I've already discussed why helicopters and drones are good in areas of light cover while sucking in areas of high cover. They fulfill a role, but realistically they aren't always the best option.

I also explained what happens in real combat. So called fast movers end up being tasked to do roles that they were not designed for. No plan stays certain in the face of the enemy. There will come a time when the F35 is expected to provide the same type of support as the A-10 and it is going to suck hard at it, planes will be shot down and pilots will die or be captured. I suspect this will happen especially with the forces using the F35 that are not the Air Force, such as the Marines. Here is a link to the laughable failures that the Marines had with the plane, but due to the 'cannot fail' nature of the project, they certified it anyway. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/not-a-big-suprise-the-marines-f-35-operational-test-wa-1730583428

Finally, the A-10 was absolutely not designed initially to be a Soviet tank killer. The initial A-X program was created because of the DISMAL performance of the Air Force and F4 in providing close air support to troops.

The Secretary of the Air Force contacted Pierre Sprey and asked him to come up with a design spec for a close air support plane. After consulting with the pilots we had in Vietnam, mostly the successful ones that were flying the prop driven A-1 Skyraider (which btw, destroyed the F4 JET in CAS operations), it was indicated that the ideal aircraft should have long loiter time, low-speed maneuverability, massive cannon firepower, and extreme survivability. It was only later, after the plane had been mostly designed, that the USAF asked that it be also tasked to counter the Soviets.

As I said, the Air Force has always hated providing CAS to the other branches of the Armed Forces. They constantly forget that you need to make a multi-role fighter actually function in a multi-role environment, preferring to think that they can buzz in and buzz out while the rest of the military does the 'dirty' work. However, they always get burned for it. Just like now, when they were fighting as hard as possible to kill the A-10, they discovered that fighting a force that is mobile and that hides in cover/cities (ISIS) is damn near impossible with fast planes/drones. Which is why they changed paths and rescheduled the A-10 phase out to 2028 (or beyond).

What? Helicopters are LESS vulnerable? How do you figure? They're vulnerable to small arms fire from ground troops, unlike a Warthog (unless you have a super sniper around that can do supercomputer type calculations in a fraction of a second and hit it on the fly with a 50 cal. depleted uranium round). They can pop up and down behind cover and do awesome targeting tricks, but in my eyes, for every advantage they have, there's another disadvantage.

But then you hit the nail on the head. Drones do it ALL better, for exponentially less, without putting a highly trained pilot in danger. I think it's just plain dumb to make piloted planes when we have working drone tech. For the current cost of the R&D on this single plane, not including the cost of building a single working F-35, we could have 1.3 million drones (+-, if we make that many, I'm sure we can make them for <$1 million a piece) and own the skies of the entire planet for eternity....or at least until Skynet takes over. Drones are far cheaper to maintain, don't have the G-force limitations human pilots do, can do far more dangerous jobs because we can afford to lose them, etc. We should never make another fighter that has a pilot IMO....maybe not any kind of military fighting plane.
I also love the A-10, but I've never had to fight in one. That cannon though, so satisfying.

When Baron Von Steuben was asked about the colonial troops he'd trained during the American Revolution, he wrote, "‘The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians, Austrians, or French. You say to your [European] soldier, “Do this,” and he doeth it, but I am obliged to say, “This is the reason why you ought to do that,” and he does it.’”

That, in a nutshell, is what it means to be an American. We'll do it, but first you have to explain yourself. Of course, that can be trained out of them, but it's a lot harder than you'd think.

John Cleese is hardly new to this. When he and the python troop made Life of Brian, more than 35 years ago, church leaders tried hard , and in many locations succeeded in getting it banned.

Back then he did the circuits talking with religious leaders defending that he had the right to still say something even if they disagreed with it. It's worth noting, much of his support came from within Academia were young students were eager to push back against the religious leaders controlling what people should and shouldn't say in a film.

Fast forward 35 years to today, and now a new batch of young students from Academia are making the exact same fight against what should and should not be said. Professors and administrators who don't get on board are getting fired. Students who don't get on board are being expelled.

