Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "Binkov's Battlegrounds" channel.

  1. She did (in 1940). Remember, Italy was considered an allied nation (or, at worst, a neutral one) until she swept into France on Hitler's heels. Abyssinia was all but forgotten by then.
    27
  2. 9:30 Remember Osirak? Israel has bombed nuclear power facilities before and endured the - ahem- fallout. Why not now?
    14
  3. What is the point of a stealth fighter carrying external stores? Anything increasing RaDAR returns is the antithesis of stealth. That seems to suggest that the F22 will not use or carry external stores in combat. Additionally, if stealth is so easily ignored/discounted by mission planners so that nations load their stealthy aircraft with external clutter, then stealth should not have been the main design thrust. In fact, it's a huge waste of valuable resources (and potential improvements to overall performance) for an evidently unimportant return. The only stealth is clean stealth, is it not?
    9
  4. What a change, From all domestic, Now we'll use, A different metric!
    7
  5. Autonomous AFVs with high velocity, rapid fire, cannon. Everyone is doing it, of course, in order to save on paychecks and casualties among military personnel. Our experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria suggests that Civilian casualties will climb to astronomical levels with introduction of autonomous AFVs to the battlefield, contested border, or avenue to political asylum. That scene from Robocop keeps coming back. E.D. 209 automatically grabbing the Autocannon instead of the TASER. Imagine if the Berlin wall had been covered with autocannon armed autonomous AFVs! "No asylum for YOU!" Clean, efficient, mathematically beautiful, murder. If any among you knows what a "Punkerpan" is, you've already guessed how this will go.
    6
  6. Germany has plenty of antiship missiles. Sink the British Fleet (and Area Denial Munition the heck out of, say, Scapa Flow) and Seelowe will take care of the rest!
    6
  7. A 1st rate presentation. Liked and shared. Thanks for posting, Binkov!
    6
  8. Mmmm . . . oochin interestni. Plusses and minuses to either side. Allies) The allies had nothing like the IS-2 or ISU-152. The transchannel pipeline was a joke. It never worked. So-fuel tether very short. Allied strategic bombers would've been vulnerable to Soviet high altitude interceptors*. Allies had almost zero AA units forward, other than corps level towed guns (of 75mm and 90mm caliber), and precious few of those. Allied troops dangerously vulnerable to frontal aviation raids. Soviets) The Soviets were years behind on the A-bomb. Soviet cruiser classes and battleships had been delayed by/given up to the exigencies of war. Soviet interdiction of allied shipping would be a no go. Soviet rail net, so crucial for resupply and strategic troop movement, was in shambles. Much of Soviet industry had been moved out of reach of Allied medium bombers. Soviet food supplies were utterly inadequate; largely subsidized by the west. Strategic Situation) Zero chance of Soviet interdiction of Allied strategical mobility and ultra-long range strike capability. Zero chance of Allies countering the Soviet FLOT, let alone stopping the trickle of reserves into the line. Both sides were running out of fresh recruits. The west could feed its troops. The west could build more demon cores-though at a very slow pace. Allied advantages in RaDAR and ECM could prove pivotal. Conclusion) The Soviet government would disappear with the 1st "demon core nuke" dropped. Without Mockba there IS no Soviet Union. Sounds unpleasantly Hitleresque, I agree, but I hold it true. On the day we (the western allies) dropped the core we could spam the skies** with strategic bombers, making it impossible for the Soviets to know which B29 or Lanc had the core onboard. *Which they had few of at the time ** The infamous "Thousand Bomber Raids" were a real thing.
