kalvasflam

Exactly, Lord Nelson must be turning in his grave right now even at the thought of this. Although I do believe the UK had plans to have an aircraft carrier built by the French. Oh, how the mighty (back in 1800s at least) has fallen. The travesty of the US armament industry is something that needs serious redress. As brought up several times now, the number of next generation fighter planes being built for the USAF is just scandalous. The amount of money used for the development process will soon outweigh what was slated in production.

Without meaning to get all political, I'd say it's not so much that the US won the cold war, but rather the Soviets just couldn't afford to play anymore and gave up. Perhaps a good analogy would be the poker player who quits because the stakes have become too high and he can no longer afford to keep up with the big dogs, (or dog in this case). Perhaps it's more accurate to say the US won by default. Anyway, back to our scheduled airplane discussion. Graham 399993[/snapback] Hence won in quotes...

Think the guy that slept with Chloe at start of season.

Oh the humanity! PLEASE!! Won't somebody think of the children! In all honesty though, Fukuda as director means this is going to suck like a kid with a lollipop. Enough, stop beating the dead horse, SEED is as dead as Star Trek right now. 397588[/snapback] Running by the 1st 10 episodes of GSD, where they had time and weren't making last minute changes to the script....I have no problem with Fukada as director. 397615[/snapback] Exactly... GSD sucked because... well, Kira and Athrun took over the show. But the movie is a one shot deal, and they might do ok with it. But one would also hope that the movie kills off a few of the character. Top of the list that should NOT die is Shinn. For someone that's supposed to be new, not a lot of focus on him. And I truly hope they don't go for Gundam of the week action. It was kind of weak if you ask me.

Moving off point a bit, I think the US right now is equivalent to what the British was like at the turn of the 19th century. It is the biggest power on the block, it has just "won" the struggle against communism, and is the most dominant player in the world. But to the west, there is a new power (or in this case, an old power) rising, (yes, China is more to the west of the US than the east) it'll take the rest of the century, may be more, but China will inevitably rise to the status of dominant player. If the US manages to stage its exit gracefully, think UK ceding power at turn of century to the US, then, things stays nice and calm. Otherwise... China though has yet to bloody itself in modern warfare. The opportunity, when it comes will likely be on its western borders. But we're getting off the topic of aircraft. While the US maintains a nice military lead, there are others who aren't far behind. The Russians with their SU-35 aren't bad at all, technology wise, the US is ahead, but that lead is diminishing. The war fighting capacity of the US really comes in its doctrine, warfare isn't about having the best guns. More about having good guns along with the know how to use them. But it'll be interesting to see development of US military aircraft in the next decade. Obviously, the system is very broken right now. Who knows when the next leap (if there is one) will be.

I personally dislike the concept of reviving a threat at the last minute. The Bierko contingency to me is so far the biggest failing of the season... it brings back the bad old times with Marwan. I like the conspiracy theory in the government, but it is been pulled a little too far... basically we haven't had a season where there wasn't a mole in the agency. Sad.

I hope and believe that Logan will be around next season. Because like him or not, Logan is a great villian, and great villians need to stay around, and not be nina-nized. It's best if Logan stays president, but Jack takes out Logan's support mechanism, because that's what makes Logan a little more dangerous. The support from outside the government. The submarine part was a little too contrived, a little too Marwanish... oh, let's see, nerve gas failed, ok, how convenient, there is this submarine parked at an easily accessible dock loaded with cruise missiles. Hmmm, wrong sub type too... Delta IV is an SSBN, not a SSGN, they should've made it an Oscar class, a little more believable. On another note, I think for once I like the 24 premise to be a little different, as far as the time goes. Here is one idea, it takes roughly 5 hours to fly from LA to DC. It's not inconceivable that you could have five episodes at one location, then set to shot the next five to six episodes in airport/airplane location, then finish off in another city. 24 hours right? Hell, you could even fly back and forth. Starts at 11 pm west coast, a red eye to east coast, do stuff, and catch the last flight out back to the west at night.

I believe Oceania is NAS, not AFB, so likely no F-22. I have heard that funding is really hard to come by for -22, and USAF is buying planes by parts at a time, and then assembling them later (last week's business week) and raising a fuss in Congress. The cost on this plane is extreme. It is in my opinion shameful to have such an expensive program to develop a plane and then have only so few planes. B-2 program was outrageously expensive, and there will only be 20 units. The number of -22 is poor too, 183 planes... Jesus. I recall the original USAF order for -15 was at 729 units, but went eventually to well over 1000 units. At some point, quality just can't make up for quantity. Would you rather have 1000 upgraded F-15 or 200 F-22.... hmmmm, I'd pick the -15s. The only question is cost of maintanence. I know there are people in the world who keeps thinking peace is breaking out... but let's not kid ourselves, there is a new cold war going on... the only problem is there is no clear cut enemy this time.

