LibriumArcana.Games

Posted: **Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:34 am**

MOSCOW, July 21 -- Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed senior Russian air force official.

The report in Izvestia, which could not be confirmed, prompted memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war after Nikita Khrushchev put nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. The weapons were eventually withdrawn in an apparent Soviet climb-down, but President John F. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report Monday, but did not deny it. Izvestia is often a forum for strategic leaks by Kremlin and other officials.

"While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba," Izvestia quoted the source as saying.

It was unclear if the source was suggesting that Russia would reopen a base in Cuba or merely use an airfield there for stopovers by the bombers, Tu-160s and Tu-95s, which are already capable of reaching the United States from bases in Russia.

Russian strategic bombers, long mothballed, resumed worldwide patrols last year under orders from then-President Vladimir Putin. The flights have continued under his successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Aircraft from the NATO alliance have repeatedly scrambled as the bombers approached but did not enter the airspace of alliance countries. The Russian bombers also buzzed low over the USS Nimitz, an American aircraft carrier, in the Pacific Ocean this year.

Some Russian experts dismissed the possibility of a new Cuban crisis. "It's very silly psychological warfare," said Alexander Golts, an independent military analyst, in a telephone interview. "Putin and Medvedev are very militant in words but very cautious in practical issues. They have not taken any step that can be seen as a real threat to the West, and I cannot see any reason to raise this threat against the U.S."

But "if it's true, it looks like a repetition of the Caribbean crisis" he said, using the common Russian term for the Cuban missile crisis.

Cuba was a client state of Moscow's for decades during the Soviet era. However, those ties have largely ended since the early 1990s. Russia closed its last base on the island, a radar facility, in 2002, and it is unclear whether the Cuban government would grant landing rights to Russian bombers.

The United States says it wants to deploy tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland as a defensive measure against missiles that might be fired from countries such as Iran. U.S. officials insist that the system presents no threat to Russia, which, they say, could easily overwhelm it by launching multiple missiles at the same time.

But Russia views it as a means to peer into Russian airspace. Officials here argue it could be easily expanded to undermine their country's strategic defenses and that Iran is many years away from developing missiles that could reach the United States or its allies in Western Europe.

Putin has in the past invoked the Cuban missile crisis to register opposition to the missile defense project, saying it could touch off brinksmanship as dangerous as in 1962.

Putin also said last year that Russia could target the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic with missiles and deploy missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that borders Poland, if the United States pushes ahead with its plans.

Medvedev has also registered opposition. And this month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "we will be forced to react not with diplomatic but with military-technical methods."

The United States has reached agreement with the Czech Republic, but negotiations with Poland have proved difficult, continuing in Warsaw on Monday. The Polish government wants the United States to upgrade its air defenses in return for the use of its soil for the missile defense system.

"The two sides have said they are drawing closer," said Piotr Paszkowski, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry, after Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski held talks with U.S. Assistant Undersecretary of State Dan Fried on Monday.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:56 am**

Fine. They are completely within their rights to base nuclear bombers in Cuba. Just as we would be within our rights to base our own bombers and other weapon systems in various places right next door to Russia, host countries agreeing first.

Now as to this paranoid scream of the missile defense bases being a means to look into Russian Airspace... We have spy sats and jets you simply cannot match. To be blunt about it... We don't fucking need these bases if all we want is to peek into your airspace.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:16 pm**

Honestly, I'd be surprised if this actually went through. I don't see the benefit to Cuba to permitting Russian nuclear bombers to base there. This is no longer the 1960s, and Cuba's undergoing its own transformations at present.

... I COULD however see them basing the bombers in Venezuela.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:57 pm**

General Havoc wrote:Honestly, I'd be surprised if this actually went through. I don't see the benefit to Cuba to permitting Russian nuclear bombers to base there. This is no longer the 1960s, and Cuba's undergoing its own transformations at present.

Money and giving the finger to Uncle Sam, which is still fucking Cuba over with an embargo and the Helms-Burton Act.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:03 pm**

Does Russia have the money to support Cuba like it used to? I think they've got major problems of their own, honestly.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:20 pm**

LadyTevar wrote:Does Russia have the money to support Cuba like it used to? I think they've got major problems of their own, honestly.

