Oh geez, I can just see it now. The DOD will be demanding billions more to pay for some new counter to this over-hyped threat to our forces. I still say its fearmongering, nothing more. Yet another attempt by the military industrial complex to perpetuate itself in a world where there are no military powers even remotely close to the USA. This whole stealth thing is overblown, too. Do you guys even know that non-stealthy US and British aircraft fly over Iraqi skies every week with impunity, bombing anything they want, invulnerable to AAA and SAM's? It doesn't make the news anymore, but at least once a week an Iraqi site is bombed, and this has been going on for over a year now, with zero losses. The Iraqis are firing AAA, SA-3's, SA-6's, etc. at Tornados, F-15's, F-16's, and other aircraft with no hits! Here we have the entire nation of Iraq, desperately trying to bring down a single allied aircraft for over a year without success.
Similiarly, non-stealthy Western aircraft have been proven virtually invulnerable in numerous air campaigns over both Iraq and the Balkans from 1995-1999. Remember the US/British/French air strikes on Iraq in 1994? Remember the NATO airstrikes on Bosnian Serbs in 1995? Remember Operation Desert Fox in 1999? Remember Operation Allied Force in 1999? In all these air campaigns, there have been only a tiny handful of losses.
Extrememly non-stealthy aircraft like Tornado's, F-16C's, F-15E's, A-10's, even older Italian AMX attack aircraft and French Super Etendards, have all been exposed to Iraqi and Serb defenses and been proven virtually invulnerable, at least at medium to high altitudes.
Allied airpower has become more effective and more invulnerable since Desert Storm, not less. The losses in the air campaigns from 1994-1999 have had attrition lower than the average losses during training exercises.
Sure, the Chinese and Russians have somewhat better air defenses, and I doubt we could defeat them with near-zero losses. But since when has it been a requirement that we can defeat any nation with zero losses? That's rediculous! We'd still defeat them handily, that's what matters.
How much are we going to have to raise taxes to pay for a super military that can defeat any nation with zero casualties? Would it even be a good thing to have such power? We have too much already, and I pay too much goddamn taxes already, too. I don't think a lot of you, especially those of you who are above the lower tax brackets, are really appreciating how much of your hard-earned money goes towards the bloated US gov't. And much of that bloat is the military(among other things).
The US should be cutting government more, including the military, and giving us tax relief, not trying to find ways to waste more of our tax dollars. Trust me, guys, if you really examined the military forces of the world and looked at the results of all the wars of the last 20-30 years, you'd see the US has nothing to worry about. This is not the 1930's, or the 1960's either. Times and technologies change. This is a unique time in history. For the first time ever, one nation, the USA, has amassed more military power than the entire world put together. This has never happened before. Believe me we don't need to spend more on the military.
Let me put it this way: flightsims are not real. Falcon4 is not real, or realistic. It's a game. US airpower is a lot more survivable than these flightsims would have us believe. In the real world, even non-stealthy US aircraft are VERY hard to hit. So even if we had never had stealth to begin with, we (the Western world, not just the US) would still win our wars handily.
[This message has been edited by mbaxter (edited 12-30-1999).]
Topic Closed
posted 12-29-1999 11:03 AM
