kEiThZ
Superstar
It must take significant training to effectively manage all that information that is, quite literally, in your face.
I've heard it said that the F-35 is "boring" to fly. Having it compared to going from driving stick to automatic. Instead, the focus is very much on information management with the guy at the controls becoming more of a tactician and less of a pilot.
I had heard that, early on in the F-35 roll-out, pilots were complaining about the sheer mass of the helmets and the impact on their neck and spine. I don't know if or how things have improved.
It wasn't on the F-35. It's a much bigger problem on the older fleets, with the older helmets. It's particularly bad with helicopter pilots and the weights of older night vision goggle sets.
I was vaguely aware of Baie du Nord and one I think there are a few others in the pipeline (?) but didn't realize it had much of a gas component.
It might have a small gas component. And there are LNG proposals in Nova Scotia, Quebec and New Brunswick. But that's beside the point. If we want to help out our allies, we should recognize that this might be one of the best ways for us to help.
Quite frankly, Russia likely had the capacity to conventionally pound all or parts Ukraine into dust - but chose not to.
Debatable. First off, they deployed a huge chunk of their active forces to Ukraine (something like 75% of ground forces). Next, we have plenty of reports that their reserves are completely rotten due to corruption leaving all that equipment unmaintained. Finally, their plan was based on a scaled down version of the 60s invasion of Czechoslovakia (Operation Danube), where the Soviets seized airfields near the capital, made a mad dash in, and imposed a new regime. The Ukrainians saw this plan coming a mile away and waited to ambush.
All they have to do is 'own' or sterilize a sufficient beachhead and control the strait and, as mentioned, their logistical tail is shorter and better developed. They have been working towards expanding and maintaining their China Sea area of control and influence for quite some time.
There's some other lessons for China too. Russia has largely failed because of logistics and incompetence of their troops, driven massively by corruption. Officers at every rank and in every organization seem to be pilfering budgets for personnel, training, supplies, etc. Turns out their units were 25% below nominal strength at the time of invasion, a lot of their equipment was unmaintained, and the troops don't seem to have done a lot of the elementary training we do in NATO militaries. They also don't have a strong professional NCO corps, so you have Junior officers doing double duty and senior officers going closer to the front than they should. China will learn from all of this. I guarantee you, if they haven't started a massive inventory check in China yet, they will. And I expect they'll be doing a lot more checks on whether training is actually being conducted or budgets are getting stolen.
Fundamentally though, China is not Russia. In China, the CCP has a real bureaucracy that makes decisions with substantial alignment between party and state interests. In Russia, the state bureaucracy exists solely to facilitate Kleptocracy. Bill Browder points out that Putin and the 500 people around him own 99.8% of Russia's wealth. As such, their military does not exist to defend national interests. It's another vehicle for corruption. I'd be surprised if China is anywhere close to this bad. And that is bad news for Taiwan.
China just isn't going to make the same mistakes. Consider for example the fact that it's still possible to communicate with Ukrainians. This has cost Russia the information war. I expect, China would work a lot harder to shut down information in/out of Taiwan. Or the basics like troops not using jam resistant radios, or not stocking enough rations. I don't expect China to make mistakes like that.
If Taiwan isn't ready to fight alone for a few weeks, till intervention reaches, they'll be in trouble.
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