Where the religious leaders used to try and shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects, today it is SJWs trying to shut down criticism of their views on religion, abortion, sexual identity and other subjects.

Cleese is at least being even handed with calling actions out on both ends of spectrum regardless were he sits on it. It's tragic that the notion of critical thought and argument is done better by comedians than supposed leaders of thought both 35 years ago and still today.

It's just so fucking amazing that they've doubled down on "until we figure out what's going on" as a yardstick for policy, I goddamn love it. All policies should be phrased like this - "the war on drugs will continue, until somebody is able to tell me what the deal is!" "No stem cell research until somebody straightens out what's with all the confusion!" "Our troops will stay in Afghanistan until we know what it is we're doing!"

Wow....Carson really meant a "moment" of silence for victims, didn't he.

Did Christie really just say that working with congress is going to make his eyes glaze over? He knows that that's a large part of the job he's trying to get, doesn't he?

"They don't need to be forced, they need to be asked." is about the worst, most uninformed, proof of a lack of understanding answer Fiorina could have given to the question..."They say they WONT help the FBI, now, crack encrypted communications from ISIS, should they be forced to?"

"You would carpet bomb where ISIS is...not a city, but the location of the troops."...I guess Cruz just doesn't know the ISIS troops are mainly in the cities.

"If you're an American citizen, and you decide to join up with ISIS, we're not going to read you your Miranda rights, you're going to be treated as an enemy combatant, a member of an army attacking this country..." shows clearly that Rubio doesn't understand 'innocent until proven guilty', the basis of our legal system, and has decided that anyone ACCUSED of joining ISIS deserves illegal imprisonment without trial and without end. Marco Rubio has joined ISIS....go get him boys.

"Getting our smartest and getting our best to infiltrate their...internet." That's going to be fairly hard for Trump after he rounds up all the Muslims and deports them for being in the wrong religion, or executes them for something a family member did. I don't really think our best and smartest Muslims are going to want to work for him at that point.

I'm pretty sure that's the first time in history that Trump complained about being mentioned too often.

I'm stunned that I watched the whole thing. My brain hurts, and I just threw up in my mouth a little...but I did it.

newtboy, death has long not been considered snuff if it newsworthy, historic or artful. Or haven't you seen the millions of fucking police and troops killing people on the sift? They are allowed because they are "unexpected" and newsworthy. In fact that is exactly what @lucky760 told me back then. Guess he was wrong back then eh?

Or how about when I posted the video of mother nature being a powerful, awe inspiring motherfucker? There was definitely death in this vein there. I was told it was fine, because it showed the artistic power of mother-nature. That came from the mods and nearly everyone else. A few did argue their point, "But, but...it shows someone dying..."

Or how about the world's ten greatest tragedies that showed a fighter pilot drown with his jet? Oh the video was historically based, but that particular pilot's death was in no way historical at all. Yet it was defended and remained.

Honestly, if you have no clue what you are talking about, then shut up. You can argue the homeless saving people does not matter (not newsworthy,) you could argue that I could have edited it, but don't pull that bullshit "just because both die from gunshots."

In my opinion this is the definition of newsworthy. More of this needs shown to the world so they fucking have to eat the truth--that heroes can be poor street men. This is art in a very sad way. Like a fucking painting of a great man standing, defending a wall against a force much larger than his own. This is fucking news because no one expects it and it stuns people awake.

Your cake is now ready for miniature tabletop war gaming. Deploy the troops!

Hell, I thought facing down a haka from 15 year old rugby players (used to play school Rugby Union when I was in NZ for a couple of years) was powerful.

For more information/context on haka's in general, this page gives a pretty good overview.

https://mysendoff.com/2014/04/funeral-haka-a-powerful-dance-from-the-soul/

There's a video of NZ defense force personal performing a haka for troops killed in action attached for those that are interested.

I never played the original old school X COM, but I played all of Enemy Unknown on Ironman, and I have mixed feelings about a rewind system.

