Eject! Eject! Eject!

[Jumper Bones]

from baby seals.

From whomever they decide. It's their airspace, their country, their territory.

Post 9/11, there has been a big surge in the air intercept mission, in all honesty hijacked airplanes are likely to be shot down these days once identified and non-compliant. Trade 150 or so people in the air for several thousand lives on the ground? You bet. While a Learjet or other bizjet could probably do the job with a couple missiles bolted to the wings, fighters are designed for it, have the radar already, and can very quickly get from one place to another, unlike a LJ.

I got to take part in a training exercise for interception once in a C-17 - we flew north out up past Vancouver island, then did a 180, and switched our transponder to the hijacking frequency and stopped talking to radio. F-15s from Portland OR scrambled, and were off our wing before we made it to Victoria. It was really cool seeing the canopy glint of light off in the distance, see a plane go BLASTING by, and peel into this giant turn and pull right up alongside.

[Gripen]

I did some poking around and Canada has sent some air support to Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was in the form of E-3 Sentries helicopters and other support craft ... no fighters from what I could see. That said, defense of Canada Air Space would require F-18s for interception purposes, no? Or are they using F22s now?

Canada does not fly E-3's, instead they are part of the NATO E-3 AWACS program out of Geilenkirchen, Germany. (Canadian CF-18's did participate in a few bombing missions during the '91 Gulf War but were heavily tasked during the 99 Kosovo operations.)

Canada has only sent rotary wing combat assets to Afghanistan, no fixed wing. i.e CF-18's.

And yes, Canada need fighters not only for it's NORAD responsibilities (CF-18's provided air intercept duties for the ENTIRE state of Alaska recently), but also for patrolling the vast Arctic and NW passages areas. These areas are a HUGE deal right now and asserting sovereignty is a huge mission of the Canadian military at the moment. Aircraft such as the CF-18 are vital to this mission.

[Tippster]

They're fucking Canada, not Costa Rica. Of course they have fighter jets. Sweden has jets. Argentina has jets. WTF kinda idiotic question is that?

[The AD]

There is certainly still the need for fighter/interceptor aircraft, but it won't be too long before the need for manned interceptors is over. Pilots hate the idea, of course, but what can a manned aircraft do that an unmanned can't? In fact, the unmanned aircraft has the potential to perform better because you can pull manuevers that would cause a pilot to black out. Not to mention all the weight that can be saved by not needing a cockpit.

[SchralphMacchio]

what can a manned aircraft do that an unmanned can't?

[The AD]

You got me.

[Garrett]

If we let our ability to fight "evil empires" slide, what happens when a large, developed, militarized nation decides to back whatever guerilla group we happen to be fighting?

So now we've jumped from me pointing out that fighters are antiques that no one has used in their design role in decades to being peace loving hippies about to be pounced upon by the Chi-coms?

I didn't imply any of that. Just that F18s are fucking stupid.

We can certainly keep on keeping on building the world's most advanced UAVs. Brilliant; we get to drop bombs without putting any friendly lives in danger, and going forward we even get to AUTOMATE war. This is something we want to lead the world in.

We can keep on building leading avionics and aircraft in any number of categories.

We just don't need F16s...for anything...except flying over NASCAR events.

That said, we have a LONG history spending oodles of money on antique weaponry. Please recall we brought BATTLESHIPS to Iraq the first time around.

You know that place littered with Russian hardware and taliban/al Quaeda that the US bailed on for a number of years there.

Have you been paying attention? Coalition forces are killed in Afghanistan when they go about their business while the enemy takes pot shots at them with ancient rifles and improvised explosives. Al Qaeda doesn't hunt Canadians in Sukhois. Get a clue.

Post 9/11, there has been a big surge in the air intercept mission, in all honesty hijacked airplanes are likely to be shot down these days once identified and non-compliant. Trade 150 or so people in the air for several thousand lives on the ground? You bet. While a Learjet or other bizjet could probably do the job with a couple missiles bolted to the wings, fighters are designed for it, have the radar already, and can very quickly get from one place to another, unlike a LJ.

