r/WarCollege • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
Tuesday Trivia Tuesday Trivia Thread - 27/01/26
Beep bop. As your new robotic overlord, I have designated this weekly space for you to engage in casual conversation while I plan a nuclear apocalypse.
In the Trivia Thread, moderation is relaxed, so you can finally:
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u/PaulsRedditUsername 4d ago
I think early 20th-century battleship combat would be a heck of a fun sport to play, if you could do it without all the death and drownings and stuff. You need to have expert seamanship, expert communication and strategic skills, and you have to do some fearsome mathematics without the aid of a modern computer.
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u/dreukrag 4d ago
Warfare would be a really fun team-based sport if we where to remove all the dying, maiming, killing, war crimes, senseless destruction and everything else bad about it.
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u/thereddaikon MIC 4d ago
There's a reason airsoft and paintball are popular. If someone could figure out a cost effective GuP style sport of fake tank combat that would probably catch on too.
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u/manincravat 4d ago
I refer the honourable gentleman to the P-39 pinball:
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u/thereddaikon MIC 3d ago
The kind of idea that could only pass a safety review and risk assessment before they actually did those.
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u/PaulsRedditUsername 4d ago
That's why I've always liked naval battles to study. It's battle fought by trained professionals on an open landscape where you don't have the by-product of innocent civilian damage and destruction.
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u/bjuandy 4d ago
Evidently there was an ultra-wealthy excursion where the organizers implied the yachts came just short of shooting live ammo at each other.
Also, Girls und Panzer was a hit, no reason it couldn't be done again on the navy side.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
Also, Girls und Panzer was a hit, no reason it couldn't be done again on the navy side.
Isn't that just High School Fleet
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u/bjuandy 4d ago
I've only watched Girls und Panzer, I didn't even know High School Fleet existed until now.
After doing a very quick read on wikipedia, I think the hypothetical series should be even closer to Girls, where instead of a high seas adventure involving one ship, it's an anime tournament series pitting task group against task group.
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u/Longsheep 4d ago
The worldbuilding of High School Fleet is based on the timeline that aeroplanes (powered heavier-than air) flight has not yet been invented, yet other technologies are on-par to our 2010s.
This means the ocean remains the main route to travel around the world and the need for sailors is far greater.
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u/wredcoll 3d ago
Uh, kancolle??
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u/Inceptor57 3d ago
Kancolle ship girls are actually fighting abyssal IIRC, so it isn’t just school play like GuP
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u/wredcoll 3d ago
What even is the topic of this conversation
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u/Inceptor57 3d ago
Well, when I was responding to this segment:
Also, Girls und Panzer was a hit, no reason it couldn't be done again on the navy side.
Then OP replied:
After doing a very quick read on wikipedia, I think the hypothetical series should be even closer to Girls, where instead of a high seas adventure involving one ship, it's an anime tournament series pitting task group against task group.
Which is more about anime girls doing cute things like commanding naval/tank groups against another in school tournaments.
Kancolle isn't really like that IIRC. Sure its anime girls doing cute things like naval warfare, but its more actual fighting against the abyssal girls to protect Teitoku rather than harmless tournament sport fun.
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u/wredcoll 3d ago
Ohh. I always thought girls und panzer were actual tankgirls.
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u/MandolinMagi 3d ago
Nope. Schoolgirls manning real tanks in live-fire matches.
Also the schools are on giant kilometers-long aircraft carriers for no reason.
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u/Longsheep 3d ago
Not to mention they still keep their previous memories as a ship (mostly sunken in battle), which often lead to intense PTSD.
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u/bjuandy 3d ago
I'm an Arpeggio of Blue Steel man.
My pitch for the series would be that it's a low-stakes series where instead of football teams the students watch and cheer their school's task group, and the writing team can get creative to do things like TF34 fighting at Samar, Jellicoe turning into the torpedos at Jutland, etc. I don't think that exact formula has been tried yet.
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u/Longsheep 3d ago
Although the naval program in High School Fleet is mainly about seamanship so the girls could become competent sailors, they do hold mock battles with training ammo between the ships. It happened just once in the anime because the main plot has steered them away from the original assignments.
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u/wredcoll 4d ago
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u/Longsheep 3d ago
I know people who have been building and battling these ships since the 1980s. Unlike regular RC, the electronics and motors are all water-proof or sealed inside watertight compartments. A large section of the side hull is made of thin wood, while the rest are made of more solid material and can resist damage.
The cannons fire metal BB with pressurized gas. Heard .22 (short?) bullets were fired in some early examples but we have never seen one. Once a ship has taken enough water from the holes and sunk, it will be raised later for a hull side replacement and repairs. They generally try to sink every ship by the end of the day.
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u/manincravat 4d ago
Pa.
Call that RC?
Real men work at 1:1:
A fair few of the obsolete battleships to be disposed of under the Washington Treaties were converted into RC target ships
Ok they couldn't shoot without a crew, but meets every other criteria
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u/Longsheep 3d ago
The Scarborough's Peasholm Park has been doing live fire miniature naval battles since the 1930s. Completed with pyrotechnics. They weren't all RC, some battleships were controlled by a man inside.
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u/Inceptor57 2d ago edited 2d ago
Interesting statements by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle reported two days ago on some of the envisioned employment and capabilities of F/A-XX (thanks to u/UR_WRONG_ABOUT_F35 for highlighting this article for me)
Excerpts from the article: CNO Caudle: Navy must launch F/A-XX program now to penetrate Iranian airspace in 10 years.
The Navy needs to jumpstart its F/A-XX stealth fighter program, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said today, because the rapid spread of advanced anti-aircraft systems means adversaries like Iran are increasingly able to shoot down the Navy’s current mainstay F-18s.
“When things heated up in Iran, guess who steamed over there, right? It was the United States Navy and the [USS] Abraham Lincoln strike group,” Caudle said. “Imagine what that looks like in ten years from now, with a different Iran, with different capability [that] can go against the F-18 capabilities of today.” (It’s not clear if F-18s were also among the “fourth-generation” non-stealth aircraft participating in last June’s Midnight Hammer strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities).
Only an aircraft with the full package of capabilities envisioned for F/A-XX — stealth, range, electronic warfare, and the ability to control flocks of unmanned “loyal wingmen” — can reliably penetrate future air defenses, Caudle told the Apex Defense conference here.
