Jump to content

What's wrong with the Air Force?


Catbox

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, red.rogue.one said:

598124bf7480e4878587813295cf8b0f.jpg

Not Friday yet, but here's a quick history lesson:

The AAF graduated over 193,000 pilots (just pilots, not bombardiers, navs, flt engineers, gunners, etc.) in 6 years, between Jul '39 and Aug '45.

There were only 966 student pilots in training in Sep 39. By Dec 43, there were 74,000 pilots in stateside training alone. Bottom line, Of course there was little to no briefing. The instructors were barely more qualified than their students. They had comparatively little knowledge to offer, and minimal time to impart what wisdom they did have. Wartime flying "training" was less training than Darwinian survival of the fittest, because it was the blind leading the blind. Consequently, there were 136,000 flying training eliminees and fatalities in stateside training alone. Over 65,000 aircraft were lost in the CONUS alone during the war (15,000 of them were heavy & very heavy bombers).

My point--Wanna get people killed or injured? Fight wars without effective planning, briefing and postmission debriefing. WW II sounds really awesome, until you realize the human carnage and piles of bent metal that went along with it.

TT

  • Upvote 17
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, di1630 said:


It's time for pilots to take back the USAF. I get it, 6-9 years back when we were scared of pissing someone off and getting an RPA or RIF, we bowed to the chiefs and spineless leaders.

 

Speak for yourself, you know I didn't bow.

Edited by matmacwc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

Not Friday yet, but here's a quick history lesson:

The AAF graduated over 193,000 pilots (just pilots, not bombardiers, navs, flt engineers, gunners, etc.) in 6 years, between Jul '39 and Aug '45.

There were only 966 student pilots in training in Sep 39. By Dec 43, there were 74,000 pilots in stateside training alone. Bottom line, Of course there was little to no briefing. The instructors were barely more qualified than their students. They had comparatively little knowledge to offer, and minimal time to impart what wisdom they did have. Wartime flying "training" was less training than Darwinian survival of the fittest, because it was the blind leading the blind. Consequently, there were 136,000 flying training eliminees and fatalities in stateside training alone. Over 65,000 aircraft were lost in the CONUS alone during the war (15,000 of them were heavy & very heavy bombers).

My point--Wanna get people killed or injured? Fight wars without effective planning, briefing and postmission debriefing. WW II sounds really awesome, until you realize the human carnage and piles of bent metal that went along with it.

TT

A slightly better way of stating the cost...during WW II we lost more aircraft and people to training accidents than we did to combat operations...staggering. 

I also disagree with the "go do this and come back alive construct", losses of 25% in a single raid would be unacceptable in today's world.  The second raid on Schweinfurt is a great illustration of the cost...Of the 291 B-17's sent on the mission, 60 were lost outright, another 17 damaged so heavily that they had to be scrapped, and another 121 had varying degrees of battle damage. Outright losses represented over 26% of the attacking force. Losses in aircrew were equally heavy, with 650 men lost of 2,900, 22% of the bomber crews.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

A slightly better way of stating the cost...during WW II we lost more aircraft and people to training accidents than we did to combat operations...staggering. 

I also disagree with the "go do this and come back alive construct", losses of 25% in a single raid would be unacceptable in today's world.  The second raid on Schweinfurt is a great illustration of the cost...Of the 291 B-17's sent on the mission, 60 were lost outright, another 17 damaged so heavily that they had to be scrapped, and another 121 had varying degrees of battle damage. Outright losses represented over 26% of the attacking force. Losses in aircrew were equally heavy, with 650 men lost of 2,900, 22% of the bomber crews.

Copy. Losses on missions like the Schweinfurt raid had much to do with inadequate training & experience. Of course, many of those crews were lost because the (primarily fighter pilot) AAC/AAF leadership failed to adequately consider the need for long-range fighters. It is noteworthy that the P-38, P-47, and P-51 (which would define the AAF's long-range fighter fleet) had all flown before the AWPD-1 team first met in Aug 1941. Furthermore, especially in senior leadership billets, fighter pilots grossly outnumbered bomber pilots throughout the war.

It must still have been the bomber guys' fault that so many of their crews got shot down over Germany. It couldn't have had anything to do with (ACTS pursuit--read fighter--instructor) Hoyt Vandenberg (who at the time was responsible for global aircraft allocation), who wrote (ACTS fighter instructor) Tooey Spaatz in early 1941 that bomber escort was "incompatible with the mission of pursuit." In this, he was merely parroting the opinion of his ACTS fighter pilot mentor Claire Chennault. Folks like Curt Lemay (who started his career as a fighter pilot) would suffer the consequences of decisions made by men who failed to fully consider what the strategic bombardment mission would entail.

