters of your own.

Actually, the counter is both on the same platform. You need weapons that can defeat the stealth fighter, since ideally you want to eliminate the target, not just look at it.

So, you want a fighter that has a small enough radar cross-section and sensitive enough radar that you see the other guy first. Then your missile just needs to be pointed in the right direction, it can aquire the lock later when it's close enough to detect their radar cross-section.

I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?

We shot down an Iranian drone over Iraq a few months ago. Before that, seems the last fighter-fighter engagements were Desert Storm, only because we haven't been in an air-war since. It's possible I'm missing some conflict, though. Assuming things were to go south with Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, or North Korea we would need air superiority fighters. Air superiority doesn't win wars on its own, but it's hard to win a conventional war without it.

They do have laser guided bombs:

http://eng.ktrv.ru/production_eng/323/518/519/

So this is the accuracy I guess:

Root mean square deviation, m : 4 - 7

Lets see what comparable bombs the us has:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/gbu-27.htm

has a CEP of 8 but the GPS + some other Laser guided ones are better.

Someone mentioned the lack of Glonass guided bombs though:

http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-4381.html

The question is whether they use guided bombs. I would think though that guided bombs are far more efficient. You would need far less bombs to achieve a certain goal, this could reduce the number of planes to use in a mission and who knows what kind of infrastructure is necessary to run
the whole effort. Given that Russia is also running a PR war the added benefit of only hitting what they want may factor into their considerations as well.

Here is a link claiming that their ground weapons used are inaccurate:

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/09/whos-winning-in-georgia/

The author is misinformed in other fronts and contradicts himself in several points. He points at the 25 years of bureaucracy to develop the F-22, but follows up with a comment on the 60-day lifecycle to develop "Hellfire missiles" (which I think is the infamous "Bunker Busters", but I'm too lazy to fact check myself).

He also talks about scaling back the F-22 from 750 orders to about 200 (which is true), but ignores the current plan to acquire thousands of superior F-35 aircraft (third paragraph) over the next 2 decades.

And he completely ignores the robustness of the advanced technology that we deploy. UAVs and PackBots are expensive diversions that force the guerrillas to fight a continually more complex war. As a result, less people die... which is one of the main goals, is it not? But because it is robust, it is saved the trouble of being completely changed after the opposition adapts. That is to say, the enemy switches from one disposable prototype to another... but we are left with the technology to stop both types of the low-tech devices. We evolve, they just swap in different components using mix-and-match "recipes" (which were discussed in the author's article to be faulty 75-80% of the time).

The other thing that ticked me off that the author missed completely was the complete absence of a mention towards the DoD's desire to embrace Open Source and the mention that recent contracts enforce "GPR" license mechanisms to promote Joint Reuse across the military development network of contractors (and for the uninformed, GPR [government purpose rights] is the DoD equivalent of GPL [general purpose license] with built in (obvious) restrictions that would apply to work done that is sensitive to the nations interest).

In any case, I still found the article to be well written with some intelligent discussion and it is definitely worthy of some consideration in respect to steering the interests of what is good for the world and how to successfully fight a guerrilla war.

Depending on where you get your figures, as much of 50% of US nuclear power is generated from recycled Soviet uranium, either extracted from decommissioned warheads or excess manufactured product that was in the pipeline at the time of collapse. The US also has a large number of vintage-era nuclear weapons that are no longer considered militarily viable (the trigger mechanisms decay quite a bit) and so could be recycled. Finally, if the going ever gets really bad, we can always reprocess our spent fuel for Plutonium and/or use breeder reactors to make the stuff - this is the primary mode in which the Japanese nuclear industry sustains itself without outside supply, although the cheap price of Uranium makes them feel kind of dumb.

In short, the US does not need to import a single gram of fissile material to run indefinitely. Solar/Wind/etc. . are fine ideas for the long term but do not meet our power needs today. We should absolutely invest in these alternative technologies and, while we are at it, invest in conservation and efficiency. Unfortunately, right now, we are making almost 50% of our power from coal that is massively environmentally destructive from the second it is strip-mined out of the ground to its large final carbon contribution. Nuclear power is the only technology currently available that can put a dent in coal usage. If you show me an alternative that can scale to 400 TerraWattHours, I'll withdraw that claim.

References:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
http://www.usec.com/v2001_02/Content/News/NewsTemplate.asp?page=/v2001_02/Content/News/NewsFiles/04-13-03.htm
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-215.html

For the full defencetalk.com article that this GoogleAds blog entry seems to be summarizing, go here . Lots more information. Found the link on Fark don'tcha know.

For the full defencetalk.com article that this GoogleAds blog entry seems to be summarizing, go here . Lots more information. Found the link on Fark don'tcha know.

You tell me.
"Villagers in India's Andamans and Nicobar Islands have denounced 'paltry' tsunami compensation relief they have received from the local government.
One woman received a cheque of just two rupees (less than five US cents) for damage to her coconut crops."

I also remember reading an article recently about how India's Air Force kicked our ass in joint training exercises

While the Indian Air Force did 'win' several (even 'most') of the engagements, to say they 'kicked our ass' is a bit misleading.
No AWACS, which the USAF would use if it were real
Older F-15C, lacking the upgraded, longer range radar, against newer IAF Su-30's.
No BVR engagements
The USAF sent 5 jets, and were outnumbered during the A-A portions of the exercise. This was a DACT exercise, not a 'beat the other guy' situation.

Having said that...
General Hal Hornburg, head of the US Air Combat Command said "that we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were"

From an IAF official:
"We have appreciated the compliments but we are being pragmatic. We have no doubt about the technological superiority of the US Air Force. The exercise in Gwalior was a low-level one and involved conventional fighter tactics."

Spin it how you want, but that's not quite "kicking our ass"

More here, here and here.