Comments by "Laird Cummings" (@lairdcummings9092) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

  1. Not only three generations flying the B-52, but there are cases of pilots and crew flying the exact same B-52 aircraft their fathers and grandfathers flew. The tradition is going to continue...
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  2. Never underestimate the perversity of aero engineers. My father was one, and he came up with damnedest ideas.
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  3. All is necessary is to open the range, turn, and re-engage. Lather, rinse, repeat every time the prop aircraft evades. The jet pilot only needs to get it right once; the prop pilot has to get it right every time; so long as the jet has fuel and ammo, the odds are infinitely on the jet's side.
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  4. Malta has a long and glorious history of withstanding sieges. Assaulting Malta would have been much bloodier for the Germans than the assault and capture of Crete.
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  5. The US has a long history of slapping guidance systems on existing 'dumb' munitions and creating extremely lethal new hybrid weapons. More importantly, rearming is much less costly, as packaging and shipping the necessary sub-components is vastly less expensive than shipping the entire missile. Once they arrive in Ukraine, they can be mated with Hydra rockets already in inventory - and Hydra rockets are everywhere, being one of the most common free-flight aerial rockets on the planet. As you note, cost per shot is out of line with the cost of the target, but not even remotely as costly as other systems, and drones are just too dangerous to be allowed free-reign over the battlefield.
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  6.  @dystopianlucidity4448  "...one of the best service records on the planet." Fixed that for ya.
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  7. Willy Messerschmitt had one hell of a brilliant mind. Ironic (or maybe not?) That his last name means 'Blade Smith.' (Alternatively: knife or sword smith / maker)
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  8. Moscow is claiming that they were outnumbered 8-1 in the Kharkiv Oblast. Given the usual Russian propaganda practice, that probably means that the Ukrainians had about 80% of the Russian forces, but concentrated those forces heavily to obtain local superiority. This is, oddly, not an indictment of the Russian forces - the soldiers, at least - once a rout starts, you either must contain it immediately, or you must get EVERYONE out as fast as possible. Cascade failure is a pernicious thing, and if you want to save anything, you need to step sharply back and get to a stable condition. Of course, that means you wind up surrendering a LOT of your gains and goods. No, the indictment here is against the Russian leadership. First, they fell for the Ukrainian's brilliant bit of theater in Kherson - A real counter offensive, not just a pretend one, but a real offensive also designed to lure Russian forces out of position. EVERYONE fell for that - Western Analysts, media, and most certainly Russia. Western high military leaders probably knew it was coming, and it's known that the US War College has been helping game the counter offensive, so certainly, high US, and probably NATO commanders as well, knew what to expect. Security on this? IMPRESSIVE! Because of the bizarre nature of Putin's War, it is an undeclared war, and Russia cannot actually - legally - fully mobilize. So, to gain reserves and reinforcements, it's faster and easier to shift troops from elsewhere on the front lines. Ukraine understood this, and exploited it brilliantly. Second, the Russian leadership has done a shit job of motivating their troops. This goes all the way back to Putin, and his attempt to destroy Ukraine 'on the cheap.' Un-motivated troops will crack when presented with the kind of conditions that a terrifying assault presents. When the front lines begin to crumble, un-engaged units will crack and run too, to avoid being overrun. a small crack, and an unexpected advance is bad enough, but when a primary defense line that the soldiers are relying upon to hold gets flanked and rolled up, confidence shatters, and then so do the units. Third, Russian command and control SUCKS. So does their ability to act flexibly in the face of change. Initiative is almost entirely lacking. Contrary-wise, Ukrainian forces have a very much more 'Western' outlook, with initiative encouraged and flexible response as a key concept. Rigid command and control is VERY bad at dealing with rapid changes, and the failure of the defense lines outside Balakliya is exactly the kind of thing that Russian-style leadership handles worst. Additionally, looking at the defense lines seen in aerial footage shows clear signs of unskilled low-level leadership; straight trench lines, poor camouflage, squalid conditions in base camps, and generally bad fieldcraft tells me that the local NCOs are just not up to the task.
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  9. UK personal kit has been one of the better contributions to Ukraine; a miserable soldier is ineffective. British kit is pretty damn good.
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  10.  @sealove79able  it was an exact duplicate. Same virtues, same vices. Even the instrument labels were copied. The Soviets even built an entire mill to roll out aluminum sheeting in the correct (SAE) guage. Edit: Stalin was terribly frightening; Tupelov had to appeal directly to the Politburo and eventually Stalin, to get permission to substitute superior Soviet 23mm cannon in the turrets.
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  11.  @sealove79able  actually, it was a precise reverse engineered B-29. It was designed in Seattle. The Russians had to literally build new tooling, as everything they had was Metric, and they had very little SAE standard tooling.
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  12.  @sealove79able  they didn't avoid the bill. They paid for it in the costs to duplicate the tooling, disassemble and measure EVERYTHING, then assemble the clones. Engineering time, materials costs - including research into materials properties as well as development of tools, machines, foundries, and mills necessary to reproduce those materials - plus flight analysis and assessment - AND dealing with the overhead costs that Soviet bureaucracy inevitably involved, all that was one HELL of a bill. Truthfully, it was a MASTERFUL engineering accomplishment - and completely unnecessary. Soviet aircraft engineers were extremely capable. It would have made more sense, and cost much less, to have simply flown the B-29, noting its performance and capabilities, and build a new aircraft from scratch that could duplicate or exceed its accomplishments. Which, amusingly, is exactly what another design group did, producing a perfectly capable performance match for less cost.
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  13. Respect the Bear.
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  14.  @plugs313  yes, the exact same airframe.
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  15. Add to this that the US has a substantial fleet of legacy Soviet and Russian aircraft, flying for the Aggressor training squadron. Those aircraft cannot rely on Russia for parts, reloads, and maintenance, so America will have at least some experience integrating US weapons with Russian designs.
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  16. The Italian navy produced some of the scariest small unit forces in WWII, from frogmen to small craft operations. Whilst their major combatants did not have great success, the allies were justifiably worried about Italian torpedo boats, swimmers, and special ops units in the Mediterranean. Did they fail a lot? Yes, but they were doing extremely dangerous things against well-defended, important targets.
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  17.  @charlesmoss8119  "Ferret Herding" is a job. A rather important one, especially within budget lines.
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  18.  @mathewkelly9968  as a former submariner, I feel your pain. Fortunately, someone in the design stages must've been a working sailor, because there was always a way, even if it wasn't immediately obvious. My father's 'specialty' was designing processes and equipment with the maintainer in mind - speed, convenience, ease of operation - that terrified bureaucrats.
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  19. There's little pressure to change the chassis or power plant - there's been no failure of performance there. Turret, electronics, and weapons are where the pressure is being felt.
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  20. Whales and potted petunias fly better than the Christmas Bullet.
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  21.  @sealove79able  the ANT-64. Had it been allowed to continue development (Stalin again!) it would have been designated "TU-10." Instead, a different aircraft was given the TU-10 designation. There's very little Western documentation on the ANT-64. Edit: Development on the ANT-64 was halted in '47, simultaneously with the completion of the TU-4; a shame, as the 64 looks to have been a somewhat superior aircraft, based on what is known.
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  22.  @friedtomatoes4946  initially, many many volunteers knew nothing, and they suffered viciously for it. But they helped slow the Russians enough for a better trained cadre to muster and solidify. The Ukrainians have a three tier force, and only the top tier are truly professional. Of course, there's nothing like being in combat to sharpen your skills. By now, even the volunteers are getting pretty good.
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  23.  @briancavanagh7048  they do. You are utterly wrong in your assertion. The Russian Federation has four ranks of NCO. They also have two ranks of private soldier. Starshina - First Sergeant Starshiy Serzhant - Senior or Staff Sergeant Serzhant - Sergeant Mladshiy Serzhant - Junior Sergeant These ranks are drawn from RF Law 293 2010
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  24. Russian artillery is on its collective last legs, having shot their tubes out. Re-sleeving a howitzer takes a fair bit of time, and there are thousands in need of repair. T-54/55 makes a perfectly viable SP Artillery Gun. There is a LOT of 100mm ammo out there, including modern munitions. I have little doubt that the Russians are going to be using these as stop-gap SP Artillery, a role in which they're perfectly capable, and generally safe from direct anti-tank fire. At least, until these, too, wear out.
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  25. Certainly the Aggressor training squadrons will have been integrated - can't count on Russia to supply spare parts and reloads, so it only makes sense to use equivalent Western systems, parts, and weapons. That would give a big leg up in integration development.
