Lawman

Agree with the wood hobby shop recommendation. Every base I've been to that had one has always had something available. A lot of the guys that work in them have lots of different ways they've tinkered with the basic idea and it's not hard or overly expensive to get something customized.

Except your not arguing for that. Your hung up on Super Tacano which is a step backwards from the Harrier to be able to apply real time heavy CAS. Yeah it's got station time and persistent ISR and all the crap we could have used in the last decade of peace keeping in the Stan. It is no more than a helicopter with a 500 lbs bomb strapped to it in a high threat environment, except he can't hide down low like a Helo can. We just spent a month going around the table on going into Syria with a real possibility of needing ground forces to secure Chem weapons... With no Carrier Strike Group in the gulf. So your plan to cover the Marines going ashore is CAS sorties launched from half a continent away. Before that it was Libya with the same talk to go secure weapons to keep from Terror groups. Now it's the pivot into the Pacific. And your service has a history of telling the others "not my problem bro work it out with what I'm giving you." So big surprise the Marines aren't buying your plan.

But your still living with a low threat only capable system. Longbow can operate in a higher threat environment than the cobra because we have a fire and forget Hellfire. Cobras have to see to kill and due to their cheaper sensor (they are he low cost gunship after all) they can't see as far. The second you start introducing a radar directed threat even I don't want to go, they are even worse off. So leveraging your whole CAS plan behind short legged light attack helos is dangerous. Super-T can do a lot but it's still limited ASE. IR threats, it can fix a lot with bolt ons like CMWS or ATIRCMS but it's still not the high long range standoff to provide the CAS/SEAD/ETC against anybody with anything bigger than MANPADs. Like Swanee was saying if you couldn't take a Harrier into places because of the threat your not gonna do better with a prop driven plane except pay a little less to replace all the ones you get shot down. At Super T is gonna live in the WEZ of any mobile SAM system we can't simply pre plot and kill with a cruise missile. The Air Force argument for anything but low intensity is simply "don't go but if you do we will take care of it." Problem will be when the NCA says don't go isn't an option and the Air Force and Navy are out of position to take care of it. With things like reduction in Carriers, Tankers, Forward bases, etc that becomes a more and more likely scenario.

Cobras can't do that. Cobras won't do that. It's a light attack platform. And it's got very short legs. It's sensor is limited. And importantly it has very little defensive in way of countermeasures and jamming, so it doesn't take much to completely negate its ability (SA18s and better are cheap and out there). It's also slow, all gunships are, so if they are taking he Osprey anything past the first 5 km from the FLOT and it can't. And when will the AF get there is the question he Marines want an answer to. If we had needed to put ground troops on the beach in Libya what was the cycle time and ability to provide CAS gonna be. How quickly can you cycle strikes across the Med from Spang or Aviano. How many more planes would it take to keep the gaps out of that CAS plan with in and egress and flight time available being burned on some ridiculous enroute time. No 6 or 8 jets based locally can't maintain 24 hour ops for a long duration of time, but neither can 10 jets 1000 miles away that need 4 tankers, overflight clearance, and a lot more moving parts just to show up.

They might get emotional because there is historic precedent for the Air Force to demand complete control of a mission and then fuck it away because they have other things to do. Just look at the C-27 program. Argue that you will better support he Army mission with he Army's plane... Then CX the Army's plane... If you don't think that left bad blood between services your crazy. Now the Marines are being told "you don't need this capability, let us spend the money and we will just make sure to take care of you." Meanwhile the chief of staff of the Air Force is talking about cutting tankers and limiting its ability to meet that promise. The same "it will always be a joint war we don't need the boat launched planes they take away from our money for ____" argument has been going on since the 40s. It doesn't work with trying to scale back Carrier Air why would it make any more sense here. The Marines are just better than other services for recognizing this is the same music that always gets played right before they get fucked. And to the guys suggesting that the Marines get by just upping their Zulu model complement and relying on destroyers/cruisers for OCA/DCA. Zulu can't do enough on its own. It's simply too small an airframe to carry enough firepower or enough gas. Not to mention trying to do it in a higher threat environment.

Didn't you guys just celebrate the "exbiditionary Raptor plan" in that propaganda magazine the AF Times? What the hell are 4 Raptors and a C17 worth of parts gonna do in theatre? And before you come back with a lot as the answer, that's exactly what your asking the Marines to do only your argument is those Raptors and other elements will cover them. That's not a real comfort now to them, much less when they are actively putting their force on he ground into a heater and the Air Plane has the Raptors of limited numbers and sustainability based god awful far from the ESG because that's as close to the front as you could get the AF to base them. "Don't worry General you've got Raptors in Guam and even shorted legged Hornets out of Wake... By the way your supporting the trap mission." And don't even get me started on the complicated 1 point failure that would be having your DCA/OCA not collocated and dependent on a chain of tankers to get to you much less take you across the FLOT. The we don't need that capability argument sounds logical till you find yourself somewhere you never expected to be doing what you didn't expect to to. The Army has rethought its Rotory wing requirements based off a decade of war in hot environments and high altitudes. Because 30 years ago had you told somebody we were gonna employ Army Aviation at 7k-14k feet they would have called you high. People have argued for decades that Navel Gunfire is useless because we weren't gonna use it in Germany/Fulda and now it's being revisited as a major requirement of the coming METL. The Marines have been exercised in the rapid deployment role. They have gone in immediately without waiting for anybody else and relieving the airborne while the heavy legacy divisions and the mobility element figured out exactly how much time we had till they needed to be relieved. How fast is an exercise in how big and heavy of a unit you want to move. Airborne can go right now, but they do it with the Stryker MGS as he heaviest piece of of their chessboard and that comes in last. The ESG has it's own Armor, it's own assault aviation, it's own high speed float that is designed to get it all in behind the 72 hour window Airborne buys you. Now with the Marines being told hey we are gonna concentrate on a theater with fewer units assembly areas spread further between than normal.

I think we can all agree that Afghanistan... Especially currant Afghanistan is nothing if not a complete abortion of Doctrine. What's terrible is he entire generation of people who have ignored Doctrine because it doesn't build OER bullets and constantly answer any challenge to train by doctrine with "that's not how we do it in Afghanistan."

SDB, Brimstone, CBU-97 etc etc .... There are more options than just the GAU-8 and Maverick. Point still stands. We the Army and you he Air Force operate on the doctrine to have 2 divisions of ground forces in place ready to fight and the air to cover them in 45 days. The Marines have to hold the beach head, port, TAA, whatever during that time. You can either give them what they want by putting Air Force fixed wing opcon to the ground commander today where he owns your aircraft and doesn't just request assets and get told what he can have, or you can let the Marines use their own organic air.

Ok we've used this capability before. The Marines despite protest to the opposite are critical because they provide a rapid deployment of real firepower. We used it before in the build up in desert storm. Airborne jumped in, Marines reinforced until the heavy division assets could be moved. It's why we maintain propositioned supplies and fast sea lift and it worked exactly how it was supposed to. With Pacific pivot it's even more critical. Less airfields, easier for an enemy to deny the air element freedom to land and offload heavy equipment, now it has to come by ship ala LPDs etc. and it has to last longer because of that 45 day doctrinal requirement of putting an Army Corps on the ground ready to fight. We maintain the airborne element of the 18th brigade for the first 3 days. IE short enough time that an actual assembly of enemy troops is required, they can't just roll down immediately. Those airborne troops have shit for organic firepower. Their heavy weapons consist of mortars and javelins with stingers to counter enemy air. And now that we have eliminated the light CAB they have no air. So they are fixed in place if they deploy until relieved. The Marines are the element that comes in behind that and SOF. Exactly what happened in DS, if Iraq had been able to pivot and move it's mechanized forces it would have rolled over the 82nd in days. The Marine brigade that reinforced did so with all their organic assets and provided a real stop. You can't fight armor without air or artillery. The Marines don't carry much artillery to be fast and mobile so they take air. And they operate in the chaos of the first 30 days when nobody can guarantee a ground combatant commander any kind of Air Coordination and tasking that supports his mission. So yeah they need their own air and I don't blame them. More importantly they need air to counter a peer threat. Something that can live and support with standoff outside the WEZ. OV-10 or Super Tacano or whatever else are great fighting dudes in man dresses. He second an enemy with SA-18s opposes you your air just left let alone the scary stuff like Gauntlet or Greyhound.

I'm curious how many people in his formation are combat lifesaver or whatever the AF equivalent is. Or any of about 2 dozen other useful tasks they could have been doing other than mastering resiliency by learning that life is really full of gumdrops and sunshine if you think hard enough. Just thinking of the time wasted in some command and staff meeting discussing this while troops in some shop somewhere were waiting for their commanders and NCOs to return so they could continue the days duties is infuriating. "Hey we gonna fly today?" "I can't get mission approval because the boss is stuck in a training meeting listening to Cpt Knoblicker publicly congratulate himself for 30 minutes so were gonna run out of duty day..."

Having guns in Germany is a pain in the ass. One of the reasons I left mine home when I pcs'd. Just too many hoops to jump through for something as simple as wanting a gun in the house for protection, never mind being subject to a legal system as a forigner. That's probably the biggest element that would keep me from living in another country after retirement. I loved Phuket, and I could definitely stretch retirement pay comfortably, but I'd also always be the outsider over there. Which is fine... Until shit goes wrong.

That's not just you that's a military wide ###### up. You could never defend our promotional system in the private sector. -Putting emphasis on a 300 pt score above the NCO that can actually write a sentence with some manner of grammar... Hey guys I know mongo is a retard but he can run fast and do lots of pull-ups he'd be perfect for VP of sales. -Every write up having the bullshit fluff language of everybody being a winner some are just bigger winners than their peers... Tell people they are ######tards... And do it early so they learn to apply for work elsewhere. Stop making reading/writing an OER an exercise in decoding some secret language. -PME that is conducted long after it would have been useful. Like teaching officers public speaking in a course when they've operated on staffs and been in command for years... -everybody gets an award because if they don't they won't be competitive with all the candy medals we handed out in the beginning of the war...

When I see culture differences like this it's really hard to think that you once used to be Army. 0400 Sunday health and welfare in an enlisted dorm in garrison/tradoc? That used to be a pay period activity in some units. Typically a battalion worth of leadership on hand to see exactly what the troopers were doing. It's a top level check of troops as well as first line NCO's. Is it annoying, sure but so is pissing in a cup every few months. Thing is that we catch a lot of stupid shit and it immediately becomes a handled problem. It also determines that while Pfc Knutfukker needs to be chartered out of the Army for ____, that his squad leader who was ignoring the problem isn't ready for more responsibility. Now needless shakedown of combat crews and officers who should be afforded the respect befitting their station... Yeah that's a bit stupid. But hey it's happening in Korea at Humpheys right now so hey back to Garrison we go.

No they share blame so yeah fire the guys, I'm saying what has really changed to deter anybody from hitting us again in a similar way. We didn't do anything up near mustang ramp other than put in a few T walls, same as many of the other fobs I was on after the attack. That is hardly a refocus on security that you would expect after something like this happens. I'm not gonna go into detailed list of faults as Bad guys read the internet too, but for an example maybe it's time to put the guys writing speeding tickets on guard duty.

Oh I don't doubt it but there's sure as hell lots of blame to go around for the Taliban cashing in on our stupidity. Wasting force cap to have MPs write speeding tickets instead of do their job as combat security. Driving around in vehicles who no crew serve weapons and minimal equipment. Perimeter fences with urban areas built up next to them (the whole river side of bastion) providing enemy with free movement. After Frontnac's success it was only a matter of time till word got out and they tried something bold. Sacking these two generals was just the latest in our "look we did something about it" knee jerk leadership model.

"Airfield Security" might be a bit of a stretch... The night of that attack, the 25th CAB commander put the pathfinders out on the line to guard the perimeter at Mustang Ramp.... First time and only time during that deployment where I actually felt safe sitting in an aircraft running it up. Before that there was a chain link fence guarding half of the helicopters in southern Afghanistan. Security is a joke at most of our airfields. Look at the whole area of KAF surrounding housing on the south west side, nothing but container yards and roads that lead to nowhere. It's almost like we are hoping any enemy incursion wastes it's time and ammo trying to get somewhere it can do damage rather Han actually have an effective QRF.

While we are up for this massive culture shift in the military, lets get rid of Betty. I am offended for.... For someone I'm not sure who but I am. The implication at men can only respond to the shrill sound of what can only be presumed to be an Angry 33 year old divorcee collecting yet another child support check while she tells me everything I'm doing is wrong is just insulting. It can't be a hot sounding chick either... If I listened any better to pretty girls my wife wouldn't be so pissed off I was ignoring her all the time.

That's not that crazy... Daleville Alabama (shit town of 5000) has an M113.

