Corsair: Whistling Death Video

[Cybrludite]

The main mistake we made was not blowing a couple cities and bases in China into radioactive ashes in the winter of 1950 for entering North Korea.
It set a poor precedent, and hamstrung us ever since.

The problem with that is August 29, 1949.

[Jericho941]

Nuclear exchange

ICBMs still take a couple hours.

Sorry to sperg out, but it's kind of an important distinction IMO.

[Aesop]

SLBMs don't.

And IIRC, the actual ICBM flight time is supposed to be closer to 30 minutes.
Getting to DefCon 1 might take longer than that. Hopefully.

The problem with that is August 29, 1949.

Which affects events on the Korean peninsula or in China just about exactly nil.
We had not one, but fifteen B-29s ready to go and in the air standing by with armed warshots the day we landed at Inchon, in case the landings weren't going well.

[Jericho941]

SLBMs don't.

And IIRC, the actual ICBM flight time is supposed to be closer to 30 minutes.
Getting to DefCon 1 might take longer than that. Hopefully.

Realistically-applied SLBMs do. You either have to talk to them via VLF which takes forever and a day, or in the case of the Russians, they're basically conventional ICBMS at home station.

The real threat of the undersea portion of the nuclear triad is "we can still kill them if they kill us first." They're first-strike or "from hell's heart I stab at thee" weapons, there really is no in-between.

[Aesop]

Right, but presumably you don't leave them boring holes in the water in the dark until the last second, and then rope them into the Op plan at the last minute from a cold start.

[Old Grafton]

Well, they ain't 'Hogs, but they're damned close! (I was the head intel geek for an A-10 squadron, back about a zillion years ago, and I guess some of it rubbed off.)

O RLY?

Blackburn wanted to motivate his pilots with a squadron insignia which would live up to the Corsair name and chose the skull and crossbones and the name "The Jolly Rogers". Harry Hollmeyer, as squadron pilot conceived the original design, which was painted on the cowling of the Corsairs that were also known as "hogs."

Here's a replica of "Big Hog", Blackburn's F4U:
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/corsairr ... 92013.html

[Vonz90]

Why would we want to?
And if we did, why would China go along with that?
War is not a fair fight, unless you're doing it all wrong.
If you're not willing to club baby harp seals to win, you have no business fighting for anything.

The main mistake we made was not blowing a couple cities and bases in China into radioactive ashes in the winter of 1950 for entering North Korea.
It set a poor precedent, and hamstrung us ever since.

COUNTERPOINT!

We should have helped north korea unite with the south, and went from there. End result? One korea under american influence.

This is exactly the same mistake that Carter made with the Sandinistas and that Johnson tried to make with North Vietnam (early on when he offered them aid). (And going further back that Frederick made with the French. )

You are quite naive, but not the first to make such a mistake.

National governments do not have friends, they have interests. They become allies when their perceived interests coincide. There are rare cases when a country can be bought so to speak, but not generally relative to their core interests.

Kim was looking to form a communist state from the beginning. There were offers to have Korea wide elections in '48. They had no interest in that.

In short, if we had helped NK, they would have taken that help and then promptly flown to Moscow and Beijing to get in bed with the other reds, because they were reds themselves. In short, their perceived interests were to be part of a global communist revolution, the only way to be on their side was to be part of that operation.

[mekender]

In regards to the OP... How would a design like the Corsair with modern avionics and materials fare against MANPADS?

I would have to imagine that a slow, agile prop plane would be able to easily out turn a missile so long as the pilot could react...

[Steamforger]

AN/ALE 47 and ALQ-157M.

[Jericho941]

I would have to imagine that a slow, agile prop plane would be able to easily out turn a missile so long as the pilot could react...

There really is no out-turning missiles.

AN/ALE 47 and ALQ-157M.

Yup.