They have a fair amount of oil money at the moment and they are spending some of it on their military. Even if they pay Cuba nothing directly, their military personnel will be dropping money into the local economy.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:07 pm**

I simply do not see Cuba agreeing to base Russian nuclear bombers on their soil simply for the cash windfall that Russian military personnel will be providing by spending with the local economies. If that were a major enough factor to influence national policy, they'd be begging us to take the base.

Moreover, international politics tends to get more complicated than simply giving us the finger. Cuba has something of a history of Russian deployments aimed at us after all, and they know that we're unlikely to take it well. They just had what amounts to a soft regime-change, their society is altering rapidly after many years of strict regimentation, and the prospects of the Helms legislation and the embargo being lifted are better now than they have been in quite a long time.

I seriously doubt that they would throw all that away for the sake of giving us the finger when it gets them nothing.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:16 pm**

Depends on how they see it. Us Presidential elections generally involve a lot of pandering to the Cuban exiles in order to get Florida's large number of electoral votes. Their appraisal of the likelyhood of US policy change maybe very different than yours and Russia is an old ally that is in much better economic shape than it has been in years.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:16 pm**

This is all very true, but the Cuban exile bloc has undergone some demographic changes in the past couple elections, and with Fidel out of power, I think the candidates will be in a better position to either ignore, or at least make empty promises concerning the hard line against Cuba. It's really no longer in anyone's best interests to maintain the embargo, at least in a perfect world.

This of course is not a perfect world, so I may be way off, but I think, at the very least, that Russia would have to offer the Cubans a very tempting deal in order to get them to agree to something like this. If they do, then so be it. As frigid said, they have the right to base bombers in Cuba if the Cubans agree to it, just as we have the right to base ABM systems in Eastern Europe, if the Eastern Europeans agree to it.

Of course, we each have the right to use political pressure to ensure that the other doesn't do what we don't want them to do, and so the games begin. I just think that it's unlikely we'll be seeing Tupolevs in Havanna in the near future. Not enough in it for the Cubans.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:03 pm**

My solution is simple. Romania could use some cash, let's talk about a B-52 base over there. Or in the Western parts of the Ukraine. If Putin wants to play that game, let's play the game.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:10 pm**

As I see it (and I invite someone with a better background to correct me if I have it wrong), we have absolutely no need for an air base in Ukraine or Romania. Our B-52s, to say nothing of the B-2s, can hit Moscow with nuclear weapons from an air base in Missouri if need be. It wouldn't provide us with any more striking power than we already have.

An ARMY base on the other hand... :)

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:52 pm**

As I see it (and I invite someone with a better background to correct me if I have it wrong), we have absolutely no need for an air base in Ukraine or Romania. Our B-52s, to say nothing of the B-2s, can hit Moscow with nuclear weapons from an air base in Missouri if need be. It wouldn't provide us with any more striking power than we already have.

The Russian bears don't need to be in Cuba to hit D.C either. It's all about mind games and PR here.

An ARMY base on the other hand... :)

No.

Absolutely Not.

You're out of your mind.

A dozen bombers is one thing, they can be shot down or fucked with on the ground. The Russians can deal with that.

A US Army Group on soil many Russians still consider part of Russia Proper? The Russians will believe that it is nothing more then a prelude to a mass invasion and will react accordingly.

Also what the fuck makes you think that

A: We want to plant thousands of American boys on Ukraine Soil with targets on their backs? Especially since we're trying to reduce our ground forces in Europe not fucking expand them!

B: That the Ukrainians want this?

C: That the Eastern Ukrainians who would rather be Russian wouldn't bloody explode over this?

D: That we want to spend that much bloody money just to fuck with Russia?

No. Bombers and small groups of them. Anything more risks upping the game into something outright dangerous.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:12 pm**

frigidmagi wrote: A: We want to plant thousands of American boys on Ukraine Soil with targets on their backs? Especially since we're trying to reduce our ground forces in Europe not fucking expand them!

You just suggested planting thousands of American Air Force boys on Ukraine Soil with targets on their backs. You even mentioned that Russia could destroy them at will. Are Air Force pukes somehow less valuable than ground pounders?

...

... the answer to the above question may well be 'Yes'.

frigidmagi wrote: B: That the Ukrainians want this?

