Thought OUR military sucks? Not really.

| October 2, 2023

It’s easy to complain about the military – heck, it’s a RIGHT. Not sure, but I think it’s Amendment 1.1 where it says “All military have the right to (discreetly) complain about the service. Forever, amen.” You could be one of those folks whose PCS orders have to be reissued since someone screwed up the funding in the just-ended fiscal year and all your old orders are invalid. Army Times You could  be a  former ROTC guy who just found out that his Green to Gold college years do not really, despite what you were always told, count toward retirement. Army Times II . You could just be a simple Marine unable to get the right uniform because its manufacturer isn’t able to supply at the contract price Marine Times   Life in our military…. but wait:

You could have been on the Malian Air Force’s (who knew Mali even HAD an air force?)  only IL-76 which overshot the runway on landing, dropping down an embankment, and exploded into flames (above).

Why TZ-98T touched down so far onto the runway remains unclear, and questions have equally been raised as to why additional braking measures were not implemented by the pilots, notably the aircraft’s spoilers. As @thenewarea51 indicates, Il-76s also feature a reverse thrust capability — designed to deflect airflow from aircraft engines upward and forward when landing, thus minimizing the distance needed to stop — although this functionality wasn’t implemented.

It should be noted that the Malian Air Force has lost a significant number of aircraft over the course of the past year due to both enemy action and various mishaps. Since October 2022, it has lost two Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots and two L-39 Albatros jet trainers supplied by Russia, and a Hind Mi-24D attack helicopter obtained from Bulgaria.  The Drive.com

You could have to fly for them, right? Seems this particular IL-76 was a former Wagner Group air frame.  Makes you wonder.

You could be a Chinese Navy guy who finds that Taiwan is now making their own submarines. Diesel/electric, but they are quiet as hell in shallow waters…like maybe the Taiwan Strait.

Named the Hai Kun, it is a diesel-electric submarine (SSK) that looks to be based on the Japanese Soryu class with some design features carried over from Taiwan’s two Dutch built SSKs. Telegraph

The Haikun will carry U.S.-made Mark 48 heavyweight torpedoes and use a combat system manufactured by U.S. defense industry giant Lockhead Martin.  MSN

Believe our guys claim Mk48s will sink anything afloat… and if I recall my Tom Clancy right, a submarine running full-on electric can be very, very stealthy. And they are cheap – only a billion and a half at a shot. Compare with the cost of our techno-wonders… the new Colombia-class is already projected to cost us $112,000,000,000 for 12 – my math says that’s about $9.5 billion apiece. And the program hasn’t even delivered it’s first cost overrun sub yet.

My favorite, though, is this. There’s always a rivalry between Air Defense guys and pilots – after all, one group flies and the other group says “if it flies, it dies.”. All good clean fun…usually:

Russian air defences have shot down one of the country’s most advanced fighter jets in a friendly fire incident, according to reports.

The Russian Su-35 was downed over Tokmak, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, on Thursday where Ukraine is mounting its counter-offensive.

A Russian Telegram channel with close links to the country’s air force appeared to confirm the incident on Friday when it paid tribute to the pilot, who did not survive.

Footage showing a fireball falling out of the sky began circulating on Friday.  Telegraph II

Y’all need to get your command coordination down a little better maybe? Looks like the S-300 system got the kill. “Works on Su-35? Da, check!”

And we worry about our little problems…

Category: China, Dick Stepping, Government Incompetence, Russia

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ninja

You also could be a member of an Air Force Squadron stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, i.e. the 721st Aerial Port Squadron, who are banned from late-night drinking off base because of a trend of “irresponsible alcohol consumption”…

😉😎

“Ramstein Squadron Whacked for ‘Irresponsible Alcohol Consumption,’ Banned from Drinking Outside Barracks”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/09/29/entire-air-force-squadron-germany-banned-late-night-drinking-off-base.html

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5JC

Not sure how the Air Force will function if you have to show up to work sober.

MarineDad61

5JC (*and ninja),
Perhaps JR Majewski has a comment?
After all, this is the bailiwick of the self proclaimed “Ass Kicker”.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ohio-congressional-candidate-jr-majewski-nixes-air-force-logo-from-website-after-he-gets-called-out

Odie

It helps if your assigned to a sleepy, backwater base. Norton wasn’t a backwater base per se, but more like a base that time forgot. Good times were had by most there.

MustangCPT

Maybe our very own ChipNASA has some insights he could share. I seem to remember he was in this type of unit…

Anonymous

So, they drink, get drunk and fall down in the barracks then…

Odie

Somebody needs to stock up on beer vending machines. No such thing as last call, and the CQ better have keys to the store room and soda, I mean, beer vending machine.

Anonymous

True… crawling distance from beer machine to bed is a good thing.

