Trump: "You could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?"

[Realitytrembles]

Also, more research on battle exoskeletons.

No bullsht here, @Skroe . How far are we from an Iron Man suits for every soldier? End of this century I'm guessing.

I mean, I have read articles about powered exoskeletons and armor being researched. So by 2099 seems quite plausible.

[Theinquisition]

Translation: I don't say much about Trump because, while I dislike Trump and many of his policies - I LOVE that he pisses off liberals, whom I hate even more than Trump for some unknown unfathomable reason.

:P

On a more serious side-note: Remembering our conversations before, I never saw (or possibly somehow missed you posting) what you thought of John Kasich saying he would consider dropping out of the Republican party if it continues the way it does - since he was the ONE Republican we both liked (or, in my case, could respect and call my president while still disagreeing with his policies/ideas).

I haven't read to much about it to be honest. I'll look into it more later.

[Skroe]

Also, more research on battle exoskeletons.

No bullsht here, @Skroe . How far are we from an Iron Man suits for every soldier? End of this century I'm guessing.

I mean, I have read articles about powered exoskeletons and armor being researched. So by 2099 seems quite plausible.

Before I answer your question, let's be clear about something.

I make the posts around here about military tech everybody likes to read. Reading about military tech is interesting. There is no shame in being fascinated by it. And certainly, the US Military is in need (and recieving) a substantial upgrade.

But "supporting the troops", in the sense we're using it here, does not mean turning all of them into Master Chief and dropping tens of billions to grow our carrier force by 3 ships or something. That is something I'm also in favor of. But it's meaningless in this context compared to not treating our troops like their slaves with infinite stamina. The USS John S. McCain for example, was referred to as a "prison ship" by one of its crew, given the working conditions. Because budget limits is forcing the US Navy to hire too few people, which leads to undercrewing ships and extending deployments.

Supporting the troops, in my view, means, if we ask the troops to do A, we give them 100% of what they need to do A. What the people of the United States do though, is ask them to do A, give them 70% to do A, tell them to figure out the remaining 30% on their own, and then tell them to do B, C and D.

If we aren't prepared to give them 100%, and also not ask them to do B C and D without giving them everything they need to do those too, then we aren't supporting the troops. It's actually as simple as that. We're taking advantage of them.

700,000 troops, again, doesn't mean new wars. It means no more 9 and 12 month deployments, and treating the National Guard like the actual National Guard. The Clinton and Bush Administrations, lets recalled, turned Active Duty army formations into NG and Reserve formations because they're cheaper and they don't have to pay for them nearly as much day to day. That that happened, is retarded, and speaks to both the artificial dishonesty of the Clinton Era surpluses, and the pathological dishonesty of the American people that has allowed this to continue, with almost no protest, since 2001.

Just so we're clear
--------------

Now having said that, exoskeletons? Iron Man like? Comes down to power source. And in the end, real world physics are a bitch. In the real world, Iron Man getting hit by an RPG would kill him even if it didn't bust up his armor. Having the armor around a body and the kinetic energy and shockwave from the blast going through "iron man" would kill him. So Iron man in the way you mean probably isn't even useful. And what would happen if we had an army of Iron Men? Our enemy would swap from rifles to missiles just to kill Iron Men. You'd get a lot less out of it than you think. In a sense, this is exactly what happened in Middle Age battle fields with suits of armor. Guns and certain types of long bladed weapons came as a direct result of the iron men of their time. It would be the same thing now.

In fact, consider the anti-tank missile. US Tanks with addon armor can easily defeat older anti-tank missiles. Modern kinds with tandem charges? Sophisticated penetrators that arose in direct response to advances in armor? They destroy any tank and defeat any armor. The next US tank is likely to be much lighter than the current one because the Army is going to rely on active protection for many types of defense and basically stop trying to make the invulnerable passive-defensive vehicle.

Now powered exoskeltons to help carry heavier loads for SOME troops? Next 20 years. That's not "iron man" though. That's just another tool.

What the Army looks like in 2099, as you put it, would be unimaginable. One thing is clear though. The massed formations of the Gulf War are already gone forever. Eve terrorists are using armed drones now. In 20 years militia groups of all types will have actually decent ones, just as they are now getting decent conventional ballistic missiles. Adversary states are developing extremely long ranged weaponry. Masses of armored vehicles, masses of grounded aircraft, fleets of ships at sea, masses of troops are all asking for death.

The future is in highly distributing potency and adding redundancy so that the failure (destruction) of any one part does not collapse US capabilities. It is to reduce single points of failure. For example, until very recently, the US was planning on replacing it's E-8 Joint STARS Airborne ground battle management and command and control aircraft with a successor based around a Gulfstream. That plan is now on hold, because the Pentagon wants to break up its capabilities set and spread it to many different types of aircraft. That way someone, like China, can't blind US forces by just targeting the JSTARS and JSTARS 2.0.