    5
  9. Thought provoking. Thanks for posting, Binkov. I don't mean to denigrate the MSDF, but I think that 8 Nucs and 8 Kilos could account for the whole of the Nihonese maritime force. A test of CIWS would ensue. And MSDF ships pursuing a "noisy" sub will be lured into a Kilo trap. Similarly, the Hyugas would make dandy targets for Russian ASMs, including their Fleet Busters. The air war will be maskirovka; a high profile sideshow, a convenient place for the media to focus on, while it ignores the real fight going on in and under the sea. The Russians have two things the Japanese do not: 1) Overkill and 2) Overkill doctrine. 20 missiles might be intercepted . . . out of two hundred that come in. Even though some of the missiles are more pricy than some of their targets, he who laughs last laughs best. Japan as a nation has the same rights as any nation. Japan as a US ally in the region is backed by the OTHER overkill power. No one yet knows how much hypermach AA missiles will change the game. And, if Russia publicly announces it is sending Status 6 Strategic loitering torpedoes "to patrol the region" (or even threatens it) then the game will be thrown out the window and we'll all go back to "Duck and Cover".
    5
  10. Excellent coverage of the complex set of factors shaping the future of new fighter aircraft. Good stuff, Binkov.
    4
  11. Chinese and Indian troops are clashing up at lake Tso, beating each other to death with rifle butts and rocks. Expect escalation to name calling and invective hurling . . . oh, and maybe machine guns and artillery. It's too cold up there for anything else . . . except, maybe, Cold Fusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JPYkDYqONQ
    4
  12. Inshow ads today are longer than they were for broadcast t.v. in my youth. Ask your sponsors for more support per unit of time, Binkov. They are taking advantage of you at present-and they know it.
    3
  13. Riffing here . . . If you send a wave of slow cruise missiles in, the enemy will shoot them down. That locates enemy batteries and gives the needed ElInt about frequencies and satellite links and whatnot. You then target those batteries and logistical sites with your ballistic missiles- which are pretty much hypersonic and difficult to intercept. Only then do you send in the armed drones. Once the area is secure from the air, you can move in ground forces and start building Dollar General stores*. I'll leave by the door marked: "Party Members Only". Safer in the crowd, you know. --- * Imagine being the link between Chinese manufacturing and the Chinese consumer. Send the goods to us, we charge a tariff and send them back. Everybody all singsong girls and opium after. No war feasible once you've rigged the system against it.
    3
  14. Liked and linked. Was already subscribed.
    3
  15. Binkov. The USN has deployed (in the past) nuclear weapon warheads for ASROC stand off ASW rockets. Since these weapons detonate underwater, a well planned shot into a choke point could eliminate Enemy* submarine threats without setting off alarms in the enemy capitol. Such a plan, if the shot is unobserved by Elint and other high resolution sensors, might not be understood by the enemy, especially in a confused ElInt and visual observation nightmare. *Possibly the Chinese, but one never knows for sure. China is often our trading partner, and the hope is that peaceful means will ever prevail.
    2
  16. Just curious; considering the dearth of supercarriers elsewhere and her utter lack of near peers in the region, why would China want to build a money pit like that? All I can think is "under the table rake-offs". A LOT of money can be misappropriated in the course of a supercarrier's construction and outfitting and maintenance contracts. China's great myth is that she has "never invaded anyone". Adding the caveat "successfully" makes it true. So why a supercarrier and why now, when her national infrastructure is in shambles?
    2
  17. Hi Binkov. Love the content. I think we're all guilty of historical blindness in the current era. We don't ask "Why the move away from valuable capitol ships in the postwar (post 1945)?" To admit the submarine threat is too great to put that many eggs in one basket. Has anything changed? I don't think so*. Unless you're going for a supercarrier, a ship that large is simply another missile trap. *Submarines are still a carrier's greatest under the bed monster. Sensors and stealth just about keep up with one another.
    2
  18. A few thoughts on your most thought-provoking presentation. We do know, not where carriers are, but where they must be. An aircraft carrier is part of a task group, including underway replenishment vessels. These lesser ships are nowhere near as fast as a carrier is. Couple that to the necessity of carrier launches/recoveries: due to overloading of the planes, they are usually launched/recovered into the wind. What happens is that the replenishment fleet train follows a straight course, while the carrier and her fastest escorts make huge circles, loops, that reconnect with the fleet train at regular intervals. This means a carrier group needs a thousand miles of open water to do its job. Since planes and missiles have clearly defined ranges, the radius inside of which the carrier must be to launch an attack on a specific target can be drawn on a map. Locate the thousand mile stretches of open ocean within that radius and you'll know where the carrier MUST be to launch a strike.
