Lawman

For the most part every unit will request you, because it's easy to hit copy/paste/send. Nobody is actually expecting you to show up. If you do it's a huge bonus for that ALO to look good for the Bde Commander, but I've seen tons of Calfex's that were deemed successful without the Air ever actually being there. It just becomes a JTAC on a radio pretending to be Hawg. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No but if you're talking about doing integrated training with supported customers SF/Rangers are the guys to lean on, because your average BCT may do 1 Calfex a year and in that the JAAT is about the only time they care if fixed wing shows up. Those are largely a waste of time depending on rangisms present at whatever particular base causing them to be extremely scripted and often times not reflect realistic scenarios. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The customers for this kind of thing (SOf/Rangers) have money to go TDY. More importantly there is literally a SOF group in every region of the country so it's not like you're gonna be off on your own unless you go to Hawaii/Alaska. Pick a base wth good combined vehicle/air ranges or at least access/range to them. I'd say try an East/West model where you get the most bang for your buck with customers. For example any reason you guys couldn't do Peterson with 10th group or Mountain Home where you have Orchard with all the Rangers/SOF from JBLM? Somewhere in the SE US to cover Bragg, Campbell, and Benning would take another huge swath of customers up. The worst thing you could do is stick this thing somewhere like Cannon where you are hours away from anything that wants to use you by plane let alone by car. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm 100% tracking capes and lims. It certainly is not a hell fire replacement, but I also don't have enough hands and feet to count the number of times I watched an R9 target something that was agr-20 wheelhouse. Or the number of times I've watched hell fire impact, dude runs away. The hell fire family is a great weapon, but the AGR-20 is no distant slouch. That said, I don't have much SA on the RW version. Clearly impact angle is far more limited when shot from RW than FW. As you said, this weapon is probably a far more significant capes increase for FW than RW. We aren't shooting these things from RW altitudes and angles. 10k feet is 10k ft and it's the same rocket. It's all about what the rocket tries to do where it picks up guidance and comes in at the shallowest angle it can. That's great when you're talking about taking all that warheads lethality and delivering it into a target like a truck, but given the PD warheads blast/fragmentation it works exactly opposite against any sort of area target like a group of dudes around a mortar position. We've pushed this up in Army circles to BAE and the answer isn't forthcoming on when/how they plan to fix it. I know the Marines were talking about a flechette version but then you hit a new problem of needing to know/control which rockets are in which tubes so you can properly match warhead to target because there is plenty a flechette can't do. When you mix that with the R model 114 getting a programmable HOB setting to better combat that effect of driving into the dirt and killing its blast/frag lethality. I agree it's still aggravating as hell to see a guy get up from a Hellfire strike but a lot of the times we've seen that it's either due to poor gunnery technique driving the missile off target or effects like terrain which would make a PD even less effective due to it only having a PD fuse. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It has greatly caught on all the way to the service levels, and is significantly cheaper than every PGM we're using in the current fights (sans a nose plug GBU-38...but that weapon cannot do what the AGR-20 can). Again, not saying we should be paying $25K for a rocket, but it beats the $100K+ Hellfires we're also shooting at an asshole riding a horse, and provides a capability to bring a lot more low-CDE firepower to the fight vs. fighters showing up with only bombs and being useless in many situations. It may not be perfect, but for once we actually did something that surpassed spec, works well, is relatively cheap, and all in a fairly short timeframe for our typical acquisitions process. You need to look at some of the delivery limitations on it particularly it's angle on impact vs the bug splatter charts . Until they put a programmable trajectory it's never going to supplant Hellfire, especially when you factor in the R model having a programmable warhead while APKWS is essentially a very target position vs point of impact dependent hand grenade with only a single type of fusing. Don't get me wrong we've shot them plenty (most of the Army's total inventory) but the time and place that I can use it is far more limited than Hellfire, but it wasn't designed to do what we are trying to do with it in this fight. Really it wasn't even designed for us, it was built as a way to put a PGM into the hands of air forces that own a lot of crappy planes/helicopters with old 7 shot pods they inherited from our Korea/Vietnam era weapon that is the Hydra system which is why it's totally self contained vs DAGR and other such systems. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's fine and can be done, but it starts with the Supported elements ALO being actually competent in the weaponeering and tactics that he has to convey will be employed for that GFC. DA fight yeah get out of the cockpit, but COIN where CDE and all the after effects are major factors that GFC has to have trust and confidence that the air isn't going to make more problems being on a long chain to make their own decisions. He's the one that has to send guys into that village next week after the strike and deal with the aircraft having done X/Y/Z to meet that intent. It's the same problem we have with them and we wear the same uniform. If we send an LNO that can't confidently and accurately reflect the needs and capes of the supporting element we end up getting dumb requests like "we want you to use 30mm instead of hellfire to lower CDE" from 3km standoff. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Fixed it for you. APKWS is a good place to start, but that weapon has some pretty serious issues that need to be resolved before it's ready to get fully utilized as the PGM of choice the way hellfire is. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'd be very interested as well. I'm liking the possibilities here for a more full frame carry pistol to option instead of just my M&P9 shield.

