Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Military Aviation History" channel.

@brantregare The US does not sell crippled aircraft to its NATO partners. It's the USSR that was famed for 'monkey models.' Admittedly, the exported machines are not 100% equivalent to US machines. But they are not dogs. The Israelis accept US exports -- and they don't do so badly with -- what you term as -- cripples. The UK is not getting 'dogs.' The US wants its NATO partners to have un-beatable fighters, bombers, and everything else. It does not figure to -- or fear -- fighting its NATO allies under any scenario. The weirdness of the Turks: Russian S-400s will obviously not bother the Russian air force. So their only purpose must be to shoot at NATO aircraft. What kind of crazy tyrant pays Big Bucks for weapons that only ever can work if aimed at his allies ? Yet, the S-400 does not work against F-35s. This is rather obvious from the Syrian strikes by the Israelis. No-one is bubbling up with what the weaknesses of the S-400 are -- but the Israelis have figured on some work-arounds -- that's for sure.
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Stay with Dakota and Commando.
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While witty, you're spot on. That really is the hang-up.
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@milanradovanovic3693 How in the world can you know such facts? None of the players is ever going to spill such beans. Even if an S-400 is never launched, it's in the nature of electronic warfare that the players joust with each other's technology. Can you imagine the consequences of an S-400 launch that fails? The S-300 has been shown to be defeatable by the IDF. BTW, the US and IDF... et. al don't fly their F-35s without adding noise-makers during peace-time operations. True stealth mode is only entered during true combat operations -- and only if it is actually necessary. The same gambit is used with USN attack subs. The intent is to hide -- at all times -- just how quiet, quiet can be. Similarly, the F-15 flew for decades with throttle restrictors. It did so even when it was flown against friendlies ( Indian Air Force ) in 'jousts.' The only time the Indians witnessed just how dynamic the F-15 was -- was when it flew inside the USA -- during synthetic warfare exercises. When that happened, the Indians spun their opinions around. The Russians are of the same bent. They never actually reveal their true combat capabilities during synthetic warfare exercises. At such times, the pilots are being trained, but true capabilities are not to be revealed.... even to the pilots, themselves. I just can't believe you're in a position to know what's going on over Syria. You sound like a salesman for the S-400 system. BTW, all SAM systems have one weakness: they eventually run out of missiles. And those missiles are hardly cheap. My gut feel is that Putin wants to sell the S-400 a lot more than he wants to use it. How else to explain selling it to Turkey, a die hard NATO nation? And you know that that particular system can't be more than a 'monkey model.' No WAY can Moscow turn over a critical asset to the West. The USAF couldn't turn over the F-35 to Moscow, either.
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@milanradovanovic3693 I'm not kidding. Stealth aircraft are hard to terminally guide missiles against. That's the kicker. It takes large radar to even begin to track stealth aircraft. So it's no surprise that the S-400 has a huge installation -- and power consumption. But, your thesis is that Erdogan has bought S-400s to successfully destroy American aircraft, a machine that Ankara was intending to field itself. That's just too strange. The other issue with all stealth designs is that they are so stealthy that it's pretty easy for anyone to spoof detection radars. Traditionally, radars are jammed by giving the receiver too many returns -- not 'nothing returns.' As for the truth over Syria, I'd not trust any of the players to expose the truth. So I just can't go with your level of certainty. My key point: the S-400 deal makes absolutely no sense for Ankara. But then, Erdogan is a loose cannon by any measure.
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The Germans didn't even need a long range bomber -- until they invaded the USSR. Even then, no-one, absolutely no-one, comprehended that Stalin had built up a war industry beyond the Urals. Auxiliary fuel tanks would've sufficed for a campaign over Britain. BTW, bombing Britain was not a Long Range project. The Luftwaffe almost got away with using a tactical air force for a strategic aim. Of course, the whole project was doomed from the start. Adolf's ONLY shot at getting Britain out of the war was via Parliament deposing Churchill. Adolf needed to re-create the Gallipoli dynamic -- in North Africa. To pull this off, he needed to entirely drop his Barbarossa fantasy. But, then again, Barbarossa -- himself -- never made it to his objective -- the Holy Land. What a revealing operational name. Barbarossa drowned in a river -- a stream, really. Hitler drowned in the Russian mud -- which killed off his horses -- to go into the bellies of his infantry. After such a loss of mobility, the Heer never could possibly prevail. Of course, his object was criminal, immoral in the extreme. For Adolf didn't intend to conquer territory -- rather he wished to exterminate entire nations. OKH and OKW should've been hanged. Most beat the noose via suicide.
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@davidness8477 Inflation crushes the pain of loan repayment. At a national level, with fiat currency issuance, International Bankers are a nullity. They are NOT used. The printing press is used, instead. In the post-war world, the US taxpayers totally subsidized external loans. Alien nations were NOT paying the freight. If you think so, then you've flunked logic and economics 101. Most foreign nations are ROTTEN credits -- and would be paying 2% and more PER MONTH for all credit extended. As sovereign powers, they are NOT required to pay back their loans -- and normally -- they don't. Even the US dis-honored re-payment in gold after WWI. And the USSC backed the government 100% when they screwed American creditors. The gold clause was the reason why the original interest rate was at ROCK BOTTOM during the war. Without it, the interest coupon would've had to double. [ In the American Civil War the Federal government (the North) had to pay ~15% for its borrowings. Such debt had no gold clause, of course. ] { International Bankers only had meaning -- at the level of sovereign states -- when the gold standard was operative. }
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@Nl-nn3ds Yes, they actually had MANY modification centers... spread all over America. One up in Minnesota was just down the road from Sperry, whose gear was being installed. That's how the system worked. The base machine was flown to the supplier of the modification sub-assembly.
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Read up on ol' 666 -- it even has its own YT video.
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The answer is idiot simple: when it counted the sky was extremely overcast right on down to the deck. So to attack the troops the Luftwaffe had to come ALL THE WAY DOWN. This was immediately seen as suicidal. Bombing from altitude didn't work as the Luftwaffe was not trained for such tactics, nor did it have appropriate equipment. Remember we're talking 1940, not 1944. The British and French escaped over the twin moles, the British using the eastern mole. This fact was kept a national secret for decades after the war. All of the troops were sworn to secrecy. The Press was totally gagged. The BEF escaped primarily because of Monty, Alanbrooke and their French allies. Monty made his bones saving the BEF. His heroics at that time today get virtually no press, no commentary. Most modern Brits have absolutely no idea how he saved the BEF. They think he was heroic because of el Alamein. That's just not so. His highest heroics occurred during Britain's worst defeat in a century -- so they were suppressed then and until his death -- and yet even later. The whole affair was and remains too painful.
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One must chuckle at the Japanese protesting hit-and-run German flight tactics -- for that's exactly what the future held for them against the USAAF and USN. They didn't have a CLUE that such would be their fate. Hit-and-run was all that the AVG ever aimed for.
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Red China is still a copy-cat military. That can change PDQ.
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@cyberywayne3128 Red China is still in industrial kindergarten. Your notion of 'immense pressure' is strange. The West has ENABLED the CCP and Red China for forty-years. When that enablement fades -- in the least -- Beijing rages in anguish. Japan and Germany did not rise to First World status via mega-industrial espionage and IP coercion. Not to worry. When Xi's war begins -- he'll be taking on the whole world from Day Zero. Enabling the Shi'ite atomic bomb, what could go wrong? Say, where does Beijing get its oil? I thought so.
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@cyberywayne3128 The Direct Foreign Investments of the West have been EPIC by any historical standard. When you post utter nonsense, you impeach your Internet cred. Study up on DFI... really study up on it. FDI funding is now shifting to Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia -- even Bangladesh. The players are doing so in anticipation of more tariffs out of Washington. No-one can miss that Biden has not repealed a single Trump tariff.
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@cyberywayne3128 BTW, 'China is collapsing' is YOUR shtick, not mine.
