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U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

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Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#631

Post by pibaker »

SR2Z wrote: post #615
pibaker wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. This is why the US military is partnered with all the Middle East democracies, like the one in Bahrain, or the one in UAE, or the one in Qatar…

There are not that many democracies in the Middle East. The US is allied with almost all of them. Would you prefer democracy be delivered to those countries by force? If not, then accept the lesser evil.

It's fine if you either stick to your principles or play a game of shameless realpolitik.

Just don't pretend you can convince us that you are actually doing the former when all we see is you doing the later. We are not retarded. You are the retard for thinking we will fall for your rhetorics.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#632

Post by stevenwoo »

elendilm wrote: post #566
thehappypm wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the US can’t take the strait is that the war is unpopular and the American people don’t want it to happen. The US military could absolutely 100% invade and take the street, but it would be extremely unpopular and very expensive.

[flagged]

The argument echoes similar speculation about the USA's 20 years in Vietnam, the "military was held back" despite killing more than a million southeast Asians in the attempt.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#633

Post by abtinf »

sssilver wrote: post #346
abtinf wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% of the money ends up going to people. It’s not like you get to the end of the chain and trade a fistful of dollars with the ingot of aluminum itself.

Sure, the concept of money is only meaningful / valuable to humans. But isn't there a conceptual difference between the "owners" of the Tomahawk factory vs. the people who are actually putting the missiles together?

Of course, but it’s not so clear in terms of the question you asked, and certainly not in terms of government procurement.

Those workers are often organized and unionized. They exert tremendous political influence to, say, require the factories to employ unionized labor and extract above market wages. Surely the differential between union and market wage should factor into your margin calculation?

The factory owners are only too happy to oblige. If you have a cost-plus contract with the government (so a contract that guarantees a certain margin), then the only way to get more absolute profit is to have higher costs. Defense procurement is best thought of as being totally price insensitive. In fact, almost everyone in the chain benefits from higher costs: the workers, the suppliers, the corporations, the military leadership, the politicians, and their constituents. The only people hurt are those future casualties of a less capable national defense, mainly soldiers.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#634

Post by mrguyorama »

panzagl wrote: post #332
haunter wrote: post #52

>The U.S. Army has used up So not the US. There is also the Navy, Air Force etc Borderline clickbait

This should be higher, the Army never had a lot of ATACMs to begin with as launching missiles at things is not really their job. Doesn't make the points about this administration not having a real plan invalid though...

>Army never had a lot of ATACMs to begin with as launching missiles at things is not really their job

It's called the Army tactical missile system FFS. It was literally built for them. It's rocket artillery!

We built only 3500 of the missiles total. We stopped investing in rocket artillery because they get very close to IRBMs, and those were banned until recently.

The Marines had some, but not anymore (IIRC). Other branches have zero. The replacement, PrSM is not in any serious production yet.

Other long range precision strike munitions include:

Tomahawk: 10k total production through all US history. We only fired 800ish total in all of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. We have so far fired over 1000 in Iran. The immense "Shock and Awe" that the world drooled over during the Gulf War involved fewer than 300 Tomahawks.

AGM-158 JASSM: This is our bread and butter Air launched cruise missile (There isn't an air launched version of Tomahawk!). They only cost about $800k each! Lockheed claims they can someday build 1000 a year. We built 10k total. We fired 1100 in Iran so far and only have 1500 left.

AGM-86 ALCM: A 70s era cruise missile. We built 1800. We supposedly only have a few hundred remaining as nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

Donald Trump has fired over 2500 of our missiles in Iran, for no benefit, which represents a massive draw down of our long range precision munitions.

These numbers are literally public information.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#635

Post by Arodex »

bluegatty wrote: post #601
Arodex wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>where USN is destroying drug running boats >which is arguably against some maritime laws You get it completely backwards: the US Navy is "allegedly" destroying drug running boats, and it is completely, totally, "inarguably" against maritime laws - and laws of war (but there is no war, right?) and basic law principles in civilized countries. >it's an Elephant precisely stepping on a single ant. It is not a cute anima…

"It is widows and orphans." - you lost the argument by trying to characterize these people as innocents, because it's such an awful position it undermines your own legitimacy. These are 'Cártel de los Soles' etc they are thugs and killers, the source of untold violence and harm. This the hysterical rhetorical position that I'm actually hinting at - contempt for a party (in this case the US) renders people intellectua…

>These are 'Cártel de los Soles' etc they are thugs and killers

Do you have any proof the people killed on those boats are thugs and killers, and not just mules, or fishermen?

And how does your righteousness squares with the same US government releasing Juan Orlando Hernández?

>willing to defend the most vile actions such as mass murder by Hamas, Iranian regime, mass killings, torture and imprisonment, by North Vietnam etc..

Absolutely nobody is defending these. The US is just completely failing at stopping those "vile actions" and piling up more death and misery to just end up at the same point or worse.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#636

Post by Hikikomori »

SR2Z wrote: post #302
estearum wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is that nobody actually gives a fuck about this war. The reason we don't have industrial capacity dedicated to this war is because everyone knows we're fighting it for no reason, there's no plan, it stops and starts every 4 days, so on. Simple consequences of having actual stupid people leading our government. If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap in…

> If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap into action at incredible speed. I'm gonna push back on "nobody cares." The United States is somewhat unique in that our doctrine calls for wars to be fought on distant shores, and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. That's why we entered WWII, it…

Thus better be advanced trolling. How could anyone be so ignorant of Americas history. Embarrassing.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#637

Post by pstuart »

pjc50 wrote: post #85
rbanffy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, at least the press is not hammering the Epstein files and the lack of any prosecution for the crimes documented in those.

Much of the press is pro-regime or owned by regime oligarchs.

The press operates at two distinct tiers: owners/editors and reporters. The former leans towards the oligarchs, the reporters tend to lean the other way.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#638

Post by Philorandroid »

mrguyorama wrote: post #604
Philorandroid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venezuela thought the same thing. Keeping a full-scale deployment at arm's length, and 'only' targeting military targets with exhaustive use of precision missiles is poor strategy, but if a military victory were the US's only ambition the Iranian regime has no capability that could prevent its country from being turned into a smoldering parking lot. Doctrine isn't the same as inability.

>the Iranian regime has no capability that could prevent its country from being turned into a smoldering parking lot. This is a laughable amount of ignorance. The capability that Iran has to prevent this is physics Iran is gigantic. Iran has 90 million people. If you put together every long range precision munition the US has ever built, you could attack a single City and severely damage it. People have zero sense of…

Speaking of laughable ignorance, what other munitions does the US military have besides precision munitions if precision is no longer a concern?

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#639

Post by estearum »

ericmay wrote: post #629
estearum wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ego and confidence would do wonders in the Russian military! After all, they had tons and tons of combined arms, counterinsurgency, and standoff experience. Way more combat experience than Ukraine did. Unfortunately it turns out different wars are very different. You’re acting like I’ve argued that I would prefer China over the US. That’s absolutely not true, and partially for the reasons you mention. However, w…

> After all, they had tons and tons of combined arms, counterinsurgency, and standoff experience. Way more combat experience than Ukraine did. They didn't have more combat experience than Ukraine though, never mind the additional problems that the Russian military faced at the time of the invasion which are too numerous to list here but include corruption, lack of equipment, a lack of understanding of the will of the…

> They didn't have more combat experience than Ukraine though

Uh yes they did

> never mind the additional problems that the Russian military faced at the time of the invasion which are too numerous to list here but include corruption, lack of equipment, a lack of understanding of the will of the Ukrainian people, and more.

In other words, there are other relevant variables than just combat experience...?

> You're just wrong...

"We're actively learning lessons in Ukraine" → Yet somehow our Patriot batteries were taken offline by Shaheds lmao. Sure, obviously we're learning some lessons. But so are our enemies. And what cost to each party? Iran learns lessons "for free" while it defends itself. China learns lessons for free because it's uninvolved. The US learns lessons because it's risking lives and equipment for a war with, so far, deeply negative strategic value.

The degree of single-dimensional thinking you're exhibiting is frankly bizarre.

> The branches are just where those capabilities generally rest... My point was demonstrated.

No lol. It's extremely discrediting actually.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#640

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

bell-cot wrote: post #407
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice. This is a lesson that conservative administrations have refused to learn for decades. I hope Curtis Lemay is experiencing a toasty afterlife for all of the suffering he has caused humanity due to a zealous convi…

The delusion is somewhat over a century old now. It originates from factions within the military community (vs. politicians) and there's nothing particularly conservative about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advoca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk Big picture, I'd categorize the problem as human nature and "sounds too good to be false…

I'd personally label the factions within the military that view aerial bombing as an effective strategy as "conservative", especially the ones that follow in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger and Curtis LeMay. It's hard not to see the direct line to Pete Hegseth's leadership, as well.

Notably, one of the largest "Liberal hawks", LBJ, often disagreed head on with Curtis LeMay because LeMay was too insane in his villainous disregard for human life. LeMay's dehumanization of the citizens of foreign nations was on par with Nazism, imo.

I'll give you that Obama and Biden are a black mark on leftwing politics in terms of aerial bombing as they continued the status quo instead of enacting positive change. But the both-sidesism is a bit too much here.

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