    2
  19. Wow. Thanks for a very informative and quite persuasive presentation. Good stuff.
    2
  20. Man! How does a Longbow type rotor post top RaDAR avoid blade clutter?
    2
  21. "Plus, Drone data links can be compromised." -Binkov That sort of thinking keeps me awake at night. A helo has a man on the scene making decisions in real time. He's incredibly vulnerable, of course. A drone has a guy at the end of a jammable Optronic link. Drones are cheaper. Drones don't lose crewmen when shot down. The big nations have drones that can be constantly updated by satellite up/downlink. Anyone can build a broadband radio jammer on native soil. It's worth thinking about if your enemy has the upper hand, technologically speaking. When statecraft fails all that matters is who has uninterruptable access to petrol/diesel oil/kerosene/naval crude . . . and the infrastructure able to pump it where needed in short order. This infrastructure can be vulnerable to interdiction. Low intensity warfare is such only from the dominant nation's point of view. The other guy is going at it hammer and tongs for all he's worth. My conclusions at present are that helos are great examples of how technology indexes with need-dovetailing, modifying, updating, gradually losing relevance near the FLOT as countermeasures become more mature. Their (helos) superior mobility comes at a high cost compared to ordinary highway transport in terms of dollars per unit of weight/mass transported. In the process weight/distance/speed/cost the truck always comes out ahead*. This makes the armed helo a better convoy escort than a transport. For this it still rocks. For a lot of other missions, especially recon, the drone seems superior. If I may venture hyperbole: Drone war is a game and gamers improve every time they're killed or destroyed. Not so pilots in the real world. They make a single error and it's game over. A formidable "Ender's Game" is about to begin. Manned Helos will not be as important as once they were. The best drone pilots will be the new rock stars of the military art. *Over land. Over water it's probably the airship. Just sayin'.
    2
  22. Liked and shared. Was already subscribed.
    2
  23.  @frankmiller95  Hehe.
    1
  24. Very informative. Thanks for posting. I linked it.
    1
  25. Huh! That Mil28 sure looks like an Apache. Parallel evolution?
    1
  26. How about a Russian Carrier supported battlegroup based on Kirov versus a Chinese opposite number?
    1
  27. Gospodeen Binkov . . . I would suggest that China spends far less on a given item than the USA does. J20, for instance, is pricy, but not like F22 or F35. Type 99 is a sexy budget item, but not on the same level as the latest M1A2 variant. The comparison comes, as you well know, with an index of factors, training level, experience level, material and logistical level, mission goals, and numbers. We'll probably face China's might in Africa, in a country most USA citizens have only occasionally heard mentioned. The Chinese will "equip a national patriotic army" (commanded by local generals handpicked by the Chinese) to which the USA will respond with an "International coalition" (of neo-colonial oppressors-the same folks who screwed Africa up in the first place) to "restore democracy" (meaning return the USA friendly dictators to power). What we have here, moi droog, is the latest iteration of the same old thing: neo-colonialism. The French, in particular, never stopped. Bad guys stirring the anthill to keep the ants from organizing and building their own power block (which sets prices the abusing nations don't like). In other words, both US backed and Chinese backed forces will (always will) act exactly opposite to stated goals and aims. Remember the old adage: Politics is rape of a national economy by con men with gun in pocket. War is rape of innocents in OTHER nations with gun in hand.
    1
  28. Interesting.
    1
  29. WT is fine, but I am a WoT guy. ;-)
    1
  30. Don't get me started on lead additives for making AvGas-we had it all.
    1
  31. Full disclosure: it's not a new idea. The British did it first, of course, with the Stamp Act.
    1
  32. Liked and linked to a Marine buddy. Was already subscribed.
    1
  33. Speaking of the political situation . . . would Israel dare to use nuclear devices if warned by the US and Russia to abstain? I'm thinking-yes, but, what kind of reaction would she receive from the 1st world nations when the threat of fallout poisoning much of the world's oil production, processing, and shipping, machinery, not to mention the farms and produce areas of the respective nations involved . . . and the arable soil of the other nations in the path of the prevailing winds, is considered?
    1
  34. Interesting. Here are some of my thoughts on topic: The quagmire of Japanese adventurism in China and the Indonesian collective would act as a brake on the national greed for booty and slaves. Japan was fully committed in China to the point that she was dependent on US and Dutch oil, and, most importantly, US Lead (and other) additives crucial to the manufacture of AvGas. Our aid to these regions was insignificant. Japan would be defeated. Similarly with Germany. Lead additives or MW:50? The German system was far harder on airplane engines. This had a telling effect on Germanys effectiveness in the air war. Taking the Caucasian oil fields was not going to help with that. I cite Ploesti. Something many historians overlook is that the USA was the #1 producer of oil based fuels and additives. Without her aid a lot would change for every nation involved in the conflict. In my view, the war at sea was a determined effort by each belligerent nation to raise insurance rates on maritime trade to the point where insuring ships became unprofitable.
    1
  35. Also, research the amount of military calories/protein per man per day. SPAM was an incredible resource (whose downside: excessive dependence on potted meat products led to heart disease in WW2 veterans in years to come; would not be felt for years).
    1
  36. Wow. If so, this is a major deal. Rossiyah is teetering between a leading 2nd world power and 3rd world nation status. A defeat now would be tacit admission of the latter. Even so . . . On balance, Putin can present to his constituents that it took the combined might of the whole of the west to bring a few Rossiyan divisions to a standstill. We'll naturally spin it as a decisive victory for democracy. Which is it from your perspective? I worry it's simply oil/energy billionaires struggling for shares of the world market, using blood and sacrifice as propaganda goads for windfall profits. The tail wags the dog, as it has even done.
    1
  37. Interesting stuff and I'm glad MHV sent me to you. Here are my two rials on the topic, and thanks for the forum in which to express them. To whit: If the USA or the Russian Federation provides a side with satellite intel and modern ElInt it becomes pretty wild very quick. If the two superpowers (three if China decides to throw in the gauge) deploy physical assets the proxy war will become a slugging match from which the major arms manufacturers will be the only ones who profit. Pursuant to this premise, I also think the Syrian conflict is a testing of the ability of the two superpowers to fight one another under highly detailed and closely constrained rules of engagement and of refusal. Sad that innocents must die so that foreign power governments can play war games with real ordnance. The alternatives, however, are limited: 1) Give up the idea of armed struggle as a way of forcing policy on the unwilling, or 2) War between the USA (and its satellite nations) and the Russian Federation. Shortfall, in any missile conflict between the two, will take out all of Europe, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and Korea . . . in fact, only Australia will survive with any real hope of recovery. That's the game our governments play against one another . . . a game devised by idiots, played by idiots (if the obvious consequences don't make you back off you're legally an idiot) and which can't be won. All the players can do is make the board radioactive. Like I said: idiots.
    1
  38. And, ultimately I have to wonder why they'd be escalating this tension at a time when oil is being edged out as a primary power source. In ten years, only railroad trains will burn oil for power. Everything else will be coal and LP gas burning electrical generation, Ethanol and other renewable biofuels, nuclear power (another bad idea; using the rarest, most expensive, most long term polluting, elemental substance known for fuel), Solar, Geothermal, Wind, and/or Hydroelectric and Tidal. Which means that the Middle East will no longer be important in a strategic sense. So the question arises: why threaten to kill millions--perhaps hundreds of millions--over a dead issue? Like I said: idiots. Let's deal with our terrible domestic crises instead and BEFORE we stick our heads into someone else's anthill..
    1
  39. After all, the USA has Meth and the Federation has Krokodil. Those are grave social threats, more important by far, than the vicissitudes of an uncertain conflict hundreds . . . or thousands . . . of miles away.
    1