Slava Warthogya!

You also have a language barrier to conquer. There are probably some English proficient pilots flying in Ukraine now, but the majority would need significant help with the language alone.
Sure but we have a whole bunch of dudes and dudettes at DLI bored and looking for something to do. /sarcasm…kinda

Flying manuals would be fairly easy to translate (I’ve read several Russian POHs before, so I don’t think it’d be rocket science to go the other way).

If we sent them newer ones switching the avionics to Cyrillic could be really challenging, if not impossible? I wonder how the instrumentation in the new one @MikeD? You said only the C models were “modern” - but “how modern?”

As for cockpit placards:
C39092B4-68B1-4141-9D8F-6E92F8E9817B.jpeg

I’m only being kind of sarcastic? Honestly, I haven’t been to Ukraine in more than 16 years? (• how did I get so old?!). But when I was there everyone could pretty much read and sound out Latin script so maybe that wouldn’t be too problematic? Also, those guys probably know some aviation English as well.

To be honest I don’t know how much that airplane would actually help at all - but it’s an interesting idea. I think a more reasonable (and problematic escalation) is a flying tigers sort of situation.
 
Imagine how well the Ukrainian military would be doing if we had given them ALL of the equipment we left in Afghanistan. :confused2:

Most of the equipment we left was clapped out and not worth removing.

The world has massive stocks of more appropriate weapons enroute anyway
 
Most of the equipment we left was clapped out and not worth removing.

The world has massive stocks of more appropriate weapons enroute anyway
You're right, those Blackhawks the Taliban were flying around days after we left were worthless. You are incapable of admitting that your political party handled that exit poorly, that actually says more about you than the ideology you've sworn to defend.
 
Have you seen how Su-25 Frogfoot jets have been ending up, both Russian as well as Ukrainian? The Hog would fare about as well. Maybe a tad better. Our 20 years of being spoiled with unhindered air ops over Afghanistan, has created a complacency of what actual air defenses can do.
Agreed. But with the stipulation that we give them nothing else that would make the Hogs more sustainable and effective.
 
You're right, those Blackhawks the Taliban were flying around days after we left were worthless. You are incapable of admitting that your political party handled that exit poorly, that actually says more about you than the ideology you've sworn to defend.
And to which "ideology" -precisely- do you refer? The one which many us took an oath to protect and defend? Or that other one, which, wrapped in a flag bag, allows abrogation of oaths and dereliction of duty in the name of power uber alles?

Nobody exits a 20-year Charlie Foxtrot clean, my friend - especially with an exit date predicated by his predecessor - especially when that predecessor doesn't respect facts or his own advisors. But, go ahead, take the cheap shot. It's clearly often your style.
 
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You're right, those Blackhawks the Taliban were flying around days after we left were worthless. You are incapable of admitting that your political party handled that exit poorly, that actually says more about you than the ideology you've sworn to defend.

Wow, Mr Foreign Expert!

2? a whopping TWO?!

What's the status of these TWO blackhawks?

They still flying?

Go ahead.... tell us
 
Nobody exits a 20-year Charlie Foxtrot clean, my friend - especially with an exit date predicated by his predecessor - especially when that predecessor doesn't respect facts or his own advisors. But, go ahead, take the cheap shot. It's clearly often your style.

Some of the terrible tactical decisions made on that one, wherever they came from, are mind boggling. Like closing down Bagram that’s located in the middle of nowhere, outside of Kabul, secure, has all necessary facilities for a sustained airlift evac. And instead closing it and moving town into an unsecured urban area civilian airport, with a weak perimeter and security, with lacking facilities and ramp space, located within urban sprawl that cannot be patrolled and monitored effectively. What idiot in the upper echelons came up with that idea?

yeah, you don’t get out clean. But forcing yourself to get dirty and muddy when it was completely unnecessary, is outright incompetence.
 
Some of the terrible tactical decisions made on that one, wherever they came from, are mind boggling. Like closing down Bagram that’s located in the middle of nowhere, outside of Kabul, secure, has all necessary facilities for a sustained airlift evac. And instead closing it and moving town into an unsecured urban area civilian airport, with a weak perimeter and security, with lacking facilities and ramp space, located within urban sprawl that cannot be patrolled and monitored effectively. What idiot in the upper echelons came up with that idea?

yeah, you don’t get out clean. But forcing yourself to get dirty and muddy when it was completely unnecessary, is outright incompetence.
At what command level are those types of decisions typically made? Certainly not Presidential I presume?
 
At what command level are those types of decisions typically made? Certainly not Presidential I presume?

NEOs are planned by the State Department as the lead agency. DOD has to play catch with the combatant command (in this case CENTCOM) and the wider DOD providing assets once that agency hits the big red button.


Watching the congressional inquiries this was talked about… barely. And it’s a long standing tradition of letting State write a CONOP that wouldn’t survive actual conditions encountered and then throw up their hands and pul the big DOD handle.


If nothing else comes from that crap show it should be to stop letting the State Department lead plan the way they do. They do not understand how to red team a plan and do nothing as far as contingency development. They simply expect it will work the way they wrote it and look dumbfounded when it doesn’t. I saw this in Asia with them as well… it’s institutionally not the kind of thinking we do in the DOD. We had to deploy the global response package (that ground Brigade from 18th Airborne we keep on alert). That isn’t a decision made below the SECDEF level and only after the official request from State or order from the CinC does that occur. What’s more it isn’t something you write into a plan as a first level contingency because doing so leaves the national strategically vulnerable while it regenerates that force after the event.


