Lawman

I just can't see any country lining up to spend 150ish million on a 35 to not see the 160 or 170 mil on a Raptor and not immediately go for that. Especially with small density fleet upgrades of 8-12 Airplanes like a lot of these outside NATO countries keep getting into. If we did revisit and actively have a Raptor production line though it might get interesting to see how long even our own Air Force towed the company line on the 35 before chopping it's order to some 5-600 planes and going bring on the F-22B and push to replace the Strike with something like that long range strike Raptor concept. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm just using that country as an example of "only the best" when it comes to buying equipment they neither need nor have the training mindset to effectively employ. For F-35 to truly be the export wonder we want it to be (ala F-16) we are gonna need to sell it to everybody. FMS and the need to keep Lockmart fed and strong will take over and it will end up in the hands of nations currently looking at their fleets and thinking "we need a dozen fighters in the next decade." Having Raptor on the market Muddies the water where right now there is no question that no... Even if you're England or Japan you cannot get Raptors so if you want 5th gen better get onboard the Lightning train. Especially not when partner nations that are receiving their 35s are starting to waiver on totals and Money.

It won't happen because it'll bite in the 35 market share. Countries with more money than brains who really need the hottest sexiest monster to fly around the flag pole (looking at you Saudi Arabia) they would buy Raptors over lightings.

Let's be honest with our goals here for 6th gen.... If it doesn't turn into a 47 foot tall walking robot we failed.

Oh I've trained with them. FN2000 specifically. I don't assume anybody will be as fast or as capable as some guy that runs his 3 gun rig 3 times a week or anything. What I've seen is average shooter with average training means lesser results for an unfamiliar platform, and unless all you train with is bullpups (Israel, Aussie, etc) it's gonna be a weird gun to train to. Like I said too there is a big difference between using a standard pattern rifle like a AR/AK/FAL/etc and a bullpup while wearing body armor or an LBV with mags and other stuff. It's not to say it can't be done, just that there is a reason that you don't see a lot of SWAT teams or better yet CIF teams (who can use whatever the hell they want) going to full barrel bullpups over SBR AR pattern rifles. The common bad habit I saw was guys raising the barrel to get better angle on the mag well, which means in a combat load (pulling a half empty mag with 1 in the chamber just in case) you are now pointing your weapon at the ceiling at not at the threat. Like I said it's not that they have some sort of glaring negative, more that they don't offer any real advantage outside this one particular of keeping high velocity (long barrel) in the 100-200 meter fight when compared to an SBR. It's the unfamiliarity to the design and the lack of available parts or gunsmiths that really turns me off to the commanding price they typically require. I mean looking on a strictly dollar amount getting an alright AUG or other type rifle starts you into the excellent AR class of rifles. For pre bans you're getting into carry it daily life on the line quality contractor rifles.

It's kinda a weird gun idea. The whole purpose of a bullpup is lets get a long barrel on a short rifle, but the trigger group on a bullpup will never be as tight as on a standard rifle. Flip side is ok great well long barrel on a short gun so good for tight quarters type fight... Well they seem to be a lot more controllable under high rates of fire, but they are significantly less easy to reload fast ala combat load on say an AR pattern rifle. And you basically have to come off target to reach the mag well especially wearing body armor and all the other stuff you would want in that kind of fight. So they don't really have an advantage there either. Literally the only thing they do better than a regular rifle is keep velocity and maintain a sight picture/cheek weld to get a shorter rifle to go around corners. So great if your fighting in a house against somebody wearing armor, but not good for the >200m fight and not good for volume of continuous fire.

Pray for Pallawan. There isn't anything at Basa except Cobras and a runway the Phils have been trying to get us to repair for them for a decade. Mactan is just in the middle of nowhere. At least with Basa it's an hour drive to Clark and Angeles City. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We would do that like crazy when we had to play stupid ROE games with CDE or continuous PID. Joke was always that IED emplacer is going to have a hell of a time figuring out which one is the red wire in a few days.

