F35 vs. A10?

[heydaralon]

Taking out nukes, who would win in an India/Pakistan conflict? India has a bigger population, but aside from some skirmish with China they lost, they haven't been in any wars that I can think of lately. ISI better than RAW?

[Smitty-48]

India would crush them, it's no contest, which is what makes it dangerous, because Pakistan would have to fall back on its nukes.

[heydaralon]

Hezbollah is arguably the next toughest after Iran, Hezbollah is a bitch.

Hezbollah backed by the Quds Force, that's a problemo.

Yeah man. There's this Iranian guy named Qassem Sullemani who actually went to Iraq after 2003 and helped SCIRI (I believe) and gave the Sadrists weapons, training and shit to use on America. Pretty sure the same dude went to Syria and helped Assad too. Israel is pretty freaked out by Hezbollah and to me it seems like they are way more worried about them than Hamas. Hezbollah is a force to be reckoned with. I don't know much about their history, but before the barracks bombing in '82, and that whole civil war the Shias in Lebanon were an invisible afterthought. Nobody really paid any attention to them. Now they are one of the top dogs in a cutthroat part of the world.

[Smitty-48]

Anywhere there is a conventional mismatch, with a theater thermonuclear option, those are your nuclear fault lines, the places where shit could actually go down, because one side could actually win the conventional war.

[Smitty-48]

The way we prevented World War Three, was by blocking the Soviets from reaching the Rhine river in short order, along the North German Plain and Fulda Gap before the Americans could REFORGER.

If they couldn't realistically do it, they weren't going to do it.

We stood in their way, with land combat power, blocking the path to escalation.

[heydaralon]

The way we prevented World War Three, was by blocking the Soviets from reaching the Rhine river in short order, along the North German Plain and Fulda Gap before the Americans could REFORGER.

If they couldn't realistically do it, they weren't going to do it.

We stood in their way, with land combat power, blocking the path to escalation.

You have talked about this many times, how you thought it was all over for everyone, and that we'd all be covered in nuclear ash back during the cold war. Was this how most soldiers felt? Do you think the Warsaw Pact or NATO actually gave serious thought to trying a conventional invasion into eachothers' territory?

[Smitty-48]

Well the problem was the Soviets escalated laterally, they went to submarine war and tactical nuclear weapons, so the path to escalation broke out that way instead of through the Fulda Gap.

As to what all the other troops thought in the 1980's?

It's hard for me to remember specifics, it was a long time ago now.

[heydaralon]

I suspect that eventually, a nuclear exchange will happen. Idk where, but its a certainty. If you had to hazard a guess, where is this most likely to take place? My money is on India/Pakistan. Do you think that a conventional war would follow, or would each side keep launching nukes until they were all rubble? Also, would a nuclear exchange lead to WW3?

[Smitty-48]

I suspect that eventually, a nuclear exchange will happen. Idk where, but its a certainty. If you had to hazard a guess, where is this most likely to take place? My money is on India/Pakistan. Do you think that a conventional war would follow, or would each side keep launching nukes until they were all rubble? Also, would a nuclear exchange lead to WW3?

Subcontinent is very plausible.

China and India is plausible.

China and Russia is plausible to me. They could have a falling out at any moment.

Russia v Europe, Russia back against the wall, America dithering.

China and Japan, China bites off more than it can chew, brandishes the nukes.

Israel back against a wall, goes to the neutron bombs.

There are actually ever expanding and escalating options all over the place.

[heydaralon]

I suspect that eventually, a nuclear exchange will happen. Idk where, but its a certainty. If you had to hazard a guess, where is this most likely to take place? My money is on India/Pakistan. Do you think that a conventional war would follow, or would each side keep launching nukes until they were all rubble? Also, would a nuclear exchange lead to WW3?

Subcontinent is very plausible.

China and India is plausible.

China and Russia is plausible to me. They could have a falling out at any moment.

Russia v Europe, Russia back against the wall, America dithering.

China and Japan, China bites off more than it can chew, brandishes the nukes.

Israel back against a wall, goes to the neutron bombs.

There are actually ever expanding and escalating options all over the place.

Do you think that if such an exchange occured lets say in India and Pakistan, that the US president would immediately call the Chinese and Russian leaders and tell them something like, "Ok, this is bad shit, but I'm not going to launch any nukes if you don't" or would it just trigger off a major exchange or ICBMS like at the end of Terminator 3? Once you go nuclear, is there any way to contain it? I often wonder what the protocol is for nuke subs or remote areas in instances like that. If they hear that a nuke has been launched anywhere, are they just required to launch their own payloads immediately, or do they need to wait for orders from above?