Comments by "Thump Er the Sweaty Fat Guy" (@SweatyFatGuy) on "Did the Soviet Union win WW2 alone?" video.
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I was in the USAF, air cargo craftsman during the two largest airlifts in world history. Desert Shield/Storm and OIF/OEF. I was also at the base doing the vast majority of cargo. So I kinda know a thing or two about logistics. The Russians had the AN225, the largest plane in the world at the time and it could lift some really heavy stuff.. but they only had TWO of them, and one never flew. The flyable one was destroyed in Ukraine earlier this year. They also have some AN124s, roughly the same size and payload as the C5 Galaxy. Then you have the IL76 which is quite similar to the C141A. The C141B hauls more than the IL76, and for a greater range.
Here is the interesting part you won't know unless you understand USAF logistics. USAF planes have a dual rail system with rollers in the floors, the rails have locks in them so you can lock pallets in place. It makes loading C130, C141, C17, Ck10, KC135, and C5s as well as civilian 747, DC10, L1011, a rather quick and efficient process. Three to six guys push the pallets in, the crew locks them in place, and another pallet is pushed in. It takes about an hour to load a C5 if everything works well, two hours at the most for rolling stock that needs to be chained down to hard points in the cargo floor. C17s are faster to load.
The AN225 had rollers like ball bearings in the floor, same as AN124 and IL76. There was no rail system, no locks, so everything that goes on them must be chained or strapped/netted to the cargo floor. Using the same 88"x108" pallets the USAF uses, it take several hours to load the 124 and 225, the IL76 takes about twice as long as a C141 or C17, both of which carried more cargo. Rolling stock takes roughly the same time, except the 225 is much larger, so it holds more.. but there was only one of them.
I know this because I loaded cargo on IL76s, An124s, and worked the AN225 one time between 2001 and 2004. The first time I saw the 225 it was in Paris for the airshow in 1989 and had their space shuttle on its back. Definitely larger than the C5 and 747, but they only had one.. We had a bunch of C5s, and we have only lost a handful to accidents. One happened during Desert Storm, it took off from Ramstein and crashed when a thrust reverser deployed, some of the passengers and I think two loadmasters survived the crash. I was at Rhein Main AB that night and remember it vividly. I knew all the C5s and C141s that were flying in 90/91.. intimately... heh.
In the time it takes to load a Russian plane, USAF cargo guys can load two USAF planes, sometimes three. That kind of efficiency makes a huge difference downrange. If the Germans had had airlift capability like the USAAF or the USAF, they would not have had to surrender when they were encircled by Zhukov west of Stalingrad. They could have been resupplied by air, but the JU52 was inferior to the C47 and considerably so compared to the C54. They should have learned trying to fly Ju52s across the Med to north Africa. It didn't work then either. Somehow flying over Burma worked much better... gee, I wonder why.
The Russians did not have significant air cargo capability until the mid 60s. They were astonished at how many planes where coming in to Tempelhof for the 11 months the Berlin Airlift operated in 1948/49. They went so far as to downplay it when they reported to Moscow, because it was so ludicrously unbelievable that we had that much capacity before 1950.
General Curtis LeMay usually gets credit for the Berlin Airlift, but the real brains behind it was a logistics General named Tunner. LeMay could flatten cities and infrastructure, that was his deal running the 8th in Europe and the 20th over Japan. He was not a cargo guy, his loads were all air dropped behind enemy lines... sorta like the MOAB is today.
My point is the same TIK is making, sure they Russians have lots of people, lots of manpower, but they are woefully inefficient, usually incapable to inept, and they simply do not have the capability and capacity of the US military. They never have.
The IL76 crews were hilariously funny and enjoyable to work with loading their planes, other than the fact they rarely ever take a shower, it was good meeting and talking to them in broken Russian and English. I learned some Russian when I was in Korea 2002-03, so I sorta became de facto interpreter with the crews. It was somewhat surreal for a Cold War veteran to be loading US cargo on an IL76 in Kuwait, I never thought that would happen in a billion years, yet there I was.
These are the sorts of things people don't take into account when they claim the Soviets did this or that, and just look at the big numbers. If they had come through Fulda, they would have been shredded by A10s, F15Es, AH64s, and would have been lucky to reach Rhein Main to secure the runways and parking ramps outside Frankfurt. It would have looked like the road between Basra and Kuwait City in 1991 with burned out vehicles clogging the roads to central Europe. REFORGER exercises were always entertaining, wearing chem warfare gear is so very enjoyable.. heh.. no, its really not.
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@kennyshepard-ww1gk don't need to be an expert to see the obvious. Also having been in the USAF in two conflicts and knowing a bit more about our capabilities than the average individual, especially in 1991 when I was there for it, well.. it gives a bit of insight.
Cargo guys go everywhere, but nobody talks about us. Look up TALCE, AMOG, and MAPS in regards to the USAF. I was part of all of those at one point or another. The TALCE part is super fun and sporty, not that wiki will give you an accurate idea of what they do. Geography plays a part when it comes to aircraft, especially take off and landing. Geography plays a part with armor and mech infantry as well.
Also bear in mind I am not going to be talking about everything I know, what capabilities we had when I got out, or why I got some rather interesting training that would probably had me surviving an NBC exchange when most of the base was wiped out.
Also just because YOU don't know doesn't mean someone else doesn't know.
So how many Russians have you met, how many Russian planes have you been on? How many airlifts have you been involved with?