Yup - the main thing I can't understand is why the fact that it will not need AR support to do an operationally relevant sortie (ISR, CAS, Surgical Strike, or all of them on one mission) is not breaking thru and getting more traction towards acquisition and this coming from a former tanker bubba. Even way back when I was a tanker co I knew that having a two ship of 16's on station with the huge tanker commitment to pass gas to them (and all the other two ships) did not make sense when you had cheaper options given the threats you actually faced, the amount of times we were going kinetic after major combat ops ended and the cost of keeping x number of tankers on station 24-7-365. This is a perfect plane / mission for Guard / Reserve, but like the C-27J and two brothers, if I can't have one he can't have one. Because as I alluded to in my earlier post it isn't as simple as the cost of X airplane vs Y airplane. Hell look at the billion dollar stack put up over every single Swoopy HVI take down. Or the days worth of data collection to build pattern of life before we even do that. Yeah it would probably be cheaper to go in with 1/5 the Intel and an AWT and a predator 95% of the time and get away with it. The problem is that time it doesn't and you lose a bunch of tier 1 asset guys who cost millions each individually in training not to mention a pair or more of 160th crews which cost tens of millions in training dollars. The view is we can stand to absorb the cost of being way way overly conservative better than we can both financially, emotionally, and all too important polotically absorb the cost of a failure to be ready and it's really true. A situation like what happened in Mogadishu where we tried to do something that invested on the cheap resulted in a failure so spectacularly bad it stopped an entire special ops campaign as well as our peace keeping op participation, organized tens of millions of dollars of forces to respond to the 2nd and 3rd level effects, and became the reason we don't do it that way for the next twenty years.

An interesting take but I disagree with your assessment about security costs, esp if you have rotor wing assets forward deployed as nothing drastically changes security wise aside from extra fuel, spares and munitions that need to be shipped to the FOB. What you gain is better support at a cheaper cost. Doesn't the Army always complain about "Where is my air?!?" That's the problem though. Once you start committing ground forces in a number that requires 30 million dollar gunships to provide 24 hour ops (because that's normal in Afghanistan and therefore should be everywhere) you piss away all the savings. Base security and ownership of the battle space becomes this never ending exponential monster. Suddenly the requirements turn into the justification for further requirements until it becomes a giant self licking ice cream cone that serves nothing but its self. That's one of the few times that non ground intensive air campaigns actually look cheaper from a dollars both in the literal and the political impact standpoint.

Unfortunately that's true of pretty much every government agency at this point.

Yup To fly a mission in OIR with a Scorpion Jet assuming a 6 hour mission, assuming $3K per flight hour, is $18K where that same mission performed by a F-16 (keeping it single ship apples to apples comparison) and assuming a $10K per hour cost (very conservative) and then assuming it would need two ARs for ingress-patrol-recovery and a 5 hour tanker mission to cover that at $15K (again conservative) that comes to $135K to fly that mission in a mostly permissive AOR but both by the capabilities of the aircraft, sensors, weapons and their ROE would deliver a weapon or conduct ISR outside the WEZ of most realistic threats so using the high end system to deliver the same effect is of little operational benefit and significant cost. To quote Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC, "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." It is the logistics & costs of these sustained long term operations consisting of not just kinetic military effects but persistent ISR (and the huge PED tail to make any use of what is collected) that should drive the unimaginative AF to adapt and change when the model of how it did things in the past in operations that were quite different is just too damn expensive for what we actually do now and are likely to do a lot more of in the future. Going back to the bar napkin math I dreamed up, you save $117k per mission, assume you fly 25 missions a day with 2 FOLs and you save daily over $2.9 million. That's not even considering the huge savings in logistical footprint by reduction from flying/supporting fewer types, aircraft not needing AR, etc... $2.9 mil a day at one year comes to $1 billion per year, that pays for 50 Scorpion Jets in a year. Not even figuring in the extra costs of the reduced footprint, service life extended by saving hours on fighters by not using them for these types of operations, etc... You save a billion here and a billion there and eventually you save real money in Pentagon terms... then you can buy nice toys. By all accounts the Iraqi AF just lost a Caravan conducting a Hellfire strike to ISIS AAA. Outside of Afghanistan where the biggest gun is probably a And while yes Scorpion and other type airplane's absolutely win the cost to use argument they are virtually useless until after the major fighting is over. That means that while they are extremely well suited to rearming an Iraqi or other type Air Force they shouldn't be looked at as a good idea for us to go launching offensives with. Which is exactly why I fully support money to the AVFID program that does exactly that, get their crappy Air Force to perform its own ISR and CAS under our direction to help them find their ass with an extra hand. The much larger overall unaccounted for cost of putting a small turboprop/jet at airports within the AOR is them requiring a much larger and more expensive security cost. And it's an exponential curve. You need patrols outside the wire to maintain your logistics. You need a QRF that can do something about the 122mm rockets and mortars that keep coming on daily repetition (anybody been to Shank?). The second you start taking casualties on the ground the dollars saved argument dries up much less the loss of an aircraft. When you are talking about half million dollar vehicles lost full of ground bubbas to an IED and the beating to morale that a unit losing guys to ambushes and IDF has to endure the dollars for a couple weeks of having Viper and a Tanker on the ATO look cheap.