No they haven't said it, but you get the feeling that the guys in that meeting are the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, BP, Citgo, Haliburton, etc.

If Audrey dies... well, that's nothing new, so far, we had dead Terri, dead Mexican girlfriend, Audrey is next... the one that got away from death is the one from season 2. All things considered, this season is pretty good, definitely better than season 4, and probably on par with season 2.

Last night's episode was pretty good. I hope they keep Logan around, perfect seesaw with Jack, if one is up, the other is down. Logan hit his lowest point last night, almost ready to commit suicide, and then an unexpected... well, not so unexpected... source of help, and he is off to the races again, Logan is actually not a bad president, he is having a tough 24 hours too, having his plot foiled and unraveled, only to be delivered 11th hour solution. Weathered the Heller storm, and looks like he'll weather the Bauer storm. It would be nice if Logan comes up to a dimished capacity at the end of the day, but remains president. I see they are bringing Bierko back in, I wonder what that's about. Is Bierko Graham's contingency?

Gawd, Battle Fever J... cheesy ship, but does that bring back memories. It was the Sentai I watched. I forgot about Gundam series, Hmmm, I like the Lily Marleen (0083), Musai (classics), and in CCA (Rao Lola)

Heh heh, tell the media that. What you say is true. But let's face it, as a general statement, you don't see much non US equipment in wars. Well, at least the media in the US doesn't cover it well. Mis, that statement was from the point of view of Airbus, which incidently doesn't have much if anything to do with the military consortium of Europe. But I used it as a general statement, since EU is now this big homoginized happy family.

OMG, can that Andromeda and Dark Nebula command ship be any more overgunned? Each turret has four cannons. It's like a regular Andromeda, and then getting injected by an overdose of steroids. As for favorite ships: B5: Whitestars, Shadow battle crabs, EA Warlock Startrek: Defiant (all the other ST ships are a bunch of pansies) Yamato: Desslok's flag ship during Comet Empire, Triple deck carriers (like WWII carriers)

The thing about the French is that they just don't care much geopolitically who they sell to, after all, no one really cares about them. The fact that they're an annoyance to the US is just part of the sales package. Buy Rafales... it will tweak the noses of the Boeing, (since we're having trouble in the commercial segments and besides, the US doesn't like to sell its hardware until 20 to 30 years after initial introduction) I wonder how much they were asking for the Rafales. I think one reason that people still want to buy US hardware is all the advertising the US hardware had in the last decade. It's a bit misleading since the USAF/USN is more about how to use equipment than the quality of the equipment itself... so if you want sales pitch for military aircraft, it would go something like this: US: Our hardware wins wars, see recent conflicts Russian: Our hardware is cheap and easy to replace, (see recent conflicts) European: Our hardware isn't as cheap as the Russians, it hasn't won any wars recently like the American hardware, but we don't like the Americans, so please buy us. Chinese: We don't sell planes just yet... please call back in two decades, but by then, we'll be your high tech/low cost manufacturer of any military hardware.

I thought the whole concept of keeping Henderson around was a bit dumb. Shoot him in the legs... both of them. Sure, he might be able to get his henchmen to carry him to the chopper, but he'd be far less mobile and needing a doctor. And what would homeland security do but sweep this stuff under the rug later. Now, the final set of bad guys, that was interesting, Logan suddenly makes a little more sense. But I wonder what this talk about 18 months ago was all about. Hmmm, wasn't that when season 4 ended. Oh... finally, let 24 make hijacking seem dangerous, heh heh, Jack is taking a risk, because these days, anybody who starts a hijacking is likely to fall prey to the passengers unless he can convince them that he isn't planning to crash the plane.

