The U.S. Armed Forces There is much talk about how far behind we are falling in our troops and our shrinking navy. This is being said by many who do not have all the information. Much of our weapons innovations are secret. I am not saying they are right or wrong, just that they can’t possibly know everything. There is no doubt for example the navy has less ships now than China, but we have 11 aircraft carrier groups which are not exactly composed the same way but are very powerful. For example, a typical carrier group is composed of the carrier, two cruisers, three destroyers or frigates and an auxiliary ship and sometimes an attack submarine. No other country in the world has so many powerful groups. Sometimes we get the opposite of critics, people who over exaggerate something we have and this is exactly what happened with an article extolling the virtues of the Zumwalt, a stealth ship. The article went on to ring praise all over the place. The truth was the Zumwalt is the only one of its kind ever built, out of the dozen or more which were originally imagined. The reason for this is through testing it was found the Arleigh Burke destroyer was just as efficient and we were paying about 1/3 the price of the Zumwalt for them. The Zumwalt was outrageously expensive. There should be more of these weapons being looked into and if we can get the same effectiveness from a cheaper weapon than a more expensive one, there is no sense in buying the expensive system. When we look at the aircraft carriers, we have to realize the U.S. Navy has also built some smaller ships which are capable of carrying fighter planes. They can act as baby aircraft carriers. Our navy is probably one of the most versatile one in the world. These smaller ships are still pretty big and some can carry as many as 20 fighter planes. As a matter of fact, if we built more smaller ships that would make it harder to sink them all. We could send three of the smaller ones into an area instead of the big carrier and they could all maneuver into different areas making them harder to destroy. Some have estimated the cost of a new carrier could pay for three of the smaller ships. One of the problems the Navy has is the cost of the new ships and the delays which can extend many years. Even when some of these ships are built, they have problems which have to be fixed and can take years more. Questionable decisions have been made, such as deciding to use electric catapults on the latest carrier instead of steam. The result was the catapults overheat and can only launch a couple of planes at a time and then have to be shut down to cool. The British wanted none of this, so their latest carrier uses steam and the catapult seems to work very well. In some areas the equipment is world leading, such as the Abrams tanks. While they are no longer new, they perform so well we continue to upgrade them with the newest technology. Sending them to Ukraine would be a big mistake unless some were secretly left during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which has been denied. We wouldn’t want the technology discovered. When it comes to man and woman power, many have said we are just too outnumbered and our population is in too poor shape. When I was in the military there were a couple of people who were in poor shape but they were driven to lose weight and do better and the ones I know of, did. The situation might not be as hopeless as been said. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Did you ever see a movie actor bulk up in a short time for a part he was going to play? It is possible to made great improvements in physical fitness. Then there are those who claim countries like China with over a billion people just outnumber us too much on the field of battle. They forget even though we are a population of only about 1/3 that of China, we still are one of the most heavily populated countries in the world and we have more than enough people if we need conscripts for the armed forces. When it comes to aircraft, we have a huge amount because of the structure of our forces. The Air Force has planes, the Navy has planes, the Marines have planes and even the Army and Coast Guard have planes. The Air Force has 5,217 aircraft, the U.S. Navy has 2,623 aircraft, the U.S. Marines have 1,211 aircraft, the U.S. Army has 193 planes and 3,372 helicopters and the U.S. Coast Guard has a total of 202 planes and helicopters. The CIA has an air branch. The number of planes it has is secret. Years ago, they were flying a spy plane very similar to the SR-71 spy plane. We have a total force of almost 13,000 planes and helicopters. Take into consideration the rumors which have been going on for years stating we had all sorts of hypersonic planes we were keeping secret and that some of them could go into space because they had both a rocket engine and a jet engine onboard. Then there are the rumors we are flying antigravity craft. I only cite these rumors because some or all could be true and our weapons may be far more advanced than the public knows. Of all the weapons we have used in war, I think the most telling was one we used in Iraq. It was on tanks and fired what looked like lighting bolts. I have talked about the effects of this weapon before, but it is worth mentioning again since it seems like something out of a science fiction story. If the bolt hit a human, it not only killed him instantly, but shrunk his body down to the size of a baby’s. After hearing about the effects, I had a feeling the weapon drew out all the water from the victims body. It was also said however the bolt had hit a bus and even that shrunk down in size as if the atoms in the material had been jammed together. We are still in pretty good shape defensively, but our adversaries are making great strides. It could be they are talking about their advances, but we are hiding ours, or they could be getting closer to us or even surpassing us in some areas. It is also good to know secret projects can take money from other agencies according to the government, so we never really know what is being spent by black projects on development of secret weapons.
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