I know you're enamored with the idea of re-instituting the warrant officer corps in the Air Force--a whole different rank structure that hasn't existed in the Air Force for decades--but it's not clear how doing so would really help. If E's without college degrees can be made RPA pilots, then it would be much smarter to (1) design an enlisted career path that would reasonably ensure E's entering RPA pilot training would successfully complete the program, and (2) incentivize E's--monetarily and otherwise--to want to be RPA pilots . . . and perhaps more importantly, remain on AD as RPA pilots. Keeping them as E's would help protect the field from getting screwed up by the "everybody is a leader so now we can use warrants outside the role of technical/tactical expert" problem Army warrants are currently experiencing. As noted before though, I personally find it tough to envision an Air Force enlisted track that would set E's (with no prior college experience necessary) up for success in RPA pilot training (which would have to include weapons employment, except for Global Hawk drivers). Furthermore, you'd have to throw some pretty huge bonuses their way, or get awfully creative with non-financial incentives, to get them to remain on AD. I really don't see how the Warrant Officer idea is the panacea you make it out to be. TT Well it's the rub and I'll agree the Army is F'ing up a good thing with warrants same as they F'd up a good thing when we got rid of specialist ranks. The idea of warrants is the same as the idea of non command/limited duty officers like you find in the research engineering corps. It's the only way to get pay with enough incentive to the tasks required which is the big problem a lot of you keep coming back too while at the same time not creating a person who needs all those boxes and career progression requirements checked to stay competitive after 2-4 years. The problem with enlisted/senior enlisted ranks or regular commission officer ranks is their field of promotion isn't specific to their job and there are so many that the guy that stays and specialized and didn't broaden (the original idea behind a warrant) isn't competitive to when promotions come around that guy non selects and now his job field suffers while the total number of say E6 to E7 looks fine and A1 stand around scratching their heads wondering why they can't make and keep enough enlisted UAS guys. The Army is F'ing it up because we are expanding warrant roles in this "everybody is a leader" model where we want Warrants to be 2/3 pay captains in all but name. Either the corps will die and we will all just wake up one day as Cpts and 1Lts or they will figure out this was as bad an idea as making every hard working but non leadership oriented specialist into an NCO.. General Lundy is one of the few flag officers (aviation branch chef) that sees this as a mistake but that's a fight between flag officers to have. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This would be where arguing to institute a warrant officer program would make sense then. Get the extra pay and graduate some E's to a role that doesn't require the 4 year degree to fill the seat, but without all the bullshit broadening and box checking required to be a successful regular commissioned officer when you're trying to promote against peers outside that small community. It would only work though if the head office protected the field to be and do what they are supposed to be/do. Not F it up with this everybody is a leader so now we can use warrants outside the role of technical/tactical expert. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Problem is there's no analogous, logical progression for the RPA operation. I can only go off what I read on this forum, but the only way your notional plan works for AF RPAs is to train folks up as sensor operators first, then at some point transition them to the pilot's seat. This creates a dual problem of further exacerbating what I read on here is a chronic shortage of sensor operators. Since the problem is throughput in initially training RPA pilots, again I don't see how you solve anything with this approach. What I think is the root issue regarding the officer vs. enlisted RPA driver debate is the combination of COCOMs' insatiable need for the capabilities RPAs provide, together with limits on the number of officers the Air Force can have relative to the overall force: - The Air Force clearly needs to grow the RPA community, in order to meet COCOM requirements - Big Blue feels it's best to use officers to fly RPAs. I would assume due to: (1) O's more likely to make it through training on time, (2) O's more likely to seek out new/novel ways to employ RPAs, & better able to integrate with manned aircraft pilot peers, (3) need to build/maintain a cadre of people who will eventually apply airpower at the operational and strategic levels - The problem is the Air Force is limited by the numbers of officers it can have on the books. I can't quote the magic formula, but based on the overall size of the force, there can only be so many total officers. If the Air Force dramatically grows its RPA officer force--along with the additional Intel, Mx & other officer billets to support them--without substantial increases in the overall Air Force end strength, then this would necessarily mean shrinking the officer numbers in other communities - I personally don't know of any line officer AFSC that's awash with excess officer bodies, so the Air Force is effectively in a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't scenario - The "elegant" solution (using GC's words) is to train up enlisted RPA pilots, which avoids the necessity of cutting the officer force. Doing so will introduce a host of other problems, and as indicated in other posts won't really help the near-term problem--schoolhouse throughput--but at least it will keep us from gutting other Air Force functions even further. The "elegant" solution of having E's do officer jobs was done in the 1930s, with sergeant pilots. It worked great--two of the three members of Chennault's demo team were sergeant pilots. Of course, that was during the Great Depression (economic factors made staying on active duty very attractive), and both were Reserve Lt's. They had served on AD for two years, until such time their AD orders were up. They chose to revert to enlisted status because prospects were bleak on the outside and Army pay, while not great, was better than starving in the civil sector. I don't see either of these factors being at work today. Well-trained enlisted RPA pilots will punch at the earliest opportunity. I'm not saying the AF enlisted RPA pilot won't work, but I don't see how it could possibly be as elegant a solution as GC and Lawman present it to be. The Air Force will probably figure out a way to make it work as best as possible, in order to avoid further painful cuts to other officer communities. Seems to me that the enlisted RPA plan will come at the cost of (1) higher attrition rates in training and (2) minimal--if any--cost savings, due to the bonuses E's will have to be offered to keep them on AD. TT No I'm not getting at that's how you grow a UAV pilot, but if the big objection people are having is Joe Snuffy E-3 out of school isn't ready to make the call and pull the trigger on a hellfire shot (and I'd agree given that kind of experience) then make that weapons release authority part of a qualification. Kinda similar to what we do with crew aircraft, where a Co-pilot is fully capable of flying, landing, tanking, etc... But he isn't signing for that airplane yet.