First, I think ironman really adds to the experience of X COM. There's a genuine sense of loss when one of your best troops dies.

I wouldn't mind an option for a rewind system, by with one caveat.
Invisible Inc. is clearly designed with the rewind system in mind (and it's a great game). But I'd still like to play X COM without the rewind without the game penalising me for it, i.e. the games get easier with it rather than harder without it.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining that very well.

Stuffing soldiers into gas chambers to test out the effect of mustard gas... yeah, how about we file that under "who gave that green light?!", mkay.

lol. Look at you.. just a silly old racist white cop trying DESPERATELY to justify how that arrest was lawful.

You know, the same arrest that an Honorable & Almighty Judge and Court declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

"well.. he should have just listened."

You're saying that a former Army Staff Sergeant, who was completely and demonstrably within his rights at all times..

Should let a plainclothes "Alcohol Officer" detain, harass, then threaten him with arrest?

I thought you supported our Veterans & Troops, Lantern.

Clearly you're just an UnAmerican fascist.

"Obey! Obey the order of the Authorities!"

Just like Nazis. Chessmate, Racists!

And then what? They're gonna take your guns away?
Always this silly paranoia about jade helmets and black helicopters. They don't send armed troops for you, they just sell you to Walmart. What good are heavily armed cops when they're owned by OCP?

Its a matter of chicken vs egg. They don't need huge military expenditures because security is provided by the US. But if they and all their neighbors had to provide sufficient defense, mostly against the people who are most likely to invade them (i.e. their neighbors), you get an arms race like you have with India/Pakistan, North/South Korea, Iran/Saudi Arabia. The indirect savings and the refocusing of capital and human resources away from the military in all of these allies countries makes the world a much safer place, since war no longer becomes the go to solution for states to resolve differences.

US bases do fall into 2 categories. Allies who don't want to get invaded again, and enemies who lost and became allies. As for Kuwait, that didn't work out well for Iraq, and Kuwait is still independent and an ally. Ukraine has no US bases, Russia would go ballistic if there were (surprisingly appropriate use of the word). ISIS is the anomaly, but right now you can put that down to the fact that Obama really, really doesn't want to put US troops on the ground (think he would hesitate if ISIS invaded England or Australia for example?), and that Iraq's military is trying to handle this as much as possible on their own and clearly having trouble.

I don't know if we need all 800 bases currently or if some are just vestigial. I'm not qualified to give an opinion on the necessity of them, though

A little history can go a long way. They were in the fight by choice 3 years before we were dragged into action, and over 15% of their nation enlisted, over 10% of their nation fought overseas, a higher percentage than the US for much longer. We hardly protected them from the Japanese, they protected and hosted US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_New_Zealand_during_World_War_II
When Japan entered the war in December 1941, the New Zealand Government raised another expeditionary force, known as the 2nd N.Z.E.F. In the Pacific, or 2nd N.Z.E.F. (I.P.), for service with the Allied Pacific Ocean Areas command. This force supplemented existing garrison troops in the South Pacific. The main fighting formation of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. (I.P.) comprised the New Zealand 3rd Division. However, the 3rd Division never fought as a formation; its component brigades became involved in semi-independent actions as part of the Allied forces in the Solomons, Treasury Islands and Green Island.
Eventually, American formations replaced the New Zealand army units in the Pacific, which released personnel for service with the 2nd Division in Italy, or to cover shortages in the civilian labour-force. New Zealand Air Force squadrons and Navy units contributed to the Allied island-hopping campaign.

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/us-forces-in-new-zealand
"The American soldier found himself ‘deep in the heart of the South Seas’, in the words of his army-issue pocket guide. He usually came here either before or immediately after experiencing the horror of war on a Pacific island, and he found a land of milk and honey (literally), of caring mothers and ‘pretty girls’."
"So the ‘American invasion’ (as New Zealanders affectionately called it) brought a considerable clash of cultures. "

Sorry to inconvenience your feelings and expressions of superiority with some facts.