The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time.
(My point exactly. And, since I lack even a shred of self awareness, here have six more paragraphs! I really tried to keep them on just one topic, at least)
Disclaimer
I’ve had to rewrite this a couple times, because I keep veering into being excessively sarcastic and you really don’t deserve that. So, and with my complete and honest sincerity, I say this: I need you to know that your understanding here is very flawed. It’s that flaw that’s keeping you from being as abjectly terrified as every non-fascist US natsec dickhead is right now (this very much includes me). There’s a serious danger here, and it’s not that you’re going to personally kick off a war with the US, nor that I might not win an argument on lemmy, but that the imperialist powers currently salivating at the idea of extending their influence over EU countries (and this includes the USA) are eagerly attempting to exploit your ignorance of this subject to their own ends. As someone living through the hell of what that technique can do, I want you to be as prepared as possible to spot this kind of misinformation in the future. So please, please hear me out.
First, let me say that you are correct on several points - you cannot have a land invasion or launch an occupation with air and naval assets alone. You’re also 100% correct that the US Navy does not have 1,100 F-35 Lightning II Cs, that was not what I meant to imply (afaik there are only ~105 F35Cs). Now obviously, to occupy conquered ground, you have to… occupy, the ground. This is very simple thing which, unfortunately, boats are famously ill suited to. Planes are, also, just garbage at it. I will make no attempt to deny these patently obvious facts, which I happily will cede to you without contest. Admittedly, this is a serious problem for my hypothetical invading army to overcome. Because unfortunately, the easiest way to transport large numbers of that really cool military stuff we all love, like tanks and rockets and red-blooded American heroes with red bandanas on their heads and plot armor a mile thick, is inside big planes or on big boats.
So lets just… ignore that problem. It’s inconvenient.
A nuclear supercarrier is a massive strategic asset, both physically and metaphorically. It lets you project force over a huge area that your mainland based assets simply do not have and that is absolutely invaluable in the geopolitical world. It lets you power small cities for disaster relief. And they are the most densely packed logistical hubs ever conceived. That last thing is why they’re valuable, really. Obviously they can service, fuel, coordinate and re-arm their compliment of aircraft and that alone is amazingly useful, but see, in this hypothetical invasion scenario, the most useful thing they could do would be to just…
Sit there.
No, really. Park a strike group out in the middle of the atlantic, run a tube over to an oiler, and you can keep a flight of air tankers circling overhead 24/7. Think about that, seriously, because this is what I think you’ve failed to understand the implications of. The US doesn’t particularly have the hardest troops or some innate superiority at warfare, but they are so far beyond the logistical capacity of any other nation that it’s genuinely scary.
Putting a carrier out there, a long long way away from harm, isn’t glamorous. But by doing so it enables the mainland US air assets to launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too - every mission flown by a B2 Spirit takes off and lands at Whiteman Airforce Base (ranked #1 for “airbases with the most mask-off names”). Any strategic bomber is the same. So with one carrier, suddenly all ~900 of those 5th generation stealth multirole aircraft can be deployed for anything from interdiction to close air support. The limit becomes how much meth the pilot can handle and how many bombs can be strapped to one of those damn things.
THAT is what makes the US military a threat. I had a bunch more, explaining how the IRF and CRG can set up an Expeditionary Airbase in 24hrs and then just drop in C5 galaxies and what are you gonna do from there? And a bit about how most of the EU member states still use Gulf War era anti-aircraft systems, and those got merc’d by the damn F117. And a reaaaally boring bit about how the US’s Strategic Airlift capability is super duper astounding (seriously, a C5 can haul two abrams at once) which has been removed in editing, you’re welcome.
But… I honestly don’t think I need any of that. That the US can project it’s mainland-based assets into any arbitrary theater is already unbelievable. That a LCAC can carry an abrams to shore, that 24hr expeditionary airbases include utilities and fast food restaurants, that there is no EU counter to the B52’s standoff payload delivery, that the US has a damn paradrop conference table? Those are all a pale second to the reality that the US can bomb every last scrap of infrastructure you have, level your whole town, and the pilots that did it will be going home to their cliche Missouri family a few hours later. It’s the refinement of banal evil to the point that combat becomes, you know, a job. There’s nothing else like it, and it should terrify the fuck out of you because it sure as hell does me.
(I’m just ignoring everything about canada (because I’m just too tired) and what divestment means (because holy fuck nobody cares, not you, not me, nobody))
Your post boils down to US has insanely more logistics capacity than anybody else and is more advanced than anybody else. Which I never disputed.
However, logistics are not measured against your oppositions logistics, they are measured against the logistics requirements of your task. A significant advantage in logistics can be counteracted by having to operate across an ocean vs overland. EU still needs to improve logistics but it does not have the same hard requirements (when we are discussing strictly the defense of continental EU).