Terrorists aren't going to use the same tactics twice. The upgrade in air security is well advertised. You think they don't know the squawk code? You think they don't know how long it takes to go from lost comms to intercept? You think they'd even bother with aircraft again in general? Air intercept is spending billions to close the door after the horse left the barn. I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared for intercept, just that the mission suffers from a huge amount of creep and we spend vastly more on it than common sense would find prudent...pre 9/11 it was more reasonable. BTW, bureaucracy made intercept fail that day, not a lack of training or hardware.

These areas are a HUGE deal right now and asserting sovereignty is a huge mission of the Canadian military at the moment.

Because you need modern fighters to "assert sovereignty". You want to point to extant examples there? This reeks of policy invented to keep Boeing busy.

Not to mention all the weight that can be saved by not needing a cockpit.

Yep. Goes a lot deeper than that too. Changes the entire economics of the exercise. Who needs damage tolerant structures? Why build it to last generations? Who cares if it gets hit by a SAM now and again? Everything gets lighter and cheaper.

[Jumper Bones]

Terrorists aren't going to use the same tactics twice. The upgrade in air security is well advertised. You think they don't know the squawk code? You think they don't know how long it takes to go from lost comms to intercept? You think they'd even bother with aircraft again in general? Air intercept is spending billions to close the door after the horse left the barn. I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared for intercept, just that the mission suffers from a huge amount of creep and we spend vastly more on it than common sense would find prudent...pre 9/11 it was more reasonable. BTW, bureaucracy made intercept fail that day, not a lack of training or hardware.

Because you need modern fighters to "assert sovereignty". You want to point to extant examples there? This reeks of policy invented to keep Boeing busy.

The air intercept mission was allowed to lapse at the close of the 90s, because the perception was that the threat (Soviet bombers over the N Pole) was gone. This left the door open to be exploited by someone else, and it was even if it took awhile. Therefore the decision has been made by the US and Canada to not let our guard down again (as much).

Even if the guard hadn't been relaxed and airplanes were airborne patrolling as in the old days - not too sure any airliners would have been shot down. At the very least, the AAL flight still would have hit the north tower. Nobody had considered that threat.

As for what you're advocating, this "this is the new war" stuff is brilliant - plan on the future entirely what you're doing now. In the same logic, the British decided in the mid 60s that the airplane was obsolete and every conflict would be fought entirely with missiles, and the same reasoning in the US deprived the F-4 of a gun. Neither of those decisions worked out that well. Recall that every American military undertaking/enterprise since the second world war wasn't the fight we were planning for, and used resources that had been developed and maintained for other purposes. Excess capacity isn't a bad thing - budgeting for mediocrity in war is. The current line being pushed by the executive branch to the DoD is misguided with history to prove it, but hey we've got social programs to fund and a budget to crunch so somebody's gotta take it in the junk. And it's what the electorate seems to want.

Look, the bottom line is nations have a need to control their own airspace, to regulate who gets in and who gets shown the door, and they made need to get around rather quickly. The same mission gets flown in Peru by A-37s...old, old airplanes.

As for UAVs, there are technological issues that have to be sorted out for them to be much more useful than for surveillance. UAVs going stupid and flying off in unintended directions (and then having to be shot down), or the bad guys hacking and siphoning the feed, those are two recent issues that really happened showing the current limits of the technology. They're working on it every day, but it's just not there yet.

[AKPogue]

So now we've jumped from me pointing out that fighters are antiques that no one has used in their design role in decades to being peace loving hippies about to be pounced upon by the Chi-coms?

I didn't imply any of that. Just that F18s are fucking stupid.

We can certainly keep on keeping on building the world's most advanced UAVs. Brilliant; we get to drop bombs without putting any friendly lives in danger, and going forward we even get to AUTOMATE war. This is something we want to lead the world in.

We can keep on building leading avionics and aircraft in any number of categories.

We just don't need F16s...for anything...except flying over NASCAR events.

That said, we have a LONG history spending oodles of money on antique weaponry. Please recall we brought BATTLESHIPS to Iraq the first time around.

Have you been paying attention? Coalition forces are killed in Afghanistan when they go about their business while the enemy takes pot shots at them with ancient rifles and improvised explosives. Al Qaeda doesn't hunt Canadians in Sukhois. Get a clue.