Thankfully, American productive capacity and airmen's wartime learning (going back to plan/brief/execute/debrief discussion) enabled the AAF to overcome early wartime strategic planning blunders. I sure hope our senior leaders can convince the President and Congress of the need to maintain adequate numbers of well-trained crews, operating high-quality weapons systems, so we don't suffer any future Schweinfurts.

BTW, the 8th AF lost more men over Europe than the Marines did in all of the Pacific. Somehow that never shows up in the Marines' propaganda efforts. What's really crazy is that the AF doesn't advertise how much airpower contributed to winning the Second World War, either. Of course, that would mean airmen would have to read history books.

TT

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TnkrToad said:

BTW, the 8th AF lost more men over Europe than the Marines did in all of the Pacific. Somehow that never shows up in the Marines' propaganda efforts. What's really crazy is that the AF doesn't advertise how much airpower contributed to winning the Second World War, either. Of course, that would mean airmen would have to read history books.

Heaven forbid we let young Airmen feel pride for what we've done!

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If only the leaders during WWII had known what to do and been perfect.

Never mind Douhet, Trenchard, et al.  Even H.G. Wells.

Nope, it was those selfish fighter guys.  Who despite having their toys didn't instantly deploy long-range escort from August, 1942 on-ward.  Nope, those long-range tanks should've instantly appeared.

Remind me who led the fighter escort on the Enola Gay mission?

And what was the leadership scheme for Big Blue from the end of WWII until well into Vietnam?

And the roster of perfectly suited aircraft we had for the wars in Korea and Vietnam?

USN submariners suffered, as a percentage, the greatest number of casualties during that war.

I guess even dead guys need to have d1ck-measuring contests...

 

 

*sorry-ish for being a d1ck in this post - working nights and am cranky.  The point is there is always two-sides to history.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

If only the leaders during WWII had known what to do and been perfect.

Never mind Douhet, Trenchard, et al.  Even H.G. Wells.

Nope, it was those selfish fighter guys.  Who despite having their toys didn't instantly deploy long-range escort from August, 1942 on-ward.  Nope, those long-range tanks should've instantly appeared.

Remind me who led the fighter escort on the Enola Gay mission?

And what was the leadership scheme for Big Blue from the end of WWII until well into Vietnam?

And the roster of perfectly suited aircraft we had for the wars in Korea and Vietnam?

USN submariners suffered, as a percentage, the greatest number of casualties during that war.

I guess even dead guys need to have d1ck-measuring contests...

*sorry-ish for being a d1ck in this post - working nights and am cranky.  The point is there is always two-sides to history.

Dude, I get it about counterfactual history. Can only go so far when blaming AAC/AAF leadership for failing to recognize the need for long-range escort. Limited productive capacity early in the war and substantial technical issues with long-range fighter ideas were major problems. Even more so, the Army screwed its Air Corps WRT funding throughout the Interwar Period, which severely hobbled military aircraft development efforts.

My academic geekery is clearly showing through. Not trying to engage in penis measuring, but rather getting on my historical soapbox. Should've made that more clear. Read on, but only if you're interested in a historical diatribe:

I think a key part of AAF/AF history needs to be reconsidered, specifically the notions of a "Bomber Mafia" that forced the AAC/AAF to buy too many bombers & de-emphasize fighters. It's a bullcrap, "stab-in-the-back" argument fomented by (as it turns out, primarily fighter pilot) AAF generals to explain the decision not to pursue long-range fighter development (even though the Japanese had been using drop tanks since 1937). As an aside, Mike Worden's Rise of the Fighter Generals makes for interesting reading, but crappy history. I suspect that book has done much to screw up folks' historical understanding.

To your point about "What was the leadership scheme from the end of WWII until well into Vietnam?" Well, let's see the list of AAF Chiefs/CSAFs:

- Hap Arnold (1941-46) : hard to characterize; I'd call him a generalist. If anything, I'd say fighter pilot (the Wright aircraft he started his career flying certainly weren't bombers)

- Tooey Spaatz (1946-48): fighter pilot

- Hoyt Vandenberg (1948-53): fighter pilot

- Nate Twining (1953-57): fighter pilot

- Tommy White (1957-61): fighter pilot

- Curt LeMay (1961-65): fighter pilot-turned bomber pilot (BTW, LeMay had a shorter term as CSAF than anyone else on this list)

- J.P. McConnell (1965-69): fighter pilot

That covers Chiefs of the Air Staff/CSAF from the Second World War through 1969 (you mentioned through Vietnam). Fighter pilot dominance resumed in 1982, with Chuck Gabriel, 13 years after McConnell gave up the throne. Of course, Arnold's interwar predecessors were fighter bubbas, too. In sum, the USAF and its predecessors have been run by fighter pilots for all but about 16 of the last 100 years or so. But who's counting; wouldn't want to get in the way of a good historical narrative.