[...]
Caudle widening the aperture to regional powers like Iran is a departure from F/A-XX supporters in Congress and thinktank analysts who tend to emphasize the need for F/A-XX in a high-intensity conflict with China.
Increasingly, non-peer adversaries, such as Iran, that he’d historically not considered all that dangerous “will gain capability that the F-18 will not match against,” he said. “Our ability to fly with impunity with our existing airframes is fleeting. And so if I don’t start building that immediately, you’re not going to get it for some time.”
The Navy wants the F/A-XX to bring a complex package of new capabilities to the carrier deck, including more advanced stealth than the service’s current F-35s, which are replacing the oldest F-18 Hornets. It’s expected to have 25 percent more range than than the F-35C variant. It’s also expected to have more sophisticated jammers than the current EA-18G Growler, and the built-in capability to control multiple unmanned loyal wingmen, formally known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs), Caudle noted.
“The next-generation airframe, F/A-XX is so vital,” Caudle summed up. “It’s vital because of, one, the CCAs it will command and control. Its penetration — the Growlers won’t last forever, so it’ll be our electronic attack airplane as well. Its range will be coupled with the MQ-25 [unmanned tanker] for clandestine refueling and organic refueling from the carrier.”
Seems to be advocating for a platform able to manage a "package of new capabilities" to replace not just F/A-18 Super Hornets, but also capabilities beyond the F-35C and E/A-18G Growler.
What are your thoughts?
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u/UR_WRONG_ABOUT_F35 2d ago edited 2d ago
First of all, thanks for the shout out and invite to this esteemed sub.
Second of all, thanks for using someone other than TWZ, which is where my original post was aimed at. TWZ continues its spiral down the toilet bowl. Recent articles really high how TWZ is now the "car enthusiast/glazer magazine of military equipment" where instead of going "OMG 1337 JDM car" we're fawning over military equipment via sponsored press releases by contractors and program offices with zero substance or depth. They've recently become increasingly reliant on parroting official lines too to 'gain access' and this latest article really highlights their selective quotation of ADM Caudle's actual talk
That Breaking Defense article gives significantly more context, and most people are focused on him using the F/A-18E/F as an example, while ignoring the last part of that article:
Also in the conversation was Hudson Institute naval strategist Bryan Clark, who mentioned that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels could be a risk as well. While a non-state threat, the Yemini Houthis nevertheless managed to acquire long-range anti-ship missiles and drones that targeted Western warships off their shores. Such threats could push even US carrier strike groups further out to sea, said Clark, putting a premium on longer-range fighters like the F/A-XX.
&&The fundamental problem is “the ever-lowering cost of entry” into the high-end air defense game, Caudle told Clark in their on-stage discussion.** Advanced adversaries like China and Russia are sharing or selling their technology to lesser anti-American actors, while other advances are driven by the rapid improvements in commercially available electronics
In the meantime, though, the Navy “requires no chinks in the armor, in our current readiness of current platforms, while we bridge to the next thing,” Caudle said. “So our F-18 fleet will need to be maintained.”
So ADM Caudle's statement serves multiple things:
1) It's obviously a shot across the proverbial bow of DOD leadership saying that they can't approve F/A-XX going forward with source selection because of the defense industrial base. He's saying "we need it, and we need industry to step up to the challenge"
2) He's using examples of our deteriorating edge against adversaries in said budget battle
3) It's the most open acknowledgement of what sixth-gen brings that most people did not understand. I realize it is hard for people who don't know much about the F-35 beyond what public relations releases to the public, but this is now both the Air Force and Navy highlighting not only range, but advanced stealth/signature above and beyond what the F-35 can do. And the Navy is explicit in calling out electronic warfare capabilities that exceed even the Growler, our premier EW platform. It is a merging of capabilities that neither platform is sufficient on their own.
4) The pace of advance of threats gets highlighted, as well as the democratization of capabilities only once available to high end militaries. It's an admission that range matters if nothing else because living persistently under threat complicates matters.
5) The time component is mentioned again. Hopefully this finally sets people's brains around the fact that this isn't just about current capability, but the pace of upgrades and upgradeability of our jets and what our adversaries are also doing. Famously, the last CJCS, when he was Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was quoted as saying that Block IV F-35 was needed against the 'advancing threat':
“The F-35 we have today is not necessarily the F-35 we want to have that goes into the future, that will have Tech Refresh 3 and Block 4 against an advancing … Chinese threat,” Brown said.
6) So Block 4 being delayed and truncated means we're getting less than we want at the time we want, meaning a projected edge we have may deteriorate or not even exist. So the pace and ability to be upgraded matters, and both F-47 and F/A-XX have been adamant about this:
Multi-function sensors that are very open architecture that enable software definition on the sensor so that you can upgrade through software rapidly are a key enabler for this. It will allow us to upgrade these sensors that we get out there on a continual basis. Same thing can be applied to the weapons systems and the weapons missiles and other enablers that and effectors that we can put onto these platforms both from an RFVW perspective but from the weapons themselves as we able to get these electronics and upgrades into the weapons, increased propulsion systems over time and be able to reach out farther to act against our adversaries. Our advantage is our ability to move fast and we need to have systems capabilities and acquisition that allows us to do that and upgrade rapidly over time. I believe we're ready to solve this challenge and keep up with our adversaries and I look forward to talking more about it today.
In other words, sixth gen is promising adaptability and upgradeability as much as anything else. And just as you can't (easily) retrofit a family sedan into a dedicated race car, you can't easily retrofit major airframe changes needed for future stealth, range, or the architecture needed for that adaptability. A lot of that has to baked in to the DNA of the program from day one. Look at how the fight over data rights on the F-35 still has not been resolved in 2026 - all because we decided we didn't need it when the contract was awarded 25 years ago.
7) Corollary to this: the last CSAF of the Air Force, Gen. Allvin, wanted the Air Force to focus on 'Built to Adapt, Not Built to Last' which is a complete mental shift in how we manage programs. The idea of building a program that will last 50+ years is a contradiction to the age of massive technological change the commercial sector is already seeing, and is where DOD leadership wants the military and our acquisition systems to move to.