An actual air tanker fleet would help, mostly with time on airborne rather than range, EU aircraft but it is an absolute necessity for the USAF and USN. A C5 grade air transport would also help but it is not necessary.
I will also address the invest/divest issue because it’s not a red herring. You have misrepresented USA’s push for more EU military spending as being motivated by a desire for EU independence from the US, it was motivated by US commercial interests.
Then we have a lot of small inaccuracies that together paint a misleading overall picture.
Carriers are massive force multipliers, they allow you to project air power (and light land power) in areas where you could not at all (so they multiply by infinity in some cases). This obviously comes at a premium and drawbacks.
The same amount of money spent on a land based airforce will yield significant more air power. A Nimitz would cost about 11 billion 2023 USD, an F35C costs ~100 million so you get around a 100 extra modern planes for a carrier. Also the F35A that is not carrier capable costs ~83 million USD so you could get buy four get one free, or more realistically cover (easily) land based logistics the carrier would provide. The cost of the escorts accordingly should go to land based SAM systems.
And of course all that airpower being on a single ship makes them much more vulnerable than being based even on a single air base, which can have groups of aircraft physically separated from each other and/or the runway and/or the ammo depots etc.
They also do not have dedicated air tankers, they can use buddy transfer systems with fighters but this cuts down on the fighters they can use for fighter task. Usually it’s the USAF that refuels navy and marines aircraft since they have the dedicated air tanker fleet.
It’s theoretically possible for the USAF to refuel fighters operating from continental USA to strike at Europe, after all they conduct ferry missions often. Of course in combat missions tankers need to hold back from the combat zone. In any case the F-35 were never intended to fight over the atlantic. This leaves the B-2 which is both stealth and meant to operate over oceans. It also has a payload to do significant damage, though there are 21 of them. While it’s certainly stealthier than F-117 it remains to be seen whether they can consistently penetrate inflict significant damage and get out to have coffee at Missouri.
The F-117’s only interactions with SAM was getting shot down by 1970s Soviet SAM in Serbia. In Gulf war the F-117 did not have loses to SAM but was only operating at night, Iraqi air defenses failed to shot down any type or aircraft at night, even the A-10 that practically was banned from daytime operations. SAMs were actually dealt with by F4/F16 SEAD/DEAD packages (during daytime). Needless to say Gulf era Iraqi SAM systems (and practices) were not up to contemporary Soviet or European standards and of course even less comparable to today’s EU SAM systems.
Yes, I am certain the IRF can build an expeditionary air base in hostile Europe, in 24 hours. One wonders why they would bother instead of conquering the rest of EU by themselves. It’s obviously not happening when facing enemy resistance which will have heavier equipment than an airborne troop.
You might just as well try to take over an existing airfield and land planes there but it’s also an impossible task. Anything from fighter jets, armor, artillery, mortars, manpads can spell disaster for your reinforcement and therefore you.
LCAC can carry an Abrams, thus USN can deliver 90 Abrams if all ships with LCACs were part of an assault. Impressive, but still not enough even if they all manage to land.
As for terror and evil and all that. Historically war has been a job, it’s not something new or special to Americans, if anything there is more romanticizing with all that fighting for freedom or even with vile ideologically rationalizations (racism/nazism).
I’m not going to waste your time by expounding at length on this but dude:
logistics are not measured against your oppositions logistics
One wonders why they would bother instead of conquering the rest of EU by themselves.
Of course in combat missions tankers need to hold back from the combat zone.
thus USN can deliver 90 Abrams if all ships with LCACs were part of an assault.
Needless to say Gulf era Iraqi SAM systems were not up to contemporary Soviet or European standards
Just… stop.
Looking stuff up on wikipedia (et al.) and drawing what are, to you, reasonable sounding conclusions works really well sometimes. But there’s painfully fundamental errors in there, many that don’t even make sense in context. This thread is old, and it’s just the two of us here, and it is really clear you’re learning this on the fly. Which, not to discourage you from doing that! Please do, it’s super important to be versed in the subject given the slant of modern geopolitics.
Seriously, you’ve hit the point in the subject where you can’t easily guess the right answer no matter how clever you may be. Your guesses are good, too! Like there are some reasonable extrapolations and a few that, for unreasonable reasons, just aren’t correct. Really, with a bit more exposure I think you’ll be very good at this. But I get that I’m annoying, and that you have sunk a whole bunch of your identity into this being an accurate representation, and that america does not have anything like monopoly on patriotism. I do.
From one idiot on the internet to another, blah blah blah heartfelt sentiment, patronizingly phrased in that uniquely american way, slightly smug tone, sincerity, blah.
The only thing I looked up in Wikipedia is the costs and the amount of Lcacs or whatever the US can deploy. Had I not provided numbers I am sure you would take issue with that and reject my reasoning as baseless.