While true on the flight training pipeline you gotta look at the generation ability to even get guys to sit around waiting. Right now you are trying to Fill Bucket D (drone pilots) with only guys from Bucket A (regular line pilots/cross flowed officers), buckets B (enlisted) and C (quick to generate enlisted recruiting) are untouchable. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except bucket A is already pretty much empty and as you said it takes years to fill it. Kicking off a massive recruiting drive nets you no result for a minimum of pretty much 4 years till effects are seen. So unless you start drawing from those other sources you aren't gonna need to worry about how quickly you can generate a pilot. And from a bean counter perspective it's a lot cheaper to have a bunch of E6/7s standing around waiting on training while keeping their thumbs warm than it is a bunch of Majors and Captains do the same. That's gotta be attractive on somebodies pro/con list somewhere. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This. We can't keep pilots for O-4 money + a $225k bonus, I cannot understand how we expect to keep them for E-4 money. If we had any sense, we'd hand over the bulk of the RPA enterprise to contractors and keep a skeleton crew of designated hitters to take the shots. There comes a point in the manpower to tasking and quality of life drop that no amount of money will make people deal with whatever it is. Again what you need is a mass infusion of bodies in a hurry. Holding the line at 60-69% manning means no matter what cash you throw you will have burn out. Problem is it will take far longer to get officers into those seats than to spool up an enlisted school. Nobody is saying this is the permanent fix, but if you don't find bodies soon then by the time the street to drone flight training program is pushing people out at full capacity your man power levels will have dipped again on the exponential curve and that won't fix the problem then. It's not a linear math. Kinda like how the fast rush in large groups of people who were already gonna get out pulls a lot of the people on the fence with them to get out. They aren't getting out because it's suddenly a good idea, they just see the writing on the wall of more 14-18 hour days or Saturday's at work or crap assignments away from home. It's the same problem the Army was going through during the surge. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We can and do already do that with other systems. Like I said AFATDS (Advanced Field Artillery Data System) pretty much takes the calculating and decision making out of the human discussion because that's where the greatest probability of induced error exists. Every time you lengthening the chain from the customer to delivery you create one more place somebody to question an error but also for a grid to be miffed or target location to suddenly change CDE/etc. If we spent more money into those systems there is nothing that would stop them from including some kind of "Arsenal drone" into a system like that. Just the cost to develop the software and the dedication in training to teach the guys how to implement it effectively. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk I mean hell I can take Level 3/4 control of a Shadow V2 or Grey eagle and steer his sensor, designate with it, and then fire missiles at said target. It's not much of a stretch for me to start shooting with an Armed Grey Eagle. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We can and do already do that with other systems. Like I said AFATDS (Advanced Field Artillery Data System) pretty much takes the calculating and decision making out of the human discussion because that's where the greatest probability of induced error exists. Every time you lengthening the chain from the customer to delivery you create one more place somebody to question an error but also for a grid to be miffed or target location to suddenly change CDE/etc. If we spent more money into those systems there is nothing that would stop them from including some kind of "Arsenal drone" into a system like that. Just the cost to develop the software and the dedication in training to teach the guys how to implement it effectively. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's true with any weapons system though. Look at the Abrams for a great example of crew member development where you are grown into responsibility from that 18 year old no nothing. You don't start on that gun, you're a loading it... Then a driver, and prove you can take commands and learn how the tank and then later the platoon moves and fights. Then and only then do you become a gunner where you physically move and fire that main gun at the direction and authority of the tank commander (also typically enlisted). Then (typically around E6/7) that seasoned tanker is under the authority of the overall unit commander given the authority and responsibility to serve as a tank commander. He doesn't get paid any more than he did if he was a driver or loader. It's not he job that brings him more money and there is not a minimum or maximum rank/cost structure that's going to dictate when he gets that job.