Exactly, the reason, the Japanese wanted one decisive engagement, and they were being denied that, and so they were forced to dance to the American tune: Here is a favorite site of mine, I think far superior to Wikipedia: http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm It talks about the battles in some details. I think the problem with the IJN was that they could never have won through attrition warfare. Remember, Yamamoto knew ahead of time that his only chance was to cripple the US in such a way that its political will to fight collapsed. Otherwise, they would be grounded under by the US economy. With the Solomons, it was a slog, but if you're only done through 1942, most of those were Japanese victories, in 1943, that's when the tide really turned. Guadalcanal essentially put a majority of the US cruiser force out of action (either sunk or requiring major repairs). The problem for the Japanese was that even if they were getting a 3:1 kill ratio, they would still lose at the end of the day. In Guadalcanal, if you had read through Sam Morrison's books, it clearly talks about the Japanese trying a couple of times to bring off a decisive engagement. Remember, they sunk the Hornet and the Wasp in the general area. They lost a couple of carriers. What mattered is what a precetpion of a decisive engagement is. In IJN terms, it was one massive battle to determine who the champ is. To the USN, it was a long grinding campaign to start whittling away some of the Japanese advantages, and building up for their own decisive tactical battle, which occurred in the form of Marianas, and then Leyte in 1944. You know what it really came down to? Oil. Japanese in the guadalcanal campaign tried to run these idiotic Tokyo express, that was tactically very successful, and a disaster strategically. Because those destroyers wasted far more fuel than a conventional transport in bringing in troops. But what choice did the Japanese have? Their merchant marine sucked, no real amphib capabilities, and with the skies under contest, they couldn't guarantee the safety of the few transports they did have. Never mind the fact that the US sub force started to rape the Japanese merchant fleet (such as it were). See the battle of Bismarck seas to understand why the Japanese opted for these high speed destroyer runs. So, the point here is that because they didn't bother with Australia, they gave the Americans the important advantage of having a land base close to the battlefield from which to launch their troops. After all, if the USN had to cross the Pacific to deliver all those marines and army divisions, it would be a lot tougher than how they did it going from just Australia and New Zealand. Remember, Marianas was technically speaking decisive too. It was just that the odds were so lopsidedly in the USN's favor, it didn't seem like it. And no, Japan could never have won an attritional war with the US. Not when the other side is outpacing you in production, and your fleet mobility is always in question because of oil. As for Kirishima and the Hiei, their original mission was to bombard Henderson field on Guadalcanal, to put it out of business long enough so that the IJN could run more troops in to take Guadalcanal and deny the Americans their airbase, which was a real threat to the IJN surface forces. Had the IJN planned out their conquest to go all the way to Australia/New Zeland, then there wouldn't have been a MacArthur threat at all. Then, it's a matter of crushing some native islanders on a bunch of small islands to hold everything west of Hawaii. Now, suddenly, it becomes a different ball game. There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. The whole point of the war was Indonesia, not Phillipines, because Indonesia is where the oil was. The conquest of Phillipines was a necessity for Japan because they couldn't leave an entrenched enemy inside their line of communications. Remember, the entire reason for Japanese going to war was because the US had cut off their fuel supply to try to force the Japanese hand in China. No oil, then the IJN couldn't operate, and that meant it would be highly vulnerable to US naval forces. They should've concentrated their forces to take Australia/NZ, even if it meant siphoning off troops from in China. It would've given them a huge geographical advantage. As you rightly pointed out, the IJN was overextended. But they had the ability to keep that from happening had they taken out Australia and New Zeland along with the rest of SE Asia. Then, the nearest point of US assault comes from Hawaii. And that's a long distance to go to for naval operations, and it would've really helped to whittle down the submarine threat, and secured the interior of the IJN lines of communications.

amen to that, Nimitz did an outstanding job in leading pacfleet and putting up with MacArthur. Based on what I've read, he was one of the most affable individual in the navy, but more than that, he knew how to get results from his people. Other note, it's too bad that the rest of the Nimitz class got named after a bunch of politicians. (although some of them were really leaders, but Carl Vinson and John C. Stennis? Give me a break) As for Nelson, he was charisma personified in the days of the best days of the British navy. His band of brotheres (fellow captains) were quite legendary, it's a very odd tribute that he died on the day of his greatest triumph, but there are worst ways to go out than on the top of your game.

Some very good reasoning. I think though that the Japanese may have better been able to consolidate their gains in the key battle area (South Pacific) where things truly mattered. The fleet that would have come out from Pearl if the US hadn't been hit would still not have matched the Japanese forces qualitatively in early 1942. Witness Guadalcanal for example, where the IJN dominated earlier on, and lost really thru attrition. To me, Japan fought the equivalent of a two front war with just one force. They needed to fend off MacArthur's counterattack from Australia, and stop Nimitz's navy from pounding across the central Pacific. I think it would've been better if the Japanese had entirely eliminated the MacArthur threat by taking Australia or cutting the communications lane to Australia. There the carrier formation in the early days could've made a big difference, possibly even in taking out MacArthur himself and eliminating the southern US sub force that caused so much grief later on. The only area that they lacked if they were to take on Australia was the amphibious elements. They certainly had troops enough in China to do this. The fact that they didn't I think was a big mistake. In failing to conquer the southern front, the Japanese effectively brought about Guadalcanal and the destruction of the IJN surface forces. As far as the US plans, I believe it called for reinforcement of the Phillipines with the Pac fleet in Pearl. That would've been a disaster I think, because IJN strategy there involved whittling down US forces as they crossed the Pacific with night time torpedo attacks, air bombardment, and ultimately a decisive engagement with battle wagons. In the first two areas, the Japanese dominated in 1941 and early 1942. How that would've played out in reality though is just something we all have to speculate on. In regards to Germany, the allies always considered Japan to be a secondary issue to be resolved after Germany was history. But in the European theater, the navy was not quite as important. The ships needed in the Atlantic were destroyers, and escort carriers, not full blown battleships and fleet carriers. In the end though, it didn't really matter since the US economy produced enough for both theaters.