Terrorists aren't going to use the same tactics twice. The upgrade in air security is well advertised. You think they don't know the squawk code? You think they don't know how long it takes to go from lost comms to intercept? You think they'd even bother with aircraft again in general? Air intercept is spending billions to close the door after the horse left the barn. I'm not saying we shouldn't be prepared for intercept, just that the mission suffers from a huge amount of creep and we spend vastly more on it than common sense would find prudent...pre 9/11 it was more reasonable. BTW, bureaucracy made intercept fail that day, not a lack of training or hardware.

Because you need modern fighters to "assert sovereignty". You want to point to extant examples there? This reeks of policy invented to keep Boeing busy.

Yep. Goes a lot deeper than that too. Changes the entire economics of the exercise. Who needs damage tolerant structures? Why build it to last generations? Who cares if it gets hit by a SAM now and again? Everything gets lighter and cheaper.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about!!!

[Lonnie]

As for what you're advocating, this "this is the new war" stuff is brilliant - plan on the future entirely what you're doing now. In the same logic, the British decided in the mid 60s that the airplane was obsolete and every conflict would be fought entirely with missiles, and the same reasoning in the US deprived the F-4 of a gun. Neither of those decisions worked out that well. Recall that every American military undertaking/enterprise since the second world war wasn't the fight we were planning for, and used resources that had been developed and maintained for other purposes. Excess capacity isn't a bad thing - budgeting for mediocrity in war is. The current line being pushed by the executive branch to the DoD is misguided with history to prove it, but hey we've got social programs to fund and a budget to crunch so somebody's gotta take it in the junk. And it's what the electorate seems to want.

^^ This

[The AD]

Recall that every American military undertaking/enterprise since the second world war wasn't the fight we were planning for, and used resources that had been developed and maintained for other purposes. Excess capacity isn't a bad thing - budgeting for mediocrity in war is.

Yeah, but the DoD still needs to make their "best guess" and requisition equipment based on that. There's only so much money that can be spent on defense and really that is a good thing.

[L7]

Have you been paying attention? Coalition forces are killed in Afghanistan when they go about their business while the enemy takes pot shots at them with ancient rifles and improvised explosives. Al Qaeda doesn't hunt Canadians in Sukhois. Get a clue.

Where did you learn the use of insults to cover a lack of argument? From Jer maybe, that's why he's on ignore.

Are we now talking how coalition forces are killed? Yes most are killed by IEDs. Aircraft also go down over there a fair bit. Granted mostly helis but numerous fighters while 'doing what they are meant to do'.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coalition_aircraft_losses_in_Afghanistan[/ame]

Granted again they may be coming down for other reasons but your original assertion was Canada has not lost a fighter jet doing what it was meant to do since the korean war.

Apparently Kosovo is a better example and if we didn't lose one there doing 'what they are meant to do' maybe that's just because the pilots are that good.

Of course you may be hung up on these planes only doing one thing. Aircraft intercepts, ground support, recon, bomb delivery, aircraft escort are all functional roles they 'were designed for' Maybe you are the one that needs to get a clue.

[Garrett]

Yeah, but the DoD still needs to make their "best guess" and requisition equipment based on that.

Exactky, Below is the tl;dr version.

The air intercept mission was allowed to lapse at the close of the 90s, because the perception was that the threat (Soviet bombers over the N Pole) was gone. This left the door open to be exploited by someone else, and it was even if it took awhile.

Perhaps it is reasonable to call 9/11 an exploit of the intercept system. But no one even called for an intercept on 9/11 until the horse was well outside the barn. I think it is more reasonable to call it an exploit of a generally lax/naive attitude across all security systems in place then.

The lack of an available intercept did not play a significant role in what happened unless you allow hindsight to color the events. Sure, today, a plane following the 9/11 formula might meet a different end. That is the stuff of movie plot, not real life: history/human nature/DHS all work to guarantee that.

Nobody had considered that threat.

Much like no one will have considered the next successful large scale terrorist threat. You can't win this game, you can minimize the loss. Again, not arguing we shouldn't have intercepts...just that the current spending level is unreasonable and unhelpful.