Even if you couldn't necessarily build a hot rod version (i.e. the Navy's old Vipers in the 80s). Not having to have it be fully mission robust you could set aside some of these early lot 35s and just PMC their support allocation. Keep them flying, even keep them air to air capable, but you're not anywhere near the priority of a line squadron with actual deployments to meet, that sort of thing. With 35 price possibly dropping at some point below the 100 mil mark a few years out it just seems dumb to go about trying to find a 40-60 million dollar square peg to fit the hole while ignoring the one you have. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2 things.... If the goal of aggressor squadrons is to truly replicate any and all threats likely to be encountered when Air Forces around the world getting ready to field their own 5th gens... And Price of aircraft decreases with larger group buys and total cost of ownership decreases with less diverse fleets... Why are we kidding ourselves or trying to buy some other aircraft instead of say... buying a stripped down version of the 35 which doesn't necessarily need as robust a mission capability but instead can go out there and replicate the worst day scenario of a LO threat in the Red Air playbook, or attach some radar reflective pylons and play Johnny 3rd-4th gen 4/5 days of the week? I feel like all buying some FA-50/Saab/etc trainer jet and trying to use it as an aggressor also is going to just lead us to the exact question of "ok now that PAK-FAs are everywhere how to we make a stealth aggressor" 10 years from now anyway. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And I think a lot of that prevention that is a concern: -Ground Security -Log-pack -FOD/airstrip MX -Etc But it could and would be more easily solved by combining the idea of forward basing with personnel that actually understand aviation operations. One of the biggest boons to the Army UAS community was in getting a lot of it out of the BCTs and attaching them to Aviation Brigades. At least fundamentally those people understand how to better keep and feed aircraft. This in a way would be the today's version of some of the Raven/Birddog/FAC type little expeditionary strips we used in Vietnam. Where yes it says US Air Force on the side but you look and live more like the grunts you are there with. I'd venture you would see a very similar attitude of mutual support if you were at some of these forward locations in a "we are here to help but you gotta help us" type capacity vs playing the game of my toys are expensive and your mission is not worth the risk. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Meanwhile... in the service that treats aviation like Hilux's.... I'm not discounting your points, but take a look at our forward UAS presence out there right now in the AOR. If we can land 10-15 million dollar sensor equipped drones on an airfield that had as little preparation made for it as just an earth mover and a couple sprays of Rhino Snot, you aren't going to win any favor with the supported commander (the ground force) by insisting you can't go to the same places. I'm the first to admit the way the Army beats on its helicopters is a self inflicted injury, but to pretend that an aircraft meant to survive austere conditions is a bad idea is a bit much. Yes your example of forward to the point of "why are we doing this?" Is valid, but it's also the 1% of the time Flight Concepts "let's go get Bin Laden" kind of day. The other 99% would be take a look at the conditions at some of our "Not Erbil/Taji" airstrips out there and say we need to set up operations. Essentially the requirement shouldn't be that it can go mud bogging, but that it wouldn't need you to ever land a C-130/17 to support it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Funny enough... Our current Army operations in OIR have through a combination of limited footprint for forcecap and minimal equipment due to fragmenting out resulted in a lot of bottom level mission command delegation. We actually have air mission commanders being air mission commanders again because the TOC doesn't have a way to get themselves in the decision circle jerk. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The fact that this platform couldn't be viewed as a strategic asset the way UAS is would grant a lot of protection to theatre/AO commanders to keep and use their assets. AFSOC could undoubtedly get usage out of this as well in the "not a real war" places like SE Asia or Southcom where we can't or don't want to advertise we are around. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pretty sure you guys have an entire group of "Air Commandos" who do exactly that for a bunch of third world Air Forces around the globe. How sad is it that we can figure out how good a deal this plane is for the Afghans just not for ourselves in the same theatre. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's not without historic precedent. The Eagle development was the Air Force baby. Boyd and the LWF program were treated as pariahs by comparison because they were "stealing money" from the real project/need. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So pretty much exactly the same as the unconditional release.... which usually comes with conditions like not leaving in a timely fashion to get ready for your new job lest your losing command give you a death sentence OER that stops you from leaving all together...