Success is based on how close they actually came to victory. Comparatively, the U-boats did much better in WWI in terms of how close they strangled the Brits. There is no doubt they succeeded in hurting the Brits, but they didn't come nearly as close as they did in WWI in putting down the Brits.

Well, in terms of WWI. The Germans learned an important lesson... simply put. They had to change the paradigm of naval warfare. Surface was out, and since carriers weren't likely. They went with U-boats. Admittedly, the U-boats were not as successful as they were in WWI. But it was the right idea.

On Pearl Harbor and the possibility of it not happening. Pearl Harbor was a watershed, it represented the first concentrated use of fleet air arm against surface opponents. And it was a rousing success, notwithstanding Nagumo's mistakes. Up until then, the role of the carrier was not well defined as a strike arm, but more as a scouting and recon arm for the battle fleet. Both IJN and USN preceived the fleets that way until Ozawa, Genda and a few visionaries persuaded Yamamoto, and then the world otherwise. Had Pearl Habor not happend, the Japanese could've conceivably moved a little faster (but not much more) with the extra six carrier decks. And the US wouldn't have learned the lesson about carrier air power until later. Remember, those six decks were unavailable for about three weeks during the Pearl strike. During that time frame, the IJN still ran wild in the South Pacific. With those decks, they could've wiped out the ADBA, and the Brit fleet in India earlier. The USN would've been put off guard, because they would've moved the few carriers and a bunch of obsolete battleships to aid the Phillipines, and those may have been all wiped out. Carriers would've acted as scouts, the only reason that carriers became prime in Pacific was that they were the only major units immediately available after Pearl. In the final analysis, the IJN and Japan was doomed the second they launched Pearl Harbor. Had they played the negotiations game, they may have been a little further ahead, but strategically, Pearl Harbor didn't gain them anything more than a brief respite, and did more harm because it galvanized the Americans and taught them the lesson of naval air early on. Hawaii was never a part of their defense in depth concept. And it wouldn't have been possible to take Pearl and take down the oil in SE Asia. And oil was the strategic focus of the war for Japan anyway.

Response to Halsey, and Leyte. The IJN were both lucky and unlucky in Leyte. Lucky in that their opponent was not Spruance, but that hothead Halsey, who frankly isn't a good admiral. If I had to pick between Spruance and Halsey as naval commanders, I would've picked Spruance, not as flashy, not as loud, and not as dumb. They got through Halsey's 3rd fleet and ended up in the middle of the escort carrier group off of Samar. BTW, if you read about Halsey, he is the same fool that twice got his fleet caught in hurricanes, and the world famous phrase: "where rpt where is task force 58. The world wonders" supposedly brought Halsey close to tears. That's not a mark of a good naval commander. (I will grant that Halsey did a good job in Guadalcanal and earlier on, and his best move was to let Spruance have command in Midway). IJN was unlucky in that they were so heavily outnumbered, witness the battleship action between Olendorf and Nishimura, the latter was destroyed with exception of unlucky Shigure. The 3rd fleet crushed what was left of Japanese carrier arm, and the escort carrier group (even though some of them went down), went down swinging, and inflicted large damage against an attacking force of battleships and cruisers. The only regret was that neither the Yamato nor the Musashi saw action against Ching Lee's fast battleships. That should've been the final fight between battleships. I have no doubt that even if it was just a battleship fight without carrier aircraft, the US fast BB would've killed the Japanese surface fleet. Alas, thanks to idiot Halsey, that was not to be.

There is plenty of discussions here on airplanes. But, naval traditions goes far beyond just a century. I was curious what the board thought about who were the most notable naval commanders in history, and the best naval battles they fought. A few obvious ones: ???: Lepanto Nelson: Akibour bay and Trafalgar Spruance/Flectcher vs Nagumo: Midway Nagumo: Pearl Harbor Tanaka: Guadalcanal Mitscher: Marianas Togo: Tushima Then there were the strategic masterminds, like Nimitiz, Donitz, Yamamoto, and so forth. I know I haven't even scratched the barest surface of the topic, but thought it was an interest subject to talk about. What are your thoughts?

One movie option they could explore is what happened after season 2. I know they have a game out. But in a way, that makes it more interesting.