That naval aviation is expensive and less cost effective if you do not require (or can’t afford) power projection is well known by anyone with even a passing interest in military aviation in Europe, not something I need to look up on Wikipedia. I also don’t need to look up Wikipedia that Lcacs didn’t play any significant role in major US deployments. Or about the level of 1990 Iraq air defenses vs modern EU. There are more in depth sources than that.
You should try looking stuff up instead of providing your own imaginary, and laughably wrong, examples of carrier benefits. Or spam drivel, call your opponents wrong, without of course correcting specific mistakes. I am sure it actually works at convincing people who also don’t know much about the subject matter.
I’m… not entirely sure how to respond to this one. First I guess I should clarify; are you actually asking me to break this down point by point? Because you complained about how long and “demoralizingly rambling” it was the last time I did that. These mixed signals, they’re difficult to decipher. Additionally: I mean, okay fair enough I suppose, claim I did whatever you need, I’m not going to blame/judge you for it. This isn’t a particular hardship for me, and I have no ill-will towards you because of this. I will say though, and only out of impish self-indulgence, that It’s A Little Weird how the only capabilities I have claimed an aircraft carrier bestows are things… you’ve also agreed they can do.
[…] they can use buddy transfer systems […]
Carriers are massive force multipliers, they allow you to project air power (and light land power) in areas where you could not at all […]
Add in that they can provide emergency power to shore based systems (no clue if they’ve ever done this, but it’s for sure in the design spec) and I think that’s actually it for things I have claimed about aircraft carriers. Did I miss something? Is all this vitriol really just predicated on a misunderstanding about naval aircraft that are fitted for mid-air refueling commonly being called ‘tankers’?
Errata:
I also don’t need to look up Wikipedia that Lcacs didn’t play any significant role in major US deployments.
Absolutely correct! Nobody does opposed landings, or even just regular naval landings. They’re an incredibly outdated concept, even russia hasn’t been desperate enough to try it in their Ukraine invasion (Edit: actually I think they might have used landing craft when they tried to take Mariupol in the very first days of the invasion). I can’t think of a situation where LCACs would be deployed for anything except disaster relief. I only mentioned them to serve as an example of how utterly ridiculous US military hardware can get, there is a reason I explicitly glossed over them.
Et al.
This is a shorthand for “and all the others”, I did not mean you literally looked this all up on wikipedia (though, I mean, it’s a very good source)
[You did not look up things] about the level of 1990 Iraq air defenses vs modern EU.
Yes, this is not hard to believe. There are actually two points here, the first is “What are the various EU countries holding in their anti-air inventory besides potentially US-corrupted defenses” and the second is “I really think you should, it’s actually quite fascinating! The Iraqi army was considered to be peer or near-peer to the US prior to the invasion, and their anti air capabilities were, on paper, extremely formidable.”
(Buddy I am the entire box of markers. Crayons too, probably.)
In general fighters with buddy refueling are not called air tankers. You are going to cry semantics, it’s not. See you claimed that with one(!) carrier you can get 900 fighter aircraft able to launch missions from continental US to Europe. Also claimed that this is what allows strategic bombers to reach Russia from the US.
But that’s not possible, fighters do routinely travel across the Atlantic for repositioning. They are refueled multiple times along the way by purpose build tankers (based on airliners) that carry multiple times more fuel and are themselves not efficient. It’s obvious you can’t support hundreds worth of fighter missions with carrier borne fighters (that number less). The capability exist so the Navy can operate on it’s own if needed (cutting into it’s attack/defense capability). When the US conducts major operations Navy jets refuel from land based air tankers.
Obviously strategic bombers don’t refuel from F-18s, they also have much bigger range (without refueling) than fighters since they were actually designed to operate over oceans.
I unfortunately do not believe there was a misunderstanding on terms such as ‘tanker’ but a purposeful misrepresentation.
In regards to landings: I never said there was no use for them in the modern battlefield. I’ve argued that you cannot, having no previous foothold, successfully invade a continent that also has tanks and air force, artillery etc. Not all wars are against such opponents (after all the US never planned to invade Western Europe, it shouldn’t have to). In particular islands usually do not have heavy equipment (tank, artillery) because it is difficult to move them elsewhere if needed. Or in a scenario where you already have forces or allies fighting the enemy landing a force that can move quickly in a location that doesn’t have to be a port/airbase can be a huge advantage.
Russia certainly pondered the airlift into enemy airbase in Kiev the very first day. The takeover operation went well, the didn’t actually go through with the airlift because the main “blitz” push to Kiev trafficked jam into itself. I doubt even if the aircraft came, they could have a serious effect, maybe they could evacuate their initial force, they didn’t even do that.
In regards to EU air defenses vs Iraqi ones… Iraq used Soviet equipment, European forces used US and EU made equipment, I suppose some later EU countries have had Soviet/Russian equipment though most of it must have been given to Ukraine by now. I remember criticism of not employing tactics correctly (no shoot and scoot) compared to say Serbians later on. Also AAA was a big factor.