Recall that every American military undertaking/enterprise since the second world war wasn't the fight we were planning for, and used resources that had been developed and maintained for other purposes.

This is, itself, an indictment of developing moneypits like the F-22. And battleships. Both are nearly useless except so far as they can be used outside of their design role.

That we weren't prepared in 2003 to fight an insurgency on the ground in hostile cities was due to politics and institutional momentum, not a lack of foresight on the part of military wonks or perfect hindsight on my part now. We have a procurement process that IS politics. It's the biggest game in town...literally. Remember that the aforementioned F22 was adopted as a cause by congress years ago. The military would rather we spend the cash elsewhere.

That we brought battleships to Iraq was not due to the perils of "preparing for tomorrow's war". (It was politics) I'm not talking about missteps in weapon design (all progress involves errors and missteps, look at all the early cold war aircraft that had <10 year shelf lives developed concurrently with the B-52, one of our greatest assets) but rather about antiques everyone knows aren't very useful except for "sovereignty" or whatever Boeing is selling it as this week.

WRT WWII, the threat came first, then the weapons. Many of the most important tools now used in Afghanistan/Iraq postdate 2003. There is something to be said for both investing in a strong military in peacetime and having the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions. We absolutely have the former part pinned...not so sure about the latter.

And it's what the electorate seems to want.

I don't think that is a fair statement. I don't know anyone who wants a military of mediocrity as you put it. I know lots of people who don't think we're doing much good fiddlefucking around in Iraq of Afghanistan...those people made some clear votes in 2008. Did you see that Pew quiz thread? The majority only holds an opinion on those few things that miraculously manage to get crammed into their brain between Idol episodes.

The same mission gets flown in Peru by A-37s...old, old airplanes.

We have F35s. And F18s. And F22s. And F15s. And F16s. ad nauseum. No one else is anywhere CLOSE. Meanwhile, in 2003 we went to Iraq without an answer to an artillery shell buried in the dirt. Priorities.

As for UAVs, there are technological issues that have to be sorted out for them to be much more useful than for surveillance. UAVs going stupid and flying off in unintended directions (and then having to be shot down), or the bad guys hacking and siphoning the feed, those are two recent issues that really happened showing the current limits of the technology. They're working on it every day, but it's just not there yet.

First, UAVs are being used for MUCH more than surveillance every day in Pak-ghanistan. The state of the art is well beyond surveillance, though I'd definitely agree there is a long long way to go before they can replace manned aircraft. My argument is that we'd be a lot further along right now if Congress was better rewarded for actually listening to unelected policy folks who asked for more UAVs and fewer F22s years and years ago.

Sorry for the tldr.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about!!!

Indeed!!!

[rossibandit]

Hey Nesta, do they let you take the avalancher home for the day each year

nesta
Quote:
Originally Posted by wren View Post
CF-18s haven't been deployed in combat since Kosovo in 1999. And I believe each CF-18 pilot gets to take his jet "home for the day" once a year. While I was at Western (in London, ON) a Western alum would bring his jet back for homecoming every year and do a flyover for the football game. Pretty sweet.
hmmm... didn't know about the "home for a day" thing. Pretty certain this guy made the news by being reprimanded as being AWOL ( with a CF-18 to boot)

[Garrett]

.
Granted mostly helis but numerous fighters while 'doing what they are meant to do'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...in_Afghanistan

I Ctrl-F-ed Canada and found zero fighter losses. Also I've got to be to the gym in 26 minutes, but I don't know of many/any fighters that went down due to enemy action from anyone's inventory in the latest war.

Not that I'm wishing losses due to enemy action of fighters on Canada, just mentioned I don't know of any. Yeah, some are going to be lost dropping bombs or whatever...but this underscores the point that the fighters are pretty much just on training missions where real brown people die. Little risk to themselves outside of the things that bring them down in Alberta.

Of course you may be hung up on these planes only doing one thing. Aircraft intercepts, ground support, recon, bomb delivery, aircraft escort are all functional roles they 'were designed for' Maybe you are the one that needs to get a clue.