To that end, for ground forces, making troops more independent, or small units more independent than ever, will be essential to protecting them from attack.

[PosPosPos]

Well I can't speak for Tony, who is mostly pretty reasonable in my exchanges with him, except for "SJW" stuff (which I think bothers him way, way too much), but I want to touch on something related to what you brought up.

"What would an actually Pro-Military President look like".

In my book, this is what:

- Tens of billions of dollars towards refirbishing military facilities in the Continetal United States. That means new schools for their kids, new barrackses, new garages and new offices. Most of the existing US military infrastructure in the US was built in the 1950s and 1970s.

- Grow the Active Duty to 700,000 (from 490k) by 2021, and a committement to cut deployments to Afghanistan and other 'war zones' back down to 6 months. Growing the active duty army is the only way to accomplish that. Keeping the army at 490k means asking 9 month to 1 year deployments.

- Similarly grow the Navy, Marines and Air Force so that ships and bases are fully crewed / manned and not understaffed forcing 18 hour work days that promote accidents like what happened twice this year.

- Returning the National Guard sharply more towards the "weekend warrior" model, with a refocus on disaster relief in US territories and maybe allied countries. Using the National Guard as an auxiliary-in-name-only force because having a larger Active Duty Army is expensive, and dishonest and deadly given the difference in training and sometimes equipment.

- Repeal the post 9/11 AUMF against Al Al Qaeda and replace it with distinct AUMFs on a per-campaign basis that gives US troops the actual legal protection and authorization they should have.

- Tens of billions of dollars towards training and readiness over the next five years.

- Now that Raqqa has fallen, withdraw most US troops from Iraq and Syria.

- Replace the obsolete 5.56mm M4 and M16 with a 7.62 or 6.5mm rifle and carbine by 2020. No 10 year study or shit like that.

Thats what supporting the troops looks like. Not facile displays of patriotism. It is unbelievably, mindbogglingly screwed up that US troops go to Afghanistan for 9 or 12 months in 2017, 16 years after the war was launched, and the Obama Administration wanted to SHRINK the army to 420,000 and Trump want's to grow it to "just" 520,000. The number is 700,000. It costs $1.6 billion per 10,000 troops, so adding 210,000 troops would cost $33.6 billion and around five years of time.

It's that or ask the Army to do less. And when was the last time the country ACTUALLY seriously asked it to do that? 1992? Yeah, not happening in a world getting less stable not more.

A President that supported the troops would demand of Congress all these things and an American people that supported the troops would give them, no questions asked. The Army doesn't need 700,000 troops to do new things. It needs 700,000 troops to do what we're already asking it without contractors and without overextending the force.

But that number? Not a real number. Not gonna happen any time soon. Because it's easier and cheaper to talk about troops like they're victims, or have the services flags every 4 feet in the Oval office.

It's remembering, the US Military fought two wars the past 16 years, and fought them well. It was ultimately the American people that completely blew both of them. First by letting the Ghost of Osama bin Laden haunt every waking moment of our lives, and then by spending years talking about an "exit strategy" for Iraq without bothering to create one that had any kind of achievable, reasonable win condition.

America doesn't support its troops. It abuses them.

supertony51:

Which one of these two persons outlined is the military/veteran-hater?

[ ] The guy who votes and shills for a president who is disrespectful to fallen veterans
[X] The guy who doesn't vote for and shills for a president who is disrespectful to fallen veterans.

And how I know? A few months back he was going on and on about a tirade about how a group of people he disagrees with politically(translation: a group of people who doesn't suck up to Trump like he does) are all veteran-haters.

Trump-voting hypocrites seem to be up in arms on MMOC these days.

- - - Updated - - -

Perhaps you could put aside your usual hobby of airing grievances against dirty liberals and give us your actual opinion of Trump's behaviour as described in this thread?

It's funny because for every time he claims to "disapprove of Trump", he posts at least 10 different things about what he thinks Trump did right.

Conveniently, I also recall other alt-right posts like Zenkai or Rancid(whatever his forum nick is) claim to not vote for or support what Trump does.

[satimy]

Should have never invoked Kelly's situation or used it to attack president Obama. Stupid dick move

[Mormolyce]

Should have never invoked Kelly's situation or used it to attack president Obama. Stupid dick move

Let us all stop and think about the fact that this particular Trump fiasco is so toxic that SATIMY has felt the need to distance himself from it.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Also, more research on battle exoskeletons.

No bullsht here, @Skroe . How far are we from an Iron Man suits for every soldier? End of this century I'm guessing.

I mean, I have read articles about powered exoskeletons and armor being researched. So by 2099 seems quite plausible.

Iron Man 2099? Nah Fuck that: