“People think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldn’t be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we haven’t lost a single American in this war,” McConnell said. “Most of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it’s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063

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[–] Harrison@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

NATO doctrine relies heavily on airpower for any large military conflict. The NATO ground armies might be relatively small, but their combined air forces are qualitatively superior in every metric and at minimum three times larger than any potential opponent. 10k people can hold off 500k when they have a giant arsenal of precision guided weapons and complete control of the air.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That is verifiably not true. Vietnam and Korea made it very clear that you cannot win a war with air power alone. And precision weapons are effectively useless. The US can't sustain minor campaigns of shelling random cities in the Global South without running out of munitions. And short of nuclear weapons it has no capability to level cities with it's air force. The F-35 has, what, like four weapons pylons?

Add to that, the Russia air-defense systems have proven very effective, which changes the game. And the F-35 that is the lynchpin of NATO's air superiority strategy has a great deal of limitations, not the least of which is how expensive and stretched it's logistical requirements are.

NATO's air force is completely untested and reliant on extremely expensive, hard to maintain platforms with very limited tactical flexibility. It's entirely possible the F-35 fleet will defeat itself through attrition due to it's enormous maintenance requirements.

[–] Harrison@ttrpg.network 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Add to that, the Russia air-defense systems have proven very effective.

Proven effective against cold-war era planes maybe. There have been a few improvements in the past 50 years. Those same Russian air-defence systems proved themselves effectively useless against the F-117 in the Balkans, and the F-35 is miles above the F-117.

Vietnam and Korea proved that 1950s and 1970s era technology was not up to the task, not that it was not possible. The main issue with both was the lack of accuracy.

The US can't sustain minor campaigns of shelling random cities in the Global South without running out of munitions.

"Running out" in this case meaning dipping below normal stockpile levels.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

Those same Russian air-defence systems proved themselves effectively useless against the F-117 in the Balkans

There's been some improvements in the past 20 years too, sometimes even not only on paper.

Anyway, the biggest problem of the ex-Soviet militaries is their incompetence, not their tech. The systems employed are up to the necessary tasks and sometimes more adaptable than NATO systems, it's just that even their normal operation sometimes can't be achieved by people using them.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

the Russia air-defense systems have proven very effective, which changes the game

Due to modernization in the course of the current war, and against weapons used in it, specifically those Turkish drones and the small copters everybody uses now in every conflict.

I'm not sure how good they'd be against something launched from F-35.

has a great deal of limitations, not the least of which is how expensive and stretched it’s logistical requirements are

However I should agree that I too just hate F-35.

NATO’s air force is completely untested

Well, again, Israeli and Turkish ones are tested somewhat well, but mostly against much weaker opponents unable to get their sh*t together.

and reliant on extremely expensive, hard to maintain platforms with very limited tactical flexibility.

Yes.