All the roles you mention they were designed to do in the presence of a credible enemy threat. Designed damn well in the US. The lack of credible threat means we are using these beautiful airplanes like a very large and expensive hammer to hang a poster.

All this airplane talk makes me want to go for an airplane ride. Sadly I'll have to be placated without jets or afterburners...

[Tippster]

We have F35s. And F18s. And F22s. And F15s. And F16s. ad nauseum. No one else is anywhere CLOSE. Meanwhile, in 2003 we went to Iraq without an answer to an artillery shell buried in the dirt. Priorities.

That's right - we owned the sky and the ground beneath it. I think you're forgetting that Saddam had an Airforce (for a day or 2) and the 4th largest standing Army in the world... and that winning the air war is the key to a quick ground assault.

We won the Iraq war in DAYS. NOW we're fighting an insurgency, but you will surely agree that it's a very different scenario than the beginning. There was a conventional war in Iraq - it didn't last long because of our superior weaponry and training. The same is true in Afghanistan. The initial war against the Taliban was over very quickly - they have been regaining a foothold during the rebuilding process.

The planted artillery shell/IED was never used as a weapon of war, but of creating unrest. No different than a suicide bomber, just less costly.

[Rubicon]

We have F35s. And F18s. And F22s. And F15s. And F16s. ad nauseum. No one else is anywhere CLOSE.

What AK said. You don't know what you are talking about.

China Air Force Steps it Up
East Asia | Security | China
July 1, 2010By Carlo Kopp

US assumptions about China’s air power look outdated. It’s building a force that will be without rival in the Asia-Pacific.


In strategic terms, China’s Flanker fleet is its regional ‘big stick.’ These aircraft have a combat radius without aerial refuelling of up to 900 nautical miles, robustly covering the ‘First Island Chain.’ With heavier weapon loads operating radius is reduced, with aerial refuelling it is further extended. Importantly, the Flanker is a credible modern air combat fighter which matches or exceeds key performance and capabilities of the US built Boeing F-15C/E, F-15CJ/DJ and F-15SG operated by the United States, Japan and Singapore, while the indigenous Chinese PL-12/SD-10A air to air missile is a credible equivalent to the US built AIM-120 AMRAAM. Meanwhile, the large fuel and missile load carried by the Flanker provides it with superior combat persistence, compared to most F-15 variants.

http://the-diplomat.com/2010/07/01/c...-up/?print=yes

[RootSkier]

I think you're forgetting that Saddam had the 4th largest standing Army in the world...

Tippster for the LULZ win!!!

[ilikecandy]

Tippster for the LULZ win!!!

Between 1980 and the summer of 1990 Saddam boosted the number of troops in the Iraqi military from 180,000 to 900,000, creating the fourth-largest army in the world

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita.../iraq/army.htm

[nesta]

Hey Nesta, do they let you take the avalancher home for the day each year

No they don't Mr. Bandit, but wouldn't that be great if they did?! Kind of reminds me of that song " If I Had A Rocket Launcher".

[Lonnie]

What AK said. You don't know what you are talking about.

Great. But why would China want to start anything with it's largest trading partner? We make up between 1/4 to 1/3 of their exports. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Rubicon]

Great. But why would China want to start anything with it's largest trading partner? We make up between 1/4 to 1/3 of their exports. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It is today, but what about next year or five years from now?


China is spend a lot of money to build up their military, and many of the weapons systems they are investing in are suited to asymmetrical warfare(anti-ship missiles, submarines, anti-satellite capabilities, etc.). Meaning that they are preparing to fight us. The 'why' is secondary to the fact that they are doing it.

The most likely scenarios involve regional warfare where they do something like seize Taiwan and hope to hold it long enough and inflict enough damage on our military that we sue for peace without trying to take it back.

[AKPogue]

Great. But why would China want to start anything with it's largest trading partner? We make up between 1/4 to 1/3 of their exports. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

If people were rational we would never have wars!!!

[ilikecandy]

If people were rational we would never have wars!!!

thats ridiculous

[DJSapp]

Great. But why would China want to start anything with it's largest trading partner? We make up between 1/4 to 1/3 of their exports. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Proxy war: S. Korea (maybe Japan?) vs N. Korea.

You heard it here first.