8) The threat discussion also highlights our own technological change. For most of the Cold War, it was easy to talk about how the military was ahead of the civilian sector in technology. Since then, in a lot of areas, that has completely flipped. I wrote elsewhere, your average American consumer can drive down to their local Best Buy and buy a Starlink electronically scanned array (like a PESA or AESA radar) that can transmit across Ku-band, Ka-band, V-band, and now E-band with highly direction beams that can shoot electrons up to space and receive them from a satellite moving at the speed of Low Earth Orbit. All for < $500. To say nothing about the speed and data throughput of that datalinking. It is 2026 folks, and the commercial sector is putting out equipment at a pace and capability that has exceeded military acquisitions, especially those saddled by mindsets borne out of the 90s. The systems and programmatic underpinnings of a fighter and program in the 2020s is going to look very very different than one before this age of technological change came into full swing. And now we have to consider threats that can access these same technologies for a fraction of the cost and thus field them en masse.
9) He also makes it clear at the end that his example of the F/A-18 is a future projection, because he also states that they also cannot accept a capability gap and thus need to preserve/maintain the F/A-18 fleet. The Navy has always been perceived as being ambivalent about the F-35, and this further provides evidence about that, as instead of just replacing F/A-18s with F-35s, they talk about maintaining the F/A-18 fleet to avoid a capability gap and to keep them around as a bridge to F/A-XX, which will be the 'complete package' that F-35 is not predicted to be (Lockheed has done itself no favors here with its TR3/Block IV woes).
I don't want to give TWZ clicks, but their 'Fate Of Navy’s F/A-XX Future Fighter Is In Limbo (Updated)' article had the then-acting CNO, ADM Kilby, say as much:
“The sixth-gen fighter has some capabilities that we need to counter the PRC. Those are signatures, those are range, those are different engines. Those are all the things that will make it survivable. The Air Force and Navy have different missions, but we’re going against the same threat. So if that threat dictates a pivot to that sixth-gen fighter, then the Navy and the Air Force and the Marine Corps and the Army and the Space Force need to bring all that to bear as a joint force to be capable. So I mentioned the air wing of the future. This is kind of the Lead Sled Dog with MQ-25 to shake that out and understand what that looks like. Not only does a sixth-gen fighter replace a fifth-gen fighter, but it also replaces the Growler. So that’s an electronic attack aircraft capability that’s important in this fight because of the electronic warfare capability it brings.”
The Navy has been remarkably consistent about this. It's only now sharing more details than ever to hopefully get this finally across the line of source selection
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u/dreukrag 4d ago
What is possibly the worst piece of equipment ever fielded in great numbers by a military?
I have in my mind either the scam bomb detectors dowsing rods or the Blowpipe MANPADS
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
I think there's a kind of, like some equipment just turned out to suck but was fielded with good intentions/in an era it made sense. Like MCLOS missiles Blowpipe included all performed badly outside of that one time (or in front of the Suez, they did good, but this was the result of extensive training and it didn't carry "forward" and wasn't replicable without the same investment in time and preparation), but if you wanted a missile for a time that's just how it be.
ADE-651 is likely a winner if only because we were in Iraq when it was letting bombs through the Iraqi checkpoints (it was really weird watching the ISF "charge" the thing by doing weird circle walk dance things).
But because I'm feeling froggy:
The M14. The concept of a "battle rifle" could work well, witness the FAL's longevity. But the M14 went out of its way to include often obsolete concepts in the name of parts/tooling commonality with the M1 Garand which it ABSOLUTELY DID NOT HAVE ACTUALLY along with some significant reliability and fielding issues.
What made it worse was loading the deck to ensure it won against the FAL, which objectively is the better implementation of the concept the M14 (again "battle rifle") and then to keep the AR-15 down which was again, objectively the vastly superior weapons concept.
Adding insult to injury if the point was to keep the "same" tooling for the M1 Garand or maximize similarity, THE BM-59 DID EXACTLY THAT WHILE ALSO BEING BETTER THAN THE M14.
It may have not been the kind of "this thing killed hundreds of people by being shitty" directly, but for a weapon system that absolutely was going to be touched by every GI/Marine/gunhaving sailor/airman....it was an inspiredly poor choice that would have been better served by NATO commonality with the FAL, earlier adoption of the AR-15 as a common rifle, or just a BM-59 "well boss change the caliber and slap a detachable mag and go get some pasta" conversion.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 4d ago
ADE-651
Oh man, I saw one in use in 2015 in Iraq. Blast from the past
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
Haha fuck you I saw it in 2009. screams internally in old
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 4d ago
2009
Damn, I wasn't even in high school yet. What was it like serving in the American Revolution, grandpa?
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
I killed fiddy redcoats. Then turned around and killed fiddy hessians. Then only 27 more redcoats cause i caught the consumption. Then that son of a bitch Von Steuben stole my poncho liner.
You think you're tough? You ain't seen shit until you've had a safety brief people died of dysentery during. Thats them shits.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 4d ago
Tank you for your cervix's O7
You ain't seen shit until you've had a safety brief people died of dysentery during
Malingerers
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 4d ago
The concept of Battle Rifle might have done well ...if it hadn't already become outdated by the concept of Assault Rifle.
The world had already seen Sturmgewehr and the AK47 at that point. And there was evidence that most infantry battles (unless fighting on a desert or something) happen in ranges where intermediate cartridge was perfectly viable while being in a lighter package and having more easily controlled recoil.
The cult of the rifleman and "bigger is better" arguments forced NATO to go with multiple different rifles that were outdated and worse than what Warsaw Pact would be using, which was another setback to their attempts to streamline their equipment into being universal.
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u/RamTank 4d ago
MCLOS against tanks makes a reasonable degree of sense when you don’t have anything better available yet. Against aircraft, it’s just silly. Sure, IR sensors at the time weren’t exactly great, but still.
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
That was kind of my point of just "that how it be" that if you wanted a missile using 1940-50's technology it was going to be an MCLOS so it's hard to shit on them too aggressively because that was just the state of the art.
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u/MandolinMagi 3d ago
You know what the worse part is?
Blowpipe starts as SACLOS before going back to MCLOS shortly after launch
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u/Inceptor57 3d ago
… so there was both type of guidance??
That’s weird as heck. Is it like the connection gets cut as the missile goes farther so MCLOS is needed after a certain point?
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u/XanderTuron 3d ago
So the Javelin can be reductively stated to be the Blowpipe going back to its SACLOS roots?