Since we seem to be assuming that the Cubans want to fuck with the US for no reason whatsoever, then I see nothing wrong with assuming the same thing about other countries and their powerful neighbors. If they don't, there's always Poland or Lithuania, who DO want such things.

frigidmagi wrote: C: That the Eastern Ukrainians who would rather be Russian wouldn't bloody explode over this?

So put the damn thing in Western Ukraine. :)

frigidmagi wrote: D: That we want to spend that much bloody money just to fuck with Russia?

Like an army base is so much more expensive than an air base. I know how well the Air Force can siphon money...

frigidmagi wrote:A US Army Group on soil many Russians still consider part of Russia Proper?

Who said anything about an Army Group?! Do we even have Army Groups anymore? I'm not talking about sending in Field Marshal von Paulus and his 6th Army! I'm talking about a simple army base. The Russians can destroy that too if they really set their minds to it, but UNLIKE an air force base, a ground base gives us strike capacities we would otherwise not have.

Besides, I was speaking half in jest anyhow. I'm not advocating we set up an army base OR an air force base in the Ukraine because I don't believe the Russians WILL base their bombers in Cuba. In the event that I am wrong however, and they do such a thing, I don't think, assuming the Ukrainians play ball (which they might not), that an army base is such a bad idea. We use tripwire strategy all the time.

Posted: **Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:24 pm**

Okay Havoc you're completely off base. Why?

It won't be a thousand airmen young man. You don't require a 1,000 airmen to run and maintain a dozen or so B-52s. Also since it is likely that we'll run this off an Ukrainian base... YES IT'LL COST LESS!

Putting it in the Western Ukraine, yes because that way the Easterners will never know it's there. Seriously they will go up if it's anywhere in the country.

Also it won't be bloody seen as a fucking tripwire, it'll be seen as an invasion force. It's a dumb idea and not a funny joke. Also a "simple Army base" doesn't give us shit for strike capacity unless you deploy to use your own words "Field Marshal von Paulus and his 6th Army" so basically it would cost more, give us less ability and freak out the Russians to the point they might attack.

It's a bad joke and a worse idea.

Posted: **Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:28 am**

frigidmagi wrote:Okay Havoc you're completely off base. Why?

It won't be a thousand airmen young man. You don't require a 1,000 airmen to run and maintain a dozen or so B-52s. Also since it is likely that we'll run this off an Ukrainian base... YES IT'LL COST LESS!

Seeing as how I'm the only person here I know of who's actually ever preformed any sort of maintenance on a B-52 or a military aircraft at all, I'll step in and break down the numbers needed to support those 12 aircraft.

It won't take a thousand airmen to maintain a dozen bombers. You're looking at approximately give or take 300-400 personel. This is, of course, not counting your flight crews, standby crews, hospital staff, legal staff, administrative staff, base staff, chaplins, red horse, fire, cops, ATC, services, etc. So yes, you're right. You won't need a 1000 people. You need a fuckton more! You're going to need 2000-3000 and that's a lean estimate not counting civilian employees.

My figure for the 3-400 breaks down to approximately 30 personel per shop, giving you 10 per shift, assuming at least 1 tech out of the 30 to run the shop, 5 staffs and a mix of SrAs, A1Cs and Amn. This covers most of your specialists shops (Comm Nav, GAC, Hydro, E&E, Jets, EW) and gives you a few extra for your Ammo shop and nearly double for your Crew Chiefs (Which are about double your normal specialists shops on a flight line due to the work load. This is normal.) This also gives you the dozen or so flight chiefs and various (S)NCO paperpushers, your debriefers, pro-supers, drivers, support personel, OICs, an extra LT or two as well as your plans, scheduling, and the other misc people who work behind the scenes to help things get done. The numbers assigned to any given Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU) may vary accordingly to location, need, amount of inbounds/outbounds, deployments, etc, however it's a average number which is what I'm going with. During my time on the flight line I worked in a shop that at one point in time was getting away with barely 15 people in the shop to cover the work load, TDYs, deployments, weekend duties, etc. Four months later we had over 50 people in a CommNav shop. Almost unheard of at my base. Those are your averages of what's going to be required to maintain about a dozen planes. 300-400.

Then you're going to have to put in the other things besides just the maintainers. As much as everyone loves to fuck us over, refuse to give us a reach around and generally shit on us at every turn by giving us nothing while expecting everything, we do require a few other things besides just a flight line, single hanger to work out of and a toolbox.

