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[MonkeyHead]

I strongly doubt the ability of IS to keep any kind of military or fighting presence in the air. Ground vehicles and weapons are one thing, but aircraft are an order of magnitude more complex in terms of maintenance, facilities and so on.

[Neonivek]

Plus being a pilot is... not something you can just climb into a plane and expect to do well in.

HECK even if you were a aircraft pilot you aren't necessarily competent to fly a different kind of aircraft.

Not that tanks are necessarily "Easy" to use, but it is just a different order of magnitude.

[martinuzz]

Perhaps a few pre-emptive nuclear strikes are in order.

There is no conceivable situation that could make this the case. No current confirmed nuclear power will ever make a pre-emptive nuclear strike. A retaliatory one is possible, but I can say for the US at least is imaginable only under the most bizarre situation (say, managing to set off a nuke in DC).

Don't worry, I am quite aware of that. The first country in the current global world (dis)order to start using nukes, will open a box of Pandora that we'll regret for centuries, if anyone survives the nuclear winter to be able to do stuff like regret.

I was just my sense of strange absurdistic and silly humour. I dub it 'shock and awe cynicism'.

[Strife26]

Plus being a pilot is... not something you can just climb into a plane and expect to do well in.

HECK even if you were a aircraft pilot you aren't necessarily competent to fly a different kind of aircraft.

Not that tanks are necessarily "Easy" to use, but it is just a different order of magnitude.

It's true. There's a serious, serious gulf between a poorly running and crewed tank and a poorly running and crewed aircraft. Tanks just tend to destroy the fuck out of the nearest gate and then perform their missions half-assedly, aircraft tend to lose their fight with the ground pretty destructively.


Speaking about that, has anyone heard anything new about those Abrams that the Iraqis lost after we gave them some S versions and trained them in their use?

[MonkeyHead]

I suspect they would be a very high priority for getting hit by an air strike or drone attack, and as such are probably already burning in the desert somewhere with hellfire missile related damage.

[10ebbor10]

Apparently IS is airborne now. Pictures were posted on the internet this weekend (I am sorry, dutch newspaper did not provide a link this time), of IS forces climbing into military aircraft captured from the Syrian airforce.

This could get nasty if they got their hands on long range bombers. Perhaps a few pre-emptive nuclear strikes are in order.

Does Syria even have long range bombers?

They don't.

They do however have passenger planes. And besides, ISIS with long range bombers is not that much as a threat. They have no chance of bypassing anti-air defenses in the area.

[Leafsnail]

ISIS has a lot of former members of the Iraqi armed forces, so it's conceivable that they have a few pilots.

[XXSockXX]

ISIS has a lot of former members of the Iraqi armed forces, so it's conceivable that they have a few pilots.

Yeah, this. Also there are reports that they are forcing captured Syrian pilots to train their people.

Still doesn't necessarily make them a threat on more than a local/regional level, they'd get shot down pretty quick.

[Sheb]

I guess there is no way they'll fly them in Iraq (They'll get shot down by the US Air Force/Navy), but in Syria, even using transport planes to barrel bombs other rebels could help them greatly. Do we know what Assad's air force and air defense look like nowadays? Didn't he get S-300 from Russia?

[Leafsnail]

We could like, arrest them and put them in prison

[Sheb]

Or watch them. Not all people that went in Syria intend to commit terrorism back home.

[burningpet]

I guess there is no way they'll fly them in Iraq (They'll get shot down by the US Air Force/Navy), but in Syria, even using transport planes to barrel bombs other rebels could help them greatly. Do we know what Assad's air force and air defense look like nowadays? Didn't he get S-300 from Russia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Air_Defense_Force

Good enough to handle inexperienced ISIS pilots easily.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/a-conversation-between-tw_1_b_5733362.html

A conversation between two atheists from muslim countries discussing ISIS and Islam.

[10ebbor10]

However, most anti-air defense systems are located along the coast. So they can freely bombard in the Eastern areas.

Then again, they pretty much control those already.

[Sheb]

Apparently Boko Haram decided they wanted to be a caliphate too.

[DJ]

I thought there can only be one caliph, just like there can only be one pope. Not that it stopped people from declaring their own popes, but there was usually steps taken to restore the pope count to one.