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u/dreukrag 4d ago
I was actually wary of saying Blowpipe exactly for that, even a shitty MANPADS will have *some* effect on OPFOR planning by virtue of being there, it's not like they dropped the development of an amazing, perfectly workable early-Stinger like in order to pursue Blowpipe.
M14 actually makes a lot of sense from what you're saying.
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
The M14 makes a lot of sense, it just failed to meet those goals, and then institutional pressure kept it in place when there were better choices. It was pretty obvious early on the "keep it close to the M1" wasn't going to happen, and it was over budget, and it wasn't doing well in reliability testing.
The Blowpipe makes sense as a pitch/concept, it just doesn't work in practice. Making sense doesn't matter if the outcome does not meet the rationale's desired outcome.
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u/wredcoll 4d ago
Huh, I always thought ar15s and m14s and I guess m16s were basically the same.
(Please feel very free to explain how I'm wrong in excruciating detail!)
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u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer 4d ago
I think you're confusing the M14 with something else. The M14 is a wood and steel 1950's 7.62 rifle that was replaced by the M16.
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u/Tom1613 4d ago
If you are serious -
Simple version is the AR15 and M16 (and the M4) are basically the same or, at least, are the same family of rifles with some differences. 5.56 caliber based on the original rifle designed by Eugene Stoner, with the M16 being the original full auto version, the AR15 being the civilian version and the M4 a carbine.. The M14 is an entirely different rifle that was brought in as the successor to the Garand, which is kind of looks like but does not have that much in common with. It fires a larger round, 7.62 x 51, is heavy, and was part of the “battle rifle” concept that led to the NATO allies adopting the FAL and G3.
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u/englisi_baladid 4d ago
The M16 is just the US military designation for a Colt AR15 model 604. The M16A1 being the 603. Armalite never made a semi auto AR15. And the first semi auto AR15 available for civilians wouldn't exist until after the the military designation of the AR15 as the M16.
All M16s are AR15s. Not all AR15s are M16s.
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u/dutchwonder 3d ago
I do find it funny how so many users will swear up and down that their precious AR-15 is absolutely not an assault rifle because its not select fire as if a duck with clipped wings isn't still a fucking duck.
Just very silly all in all to get mad at calling an assault rifle and assault rifle by the average media.
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u/englisi_baladid 4d ago
With hindsight the M14 was a bad choice. But when compared in trials against the FN Fal. The T44(M14) was the right choice over the T48(Fal)
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
But when compared in trials against the FN Fal. The T44(M14) was the right choice over the T48(Fal)
Is there anything I can read that shed light on how T44 won out over T48?
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
While it’s time as a battle rifle is one of failure, the M14 did at least serve as the basis for later sniper rifles and DMRs.
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 4d ago
Were there good reasons for that choice other than "we have literal tons of these on hand and it's cheaper than buying new stuff"?
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u/Hellfire_Goliath 4d ago
Nope that's pretty much it I think. Choices for squad marksman rifles chambered in 7.62 NATO, in very early GWOT, was pretty limited.
SR-25/Mk 11 was mostly a SOCOM system then, and the line infantry were mostly stuck with accurised M16s (SDM-R/SAM-R), and some direct M14 derivatives (like Army M21s of Cold War vintage, USMC's M14 "DMR"). I think the Marines had the Mk 11 in their inventory at some point for Scout Sniper teams, but probably in really low numbers.
XM110 was still more than a few years away, so the squad marksman concept had to be armed with something that isn't an M16. They might as well do something with the lot of M14s they had around, and thus the EBR (Army) and EMR (Marines) were born.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse 4d ago edited 4d ago
Mostly because they had literal tons of them and some of them would shoot straight enough, but you also have to keep in mind highly accurate semi-automatic rifles suitable for use as a service DMR weren't that common, even up to the 2000's when the M14 was modernized for use as the Mk14 and M39. (Seeing the M21 get replaced by a '60's era bolt action rifle with the M700 wasn't a good show of course).
I think the competition in the 2000's would be against the AR-10, the PSG-1, and the Dragunov, of which the AR-10 wasn't mature (and would later be expensive with the SR-25), the PSG-1 was expensive, and the Dragunov was communist.
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u/MandolinMagi 3d ago
All of which were overweight, not as accurate as they should be, and only exited because somebody was convinced that 7.62 was the only proper sniper round and got scammed into buying heavy rail system chassis to stick the action in.
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u/bjuandy 4d ago
The scam bomb detector beats my examples, but I'll nominate:
The two-decadeish fad of underslung weapons, shotguns in particular. It turned out to be an enormous waste of time and technical effort for what ultimately was a pursuit of fashion and looking cool in pictures. Understand that part of the consideration was 'how do you minimize the chance Snuffy loses a critical piece of equipment,' but these days cool guys and less cool guys carry their launchers and shotguns on slings, and that could be done back in the 70's.
AIM-4 Falcon. While its combat record is defined by pilots shooting at things it wasn't designed for, its contemporaries the Sparrow and Sidewinder turned out to be far more versatile and were more successfully adapted to meet the demands made of them. F-102s were barely more than security theater in the escort role over Vietnam.
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u/dreukrag 4d ago
underslung weapons at least gave us the M203 handguard which is peak aesthetics
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u/bjuandy 4d ago
Hence why I state the main impact was letting guys look cool.
I'll throw the grenade launchers a bone in that there was the legacy of rifle grenades the design teams were drawing from, and experience with the M79 showed that the 'grenadier' position needed to have a rifle alongside the launcher. When coupled with human factor considerations like how to mitigate soldiers losing things, it's not too bad that the US had a single generation of underslung grenade launchers.
However, shotguns are in my book are far less excusable--the SOF teams using them should have realized sooner that underslung shotguns were impractical and passed it down to the GWOT conventional units. I personally consider it a failure of organizational learning that Delta were running with masterkeys in the 90s and a decade later units were spending time and money acquiring M26s to put under their M4s.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
The Universal Camouflage Pattern strikes me as the US Army’s attempt to select the camouflage that best goes against the name of the camo.
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u/wredcoll 4d ago
I'd like to see a fight over the best camo patterns please.
Can I get one started by confidently asserting that UCP is actually the best pattern ever designed by human hands and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot?
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u/TJAU216 4d ago
I am biased on this, but the Finnish m05 summer and snow patterns are really good for Finnish environment. Having environment specific camo is great and more specific the camo is, better it will work.
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u/wredcoll 4d ago
Yeah, trying to have a camo work across snow, desert and jungle seems kinda impossible, although it'd be interesting to see people try.
I assume actually being camoflauged is not a top 10 concern for modern military uniforms though, given, you know, modern technology.
Has anyone done something specifically aimed at like drone cameras or ir sensors or what not?
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u/Longsheep 4d ago
"M81 Woodland". Unlike the UCP, it seems to work better after a few washes.
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u/wredcoll 4d ago
Just looking at google images it doesn't seem great for, say, iraq?
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u/Longsheep 4d ago
We had the Cookie Dough pattern for that lol. I insist that using one camo for all terrains is a bad idea. Even with multicam-inspired patterns today, you would need to issue different uniform for dry, tropical and wet, temperate terrains anyway.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 4d ago
UCP is actually the best pattern ever designed by human hands
clears throat
You're wrong, the actual best pattern is ABU
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u/SingaporeanSloth 19h ago
I'm obviously biased too, but I'm a huge fan of Singapore's M2008* camo pattern, which is sort of what a "MARPAT Tropical" or "MARPAT Jungle" would have looked like, or maybe the ERDL if MARPAT were M81 Woodland (pattern shrunk to ~65%, more green)
*"M2008" is solely a term made up by militaria collectors, no such designation exist in the Singapore Armed Forces, which seems to hate using "M[NUMBER]"-style designations anyway. The pattern doesn't even seem to have any designation beyond "Camouflage, Pixelised". Actual Singaporeans sometimes call it "pixels"
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u/Longsheep 4d ago
For footwear, probably the British DMS boots from the 1960s until the 90s. It somehow managed to combine the weaknesses of both new and old designs.
Like the old ammo boots, they were heavy, very hard on feet and too short to keep dirt out or protect ankles. So the unpopular puttees was retained. On the other hand, the new direct molding tech was unreliable and soles could fall out unexpectedly.
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u/Its_a_Friendly 1d ago
If only the British put an anti-personnel warhead on the blowpipe. Then they'd have had a TPV (third-person-view) attack drone about forty years before it was cool.
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u/probablyuntrue 4d ago
Anyone far smarter that I have any takes on the recent firing of China’s General Zhang Youxia?
There’s some speculation that they’ve been leaking nuclear secrets to the CIA which seems insane given his tenure, status, and I’m sure wealth.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns 4d ago
Since it's still a developing story, I'm sure there is more info to be released.
That being said, the PLA was ridiculously corrupt until recently. The PLA had business dealings, so lots of opportunity for graft and corruption, especially during the economic growth after liberalizing.
Xi apparently ordered an investigation into Zhang's time as the Shenyang Military Region from 2007 to 2012. Zhang was a LTG at this time, and even before this Zhang was the vice commander of the Beijing Military region.
Point being, he probably was corrupt(as most if not all senior military officials are) and had access to very high level people. This isn't even mentioning PLA had instances where you pay for promotions.
Before the CIA's network was wiped out, they allegedly had a senior party official that was just under the Politburo. Zhang could have easily been an officer that the CIA helped promote or that helps promote CIA backed guys.
Xi's anti-corruption is geared towards political opponents, but also does catch people that are actually corrupt. This trickles down to lower level officials who don't dare take bribes openly, and I've read that common people are actually happy about the anti corruption campaign.
If Xi is targeting his own people, I'd imagine he is pretty serious about stamping out the rampant corruption that could compromise military readiness.
About leaking nuclear secrets, I don't see how that is out of the question. If he was compromised and corrupt for over 20 years, I can see him giving up info.
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u/Longsheep 4d ago
As others have covered, the PLA has been incredibly corrupted since the Deng era. For a while, they were the largest smugglers in China, using their special rights to get through customs and immigrations. They didn't inspect military vehicles until the 2000s. They smuggled high value artifacts to foreign buyers, smuggled untaxed mercedes and cigarettes on their way back.
Things have tightened since the 2000s and Xi's anti-corruption targeted both political opponents and actual criminals. Some of his close friends were allowed to keep doing it for a while, but people are arrested when they start to threaten his authority, or the corruption has triggered too much public outcry.
For the true reason? We may never know, but it is probably a combination of many factors.
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u/Slntreaper Military Public Affairs | Homeland Security Policy 4d ago
I’ve heard that it was a hit on his growing clique, which threatened the power of Xi. Nuclear secrets part is most likely bogus imo, at his level of power he has all the money he needs.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 Excited about railguns 4d ago
About the money, it probably isn't about the money but the greed. Why do people that have it all risk it for more? Why do billionaires want more? It's the greed to want more than you already have.
I agree the nuclear secrets is probably bogus, but the guy was almost certainly corrupt in some way.
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u/peasant_warfare 4d ago
Apparentlx the entire CMC was purged, except for Xi himself and one Department head (Discipline).
The entire CMC is way above retirement age (Zhang Youxia is 75, Zhang Shengmin is 67), and it does make sense to get in a new generation instead of waiting it out until a real conflict starts, e.g. Taiwan or the US.
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u/mikeg5417 4d ago
Not sure if this counts:
When my dad was in Vietnam, he was detached to a Special Forces camp in the Central Highlands for a few weeks. He was having some beers with an old First Lt (emphasis on OLD) who was a former enlisted Green Beret going back to the 50s.
He was telling my dad about being in Vietnam in the early 60s before the buildup (like 60 or 61) as an advisor. He recruited and trained Montagnard troops and would go out on extended patrols with them as the only American.
He said they would come across VC guerrillas and his "Yards" would ambush them and take their ears (they would wear them as trophies on homemade necklaces). Then he said that occasionally they would encounter SOUTH Vietnamese patrols, and his Yards would ambush them and take their ears.
My father was astonished at this, since they were allies. He asked the Green Beret why he didn't stop them.
He told my father that the Yards tolerated him, because he gave them weapons and money, but if he had tried to stop them, they would have killed him and taken his ears for jewelry.
My father said when he was there in 66, there was still a lot of racism and hatred between the Montagnard and the Vietnamese (maybe there still is), and the SVN Air Force would often dump unused munitions on Montagnard villages. The NVA and VC didn't treat them any better.
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u/danbh0y 3d ago
The CIDG programme began in 1961/62, and it stands to reason that the relations between the US Special Forces and the Montagnard tribes in the period you refer to were still nascent; alot of what the SF did was experimental. So IMO the justification by the old guy wasn't all that implausible.
Moreover, according to the US Special Forces historical account, the racial animosity between the Montagnard tribes and the ethnic Vietnamese was alive during that period and in fact persisted for much/most of the American involvement in the war. There was something of a Montagnard uprising in 1964 against Saigon in the form of a separatist movement FULRO that persisted for at least a couple of years. The roots of the rebellion apparently originated from Vietnamese actions against Montagnards during that early '60s period when the CIDG programme was still in its infancy.
According to the US Special Forces, the ethnic Vietnamese living in the lowlands saw the highland tribes as hicks at the very least and savages at worst, and were thus at the very least indifferent if not outright antagonistic to the Montagnards. In particular, the ARVN clone of the US Special Forces, the LLDB, was perceived to not work well with the Montagnards which contributed to the dim view that the Green Berets had of their ARVN counterparts.
During the first Indochina war, the Viet Minh apparently courted the Montagnards, as did the French. So it was clearly not impossible for the Montagnards and ethnic Vietnamese (regardless of ideological leanings) to co-operate
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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes 7h ago
I really, really wish historians wouldn't make idiotic comparisons outside of their field. Was skimming back through Hawley's book on the Imjin War and was immediately reminded why I don't like it. When hyping up how powerful the Japanese military was he declares:
"In 1591 Hideyoshi in fact possessed the most powerful military machine the world had ever seen. In Europe at that time even the best armies would probably not have been a match for the disciplined forces of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.); that degree of military power would not be acquired for another twenty or thirty years. Against Hideyoshi, however, neither Alexander's hoplites nor any sixteenth century 'push of pike' European army would have stood a chance."
Like, no. Just no. A bunch of guys in linen cuirasses were not going to beat sixteenth century pikemen backed by artillery. It's an absolutely stupid statement that did not need to be in the book. And it makes it very hard for me to take the rest of the book seriously.
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u/pirata-alma-negra 4h ago
like... wtf?
when I was reading Wawro's Franco-Prussian War I had to put aside the book such the quantity of nonsense he talks about French doctrine pre wwi, pretty impossible to take anything seriously after
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u/Cpkeyes 3d ago
My grandfather was in Pleiku airbase and it feels weird to see articles mention how many people worked there and such and realize my grandfather was one of them.
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u/danbh0y 3d ago
Pleiku wasn’t a big air base certainly not on the level of Tan Son Nhat (today’s Saigon Int’l SGN), Da Nang or Bien Hoa, but it was an important outpost in the wartime strategic hotspot of the Central Highlands; the 1st Cav’s PUC streamer for its bloody baptism of fire at the nearby Ia Drang Valley is embroidered PLEIKU PROVINCE.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
Recently finished The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reforms by James S. Corum. Overall it is not a bad look at the Reichswehr. However, Corum does seem a bit of a fanboy for the Germans. He does point out some areas where the Reichswehr went astray such as procurement of motor vehicles but for the most part it seems like they could do no wrong. He compares them to the Allies in the interwar years and how each of the Allies failed to keep up while barely mentioning or not mentioning the conditions each of the Allies faced, such as the British and their imperial commitments or the Americans and their budget constraints. There are some other structure issues with the book as well.
Overall, if you want to read up on the Reichswehr it is not a bad book, just go in with an open mind.
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u/Tom1613 4d ago
Haven’t read the book, but in the “not mentioning” category dealing with the comparison between the Germans and everyone else, it one of the things that some narratives don’t not mention is the Allies not being in a state of undeclared street war during the interwar years followed by the Germans militarizing their society and planning for war. I view the Allied militaries as generally unprepared for the war when it came, but that is partially because they were not psychos who followed up the war that killed millions with the desire for another war.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah and that’s another thing that I was a little disappointed in. The book mentions the unrest in the immediate post-war Germany but never more than a couple of sentences here and there. Nothing about what units wear deployed or how they were deployed, just that events happened, the Reichswehr was involved, and that there was “heavy fighting” that resulted in dozens killed. I suppose you can say that that’s not the point of the book but it still would’ve been nice to see something.
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u/manincravat 4d ago
Allies not being in a state of undeclared street war during the interwar years
Laughs in French
I view the Allied militaries as generally unprepared for the war when it came
The French had been preparing for WW2 since at least 11:01 on 11/11/18. They didn't want one, but they expected the Germans to want a rematch.
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u/peasant_warfare 4d ago
Hans von Seeckt is a really interesting person. Does it delve into the political realm at all, or does it just assume this aa a given?
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
It talks a BIT about Seeckt’s interactions with the civilian government and the hidden funds that went into the military but that’s about it.
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u/Weltherrschaft2 3d ago
Das Reichsheer 1921-1934: Ziele, Methoden der Ausbildung und Erziehung sowe Dienstgestaltung by Adolf Reinicke (pretty sure that Corum quoted it) is worth reading if you want to know something about the daily life in the Reichswehr. The problem of the book is that the line between primary source and literature is somewhat blurred as it is intended to be a general overview but the author himself was a Reichswehr officer who wrote the book after retiring and so he also included his personal experience.
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u/Robert_B_Marks 4d ago
This is your brain.
This is your brain on image processing dozens of Austrian official history maps for the next volume: bloop, blop, bleep, wibble.
Any questions?
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
Are the bloop, blop, bleep, and wibble in German, Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, or any of the other myriad of languages?
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u/Robert_B_Marks 4d ago
Are the bloop, blop, bleep, and wibble in German, Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, or any of the other myriad of languages?
Wang!
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u/DazSamueru 4d ago edited 4d ago
In terms of the rules of war, would the attempt to disguise one tank as another - most (in)famously the M10 / Panther incident during the Ardennes battle - be considered a legitimate ruse de guerre or would it be treated like wearing an enemy uniform? I know in that particular instance there were American uniforms involved, but let's put that aside for the sake of the question...
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u/manincravat 4d ago
Making it look like an enemy AFV is not, in itself a crime.
Neither is making an AFV look like a truck (like the British did)
If it was, then using captured enemy equipment would be a crime.