Getting back to the point of the thread: it's ridiculous to me that we've invested so little time in examining our service history, that we've allowed mythical notions of early Air Force bomber pilot dominance persist for so long. Makes one wonder what else we remain woefully ignorant about.

TT

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, TnkrToad said:

 

BTW, the 8th AF lost more men over Europe than the Marines did in all of the Pacific. Somehow that never shows up in the Marines' propaganda efforts.

There is a reason we've been routinely named the best propaganda machine since Nazi Germany...

 

Semper Fly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, gearpig said:

Interesting article. I'm not a Zoomie, but I did do a tour with my kids a couple years ago. I had never been before. It was underwhelming for similar reasons. 

The author wrote a followup in the Washington Times recently. Looks like the old Alumni are very upset with what it has become.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/3/us-air-force-academy-has-leadership-problem/

I watched the Inauguration parade, and the AF band and Honor Guard made the Academy look like 5 year olds in a Kindergarten lunch line. 

 

Don't worry... they're all green for CBTs... the main problem and I think there should be an LOR given to someone for not having reflective belts on those cadets.

Edited by Clark Griswold
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I don't have first hand knowledge of the what's happening today at USAFA, these articles basically describe the attitude and focus of the AF as a whole.  Our culture has gone from combat to corporate.  Front line folks still have the right focus, but that seems to be in spite of the overall culture, not a result of it.  Depressing to see.

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, RTB said:

While I don't have first hand knowledge of the what's happening today at USAFA, these articles basically describe the attitude and focus of the AF as a whole.  Our culture has gone from combat to corporate.  Front line folks still have the right focus, but that seems to be in spite of the overall culture, not a result of it.  Depressing to see.

Particularly well said...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The things this guy bitches about are all reasons I did NOT want to go to the Academy.

I would argue that the things this guy bitches about are all things that have started over the course of the last couple of Commandants of Cadets and Superintendents.

There is a lot of WHITLY and the place is going to hell thrown around by every class but I find the lack of discipline and decorum disturbing.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Herk Driver said:


I would argue that the things this guy bitches about are all things that have started over the course of the last couple of Commandants of Cadets and Superintendents.

There is a lot of WHITLY and the place is going to hell thrown around by every class but I find the lack of discipline and decorum disturbing.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

I guess I wasn't clear.  The things he complains are now missing (such as "being recognized" and "not calling a former officer in civilian clothes sir") are the things that make me glad I didn't go to the Academy 20 years ago.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I wasn't clear.  The things he complains are now missing (such as "being recognized" and "not calling a former officer in civilian clothes sir") are the things that make me glad I didn't go to the Academy 20 years ago.

So, honest question...20 years ago you are sitting at your ROTC Det/ OTS class waiting on your instructor. You know that the PAS has been talking about having some Vietnam vets visit ( on this particular day) to talk with you about their experiences from back in the day. A guy who is probably 30 years your elder makes eye contact and asks a question about where to find the bathroom, the PAS' office ( you name it) would you not at least through in a 'Sir' in your response?


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Herk Driver said:


So, honest question...20 years ago you are sitting at your ROTC Det/ OTS class waiting on your instructor. You know that the PAS has been talking about having some Vietnam vets visit ( on this particular day) to talk with you about their experiences from back in the day. A guy who is probably 30 years your elder makes eye contact and asks a question about where to find the bathroom, the PAS' office ( you name it) would you not at least through in a 'Sir' in your response?


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

I sure would, but I've been to the Academy as a tourist.  Civilians wandering the grounds there was much more common than it was at Maxwell.  I don't throw a "sir" into every conversation with a civilian in my off-duty life.  

Like I said, it's why I'm glad I didn't go.  If others really love the military structure and enjoy being shit on during freshmen year, then by all means, sign up for the Academy.  I went to OTS, which was a miserable enough 12 weeks.  I can't imagine trying to do the things I did at OTS while also maintaining a decent GPA.  Maybe I'm just a bad officer though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I sure would, but I've been to the Academy as a tourist.  Civilians wandering the grounds there was much more common than it was at Maxwell.  I don't throw a "sir" into every conversation with a civilian in my off-duty life.  

Like I said, it's why I'm glad I didn't go.  If others really love the military structure and enjoy being shit on during freshmen year, then by all means, sign up for the Academy.  I went to OTS, which was a miserable enough 12 weeks.  I can't imagine trying to do the things I did at OTS while also maintaining a decent GPA.  Maybe I'm just a bad officer though.

Civilians don't wander the terrazzo anymore, post 9-11 (unless something has changed). Civilians absolutely don't wander the dorms, which is where this "encounter" took place.

Also, cadets know when it is a reunion weekend so they aren't caught off guard by the "random civilian" roaming the hallways.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...