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@cyberywayne3128 You sound like Day Ralio. For you, belief comes first, then all else flows. Even to this day, the CCP is obsessed with sucking in ever more FDI and it shows. Red China has been running an investment Ponzi.... Evergrande on a galactic scale. Red China's stats are right up their with her human rights status: mythic. And now, it's turning out that Xi has killed Red China's coal reserve margin. The reason for the panic cut-offs in electric power generation are not one of plant capacity. The CCP has been firing up a new world scale power plant about every seven-days, of late. The hitch is that Xi has picked a fight with Canberra -- and Washington. These are the only two coal exporters that could have a prompt impact on Xi's coal crisis. But he'd have to eat crow -- and do so under the shadow of the SSN trilateral deal. You know he's gagging. The crazy idea that Xi is cutting power on a panic basis over carbon dioxide is the biggest laugh... yet the Western media keep pitching such blather. This is how un-grounded true belief can get.
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"Turkey Shoot" is iconic for the Air Battle of the Philippine Sea -- and is, hence, not to be used in a general sense -- which is what you're doing here.
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@bob smith -- the statistics show that the U-boat arm was largely destroy in the Bay of Biscay. For years the USN put out that the U-boats were defeated in the mid-Atlantic. The stats say otherwise. The U-boat losses in the BoB were not witnessed by Germans. They went down solo. Whereas their mid-Atlantic losses were usually witnessed as a wolf pack had been assembled. All during the Cold War the USN // RN did not want the Soviets to realize that we were usually picking off U-boats solo... that it was Radar not Sonar that was their doom.
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@coolhand1964 Read up on the A-36.
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@B15HOP Nope. It's a reference to Hindu theology. They really do use white elephants during various religious rites. Such animals, once white washed, have absolutely no other function. And yes, they are quite expensive to maintain. The expression started up with British colonials witnessing same in India.
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@pjhudson5344 SU-27s are not stealthy. That rather kills their sex appeal.
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@mareksykora779 High speed ruins stealth. Slick, modern radars can track the disturbed air behind a super-sonic machine.
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@mareksykora779 The super high speed of the F-22 is intended for strategic flights to a war zone. It is not expected to be used in the combat zone. Super sonic flight kills stealth.
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@mareksykora779 Stealth utterly dominates the combat equation. Speed once did -- but no longer.
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@AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH-y5f Su-57 is not 5th Gen. It's not truly stealthy. Its production numbers are that of prototypes, too. Moscow can afford about one airframe per year... so far. Canards utterly ruin stealth, BTW.
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So the RAF shot up a grounded hospital ship? Good grief.
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@lovablesnowman It's number one role was to FREEZE German war production in terms of design. The Germans found that bombing was so disruptive that they couldn't bring on line new designs in any reasonable amount of time. So they were forced to stay with yesterday's designs a LOT longer than they wished. The Mark IV tank stayed in production for this very reason. The original intent was for it to be supplanted by the Panther by mid 1944. They couldn't do it. The main SugIII factory (greater Berlin) was destroyed by the USAAF. These were the primary AFV of Nazi Germany at the time. And the USAAF shut down Germany's avgas refineries in mid-February 1944. (Three plants produced the vast majority of avgas) This castrated the Luftwaffe. It never recovered.
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The REAL problem for the Luftwaffe was fighter RANGE. Radar was secondary. The range issue came to haunt the USAAF, too, but later in the war. German radar, circa 1943, was at least as good as Chain Home -- but proved totally irrelevant to the 8th USAAF.
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You're slow to the point: Berlin wants a Big Piece of the Action if they're to sign on to the F-35. Now that Turkey is OUT... just such a deal might well be worked out. Germany is going to want an even bigger slice than Turkey ever had -- but that could well be arranged -- IFF Biden & Merkel fall in love. Otherwise, the German Air Force will fall away like the German Navy into utter irrelevance. There can be no substitute for stealth for European fighters. Fourth Generation Fighters offer no deterrence to Putin. Ask Ukraine how that plays out.
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