Anonymous

Patriot– keeping flyers regular since ’82!
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5JC

In the Gulf War II the US only shot down one friendly air craft. In Gulf War I the US Air Power accounted for more US casualties than the entire military of Iraq.

fm2176

“It’s easy to complain about the military – heck, it’s a RIGHT.”

Not much to comment on our rivals and other foreign militaries (at the moment), but I’ll exercise this right…

Buying jump boots as an E-1 with a wife and two kids, before the whopping $495/month BAH kicks in, because it’s the 101st and part of the uniform. Getting Cocoran IIs because Clothing and Sales sold them to a broke and dumb PVT, then having to buy the proper jump boots. I wore the Corcoran IIs once or twice in civvies, and the original Corcorans maybe three times in Class A uniform.

Dust-filled LZ in Iraq, super-hooah FM2176 thinking it’s a 10-foot drop and jumping out only to immediately meet the ground and jar every bone and ligament possible.

Brigade Schools NCO, taking the initiative to do the online UPL Course in Afghanistan to be better able to help the battalion UPLs. Told by the 1SG it’ll just be an NCOER bullet with no obligation, then suddenly I’m “Brigade UPL”, pissing the COL, CSM, and assisting “subordinate” UPLs as needed since I was the “senior” UPL and “Subject Matter Expert”.

Reporting on the first day of White Phase as a tired SSG who’s extremely senior in grade. Immediately assigned as Company Armorer, then at the end of the cycle made a Senior Drill Sergeant…with no Juniors. Pickup, no idea how First-72 or Red Phase goes, dropping a college course and getting denied the reimbursement exemption signed by the battalion commander, and by the way the parish my house is in is flooding to boot, with 80% property damage (but not mine, fortunately). Fun times, Senior Drill Sergeant FM2176 finally got a Drill flexed over to 4th PLT when the 1SG realized that my Armorer duties precluded doing much of anything else.

AW1Ed

It works both ways. Single P-3 detachment to support a NATO ASW exercise flying from Kinloss, Scotland. Pack up from Maine and fly the repo with me racking up multi-engine instrument hours in the left seat.
We fly one event and the CNO declares a weeklong Aviation Safety Stand-down. I hadn’t even cashed my per-diem check. Ever heard of the Whisky Trail?

Mick

I’ve been on the Whisky Trail.

Odie

Haven’t heard of it, but it sounds fun. Well, at 1 time it may have been fun.

Anonymous

Sounds like an Army Christmas when you’re single– if you don’t have a bottle of Cap’n Morgan or Motrin, you don’t have nothing to open in the morning.

timactual

” thinking it’s a 10-foot drop ”

I remember thinking the same thing as I jumped from the skid of a Huey as it rose upward. I swear I was at least an inch shorter afterwards. I am still thankful I landed between the sapling stumps instead of impaling myself on one.

Anna Puma

There was this one time the USSR lost almost the whole Soviet Pacific Fleet command staff because all the admirals thought they could cram a GUM department store into one Aeroflot jet.

Physics is such a cruel mistress.

Fjardeson

Sounds like that scene in Saving Private Ryan where some ID-10-T welds a big steel plate on the general’s transport aircraft. Without consulting with anyone in Aviation.

Andy

An F16 jock once told me that he could outmanuever and escape a Stinger but not two. As cheap the Stinger is, that is a small price to pay for a kill. Yea, I was a career Air Defender for over 20 years.

KoB

The E-4 Mafia (if there is such a thing) grins.

To err is human. To properly place blame…you need a chain of command.

Oops means the same thing in any language. One (1) Aww Sh^t! negates ninety nine (99) attaboys.

Prior Service

With 34 years in, I’m trying to decide whether to list dumb American or dumb foreign stuff I’ve seen. In the spirit of the post, I’ll go foreign: I’m in Egypt for Bright Star 97. An Egyptian mortar company is on detail supporting building a base camp. Instead of crapping in the readily available latrines, they dig cat holes and crap in the tents. One asks for a “camel light” (not a cigarette, turns out he means chem light). We give him a couple and teach him how to light ‘em and the whole company chases him down—now they’re playing smear the queer in the dark with whoever wrests control of the chem lights. We’re just watching the show until their CDR and 1SG arrive, who drag the guy around a corner and (judging by the blows we hear), beat the snot out of him. Now those two walk away with their pockets filled with camel lights. Or, the Dutch Soldiers who go into the US bowling alley in Hohenfels Training Area and are then surprised they can’t smoke their dope there.

USMC Steve

Given their past performance and current reputation, I wonder why the Dutch even have a military.

Slow Joe

Wait, an S-300 can shoot down a Flanker?

Does this means the Flanker is worse than we thought, or the S-300 is better than expected?

11B-Mailclerk

With Russian gear, “both” is a distinct possibility.

USMC Steve

Yes.