There is no way Iraq could be considered a peer to the US, it had a big army but was completely outclassed and outnumbered in the air offering no resistance.
The latest in long range EU SAM is Aster missile based systems, there are also smaller ranged new systems based on Mica, IrisT (those are derived from A2A missiles). And of course air defense is also a task of fighter jets.
It’s a neat example though, because it shows what doing something like this would actually look like, and the summary is “Stupid. It’d look stupid.” I don’t think, in any world, this is a strategy the US would employ to do anything except flex on some children hiding in caves or something. The only reason I bring this up is because you’ve handwaved away every other logistical capability of the US (like the establishment of FABs, the capturing of strategic assets like airports, carrier-based invasions, opposed landings (which are still dumb, no arguing), the elimination of EU air defense, seaborne shore transport, etc…) as non-viable because of a bunch of reasons, most of which boil down to “the EU also has armies”. And you know what? That’s completely fair! I am 100% willing to toss every single one of those potentially effective (except opposed landings) (the USMC would be so mad at me if they could read) techniques in the bin! Because I think we’ve finally arrived at an effective approach entirely within US capabilities that even you haven’t handwaved away yet.
Sure, It’s a stupid stupid strategy that would never be used in reality, but staged refueling of mass aerial assets enabling standoff strike missions via the arctic circle are at least completely and demonstrably within the capabilities of the US military. Personally, were I the one planning this, I’d prefer something like: the utilization of carrier-based assets to deny air supremacy to either side while coordinating seven IRF and three CRG deployments to establish strategic air staging points across a broad swathe of terrain, then use the incredibly popular mid-air refueling to enable rapid transit of air superiority fighters like the F22 which then base from the expeditionary air bases (I hope they want burger king). Or something more simple, like the elimination of strategic targets using combined carrier-based SEAD operations to disrupt the quite formidable EU AA operating in concert with submarine based near-shore under-envelope cruise missile strikes. Or combined naval and aerial saturation of the AA capabilities present in the theater using things like the B52 to force constricted operating times, eliminating the need for DEAD operations nearly entirely.
Or you know, the US could keep things simple, stick with tradition. Invade poland. Then just expand out from there.
Listen, the original point here was that anyone trying anything right now would leave them and the rest of the EU seriously vulnerable to Russian aggression. That’s what this whole thing was about, and I’m pretty damn sure THAT point has been exhaustively made by now. Even depleted as they are by the war in Ukraine, they are still a serious threat. And for what it’s worth, Russia failed to take Hostomel via a combination of ridiculously poor logistical planning (not accounting for delays in capturing the airport was the real death knell, if 2nd VDV group had been inbound earlier they would have taken it) and a ton of bad luck in the form of 3rd SpO, the most tenacious and underestimated bastards I have ever encountered. But the point here is that ruzzia was about an hour away from taking Kyiv, one of the best defended cities in Europe, and with the lessons learned they could pull a similar stunt on any of the border countries.
I don’t know that it would succeed, but do you want to risk that?
Errata:
In general fighters with buddy refueling are not called air tankers.
I unfortunately do not believe there was a misunderstanding on terms such as ‘tanker’ […]
Also claimed that this is what allows strategic bombers to reach Russia from the US.
launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too
Sorry, I can see how that could be interpreted ambiguously. I meant that B-2 and B-52 missions are carried out without a forward air base, that is something done with casual frequency. From the B-2 Spirit’s wikipedia page, “[…] and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) with one midair refueling.” I do believe that’s far enough to hit russia, it’s certainly far enough to fly missions in Iraq/Afghanistan. (And the B-52’s operational range is even further than the B-2s. The B-1 Lancer though, it only counts as a strategic bomber because it can carry nukes, it’s operational range is dinky.)
There is no way Iraq should have been considered a peer to the US, it had a big army but was completely outclassed and outnumbered in the air.
This is absolutely true in hindsight! But (and you can just go and look up reporting at the time on this subject) the world collectively didn’t understand what modern warefare had become. It put tremendous stock in ideas like the relevancy of dogfighting, and spectacularly overestimated how impactful the Iraqui army’s then-recent experience would be. They flew several of the best dogfighters at the time, they had extremely good air defenses, ones that had been repeatedly demonstrated to be highly effective. Without knowing any better, they looked like they were in a very strong position to hold out against coalition forces until the political will to continue ran out.
(I am getting so tired of explaining to americans that it’s not [some random band] ft. Babymetal but, in fact, Babymetal ft. [some random band]. Apropos of nothing I know, but still. Americans, man. We suck.)
The reason the US cannot (successfully) invade is not due to nuclear deterrence but the difficulty in bringing over enough heavy equipment (MBTs, artillery) if you don’t have a foothold (ports, airfields). Seven carrier groups are not going to be able to secure you that even if they amounted to more than a 1000 F-35s, which they don’t.
