Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
Continued:
"The European military strength is dominant by far in the region and its navies so powerful there's no non-allied match to them in the Atlantic or Indian Oceans."
And yet Russian subs are sailing around the Baltic to the Irish Sea with impunity. How long will those Navies last against
the SSGNs the Russians have on hand let alone the ones they are building. The Russians have enough ASCMs and enough OTH targeting assets to cripple most of the NATO surface fleet and enough offensive mine laying capability to interdict
most western ports. It would be very ugly.
As to airpower, the operational readiness of most of those air forces is low as is the number of combat coded aircraft and the cannibalization rate is high. Bringing up the Hellenic Air Force if funny since the probability of them going against the Russians is incredibly remote given the current rapproachment.
"All brigades the Russians can muster for warfare in the Western military district combined (including what they massed against the Ukraine) would be inferior to the combined German and UK's army even without a mobilization of the latter ones."
The Brits have one severely understrength armored division in Germany and inadequate sea and airlift to reinforce and sustain it. The Germany army can field at most, about one combat ready armored division. That's not exactly a staggering force ratio.
"That report was supported by what the Russians actually amassed in the Ukraine conflict; army forces comparable to the Romanian military at most (still hyped by Western news media as huge forces concentration)."
I wouldn't expect Russian force concentrations in and around Ukraine to be large at all. There's no need; plenty of
ethnic Russian reservists who can be called to the colors and who only need a trickle of armor to make a difference
against Ukrainian regulars.
"One could also look at the extremely huge USAF and extremely huge USN air and consider whether even more is actually required. It is in the long term only. Right now, the U.S. could cut half of the USAF without actual loss of forces utility.
It could also remember that alliance treaties are not nature's law and can be left when they add more burden than benefit - and the need for U.S. air power would almost instantly drop to less than the current USN air component."
I'm happy to revisit force structure discussions but US TACAIR and NAVAIR wings are shrinking by design anyway.
The bomber fleet, even if LRS-B goes to 100 frames, will be smaller during the course of its lifetime than any time since 1950. That would make meeting treaty obligation quite manageable and affordable assuming the USAF gets its planned number of dual capable aircraft.
Jun 4, 2015, 1:15:32 PM
Posted to I Believe the First Hit Piece Against the LRS-B Has Been Written