01/5/20

Poking The Iranian Bear

Good friend of mine sends me an email, says, “Hey, amigo, you know all that military crap. Are we going to get slapped around by Iran? Poke the sleeping bear meme real? Are all the baristas at Starbucks going to get drafted?”

I laughed, called him, and said, “Where do you get this crap? Let me lay some facts on you.”

If the Iranians decide to retaliate for the US’s hit on Soleimani, the confrontation will likely degenerate into an air campaign from the American side.

Why? We don’t want to put ground troops into Iran. Make sense?

The Iranian Air Force

The Iranian Air Force has the following mixed bag of combat aircraft:

Russian MiG 29 multirole (fighter/bomber) aircraft — 20

Russian Su-17/20/22 attack aircraft — 10

Russian Su-24 attack aircraft — 23

US F-4 Phantom II fighter bomber aircraft — 63 (16 unarmed, recon only)

US F-5E fighter aircraft — 20 (includes some reverse engineered derivatives)

US F-14A/AM Tomcat fighter interceptor aircraft — 26

French Mirage F1 fighter aircraft — 9 (from Iraq when fleeing Desert Storm)

Iranian HESA Kowsar fighter aircraft — 7 (good avionics based on F-5 airframe)

Chinese F-7 fighter aircraft — 17 (built by Iran under license from China based on MiG-21)

Continue reading

02/12/15

Social Media and the Internet Go To War

Big Red Car here. Another beauty in the ATX. Ahhh, thank you, God!

So, The Boss was chatting with one of his trade school buddies. “Trade school” is what you call VMI, West Point, Air Force Academy, Annapolis, Citadel and other military schools. It is an inside joke amongst trade school grads.

They get on the subject of asymmetrical warfare — fancy word for terrorism and the whole Middle East mess. Lump in Al Qaeda, ISIL, Boko Horam and the flavor of the day shitheads.

Social media and the role of the Internet bubbles to the surface. Continue reading

01/13/15

Call to Action

Big Red Car here. Cold day in the ATX, feeling sorry for myself.

We know where the terrorists are being trained. We know the routes they take to get there. We can see their movement.

What are we waiting for? This is what is called a “call to action” wherein we find them, fix them and kill them. Time to interdict the travel pathways. Continue reading