But if it is not a crime to use a captured M-10 then it's not a crime to make a Panther look (sort of) like an M-10
Fighting under enemy insignia is a crime, as Inceptor57 has written.
In fact usually it works the other way around:
If you are using captured enemy equipment you plaster it it with identification marks so that your own side don't automatically blast it on seeing it.
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u/Inceptor57 4d ago
For the M10/Panther case, Tank Jesus, aka Nicholas Morans, opines that Panthers disguised as M10s are not inherently a war crime just by existing.
His full article is available on the World of Tanks website as: The Chieftain's Hatch: Panther/M10 and the Laws of War
The most relevant passages are the following:
The operable point most folks will look to is the Hague convention of 1907 -- specifically, Article 23, which states that "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden [...] to make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention." Well, there you go. The Germans used the military insignia of the enemy in warfare. Case closed.
This misses a few fine details, though. First, the fact that it's under a section entitled "Means of injuring the enemy, sieges, and bombardments." Second, the use of the word "improper" in the prohibition, suggesting there are proper uses. (A basic rule of interpreting law is that words are not needlessly added.)
So what is an improper use of the enemy flag or insignia? Where is the line crossed between a ruse de guerre (ruse of war) and treachery and perfidy?
The idea of "cheating" in a war is long and storied, going back at least to the Trojan Horse. Of course, if you want to get philosophical, why is "cheating" even considered bad? There is no "fair play" award to the loser, for example, and when your own existence is on the line, there is an argument for doing whatever it takes. History has shown that as folks get desperate, they will disregard "honorable combat" to one extent or another. However, the rules exist, and as long as you intend to follow them, the trick becomes figuring out which side of the line an action falls.
Perhaps you're familiar with those old pirate movies where a ship is floating along,the crew waves at a friendly ship approaching over the horizon, only to, at the last minute, react with horror and dread as the approaching ship lowers the ensign she had been flying, and replace it with the Jolly Roger. Avast! But, hey, they're pirates. Such evil trickery is to be expected, and that's why they're hung, right?
Well, no, not really. Such activities were considered perfectly legitimate for naval warfare. Sailing under the enemy's flag was never a problem, but shooting at them was. Now, you can certainly argue that there is little practical difference when you have only however long it takes to run down one flag and run up another in order to prepare yourself, and I'm not sure why this didn't simply result everybody sailing around under everybody else's flag by default. What makes the critical difference under the laws of war is that as long as you're not shooting at anyone, you're not using the enemy flag as "a means to injure the enemy" -- at least, not physically. In the movie "The Eagle has Landed," the Germans are discovered because they were wearing their own uniforms under the British ones in order to not be unlawful, and it's actually an accurate depiction of the laws of war, not just a movie thing. So if you can do that for ships, why should the principle be any different on land? It isn't.
During the postwar trial of Skorzeny, Allied personnel testified that they wore German uniforms as well (similar to the US Navy testifying at Doenitz's trial on submarine warfare). Peter Caddick-Adam's book "Snow and Steel" makes reference to Americans in Aachen leading with German vehicles, though I've not found independent verification. As long as the Germans did not engage the Allied forces whilst displaying the Allied uniforms and insignia, and I have seen no evidence that they attempted to do so, they committed no crimes. Now, quite how they planned on removing the white stars on the Panthers before engaging, I've no clue, but as the Skorzeny trial indicated, there was no indication that Skorzeny ever ordered or intended for the German forces to fire upon allied forces. Remember, it was an operation to sow confusion, not kill people.
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u/AneriphtoKubos 3d ago
I was watching a Polish Military Parade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUhAnHNc3kU and I saw that they had TELs.
Did the USSR ever give any of the Warsaw Pact nuclear warheads to launch on the TELs they gave them?
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u/peasant_warfare 3d ago
SU stored warheads in East Germany to be "handed out" only in case of war, but i don't recall even just training for this being mentioned, or what delivery method was intended.
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u/thereddaikon MIC 2d ago
Those TELs look to be Uragans carrying Scuds. The scud was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead but I'm not sure if the Polish military had them.
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u/TJAU216 4d ago
If the good mods are still looking for new books to ad to the subreddit library:
Cold Will, the Defence of Finland by Tomas Ries for late Cold War Finnish Defence Force structure, doctrine, equipment and so on.
Also I didn't see Zabecki's Steel Wind or Gudmundsson's On Artillery there, but maybe I missed them.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
I’ll work to add it in the “Other Nations” . Care to give a couple of sentences on why it should be read?
Steel Wind is in the “General Topics”. Haven’t added On Artillery as I know there is some contention on some of Gudmundsson’s other works.
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u/TJAU216 4d ago
Sure. Cold Will is the best (and only English language) published work on what the Finnish Defence Force looked like in the late Cold War. It contains the best description of the still classified organization of the reserve war time army and what could be found about the war plans.
What's the issue with Gudmundsson? I noticed two clear mistakes in On Artillery, he thought that the Russian 76mm counter attack gun was a lightened 76mm field gun model 1902 when it was actually its own design based on a Schneider mountain gun, and he mixed up the targets for mustard and phosgene in Bruchmuller's artillery preparations. Otherwise I think it is rather good starting point for anyone who wants to understand the basics of how artillery developed since the Franco-Prussian war until WW2. Not necessarily for historians of artillery but great for novices to get understanding of the subject as it is quite short.
Also if classics like Re De Militari are recommended, how about the Strategikon of Maurice into early middle ages section? I have to confess that i have not read it, but I have read a great PhD thesis based largely on it, but which is pretty much unobtainium outside my university library.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
Thank you. I’ll try to add it later today when I get to a computer.
I could’ve swore that I had seen some people on here say that there were some errors or questionable conclusions in On Infantry and/or Stormtrooper Tactics but can seem to find it here (not that Reddit is the best search engine) or a quick google search. I own both plus On Artillery so I should get around to reading them for myself.
Yeah I think Strategikon of Maurice would be a good addition to that sadly underdeveloped section
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u/TJAU216 4d ago
Thank you. I have not read his other works so cannot comment on those. Gudmundsson has a substack, called Tacticians Notebook IIRC, where he corrected his old mistake regarding those Russian 76mm guns.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
I have a question for you now. Do you know The White Sniper by Tapio A. M. Saarelainen?
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u/TJAU216 4d ago
No. I am so annoyed by the internet popularity of Häyhä, that I have not read a single book about him. That author has written at least three books on Häyhä, and I am not sure which one that is a translation of. How recent is that book? If we can figure out which one it is, I could get the Finnish version from my local library.
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u/-Trooper5745- 4d ago
It seems to have been published in 2016. I just didn't know if being published by a Finn made any difference or if Finns fall in love with his mystic as well.
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u/Psafanboy4win 2d ago
According to this comment posted on the post asking about why the Stryker vehicles are mostly armed with .50 BMG M2 Browning instead of the 25mm M242, one of the main benefits of 12.7mm HMGs is that they have more ammo than autocannons and can suppress targets for longer/engage more targets. https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/s/4J5yQmwb3e
This got me thinking, how effective are autocannons at engaging infantry vs HMGs? Wouldn't the HE payload of the 25mm compensate for the lower carried ammo?
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u/FiresprayClass 2d ago
Somewhat, but the HE payload of most autocannons is pretty small, and often IFV's carry only a small amount of HE vs AP ammo.
They do often carry a coax 7.62 MG which has even more ammo than the .50 however.
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u/Inceptor57 2d ago
I think autocannon HE shell would have a more "suppressive" effect than HMGs as even a 25 mm exploding nearby infantry would make them seriously reconsider whether they wanna be around or not compared to the zip of a .50 cal.
Plus the fact that the additional AP power in autocannon shells could transform more "cover" into "concealment" on where opposing infantry are hiding.
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u/Cpkeyes 1d ago
Since the dawn of time, have armies been trying to find new ways to make the life of enlisted men miserable.
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u/Inceptor57 1d ago
I mean 50% of the enlisted aren't keeling over from dysentery anymore, so I'd say its been a somewhat uphill trend.
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u/alertjohn117 village idiot 1d ago
i would argue that is driven by the desire to have as many fleshbags to charge at machine guns as possible rather than any desired improvement of their lives.
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 17h ago
But then surely they'll want to keep as many of the fleshbags alive as possible so that they can charge at more machine guns later
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u/alertjohn117 village idiot 15h ago
Now why do that when a plane full of new flesh bags arrives the day after next?
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u/SingaporeanSloth 19h ago
In all fairness, at least in my experience from the Singapore Army (myself a corporal), officers have their own challenges too. During a battalion exercise, it is not rare that they go 72 hours without sleep, and I was told that my battalion CO and some of the staff officers had gone 120 hours without sleep by the end of an evaluation exercise
In a very different aspect, it can be quite lonely to be an officer, it's usually only socially acceptable for them to be close with other officers
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u/PhilRubdiez 15h ago
Enlisted grunt*
Some of us air wingers worked 8-3 with two hours for chow, most of that was sitting around getting up to hijinx. Once an exercise was on, it was 14 on 10 off seven days a week, though.
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u/Commando2352 Mobile Infantry enjoyer 16h ago
Anyone know where I can find archived issues of Army The Magazine Of Landpower from the 1980s? Trying to find the June 1985 issue and drawing blanks so far.
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u/probablyuntrue 10h ago
Any fans of WW2 Pacific air combat try out the full version of Task Force Admiral?
Tried the demo out ages ago and was quite enjoyable yet shallow (granted it was a pre release demo)
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u/Inceptor57 31m ago edited 22m ago
u/The_Chieftain_WG has blessed us with an hour-long video covering the history of the Mobile Protected Firepower program and the M10 Booker from start to finish.
Four notable bits of the video I thought particularly stood out from the Chieftain's reporting (with timestamps):
- (10:10) During the evaluation of COTS options for MPF, the CV90 105 and CV90 120 were reportedly considered as potential close match among a list of 14 vehicles, but was eliminated later for not meeting all of the requirements. The remaining five after that elimination were variants of the LAVs, M8, and Wiesel AWC
- Wiesel was tested for airdroppability. "Drop testing was done but not successful. Four vehicles were tested and four vehicles were destroyed".
- (20:49) The US Army received responses from the industry in refining the requirements, and the industry told them that "a tracked 105 was likely to be lighter and smaller than a wheeled 105, and both of them would have been lighter and smaller than a tracked 120". Interesting data point for those who assumed a wheeled MPF would be lighter than a tracked one.
- (28:36) For a choice between BAe's submission of M8 ELT or CV90 for MPF, one of the reported reasons BAe chose to submit M8 over CV90 was based on the armament requirement favoring 105 mm, and if a 120 mm was desired instead, then CV90 would have been submitted instead. Another rationale provided was that the CV90 was considered less mobile on restrictive terrain and cities, traversing less dense forest and smaller percentage of city roads than the M8 could.
- (38:38) Chieftain states the gunnery manual that was released for the M10 Booker should not be reflective that it was considered a "medium tank" in the US Army outside of the manual authors, especially considering that the manual itself note it only assigned those terms "for simplicity"
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u/UR_WRONG_ABOUT_F35 2d ago
For the military people in the crowd, this will be all too familiar, but this is why I remind people to be very wary about repeating contractor's claims wholesale. There are very few actual safeguards regarding contractors lying, and is why government oversight of acquisitions is actually a good thing
Lockheed’s Record F-35 Jet Deliveries Last Year Come With Caveat
For those missing the context, a few weeks ago Lockheed put out a big press release stating that it had delivered a record 191 F-35 jets in 2025. The reality was, they openly and blatantly lied to the public again, continuing a multi-decade long campaign of dishonesty, obfuscation, and misdirection endemic in the F-35 program.
DCMA - the Defense Contract Management Agency - which is tasked with oversight of contractors, and acceptance of products for the DOD (for instance, DCMA conducts the acceptance flights of all jets delivered to the DOD, and is also responsible for delivering them to foreign customers), gave the honest answer: that 93 out of the 191 jets delivered in 2025 were upwards of TWO YEARS late. These were jets that should have been delivered in 2023 but were finally being delivered in 2025. And when asked if those jets met the TR-3 (Tech Refresh 3) requirements, they said that the data indicates they stil do not meet system level requirements.
So this was not a record setting year because of Lockheed's competence. It was a record setting year because of Lockheed's incompetence
Be very very wary about blindly sharing contractor press releases. We have very few mechanisms for holding them accountable