Canada cannot join the EU legally. It will take amendment of the treaties to remove the geographical requirement and still Hungary would veto the ascension anyways. You can scoff at this and argue that we should ignore the treaties and Hungary but this will weaken the EU as an institution. It already is obviously less cohesive than a nation state.
It’s also not necessary for Canada to join the EU for us to support them militarily. The issue is that we can’t really do so in the near future.
EU military spending was already not going 100% to US products, therefore not all of the increased spending benefiting US companies is not divestment, it’s actually investment. The US after all marketed the F-35 to EU members.
I salute your strategy of the great wall of rambling text, it truly is demoralizing at this time. I do not think the best EU can do is rely on Americans waging a civil war on it’s behalf.
Apologies, lemmy is having a day. One moment while I sort this out…
(My point exactly. And, since I lack even a shred of self awareness, here have six more paragraphs! I really tried to keep them on just one topic, at least)
Disclaimer
I’ve had to rewrite this a couple times, because I keep veering into being excessively sarcastic and you really don’t deserve that. So, and with my complete and honest sincerity, I say this: I need you to know that your understanding here is very flawed. It’s that flaw that’s keeping you from being as abjectly terrified as every non-fascist US natsec dickhead is right now (this very much includes me). There’s a serious danger here, and it’s not that you’re going to personally kick off a war with the US, nor that I might not win an argument on lemmy, but that the imperialist powers currently salivating at the idea of extending their influence over EU countries (and this includes the USA) are eagerly attempting to exploit your ignorance of this subject to their own ends. As someone living through the hell of what that technique can do, I want you to be as prepared as possible to spot this kind of misinformation in the future. So please, please hear me out.
First, let me say that you are correct on several points - you cannot have a land invasion or launch an occupation with air and naval assets alone. You’re also 100% correct that the US Navy does not have 1,100 F-35 Lightning II Cs, that was not what I meant to imply (afaik there are only ~105 F35Cs). Now obviously, to occupy conquered ground, you have to… occupy, the ground. This is very simple thing which, unfortunately, boats are famously ill suited to. Planes are, also, just garbage at it. I will make no attempt to deny these patently obvious facts, which I happily will cede to you without contest. Admittedly, this is a serious problem for my hypothetical invading army to overcome. Because unfortunately, the easiest way to transport large numbers of that really cool military stuff we all love, like tanks and rockets and red-blooded American heroes with red bandanas on their heads and plot armor a mile thick, is inside big planes or on big boats.
So lets just… ignore that problem. It’s inconvenient.
A nuclear supercarrier is a massive strategic asset, both physically and metaphorically. It lets you project force over a huge area that your mainland based assets simply do not have and that is absolutely invaluable in the geopolitical world. It lets you power small cities for disaster relief. And they are the most densely packed logistical hubs ever conceived. That last thing is why they’re valuable, really. Obviously they can service, fuel, coordinate and re-arm their compliment of aircraft and that alone is amazingly useful, but see, in this hypothetical invasion scenario, the most useful thing they could do would be to just…
Sit there.
No, really. Park a strike group out in the middle of the atlantic, run a tube over to an oiler, and you can keep a flight of air tankers circling overhead 24/7. Think about that, seriously, because this is what I think you’ve failed to understand the implications of. The US doesn’t particularly have the hardest troops or some innate superiority at warfare, but they are so far beyond the logistical capacity of any other nation that it’s genuinely scary.
Putting a carrier out there, a long long way away from harm, isn’t glamorous. But by doing so it enables the mainland US air assets to launch directly on missions, without a need for a forward air base. We do this all the time, too - every mission flown by a B2 Spirit takes off and lands at Whiteman Airforce Base (ranked #1 for “airbases with the most mask-off names”). Any strategic bomber is the same. So with one carrier, suddenly all ~900 of those 5th generation stealth multirole aircraft can be deployed for anything from interdiction to close air support. The limit becomes how much meth the pilot can handle and how many bombs can be strapped to one of those damn things.
THAT is what makes the US military a threat. I had a bunch more, explaining how the IRF and CRG can set up an Expeditionary Airbase in 24hrs and then just drop in C5 galaxies and what are you gonna do from there? And a bit about how most of the EU member states still use Gulf War era anti-aircraft systems, and those got merc’d by the damn F117. And a reaaaally boring bit about how the US’s Strategic Airlift capability is super duper astounding (seriously, a C5 can haul two abrams at once) which has been removed in editing, you’re welcome.
But… I honestly don’t think I need any of that. That the US can project it’s mainland-based assets into any arbitrary theater is already unbelievable. That a LCAC can carry an abrams to shore, that 24hr expeditionary airbases include utilities and fast food restaurants, that there is no EU counter to the B52’s standoff payload delivery, that the US has a damn paradrop conference table? Those are all a pale second to the reality that the US can bomb every last scrap of infrastructure you have, level your whole town, and the pilots that did it will be going home to their cliche Missouri family a few hours later. It’s the refinement of banal evil to the point that combat becomes, you know, a job. There’s nothing else like it, and it should terrify the fuck out of you because it sure as hell does me.