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You're right, those Blackhawks the Taliban were flying around days after we left were worthless. You are incapable of admitting that your political party handled that exit poorly, that actually says more about you than the ideology you've sworn to defend.

Those UH60s were elderly, rebuilt A models with zero offensive value. They’re more than likely already grounded because the maintenance supply chain has been cut off.
 
DoD level stuff. Biden would be briefed on it, but probably wouldn’t know one way or another if the plan is sound, depending on how the Generals sold it.

Of course, that isn’t necessarily how it went. Let’s all remember that both Johnson and Nixon thoroughly involved themselves in Vietnam operations, including actual target selection.
 
DoD level stuff. Biden would be briefed on it, but probably wouldn’t know one way or another if the plan is sound, depending on how the Generals sold it.
Generals do have the tendency to make decisions that are self-serving. That is to state that they will do whatever it takes to advance their own desires or careers; all else be damned.

EDIT: The above based on my personal experience, your mileage may vary……
 
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Of course, that isn’t necessarily how it went. Let’s all remember that both Johnson and Nixon thoroughly involved themselves in Vietnam operations, including actual target selection.

this is certainly true. While I can’t prove Biden’s degree of direct culpability or influence in this one, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for him to have had a fair amount.
 
Some of the terrible tactical decisions made on that one, wherever they came from, are mind boggling. Like closing down Bagram that’s located in the middle of nowhere, outside of Kabul, secure, has all necessary facilities for a sustained airlift evac. And instead closing it and moving town into an unsecured urban area civilian airport, with a weak perimeter and security, with lacking facilities and ramp space, located within urban sprawl that cannot be patrolled and monitored effectively. What idiot in the upper echelons came up with that idea?

yeah, you don’t get out clean. But forcing yourself to get dirty and muddy when it was completely unnecessary, is outright incompetence.
Agree. I never understood closing Bagram early either.

I'm not sure where, precisely, that decision stands on the Strat-Tact spectrum. It's clearly not an outlier on either end. In any case, while we hope that's at least a REMF-class decision, its definitely not the kind of decision for which a president would be responsible or even in which a president would be involved other than briefed. (At least a typical, traditional president; there have been a couple who have mucked about in the weeds.)
 
Agree. I never understood closing Bagram early either.

I'm not sure where, precisely, that decision stands on the Strat-Tact spectrum. It's clearly not an outlier on either end. In any case, while clearly a REMF-class decision, its not the kind of decision for which a president would be responsible.

it’s quite possible that the President had to sign off on it, and depending how it was sold to him, with no strategic or military background, it could be sold in a number of ways. Or, it’s possible that he was hands deep in the decision ala LBJ and Vietnam. We’ll likely never know, so I’m not passing judgement on any fault on his part. But those who came up with such a plan, whether DOS or DOD or both, need to be taken to account for it.

Reagan was sold the plan for Beirut by some DOS/DOD scrubs to have the Marine Barracks guards have rules of engagement that didn’t allow them to have their M-16s loaded and ready. When the truck bomber casually drove past and around security perimeter barriers before the guards were able to get their rifles loaded and have a chance at stopping him, he already hit the barracks and detonated the truck, killing 244 Marines and sailors.
 
Generals do have the tendency to make decisions that are self-serving. That is to state that they will do whatever it takes to advance their own desires or careers; all else be damned.

EDIT: The above based on my personal experience, your mileage may vary……
Damned near all of us have tendencies "to make decisions that are self-serving" to some extent -most often, large- or another, as well as a bunch of other terrible tendencies stuffed into our mortal meat sacks. That should not come as a surprise; Most of us are just monkeys with electricity.

The good news is, we can modulate electromagnetic waves. That's what culture and education, and a legal system are for; to modulate and filter our terrible human tendencies. Culture is like a radio signal that can be frequency or amplitude modulated and filtered to minimize and mask the "Terrible" band. Sadly, with incompetent control room operators (e.g: good-phonies, -phrauds, -politicians, -pundits, -players... & bad-priests, -press, -professors, -police, and other Respektpersonen), the "Terrible band" can also be stepped up.

If you had to boil the "'Murica problem" down to one thing, it's been the increase in the amplitude and frequency of the "Terrible" and "Greed" bands in the cultural broadcasts over the past 40 years, with a concomitant diminution of the "Values" and "Principles" bands.
 
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Damned near all of us have tendencies "to make decisions that are self-serving" to some extent -most often, large- or another, as well as a bunch of other terrible tendencies stuffed into our mortal meat sacks. That should not come as a surprise; Most of us are just monkeys with electricity.

The good news is, we can modulate electromagnetic waves. That's what culture and education, and a legal system are for; to modulate and filter our terrible human tendencies. Culture is like a radio signal that can be frequency or amplitude modulated and filtered to minimize and mask the "Terrible" band. Sadly, with incompetent control room operators (e.g: good-phonies, -phrauds, -politicians, -pundits, -players... & bad-priests, -press, -professors, -police, and other Respektpersonen), the "Terrible band" can also be stepped up.

If you had to boil the "'Murica problem" down to one thing, it's been the increase in the amplitude and frequency of the "Terrible" and "Greed" bands in the cultural broadcasts over the past 40 years, with a concomitant diminution of the "Values" and "Principles" bands.
Biden said the buck stopped with him, he assumed responsibilty...
 
Damned near all of us have tendencies "to make decisions that are self-serving" to some extent -most often, large- or another, as well as a bunch of other terrible tendencies stuffed into our mortal meat sacks. That should not come as a surprise; Most of us are just monkeys with electricity……
Most of us don’t make decisions that literally effect thousands of Americans that are occupying a combat zone.

Everything you wrote beyond the above quote, is dribble….
 
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