No doubt about it, but that's the other crux of the "get a better jet" argument. A lot of the countries that would be looking at this vs say a bunch of old Blk 30/40 vipers aren't eligible for FMS vipers because of the Leahy amendment. They can still get stuff from DCS or our foreign competitors but would you think going from a 230-250mph training pipeline and experience base straight into an afterburner equipped 4th generation fighter is something those countries could realistically do? I think they'd plant more planes trying to monkey through learning them before they ever even got the chance at any real useful training. Realistically it would be far easier and safer for them to go buy a python or similar missile off the commercial market and figure out how to make it work on their easy to fly cheap to maintain jet. Otherwise they gotta go whole hog with virtually no lead it.... like the Phils are doing with FA-50.

It still beats the option a lot of little Island countries currently have of driving toward the engagement in an Alfa jet or similar and then trying to hit the guy with unguided rockets. I know those on the site used to what we have would be disgusted by the idea of a "fighter" that would have trouble keeping up with an ME-262, but in all seriousness this is an airplane built for countries who are putting stingers on helicopters because they can't competently expect any sort of air defense. So anybody that can bring a missile better do it, because it's the air equivalent to a bunch of barely armed settlers circling wagons to repel the Indians. Any while yes the fighters from big countries with big missiles would eat its lunch it would at least give pause to something like the a Heliborn air assault or paratroop force being put in with a bunch of Hips/Hinds. That's the more likely reality for those nations.

I think people are simplifying this as flip flopping because they have no idea how much we "need" Iran right now. We've got multiple thousands of coalition military in immediate proximity to Shia Militia Groups who take their marching orders from Iran and would love to target US soldiers. We start taking a hard line/pushing back against Iran, or move the Embassy in Israel, we will have green on blues in a whole new way. It makes sense that we would just suck it up for the time being. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You mean like getting a glass cockpit and modern navigation in what is essentially an airliner so old it's been retired from US carrier service? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My wife was on Guam for 3 years as a kid when she was in grade school and her brother a middle schooler. They weren't nearly as far behind when they came home as my sister and I were from our remote Italy DOD school. Father-in-Law loved it, and that was pre internet age, but he was also a diver so if that's your thing you ought to be able to have a good time.

Found this entertaining Because screw that bitch and her "it's my turn" mentality. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did they realize SERE C is a qualification outside a specific service? We don't make ground guys do it again if they have a C qualification. It's a waste of time and school seats. Water survival I get because even if you Dunker Qual you have to do yearly recertification if you do over water ops.

That bill in some form has been put forward every year for something like 20 years and it goes nowhere. It would have happened this year no matter who was elected. And it'll die this year like it always has.