No I'm with you on this Bcan, but this problem is like 90% skills training/10% platform. But that's just it, no matter what comes out on the CAS brief the only real concern is gaps in coverage. No mission has ever been stopped and ruled out because we asked for 30mm frontal fire, whatever and got told "all I've got available is viper and hornet." Caveat*Not true with the Special Ops guys but that's it's own weird animal. Seeing what stack they require as a minimum and then being told on a conventional day I was supporting half of RC-E with 2 Apaches is kinda insane. We get into a no shit fight where the Air Force isn't giving the GCC the air he asked for because they'd rather task the aircraft they do have to do strategic shit then the generals will have it out and the Army guy that's usually in charge will evaluate priority. Point is if we spend the next 10 years waiting and keeping A-10 at the suffering of money to train with it then really how is it doing the job any better than any other platform who due to budgetary reasons said "###### it we'll do it live." Doesn't matter what they are flying off the IP with if the guy is fumble ######ing it in the cockpit he's just as useless in a Hawg as any other plane. Organic CAS never gonna happen. And frankly we wouldn't know what to do with it. Anybody that's been to joint firepower in my community says the same thing. If you gave us something like the A-29/Hawg/Harrier what we did with it wouldn't resemble what you would. Remember we don't view the Apache as a CAS platform, I'm a maneuver element same as Abrams or Cav Scouts or any other organic fires platform. We operate with a much looser set of rules than you do, the flip side is I own my bullets whether I'm terminally controlled or not. You guys might like the sound of being able to release ordnance etc based simply on overall commanders intent, but there's some nasty hang ups to it too.

No I dont think you guys get it. The world will keep turning with or without the Hawg. There isnt some celebration every time the AMR cell publishes the CAS/Fires portion of an Op Order with the illation of "oh thank god we got A-10s." Your drinking your own Koolaid if guys under fire would care whether it was a Viper, a 15E, or a Sopwith Camel providing them with Air delivered Fires they just want something. Nobody is ever gonna see a situation where a fixed/rotory wing with guns checks in to a TIC and they say "awww no dude its cool we really need the A-10 to do this job." Maybe its the difference in how Army Aviators come into their jobs and the cultural difference between the service, but 80% of the Aviators in our community are prior enlisted dudes that went Warrant. A good size chunk of those guys (especially in the last decade) are Combat Arms (Infantry/Armor/SF/etc) who have actual experience. So its not hard for me to go talk to them about what they think, 3 of them work in my office. Some of them in my battalion are your biggest critics. We are more concerned that your actually able to have the money to come do coordinated excersices with us rather than have platforms with specific jobs that have never coordinated with each other because the money was used to keep different color horses in the stable.

I'm not saying I condone he idea of genoside to further your means.... But I'm starting to see more and more reasons that its happened in the past.

Good it'll fit right in with LCS, Comanche, Crusader, NLos, etc etc etc...... I'm convinced we didn't give awards to the Super Hornet program because it was so amazing a program, but because everybody else punted it into the bleachers so they were all that's left.

Fast forward 10 years after green lighting the program. Aircraft still not in production, costs 4 times what it was supposed to, was delayed over and over again to add something new, and when we try to kill it the company sues.

German Girls... They expect their husbands to pee sitting down. No shit... Ask around you'll find a guy who picked up a "souvenir" and got house broken afterward. But buying a dirndls for your American wife (mine has 2)... Yeah totally living out the beer maid fantasy.

And it's not thy hard to make a weapons processor, Abrams has the same deal does that somehow make it a less effective tank then the M60 it replaced. If having that kind of stuff is a liability then we wouldn't be the platform with the highest effectiveness rate for aerial fires. But your going beyond intent. I never said the A-10 was a shitty platform, I said it may be time to look at replacing the platform. The flip side to the we must always have this gun that you guys treat like its the Death Star is why are other platforms able to do CAS without it. Why does the Harrier (albeit with a list of other shortcomings in life) or the ATARS Hornet get to be to the Marines superior platforms for CAS in their service. One doesn't have a gun and the other doesn't carry it that often. Are they so inferior that the last 30 years of smart munitions development and sensor fused weapons cant offset some of that disparity? And no my gun isn't the mega death ray either. Grunts point on survivability is exactly mine. The Longbows charge of the light brigade was our wakeup call. We got our asses handed to us in 03 because of the need to validate a doctrine. "Deep attacked worked in 91 against the radar sites it'll work here," and did a piss poor planning and execution of it because it had worked at NTC. People (old warrants) in 1st Cav rallied against doing it, and lost when the old man said go do it despite the protests. And then we sent in the A model battalions which had better results.