Oh. My. GOD!  These people are worse than cockroaches!  No amont of the truth will stop them from coming back over and over and over....

Totally agree with DJ.   Nothing to see here, move along please ;)  This has been done to death!!!!

Why won't these people just die...........or at least keep their opinions on defence to themselves?

They must have good relations with the media. They always get their say published.

They must have good relations with the media. They always get their say published.

Other than the obvious, one wonders why Criss and Graf et al. bother to team up with Mr WAP himself.

 

Don't they realise that public ridicule of Kopp can only pass along to them as well?

 

Muppets.

 

Could it be that Kopp and Goon are the mouth pieces of Criss and Graf and not the other way around?

 

Think back to the mid 90's when they were both still movers and shakers in the RAAF, there was no Obey ammendment, no F-35, the F-111 was expected to out live the F/A-18 and it was seriously expected that we would be buying two squadrons worth of F-22's as a silver bullet force to counter the SU's and Migs the 'Tiger' economies had already ordered pre asian economic crisis.

 

I wonder if their are any retired admirals out there who still remenis about 16 major surface combatants, a fleet of OPV's and an extra pair of Collins?

For those who have the time and inclination, you might like to provide some editing for fact to these wiki articles. In line with the Wikipedia policy on referencing I think you'll find some interesting quotes from the DOD on Airpower Australia's submission to the recent parliamentary enquiry into the RAAF's future fighter requiremnets. I believe that one of the senior officers pointed out that APA doesn't have access to classified material on the F-35, so really isn't in a position to comment. The complete lack of military or defence civilian work experience apparent on Kopp's own homepage, might also be useful for calling into question his right to call himself a "defence analyst". If somebody else doesn't have the fun first, I'll update these entries when I get time .

link

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I've yet to come across anyone in RAAF who regards any of these muppets as credible.  They posiitively cringe at the amount of public damage that these morons are doing.

 

and as I've said numerous times, none of them have any clearance levels to make effective comment.  they've never been privy to relevant material, and their scenarios are universally regarded with derision as they cherry pick janes and wiki level reference material.

 

they've oft quoted F-22 TO's and even misunderstood the data used as baseline data.

 

absolute dipwads.

 

The lesson for Lab is that their usefulness in upping heat on Libs is  now coming back to bite them on the arse as all thats happened is that these clowns are now stalking them as well.

Why do I keep reading this crap?

Reporters globally must be  retarded

Our own Klown Akademy member.

Herald

Not true. he knew that the USAF had a bitter lessons learned history of SEAD/DEAD /EW  warfare that was FAR more important to it, than mere dogfighting, that they took away from Vietnam. He knew damned well why the Eagle was designed the way it was as the air superiority/SEAD/DEAD striker; why the Falcon was designed from the beginning to evolve into both tactical ground attack as well as daylight intercept, and why the USAF upgraded a slue of Aardvarks into  EW Ravens; and why we went for the three tier aircraft solution then, as we do today.

He knows USAF tactical air-power theory far better than Sprey; which makes him far worse than any amateur goof like Kopp because Riccioni takes the data he uses and thoroughly understands, twists it, and LIES.

Riccioni and Sprey, pfui!

Herald

 

Well champ, you must have been reading a wacky alternative history on this, because the Eagle was designed as a pure air superiority bird. I believe "not a pound for air to ground" was the catchcry during it's design phase. It was only redesigned as a striker about a decade after it entered service and SEAD was never a priority mission for it. The USAF uses F-16's for that.

 

As for lesson's learned out of Vietnam, of course there were more than just the evidence that missiles weren't as good as was thought, that ROE's sometimes necessitate closing to WVR and therefore that dogfighting was not yet dead. However, it is completely inaccurate to describe that lesson as "mere". It resulted in a complete change of direction in the way that US fighter pilots were trained and equipped,  and has probably saved dozens of US pilots lives during the later part of the Vietnam war and in the 1990's conflicts, not to mention Israeli pilots lives over the Bekea.

 

Riconni's role in helping the US armed forces take advantage of these lessons though the acquisition of the F-16 was vital and he deserves respect for it. He DID make some questionable comments about other systems such as the F-111, which eventually proved to be a winner, while pushing the F-16's barrow in the competition for funding. Whether this was a lie or merely because he truly held the belief I don't know. I'd suggest that unless you are a mind reader, neither do you.

 

However, the fact remains that the USAF and USN have spent nearly 30 years being equipped with a couple of excellent light fighter and that he was a key player in achieving this. That is a legacy that most of us will never dream to leave.