Post office (depending on the size of the base, assuming small, 3-5 people)
hospital (dental clinic, ER, regular doctors, pharmasists, lab techs, at least one or two OB/GYNs, physical therapists, optomatry, radiology, etc etc etc)
fire (at least 2 dedicated trucks and personel to operate them for the flightline alone, another 2-3 minimum for the rest of the base)
Red horse - your construction squadron (at least two - three dozen personel. Who else you getting to repair your roads, stop lights, build your buildings, repair your runway, etc?)
cops (gate guards, flight line guards, general roving patrols)
Chaplins (gotta take care of the spiritual needs, one for catholics, one for presbetarian min.)
services (at least, minimum, one chow hall though if you're looking at that many people it'll probably be two. Plus at least one gym of some sort. Plus your random people to put together all the functions [change of command, group ceremonies, etc])
Fuels (Gotta give those planes the go juice somehow. They're not maintainers, they don't fall under the AMUs and are a seperate squadron entirely. Another dozen or two personel.)
Trans (Vehicle repair, shuttle busses, VIP/commander vehicles, base DMV[govt. drivers liscense, flightline drivers lisc.])
BX/Shopette (this can be filled by services if needed, usually filled by bored spouses trying to earn a paycheck. But we have to have some sort of place to spend money on basics [clothing, toiletries, etc] So you're looking a your clerks, shelvers, book keepers and manager)
Commissary (While expecting us to take breakfast lunch and dinner at the chow hall is fine and wonderful, sometimes you want something that they're not serving, or want some extra food so you can make yourself a sammich in the middle of the night. Same makeup as the BX/Shopette.)

Now before you say that it's uneccessary, that's not a full list of everything you'd need to run the base, just a general feel for the numbers. You're not going to get the Air Force to build a permanent non-deployed base somewhere without a certain minimum level of facilities for the personel. It just aint happening. Hell we have AAFES, Burger King and Subway in Iraq and we can get a brand new 57" plasma TV, xbox 360, blu-ray player, games and movies there. You gonna tell me they're not going to put at least a bare bones minimum BX in this place? Aint happening.

And this is all assuming it's a remote non-accompanied tour of duty so you've got no spouses or kids to worry about. I didn't even count the operations squadrons, MOCC, Supply/TMO, ATC, Fuel Cell, ISO/Phase, Base DBMs, Admin, Finance, Legal, Base/Group/Wing commanders and their staff, and about a dozen other agencies/squadrons. I can hit 1000 assigned personel without blinking. Hell, look at NAS Keflavik in Iceland. They had over 900 local civilian employees to help support the base's facilities. And none of this even took into account the housing situation for the base, dorms, dorm managers, and the maintenance workers for that because Red Horse doesn't cover all of it.

My base is relatively tiny for a full operations base and we still have over 8000 military personnel assigned. Hell we don't even have a full hospital, ER or some of the shit you get at bigger bases. And there's over 8000 of us here. That's not counting the civilian employees, contractors, civilian people in services, child care, etc. There's probably over 10,000 people on my base working. So your estimates of sending less then a 1000 people to run this thing is about as far fetched as Hillary becoming president right now. It's simply not feasible.

So I'm sorry Frigid, your estimates of 1000 people are way off.

Posted: **Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:04 am**

Also since it is likely that we'll run this off an Ukrainian base.

So all the Above listed personal would be Ukrainians. Try to read the whole bloody sentence huh B4?

Posted: **Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:40 am**

frigidmagi wrote:So all the Above listed personal would be Ukrainians. Try to read the whole bloody sentence huh B4?

So now according to you, the Russians are going to throw a nuclear shitfit over the fact that there are Ukrainian soldiers on a Ukrainian base?

Moreover, why the hell should our proposed army base be anything larger than your proposed air one? I was not suggesting rebasing the 3rd Armored Division to Dneptropetrovsk! I said already that it could be a small, tripwire-style deployment with ease. Not something capable of threatening Russia, just something capable of making them think. Try reading my entire fucking post before you start lecturing people on what they are and are not allowed to say.

On top of that, you seem to be under the impression that the Russians are either all suffering from Rabies, or incredibly thick. Five hundred soldiers does not an invasion make. Even the Russians know that. And if they react with nuclear war to a deployment of one US batallion in the Ukraine, then they will react with the same to your B-52 NUCLEAR BOMBERS/

And by the way, if the Eastern Ukrainians will throw a shitfit for us deploying an army base, then they will throw the SAME EXACT SHITFIT for your air base, if not a larger ones. Your plan involves deploying NUCLEAR WEAPONS on Ukrainian soil. You think that's a bigger deal than an army unit?

An army base, EVEN A SMALL ONE, gives us a strike capacity that we would not otherwise have. An air base in the Ukraine PATENTLY DOES NOT. So you're suggesting we spend money and resources on doing something that GAINS US ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. There is nothing we can do from an air base in the Ukraine that we cannot do from our air bases in Europe, the US, or our carriers in the Med. The Russians will not see a small army base as an invasion attempt, and they will not react with more dispatch than they would to NUCLEAR WEAPONS being based there. They are not all as stupid as you think they are, and moreover, there EXISTS NO US field army to place in such a base in any event. We're not threatening to invade Russia. We're doing just what we do in Korea, where our tripwire has not restarted the Korean War, despite an ACTUAL madman in charge of the opposing side.

Finally, if you think it was a stupid joke, and that people should not say such things because it is "wrong", then my reply is: "GO TO BED". This is a politics board, where people make political suggestions, not a place where you get to scream that everyone must avoid saying mean things about Russia or advocate forward deployment lest we invite the wrath of the KGB. I am making the army base suggestion, I continue to make the army base suggestion, and since your argument seems to come down to "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY SUCH THINGS", I tend to think it a decent one.

You were the one who suggested a US military presence in Ukraine to begin with, not me. I merely posited that IF we're going to put the US military into the Ukraine, we might as well put it in in such a way as to give us capacities that we otherwise would not have. You ventured yourself that an air base in the Ukraine was a sacrificial lamb to be blown apart whenever the Russians wanted. So would an army base. The difference is that an army base gives us options we otherwise would not have prior to the Russians blowing it up, should it come to that.

Posted: **Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:16 pm**

frigidmagi wrote:
Also since it is likely that we'll run this off an Ukrainian base.

So all the Above listed personal would be Ukrainians. Try to read the whole bloody sentence huh B4?

...Yeah, we're going to trust all of our stuff to Ukranians.

We'll hire local civilians to work the services, chow halls, AAFES, Commisary, etc, yes. Because we always do that. But trusting Red Horse, Cops, Fire, and every last one of the other services to the Ukranian military including the maintenance of the aircraft? Not. Fucking. Happening.

Posted: **Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:36 pm**

Considering we trust fucking Italians I do see it happening. Have you ever seen an Italian unit clear a minefield?

Posted: **Sat Jul 26, 2008 4:51 am**

Nope, never had that pleasure. However, I still do not see us placing strategic long-range bombers and U.S. nuclear arsenals in their hands.

This of course is completely ignoring the need for a security clearance to even work on the thrice-damned BUFFs, the knowledge to maintain them or the pilots, OSOs and DSOs to fly them, which the Ukrainians don't have. They don't have any bombers in their AF and we would then have to spend considerable time, effort, resources, money and man-hours to bring them up to speed. Theirs is a primarily fighter-based AF with only limited heavies or helos, consisting mostly of AN-24s and 26s which are troop transport aircraft, not bombers. Then there's the issue of putting our nukes in their hands and letting them maintain our nuclear arsenal for us. No clearances for that, nor the specialized knowledge to maintain nuclear warheads and weapons since they gave up their entire nuclear aresenal back in 96.

What this also ignores is currently due to the limited amount of B-52H's we have operating we only have three wings across two bases, and one of those wings is ANG. Our fleet of them currently consists of entirely US based frames and is limited to about 100 of them currently left. The 52 is the workhorse of our bomber fleets and the AF plans to keep the BUFF until approx 2040 with current plans to drop several billion to overhaul all the engines to new Rolls Royce engines. So we're getting ready to drop billions in this air frame which is currently the only air frame in the USAF fleets to use alternative fuel, is the biggest workhorse and best bomber we've got and turn it over to Ukraine. Yeah... lets take the limited amount of them that we do have and just send 10-15% of them to be stationed outside our airspace with no extra protection what-so-ever. Brilliant.

Also, while we're on the subject of using these existing Ukranianian bases in western Ukraine, which ones do you mean? Because there are only three air bases in the Ukraine right now that are even remotely capable of possibly supporting a heavy bomber and only one of those is anywhere near western Ukraine and NONE of those currently have facilities remotely capable of hangering or securing a 52. The only heavy base they have in the western part of the Ukraine is the one located at Vinnytsia which is completely lacking in the proper facilities to hanger or secure a B-52 bomber and whats more, it shares the runway with the civilian airport!

Their only air frames that come close to matching the size of the 52 is their AN-24 which has about a third of the wingspan, or their Il-78s which still lack the wingspan. So to properly house and secure these bombers that you want to place in their hands they're going to have to build, from the ground up, an entire new set of hangers at that 'base.' Whats more, they're going to have to redo their entire flightline and runways to do it, driving up the supposed cost savings even more and again, for what? A completely unneccessary show of non-force? This entire idea is ludacris from post one. Seriously. You're suggesting we place part of our strategic nuclear arsenal and a significant percentage of some of our most valuable tactical air assets without sufficent personnel to guard and secure the assets on foriegn soil and place it completely in someone else's hands just to try to play a game of 'lets piss you off.'

At the current time with the current facilities that are in place you're going to end up spending enough time and money to make the extra expendature for a brand new secure facility worthwhile and staff it with USAF members. And that, quite frankly, is about the only way in hell you're going to get anyone to sign off on this idea.

Posted: **Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:34 am**

frigidmagi wrote:Considering we trust fucking Italians I do see it happening. Have you ever seen an Italian unit clear a minefield?

Ok, I'll bite. How do Italian units clear a minefield?

Posted: **Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:37 pm**

I would say that depends entirely on how well the guy clearing the mine field is liked. One method relies on luck, the other relies on having a mine detector...

Posted: **Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:13 pm**

I would hope they do not do it in the way that Russian units clear a minefield...

They link arms and run forward.

Posted: **Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:37 pm**

However, I still do not see us placing strategic long-range bombers and U.S. nuclear arsenals in their hands

I'm not talking about placing it in their hands. I'm talking about stationing 12 B-52 bombers and their crews in a Ukrainian air base. A nation that had nuclear weapons but voluntary gave them up to Russia.

Ok, I'll bite. How do Italian units clear a minefield?

Okay first understand that Italian is a first world nation with a decent education system. Italy also builds the worlds best and greatest mines. Mines that explode if they detect the magnetic waves of a metal detector, mines that blow up from the vibration of a tank tread things like that. So clearly the Italians are not stupid. That is part of what drives me nuts about what I saw.

They clear mine fields by throwing rocks into them.

Posted: **Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:47 am**

You're still ignoring the fact that your cost savings are not really going to be that great of savings once they have to redo their entire air field and build multiple new hangers and facilities.

Yes, they gave up their nukes. That's fine and dandy, that means they don't want them so obviously we can trust them. But that means they also lack the technical expertise and facilities to properly store and maintan the munitions to our standards. So we're going to have to bring in more AF people just to do that. We have an entire career field devoted to doing nothing but safeguarding and ensuring our nukes are ready to fly. This is, coincidentally enough, the same career field devoted to fucking up, falling asleep on the job and loading live nukes into a B-52 on a flight across the states. Just an note...

So we're going to have to have the 300-400 aircraft maintainers. We're going to have to have about 70-75 flight crew (5 crew members per B-52, 60 at one crew per plane and 75 at one per plane with 3 spare crews). Now, how many 2W2s we need stationed there is wholely dependenant on what sort of aresenal you're planning on deploying and storing there. We talking one high yield nuke per plane, multiple smaller ones? That directly affects how many nuke techs you're going to have to have, because they go out to the nuke sites in shifts, staying there for weeks at a time to inspect and maintain it, then go back to the main base afterwards, usually 2-3 weeks on, couple weeks off. You're then still going to need seperate ammo troops to maintain the normal non-nuclear munitions. Plus EoD troops who know those munitions. Plus your normal officers/staff positions to handle the paperwork amongst 4 or so squadrons. Plus admin to handle the paperwork and record keeping. Plus finance to ensure we're all getting our money. You're still gonna hit 1000 or more people for this little venture. It's fine and wonderful to say that the locals can do all of this, but we both know that it won't work like that. We'll need our own people to handle some of this stuff.

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