The US’s military edge over Russia and China has come down to one plane

Hi Carl. I just wanted to wish you a happy holiday season (I don't want to make assmptions about what you celebrate, and want to wish you well, I know being PC can be annoying, but not the intent, lol), and to apologize for not responding here in a timely manner. I had to address something, and was dealing with it. I enjoyed your description of life in the SAC. It must have been really awesome to work in that environment, and culture. Being pushed to maximum engagement, and doing so to a high standard. There are very few pockets in life where you can experience that. Most of life is mundane, and unchallenging. Always enjoy reading about NASA in the 60's, or about motorsports. It's a glimpse into demanding organizations, where there is a clear sense of purpose, and passion. Few people have the privilege of working in high performance emvironments. Still working on learning about all of this to get a good understanding. It seems like Putin's, and Trumps recent statements indicate a change in nuclear policy. Going to be interesting. Putin is an enigma. Don't know what to make of him. So many agenda's, demonization of enemies via MSM, pro Russian spin from RT. Interesting to see how the future will play out. It seems, Trump, Putin, Netanyahu probably the men who will shape much of what happens over the next 4 years. The world is so unstable right now.

First, I was not a member of the flight crew or an officer. I was an enlisted man who fixed the stuff on the ground so the officers could use it in the air. I kept it working to get the flight crew butts home to their families. The flight crews just had to know how to use the stuff, I had to know how it worked and how to fix it so they could use it. That meant that I had to be trained in at least the basics of all electronics warfare systems on both sides of the iron curtain from submarines to satellites because I could get pulled TDY to another base in a moments notice to work any ECM system including stuff like on SR-71s, U-2s, and other spy planes that may still be secret, which I never did work but some of my friends did and we often traded war stories. I was very fortunate to be in ECM and SAC (didn't think so about SAC at the time) because we had quite a few classes on all this stuff along with regular briefings from the Pentagon, some in person and others with documents sent down to our shops to be read. All ECM shops had a red phone direct line to the Pentagon and we received special work messages on them several times in shops I was in, such as in Carswell AFB in Fortworth, TX during the bombing of Hanoi and at Udorn, Thailand during Yom Kipur for special missions. We were trained in how our stuff worked for conventional, nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare and how it would be used, therefore, we had to know the basics about the strategies and tactics for all of those forms of war. SAC was very thorough and professional. There is quite a bit I can't tell you because it is probably still classified, which is why I asked Alex to find out if stuff about killer satellites is still classified. If not, that would make a fun SAC story. The technical stuff about how the equipment worked is almost certainly still classified but some of the things we could do are not and I have shared a few of those. We could do all kinds of things to their radar scopes like just blank it out, create a big spot where our plane could hide, create multiple targets to hide our plane in, make their radar think we were going somewhere we were not going, and more including blowing them up. We could also shut down their communications and interfere with any form of electronics. It was incredible what we could do in the early 70s, especially in espionage, and I know they have better today. You couldn't begin to imagine the intel we gathered, the way we did it and what we could do with it. That movie about the NSA rogue played by Gene Hackman...I laughed. We would have found him in the early 70s. I also laughed at the movies "The Day After" and "Red Dawn" because none of that would have happened. We had stuff that is certainly still classified to prevent "Red Dawn". Trust me, nothing you have seen out of Hollywood would have happened. In ECM, we broke other people's fun toys so they didn't work and they couldn't use them against us. I guess we were kind of professional spoil sports to the enemy. We were trained by SAC that we were close to the top of the Ruskie fecal matter list because we screwed up their best stuff...really bad, and, therefore, we had SAC classes on identifying KGB agents with a variety of tests to run against anyone suspected, if someone failed those tests, we were instructed to tell our shop supe, he would contact OSI, and they would take care of it. We were trained that the Ruskies had agents near military bases who went places they knew we would go, especially bars and churches, and try to get classified intel out of us. We were to suspect anyone who suddenly became very friendly upon meeting us, you know, persistently friendly. Let me give you a hint most people miss in the "documentaries" about how a nuke war would really work. We had three basic levels of aircraft operations for Buffs in SAC and you can get this from documentaries. Every SAC base had at least one plane that was constantly in the air for about 72 hours at a time which was armed with nukes. Those planes flew east across the US to the Atlantic, north to the North Pole, south down the Pacific to the US and back across the US, regularly being refueled in the air. All SAC bases had an alert pad with at least one or two, sometimes more, Buffs armed with nukes, fueled, with a crew chief crew on duty at the plane 24/7 and the air crews in special quarters less than 100 feet away from the birds. Every Buff was rotated through the alert pad and stayed there for at least a month at a time. The rest of the birds were on the flight line for maintenance or being flow for training. If there had been an all out nuke war with Russia, the planes flying the pattern over North American would have instantly turned and started their attack on Russia along with some of our spy planes and fighter planes with our satellites doing their things overhead and subs and carriers below. On the alert pads, the crew chief and his people would fire up the engines and turn on all the equipment on the Buff on their check list for it to warm up by the time the crew got there and those Buffs would launch so they would reach Ruskie air space some time after the planes flying the North American pattern with more spy planes and fighter planes joining the fight. They would have been the second wave going into Russia. The rest of the Buffs would start ramping up for nuke war with the flight crews being briefed while we did special workups to load on special equipment on each Buff pending its mission including loading nukes on all of them. The ground crews would have gone on 24 hour shifts "re-configuring" the Buffs for nuke war and sending them up as fast as we could for a third wave attack on Russia. Any Buffs that returned from nuking Russia would have been quickly fixed, re-configured, and turned around to nuke Russia again but, that was the worst possible scenario, which we trained for in the famed ORI (Operational Readiness Inspection) but was least likely to happen so we had other SAC war games we were also trained in for other possibilities. This should tell you that we expected even an all out nuke war to last a while and not just be over within an hour or two. The ORI was very interesting and telling. The way it worked is a plane loaded with generals, the inspector generals or IG team, would suddenly land at your base, relieve the base commander of duty, and take over the base to run their ORI while the base commander went off to play golf and pray. The IG team would select the planes on the alert pad and then hand the base commander's assistants a list of randomly pre-selected Buffs and the information of exactly how each Buff had to be configure for specific war games the different flight crews would be expected to play on their first war game mission. The idea was that an all out nuke war had just started and we had only so many hours to get each and every Buff configured for a specific mission for each. If a Buff suddenly developed a problem that would take longer than the allowed time to fix and configure, the IG team would randomly select a replacement, which had to be configured within that time limit. For ECM, we had the most stuff on those Buffs and most of the stuff that had to be changed so we really busted our butts. For example, we had different types of chaff for different types of missions and had to configure every chaff magazine with exactly the right chaff in exactly the right order for the mission for that Buff. We had to configure so many of specific types of transmitters, their power supply black boxes, and control boxes and they all had to be operational before that Buff could fly. We either took stuff out of supply or yanked stuff off of one bird to load on another bird and had to keep track of all of that equipment because we were going to have to change all of that again when those birds landed from their first mission to prep them for the next mission. We worked 12 hour shifts on an ORI or any other SAC game for anywhere from a few days to weeks and we had to get everything right down to the right number of specific types of chaff in every magazine in the right order and each magazine loaded in the right dispenser on each plane. Then, after the ORI was over, we had to quickly return the base back to normal operations including the alert planes being re-configured and nukes loaded. To make things worse, both SAC bases I was at had planes and crews based at Guam that had to be regularly rotated, especially during Nam. I hope that helps. BTW, we need more F-22s to take out SAMs before our Buffs or other bombers go in. About 2,500 should do for now.