(I’m just ignoring everything about canada (because I’m just too tired) and what divestment means (because holy fuck nobody cares, not you, not me, nobody))
Your post boils down to US has insanely more logistics capacity than anybody else and is more advanced than anybody else. Which I never disputed.
However, logistics are not measured against your oppositions logistics, they are measured against the logistics requirements of your task. A significant advantage in logistics can be counteracted by having to operate across an ocean vs overland. EU still needs to improve logistics but it does not have the same hard requirements (when we are discussing strictly the defense of continental EU).
An actual air tanker fleet would help, mostly with time on airborne rather than range, EU aircraft but it is an absolute necessity for the USAF and USN. A C5 grade air transport would also help but it is not necessary.
I will also address the invest/divest issue because it’s not a red herring. You have misrepresented USA’s push for more EU military spending as being motivated by a desire for EU independence from the US, it was motivated by US commercial interests.
Then we have a lot of small inaccuracies that together paint a misleading overall picture.
Carriers are massive force multipliers, they allow you to project air power (and light land power) in areas where you could not at all (so they multiply by infinity in some cases). This obviously comes at a premium and drawbacks.
The same amount of money spent on a land based airforce will yield significant more air power. A Nimitz would cost about 11 billion 2023 USD, an F35C costs ~100 million so you get around a 100 extra modern planes for a carrier. Also the F35A that is not carrier capable costs ~83 million USD so you could get buy four get one free, or more realistically cover (easily) land based logistics the carrier would provide. The cost of the escorts accordingly should go to land based SAM systems.
And of course all that airpower being on a single ship makes them much more vulnerable than being based even on a single air base, which can have groups of aircraft physically separated from each other and/or the runway and/or the ammo depots etc.
They also do not have dedicated air tankers, they can use buddy transfer systems with fighters but this cuts down on the fighters they can use for fighter task. Usually it’s the USAF that refuels navy and marines aircraft since they have the dedicated air tanker fleet.
It’s theoretically possible for the USAF to refuel fighters operating from continental USA to strike at Europe, after all they conduct ferry missions often. Of course in combat missions tankers need to hold back from the combat zone. In any case the F-35 were never intended to fight over the atlantic. This leaves the B-2 which is both stealth and meant to operate over oceans. It also has a payload to do significant damage, though there are 21 of them. While it’s certainly stealthier than F-117 it remains to be seen whether they can consistently penetrate inflict significant damage and get out to have coffee at Missouri.
The F-117’s only interactions with SAM was getting shot down by 1970s Soviet SAM in Serbia. In Gulf war the F-117 did not have loses to SAM but was only operating at night, Iraqi air defenses failed to shot down any type or aircraft at night, even the A-10 that practically was banned from daytime operations. SAMs were actually dealt with by F4/F16 SEAD/DEAD packages (during daytime). Needless to say Gulf era Iraqi SAM systems (and practices) were not up to contemporary Soviet or European standards and of course even less comparable to today’s EU SAM systems.
Yes, I am certain the IRF can build an expeditionary air base in hostile Europe, in 24 hours. One wonders why they would bother instead of conquering the rest of EU by themselves. It’s obviously not happening when facing enemy resistance which will have heavier equipment than an airborne troop.
You might just as well try to take over an existing airfield and land planes there but it’s also an impossible task. Anything from fighter jets, armor, artillery, mortars, manpads can spell disaster for your reinforcement and therefore you.
LCAC can carry an Abrams, thus USN can deliver 90 Abrams if all ships with LCACs were part of an assault. Impressive, but still not enough even if they all manage to land.
As for terror and evil and all that. Historically war has been a job, it’s not something new or special to Americans, if anything there is more romanticizing with all that fighting for freedom or even with vile ideologically rationalizations (racism/nazism).
I’m not going to waste your time by expounding at length on this but dude:
Just… stop.
Looking stuff up on wikipedia (et al.) and drawing what are, to you, reasonable sounding conclusions works really well sometimes. But there’s painfully fundamental errors in there, many that don’t even make sense in context. This thread is old, and it’s just the two of us here, and it is really clear you’re learning this on the fly. Which, not to discourage you from doing that! Please do, it’s super important to be versed in the subject given the slant of modern geopolitics.
Seriously, you’ve hit the point in the subject where you can’t easily guess the right answer no matter how clever you may be. Your guesses are good, too! Like there are some reasonable extrapolations and a few that, for unreasonable reasons, just aren’t correct. Really, with a bit more exposure I think you’ll be very good at this. But I get that I’m annoying, and that you have sunk a whole bunch of your identity into this being an accurate representation, and that america does not have anything like monopoly on patriotism. I do.
From one idiot on the internet to another, blah blah blah heartfelt sentiment, patronizingly phrased in that uniquely american way, slightly smug tone, sincerity, blah.
…
(divestment is a three letter word)
The only thing I looked up in Wikipedia is the costs and the amount of Lcacs or whatever the US can deploy. Had I not provided numbers I am sure you would take issue with that and reject my reasoning as baseless.
That naval aviation is expensive and less cost effective if you do not require (or can’t afford) power projection is well known by anyone with even a passing interest in military aviation in Europe, not something I need to look up on Wikipedia. I also don’t need to look up Wikipedia that Lcacs didn’t play any significant role in major US deployments. Or about the level of 1990 Iraq air defenses vs modern EU. There are more in depth sources than that.
You should try looking stuff up instead of providing your own imaginary, and laughably wrong, examples of carrier benefits. Or spam drivel, call your opponents wrong, without of course correcting specific mistakes. I am sure it actually works at convincing people who also don’t know much about the subject matter.
You are nothing remarkable.
I’m… not entirely sure how to respond to this one. First I guess I should clarify; are you actually asking me to break this down point by point? Because you complained about how long and “demoralizingly rambling” it was the last time I did that. These mixed signals, they’re difficult to decipher. Additionally: I mean, okay fair enough I suppose, claim I did whatever you need, I’m not going to blame/judge you for it. This isn’t a particular hardship for me, and I have no ill-will towards you because of this. I will say though, and only out of impish self-indulgence, that It’s A Little Weird how the only capabilities I have claimed an aircraft carrier bestows are things… you’ve also agreed they can do.
Add in that they can provide emergency power to shore based systems (no clue if they’ve ever done this, but it’s for sure in the design spec) and I think that’s actually it for things I have claimed about aircraft carriers. Did I miss something? Is all this vitriol really just predicated on a misunderstanding about naval aircraft that are fitted for mid-air refueling commonly being called ‘tankers’?
Errata:
Absolutely correct! Nobody does opposed landings, or even just regular naval landings. They’re an incredibly outdated concept, even russia hasn’t been desperate enough to try it in their Ukraine invasion (Edit: actually I think they might have used landing craft when they tried to take Mariupol in the very first days of the invasion). I can’t think of a situation where LCACs would be deployed for anything except disaster relief. I only mentioned them to serve as an example of how utterly ridiculous US military hardware can get, there is a reason I explicitly glossed over them.
This is a shorthand for “and all the others”, I did not mean you literally looked this all up on wikipedia (though, I mean, it’s a very good source)
Yes, this is not hard to believe. There are actually two points here, the first is “What are the various EU countries holding in their anti-air inventory besides potentially US-corrupted defenses” and the second is “I really think you should, it’s actually quite fascinating! The Iraqi army was considered to be peer or near-peer to the US prior to the invasion, and their anti air capabilities were, on paper, extremely formidable.”
(Buddy I am the entire box of markers. Crayons too, probably.)
Smoooooth.
In general fighters with buddy refueling are not called air tankers. You are going to cry semantics, it’s not. See you claimed that with one(!) carrier you can get 900 fighter aircraft able to launch missions from continental US to Europe. Also claimed that this is what allows strategic bombers to reach Russia from the US.
But that’s not possible, fighters do routinely travel across the Atlantic for repositioning. They are refueled multiple times along the way by purpose build tankers (based on airliners) that carry multiple times more fuel and are themselves not efficient. It’s obvious you can’t support hundreds worth of fighter missions with carrier borne fighters (that number less). The capability exist so the Navy can operate on it’s own if needed (cutting into it’s attack/defense capability). When the US conducts major operations Navy jets refuel from land based air tankers.
Obviously strategic bombers don’t refuel from F-18s, they also have much bigger range (without refueling) than fighters since they were actually designed to operate over oceans.
I unfortunately do not believe there was a misunderstanding on terms such as ‘tanker’ but a purposeful misrepresentation.
In regards to landings: I never said there was no use for them in the modern battlefield. I’ve argued that you cannot, having no previous foothold, successfully invade a continent that also has tanks and air force, artillery etc. Not all wars are against such opponents (after all the US never planned to invade Western Europe, it shouldn’t have to). In particular islands usually do not have heavy equipment (tank, artillery) because it is difficult to move them elsewhere if needed. Or in a scenario where you already have forces or allies fighting the enemy landing a force that can move quickly in a location that doesn’t have to be a port/airbase can be a huge advantage.
Russia certainly pondered the airlift into enemy airbase in Kiev the very first day. The takeover operation went well, the didn’t actually go through with the airlift because the main “blitz” push to Kiev trafficked jam into itself. I doubt even if the aircraft came, they could have a serious effect, maybe they could evacuate their initial force, they didn’t even do that.
