Very true! At the same time, the solution for that probably shouldn’t have been the garbage fire that is the M7

It was fun to remember that one of the chief reasons for 6.8x51 was body armor defeat and then see Russian soldiers in Ukraine literally ditching their shitty plates to put stolen Macbooks in their plate carriers

If Biden had any sense we would have had the Flying Tigers over Kyiv three years ago

The number of US aircraft downed by AAA or SAMs manned by PLA soldiers is probably a number we'd be quite uncomfortable with tbh

Makes you think about how queasy we are about western troops officially in Ukraine when our adversaries were doing it pretty openly in Korea and Vietnam

To be fair, had he not mentioned his dad was a tank driver, you could even plausibly ask, "which war?"

Between Jun 1965 and Mar 1968, about 320,000 Chinese soldiers rotated through N. Vietnam, peaking in 1967 at about 170,000, most were technical advisors, but some manned anti-aircraft batteries

Where would you propose CA and PSYOPS go?

people genuinely think that the "Go Blue" in her bio means that she is promoting the Democratic Party lmao

actually though, did the japanese have anything that could reach a B-36 at altitude? a cursory search showed that even the high-altitude interceptor prototypes were still a few thousand feet away from the service ceiling of a B-36

I don't believe they've made the requisite sacrifices of blood to the damage control gods yet

As far as I know, no. And he's said some very Trumpian things about the collapse of USAID too...

Does Taiwan already have a stock of Mk48's for them now? Or is it an "on order" kind of thing/in the process of delivery?

It is (and was) delusional, but the belief that the Americans would return with air power was both pervasive and persistant among the South Vietnamese military at all levels until literally the very end

The ARVN largely crumbled because of two things: shock at the rapid movements of the PAVN and the lack of munitions and supplies: I would argue that (the unrealistic, fantasy-based) introduction of American air power on an Easter Offensive scale would have bolstered RVN morale a great deal

Marxist theory makes for better motivated individual soldiers and better small-unit morale and cohesion. It was so good that Evans Carlson introduced "gung ho" into the American English lexicon (and not to mention the political/ethical indoctrination he pioneered after observing Mao)

There probably was never a realistic scenario in which North Vietnam would cease to exist. I think the only time in which a "okay there's no rules" scenario could have saved RVN would have been round-the-clock arc light strikes on the PAVN units out in the open in the 1975 Spring Offensive.

She's literally Rasputin reborn if Rasputin had slightly worse political instinct

Would love a link if you can find that interview!