Thank you Carl. On a curiosity level I was wondering what your job was. Did you fly or operate ECM equipment? Where you in targeting or a navigator? (I know some C130's have navigators, I assume someone helps to check bombs go where they need to) A lot of the drone stuff tripped me out too, so I figured that there must be an accurate world map of terrain that is shielded from external interference, and does not rely on navigation aids like gps signals, radio beacons, and stuff. Something completely autonomous. Additionally, I know too little of your world, and your reply sort of split a vein of interest towards our aviation doctrine, and nuclear war. I get the idea of MAD as a sort of let's just not go there thing as a preventative. Been disconcerted with the General level purge during the current administration, and have seen sensationalism that suggested many of the removals were on trivial charges, and centered on leadership in our strategic nuclear forces community. (Just grabbing at straws as an uneducated person trying to describe it, lol). I went away from that exposure concerned about where the nuclear balance stands, and the S400 talk started picking at the idea of air superiority. So that concern has been latent, and festering for a long time. I just realize, I need to read a lot of books on nuclear doctrine, and then dive into the techical aspects a lay person has access to to come up with the best reasonable assessment of where we stand. There were a few specific questions, that if your reply were a conversation that would have prompted me to say, "No way, really? Dude, that's awesome, tell me more.", and "How does that work" or "What are they doing?". But, that just shows you the level I'm at in this. So I have resolved to read up on the subject for a while to get a better picture of this area. Your reply is like the skeleton of reality to build greater understanding onto. I'm at the point in this to where my understanding of ECM is like it "Jams" missiles or radar stations. But, how.... My conceptions of this are like WWII level tech. So I'm almost like a person that is like "Skateboarding? what's that? You mean they have boards with wheels on them, and they do tricks?" Who runs off to wikipedia to be like hmm skateboards. I'm going to be picking through this new universe to self educate to the point where some of the sillier questions need not be asked, don't want to exasperate you, and focus on questions that really utilize your subject matter expertise in a respectful manner. It has been a cool thread, and I appreciate your expertise, and generosity in sharing it. Always appreciated aircraft, and big machines, but prior to this gravitated towards the accessible things, and never invested more time in aviation beyond viewing aircraft as really cool objects. I still labor under a largely hollywood conception of dogfights, and simplistic, visual depictions of extreme experiences. Live vicariously a bit.

We need more F-22s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DP4lXcKRec&list=WL&index=8

Ask, If I can't answer it, I will tell you. If I can answer it, I will. What I told is what SAC taught us but know there is much more I still can't tell, such as about satellites. Until I hear other wise from Alex, that is off limits. Some of it, I am certain is still classified but some may not be but I am checking on that. Also, note that you only think I gave you details when I only taught you basics. It is much, much more complex than I told you. Just imagine thousands of military planes of all types, missiles, drones, submarines, and other weapons moving into structured and coordinated battle at one time, each with its own mission, just a cog in a massive global war machine.