Drones yes, but not releasing ordnance. Go ask liquid he gave a pretty good long dissertation about it in another thread. Hellfire was treated like some ridiculous high peak of only ____'s should be doing that. The point is you're apparently tied to this idea of "just because other people do it isn't justification." Except your justification to not explore it is "well this is the way it's always been." So have you got any legitimate reason to say an enlisted operator can't perform the job other than the dollars on their LES?

Because culturally you've forgotten where you came from and instituted an internalized idea that only ____s are good enough to drop ordnance. Kinda like my first point that you shrugged off and ignored earlier. When we first started arming drones it was forbidden to even discuss puting anything other than TacAir guys at the controls because only they understood how to employ weapons. Those second class citizens of non Tac Air couldn't be trusted to make those kinds of decisions. Funny how that idea is abandoned because there simply aren't enough Viper/Eagle/Hawg guys to fill the requirement. Now you want to pretend that the idea that enlisted can't/shouldn't be trusted with the release of ordnance is any different. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holy F dude. You realize 15 years ago your argument would be on whether or not tanker and 130 guys had the tactical where with all and experience to release ordnance and that only Viper/Hawg/Strike guys should be shooting from drones right? What's funny is death from above within the BSOs AOR has nothing to do with whether you are a 1Lt or LtCol or E3, and everything to do with that BSOs approval authority passed through that JTAC via a 9 line. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Your first point literally makes zero sense. Also don't forget that even though the JTAC gives the cleared hot the air craft commander has the final day of whether or not to release weapons. If you are going to challenge the norm and rationales used for why this shouldn't happen just because of a pilot manning problem you are going to have to do better than that with your arguments. That 9 line clearance has dick to do with the person releasing the ordnance. It's a clearance from the Battle Space owner or his designated representative which makes your air delivered fires no different from the supporting artillery or CCA in the total scheme of maneuver. Just because you don't like the idea of it doesn't mean there aren't enlisted personnel delivering similar or even greater effects in the target area who make the final decision themselves whether to pull that lanyard on the 109 they are sitting in. Again from where the actual impact of go/no-go is (the ground) the BSO could give a damn who or what does it just that their intent is met and their authority properly passed. You know we have enlisted drone pilots in the Army who fire lasers and soon release ordnance (we are arming Grey Eagle). They do so without being babysit by officers every minute of that engagement or mission because they are designated by the commander with the authority to do such. We used to have air artillery observers who were enlisted. It wasn't the PC of the aircraft that had the final say so on them employing artillery fired from the seat of that aircraft, it was on that guy. If you want to get down this whole well only officers should shoot weapons then wtf is 80% of Army Aviation doing with Air Mission Commanders and PCs of aircraft who are warrants with a Lt/CPT in the front seat or on their wing. Obviously we aren't responsible enough to be doing that job because we aren't RLOs right? That's about as much logic as your idea that somehow E grades aren't smart enough to learn something O grades are. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holy F dude. You realize 15 years ago your argument would be on whether or not tanker and 130 guys had the tactical where with all and experience to release ordnance and that only Viper/Hawg/Strike guys should be shooting from drones right? What's funny is death from above within the BSOs AOR has nothing to do with whether you are a 1Lt or LtCol or E3, and everything to do with that BSOs approval authority passed through that JTAC via a 9 line. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ummm what?You realize we have E's sitting in something with as much Firepower as an MLRS accepting fire missions, verifying coordinates, and releasing what is a metric butt load of Angry explosives right? Your CCTs on the ground control and coordinate the release of everything from a 20mm gun run to a fully loaded B-1 bomber... Do they not have rank and pay enough for that level of responsibility? Because the ALO they work for sure gets paid more without the responsibility. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Yeah saying Officers should be responsible for effects sounds rational, but only in a vacuum when you don't look at the dozens of other readily available examples of high responsibility jobs done by enlisted personnel where a guy with stripes and no bars has the yes/no on whether something happens. Great example: Jump Master Didn't see any reasons stated as to why an E should be in charge of and final authority for an airframe dropping ordinance without any non E oversight. In all of those examples you have O's making the final decision. Ummm... No you don't. You know how many officers are in a Tank Company? 4 (3 LTs and a CPT)... You know how many tanks are in a tank company? A lot F'ing more than 4. Do you think those tank company and platoon commanders are stopping to verify the release of ordnance off their sections tanks? Or pimping directly what targets they are and aren't permitted to engage? Hell the first Sgts got his own tank he sure as he'll isn't asking a PL what to do with it. Same with an artillery Battery. Same with engineers who conduct virtually all their combat ops without direct oversight of engineering officers because they are tasked to support a ground commander who knows nothing about the how of the system and just provides his intent for the mission. I'd like to introduce you to a system called AFATIDS... Where an FSO (enlisted guy on an observation point) can literally sent a digital text message fire mission via a computer to a gun battery or MLRS/HIMARs also operated by enlisted personnel who can then dependent upon position relative to the fire support coordination line of that mission accept and fire on that target. Without ever talking to a captain... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk