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[Lifetime]

And you think that B2s are the only planes that can do this? My point is, what might be seen as ...well we can do it from here, why not there? I think we have platforms of a lesser value to use for the "telephone strategy"..... Reach out and touch someone. And....Tomahawks aren't good enough? They seemed to work just fine during "Shock and Awe".
 
My whole point is, for what ever the reason, if one of our aircraft is disabled for whatever the reason.... if it hits within... we may have our reason for American size 12s on the ground. If that happens... the game rules change, quickly. I am sure I know of one pilot who thought... "No one can get to me here."  His name was Gary Powers and he was a High Flyer in a U-2. Sometimes the best layed plans of Mice and Men.......
 
If there is one thing about Combat, nothing is perfect and if there is a crack...anywhere, your mission time/percentage is greatly reduced. Eyes and ears open and ass down.......
 
 

I know......"military action" and "ground troops" are two different things.  Just making sure I have my shit straight.

....any projection of a US military force into an area is a military action, be it ground pounders feet dry humpin'  lead  in-theater either covert or overt, or naval forces far off shore out-of sight pickling Tomahawks through windows in the Tripoli landscape....

...Now... yesterday... Seems BAM BAM also authorized the use of OUR B2s for air missions...

....I'm pretty sure he was just putting his signature on the DOD request to utilize the B-2s, which are, in reality, an excellent choice for minimizing the threat to US aircrews as the B-2s will fly their combat patrols well outside the target/threat area and pickle off JDAM-equipped (joint direct attack munitions) bombs one at a time, which will use internal GPS-technology guidance to literally fly the otherwise dumb bomb to the target unseen/undetectable by what ever remains of the Libyan air defense system....


....and you haven't read this anywhere, with this action, Libya has now become the foreign nation attacked  more times by the US than any other country....

....of course, the last time we bombed Libya, Moanmore dropped an American-loaded 747 on Lockerbie Scotland.... 

[/][/]

[NightmarePatrol]

I don't think (I hope not anyhow) that we'll see American feet on Lybian soil. If we do then it will be a game changer for sure. Diplomatically it's a tough situation. Help the rebel forces and alienate the existing regime. We do know the existing regime is coming to and end from the longevity of human life (colonel qwackers) and i we don't help the rebels we are sure to alienate them when a new regime takes the reigns.  This is of course my over simple minded, diplomatically ignorant viewpoint.

I haven't checked the news in the past few hours but I honestly expect the no-fly zone to be established by the end of the week. Lybia just doesn't have that much in the line of a military. Sure we've gone after them in the past but it wasn't much more than to knock some sense in to them. If we wanted the existing government gone in the literal sense I'm sure it would have been done a long time ago. There's a goal in the endgame. But that goal is above my pay grade and I may never know aside from the equine excrement the news media squats out.

[NightmarePatrol]

I see China now has a naval presence in the Mediterranean. Not that I see anything coming out of this except for  massive brownie points  for the Chinese, but it's interesting nonetheless.

[lifefeedsonlife]

I still don't see how the situation in Libya posed a direct threat to our national security. Much like Iraq didn't either - though the case was made it did . . . .

[Puffin]

I don't think (I hope not anyhow) that we'll see American feet on Lybian soil. If we do then it will be a game changer for sure.

Once the troops are on the ground you own it. The economy, oil industry, security, justice system, ect. All the things that constitute a govt.
I still believe they will persuade Gadhafi that a sabatical is better than a dirt nap. Or they will persuade those in power close to him that their future is better without  him, than with him

[Puffin]

Whiteman AFM Missouri. Home base for the B2 bomber force.
 

[gore range]

...quite intriguing to see the crashed-in-Libya F-15E impacted the ground in a relatively slow-vertical speed flat spin essentially remaining intact post crash....



....the obvious damage above is from the relatively small post-slow-speed impact fire which only consumed the forward half of the 14-ton-empty-weight aircraft; the object in the intact foreground is the LANTIRN targeting pod still , normally hung on the bird's belly just under at the front of the left engine air intake (previously located in the pic above just below the 3rd and 4rth-from-the-left-broad-coalition-rebel-alliance crash investigators)....

....it was  reported on NIGHTLINE last night the  opening actions of the "broad-coalition" 'counter-offense defensive' were conducted in the blind with a complete lack of coordination among the apparently quite broad widely-separated 'broad-coalition'....

....in the aerial war targeting/planning/attack biz, everything is driven by a highly coordinated factually detailed documented called the air fragmentary orders, or airfrag which is written for each 24 hour period....

....it lists the targets, the exact time of attack, which type of aircraft will attack, what the bombs will be,  ingress/egress routes/altitudes, aerial refueling points, who the refueling aircraft will be and the times they will be on station waiting to pump gas, and a multitude of other mission related data  essential to maximizing the success of each mission....

....a very significant part of the planning stage in writing the airfrag is the scheduling/de-confliction phase where every effort is made to keep two pieces of speeding explosive-laden aluminum from occupying the same chunk can't-see-squat-at-night-time-flying-without-those-blinking-lights-on-the-wings airspace, or avoiding having aircraft fly underneath a higher aircraft dropping bombs, or, when and where cruise missiles are transiting invisibly through the darkness of the night; the kind of nice-to-know stuff when your lower office is autonomously hermetically sealed and the in-the-seat pucker-factor rivals the vacuum of outer space ....

....NIGHTLINE reported that the French fighter jets attacked their independently picked targets without any knowledge of the inbound Brit & US cruise missiles flying around or even what or where  the inbound cruise missile target in fact were; and of course, the cruise missile folks had no idea the French were screaming around inside their cruise missile air space....

....at the same time, the Norwegians were aloft south-bound en-route loaded for they own independently specified Libyan bear/camel, when,  they first heard of the ongoing French and US/Brit attacks..... as notified via radio....from their bases in back way up north in Norway....

....and they immediately turned around and went home refusing to play in such utter knuckleheadedness....

....one can only imagine how you are cruising along in your highly sophisticated F-16E ground attack jet at altitude very high up in the night sky minding your own busy-ness, when suddenly you are forced to eject due to "an equipment failure" with no opportunity to maneuver the jet into a attitude were it will not impact the ground in a flat head's-up/wheels-down relatively intact manner...

...."oops" tends to come to mind....

....prepare to hear-

....'the fog of war"....

....here's hoping that the still unspecified 'end-game' objective is better planned and coordinated than the opening operations of "I think I saw a camel's nose under the tent";

....t minus 57 days and counting ....

[NightmarePatrol]

I dont' know who's coordinating the efforts in Lybia. I'm guassing that's it's being coordinated out of McDill. This operation looks likes it was green lighted with an almost instant commit. Hardly time to finish planning and coordinating a multinational operation.
I don't know who's Eagle it was. I don't know if the Army flies the 15E's or not.  We know it definitely ain't the Navy's. The next obvious question that I haven't see and answer to is where was it based out of?

[Lifetime]

"My whole point is, for what ever the reason, if one of our aircraft is disabled for whatever the reason.... if it hits within... we may have our reason for American size 12s on the ground. If that happens... the game rules change, quick." (My words before the 15 hit the ground)
 
The future of this UN/French crappola is a Political Committee, made up of ?? Great...now everything has to be brought in for lengthy discussion. I am seeing this whole thing fracturing at every seam.... and someone wants to even set up "no drive" zones WTF. If this program extends to 6 months...it can cost the USA $9 Billion without loss of people and equipment....oopsie... How much is an F-15E again...and Oh By The Way...it was OURS and the pilot/copilot are onboard a US Navy Vessel as we speak. First one picked up by a Marine Osprey and the second... rebel forces got him back to us.
 
Folks, we are in for the long haul and this whole thing will make or break our politics.... no matter which way it goes.

[gore range]

I dont' know who's coordinating the efforts in Lybia. I'm guassing that's it's being coordinated out of McDill. This operation looks likes it was green lighted with an almost instant commit. Hardly time to finish planning and coordinating a multinational operation.
I don't know who's Eagle it was. I don't know if the Army flies the 15E's or not.  We know it definitely ain't the Navy's. The next obvious question that I haven't see and answer to is where was it based out of?

....clearly the coordinating efforts didn't occur as experienced mission planners/ops pukes would expect; the US command responsible for US military actions is United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)  headquartered at Kelley Barracks in....Stuttgart, Germany; as-

....the Africans at the time we were looking for a home base  for  AFRCOM  on the African sub-continent, didn't want anything to do with US forces in their country- they'll gladly take the foriegn aid, but house a command to save their tutus when they are in a jam...... NIMBJ...

....AFRICOM is responsible for all of the African continent....except for Eygypt, which falls under MacDill's responsibility....

....the commander of AFRICOM is General ) Carter Ham, an Army 4-star, who just assumed command of AFRICOM  on the 8th of this month; he's no doubt taking some serious heat  in spite of being the new guy....

....the F-15 has a LN tail designator- normally assigned to USAF aircraft based out of RAF Lakenheath in the UK....

[Lifetime]

Also..... If I understand right.... at least 6 indigenous got smoked but , by whom...I don't know. Now the investigations begin. No matter how this comes out....WE ARE SCREWED! ! !

[gore range]

....an intriguing pic-



....on the one hand, note the Strike Eagle's 2 vertical stabilizers/rudders, both having their tops snapped off in the same left-to-right direction....

....the one on the left (port side rudder) has what appears to be clear projectile impact like damage on the trailing edge, with the right side rudder incurring significantly more impact like damage....

....as if a moving object moving from left to right struck the tail....

....on the other hand, the notable quantity of dirt ejecta atop the right (starboard) horizontal stabilizer/elevator suggests the jet was spinning in the counter-clockwise direction, and with the flattened rear engine nozzles showing it impacted the ground in a level attitude, the dirt atop the elevator could be a result of striking the ground as it spun around, throwing the dirt atop the elevator....

....in a related matter, we're some what relived to see the 6 local residents were in fact not smoked,  and not to appear minimizing the rather tragic turn of events with  their desire to assist the Americans, they incurred wounds from the US rescue chopper laying down suppression cover fire during the rescue and appear to be recovering....

....it was indeed an unfortunate incident that the friendly Libyans were shot, but having retired out of the Air Force Special Operations Command and being involved with plunking downed aircrew members out of hostile territory, it's standard rules of engagement when unidentifiable parties approach or even appear to approach the rescue chopper, the chopper gunners immediately lay down several bursts/lines of warning fire....

.... if the approaching personnel on the ground continue approaching in defiance of the initial warning shots....

....well, usually the out come isn't exactly survivable....
   
 ....now, it may sound callous and absolutely utterly cruel to fire on  what appears to be civilians, but the hard reality there is no way to  know/ascertain if the approaching apparent civilians are in fact  friendlies or even civilians....and if they fail to heed the warning  shots.......


....chalk it up to no time for cross-cultural mis-understanding/empathy....

....on this side of the pond-

....this all is going to get real interesting-

....'impeachable'....

 

[Puffin]

My understanding of the Congressmans position is that he wants a declaration of war against Libya. So his comments are in that regard, not on the Constitutionality of  "War Powers"., at the same time, or actually well before (Mar 10) high level members of Congress were demanding a no fly zone, but considered no legislation.   
Additionally there was some talk that the Congress had not been notified about the action.
Politics is about creating the maximum turmoil, with no intention of doing anything.
There was this in the Washpost, with the list of attendees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/obama-consults-with-congressional-leaders-on-libya/2011/03/18/ABc4iNq_blog.html
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Puffin]

This is the briefing given by Adm. Locklear , who is the U.S. Naval Force Commander for Europe and Africa.
On board his flagship in the Med is the Joint Coalition Force Air Component Command (JFACC) who are responsible for coordinating air actions by the coalition. It is staffed by coalition represenatives. If there were aircraft/weapon conflicts, the responsibility would belong to the that command, and the Admiral. No mention was made in the briefing by either the Admiral or the press about any aircraft/weapons conflicts. I dont know if that is new news not yet briefed, but again no mention made here.
 
here is the press conf 33 minutes from cspan
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Coalition-Airstrikes-In-Libya-Expand/10737420395-6/

[lifefeedsonlife]

Not entirely about the Middle East - but it certainly is applicable . . . even here.

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