Oh you read it somewhere, or heard someone say it on a youtube video, so now you're the expert with decades of experience and training. Got it.
Ya know something, my car is faster than yours and cost less, plus I can lift more and banged more ladies than you... rofl... Accept it, you're out of your element and can't keep up with an old crippled guy so you talk big on the intarwebnets. Take your sperg meds and go back to Call of Duty. :)
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@kennyshepard-ww1gk we had a guess what they could do, Afghanistan showed how ineffective their CNC was in the soviet era. Good to meet another TACP/ROMAD, a friend of mine who was a cook during Desert Shield/Storm was a TACP in Afghanistan, made it to the cover of Airman Magazine even. I was cross training to TACP when I got messed up in 03/04 and the last deployment finished me off.
We also saw how inefective their air power was in Vietnam. You probably remember more about that one than I do, since you are older.
My deployments aren't what I am basing my opinion on, definitely not the last two. 2001 was boring, we were stuck on Camp Doha because 16 days into the deployment someone flew into buildings, and no more planes came to work. Living on Doha and not going anywhere left us fighting over who got to go work when planes started coming in again.
The last one in 04 was uneventful for the most part. The USAF paid me back for all the times they screwed me over in that we were at the Hilton for the first half, the Radisson for the second half. $86 per diem and 5 months tax free. It got me caught up on the child support my home state started me out $10k behind on.
However, I was loading C5s and C17s single handed, pushing all the pallets myself, night after night while the rentals drove. The consequence was my upper GI being trashed from vitamin I and no food (the AF always forgets the guys who work nights) in copious amounts so I could walk. Both knees, hips, ankles, shoulders and elbows were trashed. As it turns out when you are 35 you can't work like you did when you were 21 even if you have enough muscle. If you can't run for miles, you can't be a TACP now can ya?
I never said you don't know what an A10 can do. It only takes seeing what they leave behind to grasp its abilities and limits. I know how effective the SU25 is, and its real good against obvious targets, when there is no air power contesting it.
The Russians throw meat at the problem, we in the USAF are quite adept at mincing meat. Its considerably different since I was an A1C in the 1980s. Have you talked to the current TACPs about what our junk can do? Its really interesting. You know what we could do in the 80s, which is more pertinent to Fulda.
However, my initial comment was about logistics more than A10s and airstrikes. When it comes to that, unless you were a 605x1 before you were a 1C4x1 (or what the AFSC was before they changed them in the 90s) chances are you won't know what our logistics can do, or what effect it has on conflicts as well as humanitarian efforts.
Did you participate in REFORGER while you were in? For me it meant chem exercises running the SCIPS and shelters under the squadron buildings at Rhein Main. Being in logistics we were the means by which everyone would get to Europe, and after seeing our capabilities first hand in 90-91, getting enough armor and mech inf divisions in country would be about 3 days and then increase every week... as long as we kept Rhein Main.
On 10 August 90 it was like someone flipped a switch and the C141s and C5s started landing and taking off every 30 seconds, and it didn't stop until October 91.
Now we have more C17s than we had C141s and they carry almost double the cargo as a C141. The C1 can also operate from highways like a C130. The 141s and C5s moved a mind numbing amount of stuff in a short time.
Go back to 6 June 1944, the invasion was more about logistics than the battle to take the beaches, which is why Eisenhower got the job as supreme commander rather than someone like Patton. Look into how much stuff they moved onto the beaches after they were secured that morning.
How does that play into Fulda? Well, the Russians have a crappy logistics system, our air logistics can do more than their rail and road logistics. We can move more stuff faster than they ever could.
Germany lost and was pushed back from Stalingrad because they could not supply their armies. Same with Napoleon. Facts not lost on the US military, especially with what they learned in 48/49 with the Berlin Airlift.
Desert Storm was against the 4th largest military in the world that was using soviet doctrine, CnC and equipment. I saw first hand what the AH64s and A10s did along with F15Es, Harriers, and Tornadoes did between Kuwait City and Basra.
If the soviets came through Fulda, it would have been like December 1944, a fast push that would be stopped in less than a week, then when their supply dwindles to a trickle, they retreat like Iraq did. Would they have reached Rhein Main? That depends on how good YOU guys did your job lasing targets, and how long it takes us to get air supremacy.
What happens to an army without air cover? Six day War, Yom Kippur war, take your pick of any fight Israel had with their soviet supplied neighbors in the 60s and 70s.
How many T72s can each M1 take out? Only reference we have is Iraq in 91. The TOWs worked pretty well, and the hellfires worked even better.
The Russians do not have stellar equipment. They do not keep up on maintenance either. They rely on throwing meat at problems. We rely on our people not becoming meat and keeping them supplied with more than enough stuff to keep fighting.
How hard do you think we would have trained in the 80s if we were told the Russians weren't capable of rolling over us in a week? You train hard and well above whatever you think you might need, then when the fight comes you the result is overwhelming because you trained to fight that 350lb guy and you only get a 150lb guy in the actual fight.
Panama was the first indicator, Iraq removed all doubt. Even in the 80s our capabilities dwarfed all other countries.
Seeing it and the after effects of our shock and awe made me realize just how much we overestimated the soviets. We needed to though, because complacency is how we got into WWII. Even with all the woke and diversity above all else, we still have far more capability than everyone else.
You are seeing it tac. I am seeing it strat. It makes sense due to your job that you see things tactical, whereas I was involved with both. Still though, you never saw soviet equipment in action whereas I have. :)
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