4 ms·
The US is still very effective and well-trained compared to its peers, however the issue is armed forces all over the world (including the US, and other NATO co
by pixelesque 2y ago
The US is still very effective and well-trained compared to its peers, however the issue is armed forces all over the world (including the US, and other NATO countries, especially the UK and Germany) are in parts struggling with retention and providing training to their soliders/sailors/aircrew (flight-time to pilots in the case of Air force), so collectively standards are going down.
The Royal Air Force has less active fast jets (fighters and bombers) now than it had just bomber aircraft (Tornados) 20 years ago, and the Royal Navy is struggling to find sailors to man ships (not surprising given the pay, and the fact the UK doesn't do what the US armed forces do and pay for education, i.e. college).
If you look at accident reports over the past year from the US Air Force, the amount of flying time pilots are getting for practice every three months is around a third of what is was 10 years ago.
- tomohelix 2y agoI think training and experienced crews are in the same boat as equipment. It takes too much time and effort to train someone to do things like flying the F35 or crew an aircraft carrier. By the time a new pilot is certified, in a real conflict, probably 10 already died. It is simply unsustainable if the enemy can fighting back on equal ground. The history example with Japan also demonstrated this point. Japan had highly trained and effective sailors and pilots. But they all died and by the end of the war, Japan had to scrape the barrel and forced untrained young boys into the fights, who did not received any advice or training from the experienced veterans because those had all died. And so they lost. The US may walk the exact same path on both equipment and personnel.