Post by @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

So the F-15 is the most successful combat aircraft in modern history. 104 air combat engagements with enemy aircraft. 104 victories. Zero losses. A perfect record.

Only 6 F-15s have been lost to ground based fire in all history. 3 of those 6 were friendly fire under this Operation Epstein Fury.🤡

Add those 3 lost F-15s, to the F-18s that fell off of ships...🤦🏿‍♂️

And the helicopters that crash into civilian planes...😢

And you begin to understand why all this "warfighter" and "increasing lethality" talk is nonsense.

Competence matters. Communication matters.

I am not debating this with y'all.

Paul_IPv6

@paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke

the entire reason for a standing professional military is to develop and maintain a high degree of competence and readiness. punishing experience and expertise for specious "idealogical" tripe by getting rid of that very experience and expertise is criminal and cause needless loss of lives.

Chris

@ASprinkleofSage@mastodon.social · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke this is reminding me of ancient Sparta and not in a good way - Spartans burnished the image of tough ruthless warrior bros (whislt also maintaining a vicious hereditary hierarchy back home) so much that they neglected any strategic thinking and lost so many battles through idiocy. There's a marvellous example in the blog below of Spartans tsking the shields of allies to 'surprise' an enemy with their skill and getting routed! hard to miss the parallels.
https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/

A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

This. Isn’t. Sparta. – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Posts about This. Isn’t. Sparta. written by Bret Devereaux

Nu Modular

@numodular@c.im · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke Are you saying Epstein Fury is now an EF35 tornado?..

Carolyn

@CStamp@mastodon.social · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke US is going to become a laughing stock for more reasons. I cannot fathom how 3 jets could be shot down by friendly fire. At one time.

lor

@lor@goingdark.social · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke How much is related to them using AI - I wonder?
This admin is incompetent at best.

keith

@keithpjolley@discuss.systems · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke same administration that said they wouldn't shell the freeway from san diego to LA and then promptly shelled the freeway from san diego to LA.

disorderlyf

@disorderlyf@todon.eu · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke "increasing lethality" still counts if you kill yourself

The classic meme known as Roll Safe according to KnowYourMeme showing the man the meme is named after wearing a leather jacket and a gold watch tapping his temple with his right hand as if to denote something was smart thinking.

Robert [KJ5ELX] :donor:

@FuturisticRobert@infosec.exchange · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke

"Operation Epstein Fury"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
APPROPRIATE

Simon Zerafa

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke

I still don't understand how Kuwait can mistake an F-15 for anything that Iran has in its inventory?

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

@simonzerafa

Iran has F-14s. There's no time to make a visual identification.

Automated systems detect a fast mover inbound, and if there are no known friendlies in the area, they have to make a call to shoot it down or not.

In some cases, the response is fully automated. Because if the F-15 is flying fast and low, the entire time window from when your radar first sees it, to when it's already past you, could be ~3 seconds.

F-15s flying fast and low.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JultKcPcKjk&t=140s

peachfront

@peachfront@toot.community · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke

i agree but to GOPs this terrible waste is a feature not a bug

this whole war is nonsense, if Iran was our enemy since the 1970s why the F*** did the GOP invest all that money & lives in taking down their secular well-located once powerful enemy Iraq...

i feel the whole purpose of US war in the ME is to waste money & lives for the profit of the few, it's obv. there is no plan to "win" anything <gestures wildly at Iraq>

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

Without competent leadership, the US Navy loses the aerial battle to *checks notes* Yemen.

Yemen!

At this point, I'd like to remind folks that Yemen doesn't really have an Air Force. Some experts say that they have one functional combat plane.

AccordionBruce

@AccordionBruce@mastodon.social · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke
When a paranoid racist Stalin purged his generals in 1937, Russia with 3,000 tanks lost a war against Finland and their 32 tanks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_of_the_Trotskyist_Anti-Soviet_Military_Organization

Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization - Wikipedia

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

For those with short memories that think I'm being hyperbolic about the wrong leadership putting the US Navy, the most capable in the world, at a disadvantage relative to Houthi rebels with their one plane:

The US lost 8 military aircraft to the Houthis.

7 MQ-9 Reapers
1 F-18

And how does it work when your plane falls off the carrier? Someone comes and tells you?

🧔🏼‍♂️Yo... have you been up on deck yet today?

👨🏿‍✈️No, why? But I'm about to head up! Gotta go fly my plane! BTW, what was that big splash?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/politics/us-navy-jet-overboard/index.html

I feel the pilot's sadness.

When my laptop falls off the table and breaks, I feel a sense of loss too. Sure I can "just get a new one," but they're really expensive! And the new one doesn't feel like mine yet. The old one had my stickers and decals on it!

Basically the same thing.🤡

CNN

US Navy loses $60 million jet at sea after it fell overboard from aircraft carrier | CNN Politics

A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet has been lost at sea after it fell overboard from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier while it was being towed on board, the Navy said in a statement on Monday.

Paul_IPv6

@paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke

the purging of senior military leadership with actual military competence is going to cost US military lives needlessly. dui pete has proven over and over again that he shouldn't even be allowed to cosplay someone in the military, much less have military folks' lives in his hands.

tom jennings

@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org · 3 months ago

@paul_ipv6 @mekkaokereke

But DUI Pete's crew will more happily turn their guns on random folks, or citizens, etc, and I suspect that's the point.

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Save Elderly Housing! Patty 👀

@pattykimura@beige.party · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke My brother was USNA Rickover Navy Nuke. His was on the Nimitz, before retiring to spend the next 40 years as civilian DepNav nuke at Pearl /PHNSY with a stint as civ head Yokosuka. What Trump and his puppet Hegseth are doing to the Navy dishonors generations of selfless, competent, couragous, dedicated Navy sailors and Marines and the multitude of DoD civilian employees (many, former mil) who have given so much to make our Navy peerless.

*Shot down by Yemen* ... Yemen. The lack of coordination or planning cost $351M just in the cost of the planes. Trump Stupidity on the global stage.

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

@pattykimura

The Houthis shot down the drones, but the plane loss was sillier than getting shot down.

Houthi rebels have no way of getting close to an aircraft carrier. None. Nothing they have can penetrate the concentric rings of defense around a carrier.

But if the carrier is silly enough to come close to the Houthi shore? Then Houthis can fire missiles at it.

If a missile is launched close to a carrier, it can deploy countermeasures and do evasive moves, and then jam the missile, so that the missile strikes where the carrier would have been, not where the carrier is now.

During these evasive moves, the carrier accelerates from about 15 mph to about 40 mph in under 30 seconds, and banks hard because it is turning. During this bank, the ship can tilt up to 17 degrees.🤯

Any airplane that is not chained down and doesn't have brakes applied and blocks, will start to roll.

The carrier got too close to the Houthis. The Houthis fired a missile at the carrier. The carrier did these evasive maneuvers. The plane rolled off the boat.🤡

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Aa9pQYrg0

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mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

You fire dudes like this, and think it will have no impact?

It has an impact.

When it's RFK in charge of Health, we see how silly it is. They did the same competence downgrade to the military, then went to war?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nLOT363Jjes

Chris Petrilli

@petrillic@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

@mekkaokereke I worked a lot with DoD when I lived in DC, and while I have massive disagreements on policy, one thing I always had was deep respect for the skill and thoughtfulness of leadership in nearly all cases.

These weren't a bunch of yahoos.

But they got rid of the adults and put a bunch of whiny useless mediocre (at best) white men in place.

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io · 3 months ago

You fire dudes like this, and don't think it will have an impact?

It has an impact.

Admiral Milton Sands III is a highly decorated Navy SEAL and was commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Basically, he was the final boss of the Navy SEALS.

He just got fired.

Listen to the respect and humility with which he and his soldiers talk about African and European military allies.

All war is awful. Civilians get hurt the most. Mostly children. This is not a glorification of war, so don't say something silly that will get you blocked.

The point is that this was just two years ago, and the way that Special Operations conducted itself and communicated, has changed that much.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=js4fen12A7k

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