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  26. A shame... It's absolutely lovely.
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  27. Yep. Following on the AC-47, the AC119 was a cheaper version of the AC-130. Money is always a concern.
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  28. The Ram tank was a solid enough design, other than the obsolete bow MG mini-turret. It certainly deserved a better look, but, well... Things happen.
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  29. Who knows what might get added. Air defense lasers are a thing already. Now, they need to mature enough to be stuffed in an aircraft. The 52 has an advantage, in that it's got LOTS of room and load capacity for an early development system.
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  30. 🤣
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  31. The original killer drones are Automobile Torpedoes. Programed before launch, autonomous after launch, and specifically intended to self navigate to their target via depth regulation and course maintenance features, the earliest torpedos were simple and crude, but still killer robots. Since the advent of homing torpedos in WWII, they've even become self-guiding. Automobile Torpedoes have been killing humans since the 19th Century. Anti-drone warfare is probably the "killer app" for lasers. Laser tech is powerful enough to down most drones, and more than sufficiently agile to track and engage even the most erratically-evading drone.
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  32. The Border Patrol could make good use of these...
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  33.  @sealove79able  propeller-driven, radial engines. Not directly a predecessor to the TU-95, but lessons and skills learned definitely contributed to the Bear.
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  34. Budget issues have killed more aircraft than enemy fire... 😛
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  35.  @FortuneZer0  pffft. That's not a dynasty. That's an anecdote.
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  36.  @Mr.Robert1  there are always outliers - I put enough of their butts on the bus. Or you have families like mine; Father and Sister-in-Law were USAF, Uncles were Army Air Corps, Father- and Uncle-in-Law, plus my wife and myself, were Navy. Not one of the next generation are serving at all. Two-generation cluster, I guess you could call it.
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  37. Tubby thing. Blackburn just couldn't be bothered to be normal, could they? The British answer to Blohm & Voss.
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  38. No. Range and response time issues make that not worth the trouble. Machine guns do not do well with frangible ammunition, and have very strictly limited range. Auto shotguns are far worse. Then, recall the footage of Baghdad in the Gulf Wars: great, wasteful hoses of fire sweeping across the sky trying - and failing - to hit full-sized aircraft. Even radar-guided autocannon have trouble scoring direct hits and still must carry loads of heavy ammunition, with limited range. Lasers are fast and precise to aim, the 'ammunition' comes as liquid fuel and arrives by tanker instead of great big cans that are 50% brass and propellant, and are very quiet and unlikely to generate any significant firing signature (which means limited counter-batter response.)
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  39. The ammunition is bulky, so you don't have much of it. The rate of fire is low, so you have limited chances to score a kill, the range is short, so you don't have much of a combat envelope. If you want light, swift, close AA artillery defense, the smart money is on 35mm to 40m systems.
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  40. We heard you like wings, so we put some wings on your wings on your wings...
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  41. Common behavior in the US military. There's a VERY long history of slapping random parts off the shelf together to meet new needs.
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  42.  @briancavanagh7048  class act. 👍
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  43.  @megagamernick9883  planning for ideal terrain for your weapons is so early 20th Century.
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  44. A similar argument has been made in support of the m-91 carcano rifle; not the most modern battle rifle - not even in the Italian inventory - but adequate to the task and far cheaper than retooling and replacing the existing inventory at a time when resources were severely constrained.
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  45. Funky! I love it.
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  46. With no developmental road map, you have to expect to explore quite a few blind alleys.
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  47. S-3! (and variants) Used to call them the 'Hoover,' the 'Vacuum,' and even the 'Whistling Shitcan,' on account of the extremely distinctive sound they made with their high-bypass turbofans. I spent a good chunk of my life at SUBASE San Diego on Point Loma, right across the channel from NAS North Island, and those things were always buzzing in and out.
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  48. You fight how you train. For years, Moscow has prioritized glitter over substance. Add to that the utterly corrupt nature of Russian society, and, well... This is the result.
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  49. What might have been...
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  50. This cross-integration presents a very scary prospect for Russia. One of the barriers of Eastward expansion of NATO lies in integration of weapons platforms and systems. Now, not only can Ukraine rearm with Western weapons, but the path forward to full integration with Western systems has been unlocked.
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