In regards to EU air defenses vs Iraqi ones… Iraq used Soviet equipment, European forces used US and EU made equipment, I suppose some later EU countries have had Soviet/Russian equipment though most of it must have been given to Ukraine by now. I remember criticism of not employing tactics correctly (no shoot and scoot) compared to say Serbians later on. Also AAA was a big factor.
There is no way Iraq could be considered a peer to the US, it had a big army but was completely outclassed and outnumbered in the air offering no resistance.
The latest in long range EU SAM is Aster missile based systems, there are also smaller ranged new systems based on Mica, IrisT (those are derived from A2A missiles). And of course air defense is also a task of fighter jets.
You know, in pulling up sources for this I ran across this utterly absurd UK operation which may be the single most british thing I’ve ever read about. So much logistical expenditure to inflict damage that was so minimal it was repaired in 24 hours. What a sublime metaphor for the collapse of the empire. (The HP Victor was such gorgeous plane, though. My god, roll-down windows in the cockpit? How can you not love it.)
It’s a neat example though, because it shows what doing something like this would actually look like, and the summary is “Stupid. It’d look stupid.” I don’t think, in any world, this is a strategy the US would employ to do anything except flex on some children hiding in caves or something. The only reason I bring this up is because you’ve handwaved away every other logistical capability of the US (like the establishment of FABs, the capturing of strategic assets like airports, carrier-based invasions, opposed landings (which are still dumb, no arguing), the elimination of EU air defense, seaborne shore transport, etc…) as non-viable because of a bunch of reasons, most of which boil down to “the EU also has armies”. And you know what? That’s completely fair! I am 100% willing to toss every single one of those potentially effective (except opposed landings) (the USMC would be so mad at me if they could read) techniques in the bin! Because I think we’ve finally arrived at an effective approach entirely within US capabilities that even you haven’t handwaved away yet.
Sure, It’s a stupid stupid strategy that would never be used in reality, but staged refueling of mass aerial assets enabling standoff strike missions via the arctic circle are at least completely and demonstrably within the capabilities of the US military. Personally, were I the one planning this, I’d prefer something like: the utilization of carrier-based assets to deny air supremacy to either side while coordinating seven IRF and three CRG deployments to establish strategic air staging points across a broad swathe of terrain, then use the incredibly popular mid-air refueling to enable rapid transit of air superiority fighters like the F22 which then base from the expeditionary air bases (I hope they want burger king). Or something more simple, like the elimination of strategic targets using combined carrier-based SEAD operations to disrupt the quite formidable EU AA operating in concert with submarine based near-shore under-envelope cruise missile strikes. Or combined naval and aerial saturation of the AA capabilities present in the theater using things like the B52 to force constricted operating times, eliminating the need for DEAD operations nearly entirely.
Or you know, the US could keep things simple, stick with tradition. Invade poland. Then just expand out from there.
Listen, the original point here was that anyone trying anything right now would leave them and the rest of the EU seriously vulnerable to Russian aggression. That’s what this whole thing was about, and I’m pretty damn sure THAT point has been exhaustively made by now. Even depleted as they are by the war in Ukraine, they are still a serious threat. And for what it’s worth, Russia failed to take Hostomel via a combination of ridiculously poor logistical planning (not accounting for delays in capturing the airport was the real death knell, if 2nd VDV group had been inbound earlier they would have taken it) and a ton of bad luck in the form of 3rd SpO, the most tenacious and underestimated bastards I have ever encountered. But the point here is that ruzzia was about an hour away from taking Kyiv, one of the best defended cities in Europe, and with the lessons learned they could pull a similar stunt on any of the border countries.
I don’t know that it would succeed, but do you want to risk that?
Errata:
Look you’re just wrong about this one, I’m very sorry friendo.
Sorry, I can see how that could be interpreted ambiguously. I meant that B-2 and B-52 missions are carried out without a forward air base, that is something done with casual frequency. From the B-2 Spirit’s wikipedia page, “[…] and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) with one midair refueling.” I do believe that’s far enough to hit russia, it’s certainly far enough to fly missions in Iraq/Afghanistan. (And the B-52’s operational range is even further than the B-2s. The B-1 Lancer though, it only counts as a strategic bomber because it can carry nukes, it’s operational range is dinky.)
This is absolutely true in hindsight! But (and you can just go and look up reporting at the time on this subject) the world collectively didn’t understand what modern warefare had become. It put tremendous stock in ideas like the relevancy of dogfighting, and spectacularly overestimated how impactful the Iraqui army’s then-recent experience would be. They flew several of the best dogfighters at the time, they had extremely good air defenses, ones that had been repeatedly demonstrated to be highly effective. Without knowing any better, they looked like they were in a very strong position to hold out against coalition forces until the political will to continue ran out.
(I am getting so tired of explaining to americans that it’s not
[some random band] ft. Babymetalbut, in fact,Babymetal ft. [some random band]. Apropos of nothing I know, but still. Americans, man. We suck.)ROFL kid, I will answer you properly later.
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