How do you feel about your airframe and mission?

[Biff_T]

2 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

 

Didn't you guys fly with a M9 or a pocket knife or something of the like?   That's all you need to be armed and dangerous.  

[tac airlifter]

7 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

 

Agree to disagree Huggy; if US troops or citizens are in danger and ISR is watching, that platform should be armed.  
 

Great as the U2 is, it's not helpful if you need a shooter.  

[HuggyU2]

3 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

Great as the U2 is, it's not helpful if you need a shooter.  

And a shooter isn't helpful if there is no good intel/recce to get them where they are needed. 
 

Or better yet, to get the intel so early that you don't need the shooter after all. 

You appear to have a very myopic view of what "ISR" is. We don't operate in a vacuum, and we are often able to integrate with bomb droppers. 
 

It's been proven time and again that attempting to bills an aircraft that "does it all" is foolish. 
 

Yes, there are some ISR platforms that can go kinetic. And there are a lot that those platforms cannot do, WRT ISR. 

Had they weaponized the U-2 when they considered it many decades ago, the political implications would have been very limiting:  there are a lot of sovereign nations that likely would have never allowed us access to their airspace. 
 

No one aircraft does it all. The U-2... still... has some very unique capes that other ISR platforms don't have. 
 

There are numerous instances where a non-kinetic U-2 was the only ISR platform over Americans, and it resulted in great success. 
 

One of our smart WIC grads could certainly explain this better than I, but I completely reject your assertion that we should be armed to be effective. 

Edited 15 hours ago by HuggyU2

[Boomer6]

Quick, arm all of the ISR satellites!

[tac airlifter]

8 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

And a shooter isn't helpful if there is no good intel/recce to get them where they are needed. 
 

You appear to have a very myopic view of what "ISR" is. 

Yes, there are some ISR platforms that can go kinetic. And there are a lot that those platforms cannot do, WRT ISR. 

There are numerous instances where a non-kinetic U-2 was the only ISR platform over Americans, and it resulted in great success. 

 I completely reject your assertion that we should be armed to be effective. 

You're responding to a post about the Niger ambush where they needed armed ISR to say the U2 can do cool things without being armed.... ok?

Can you tell me where I asserted ISR had to be armed to be effective?  Or where I suggested one asset could do it all?  You seem to be projecting onto my statements rather than reading words, and doing so absent context of the discussion.  

for clarity: if American citizens are on the ground in danger and ISR is overhead anyway, it should be armed in order to PROTECT OUR PEOPLE.  If you can have a massive stack with gunships that'd be great, but these guys couldn't get it.  Of course if you can only get unarmed aircraft to support you: something is better than nothing.  But in Niger the embassy made a decision to take weapons off aircraft providing tactical ISR to these teams despite the host country asking for it. This was a political decision for optics, similar to the Marines guarding their barracks in Lebanon being forced to take loaded magazines out of their weapons.
 

I can't believe I have to explain this to somebody who's been around a while.

To summarize-- If your kids were in an ODA working sources in enemy territory with an ambush imminent and could only get 1 aircraft assigned to them, would you rather have a U2 or armed ISR?  The answer is obvious; I'm not disrespecting anybody else's platforms or jobs or usefulness, but the answer in that situation is obvious and this discussion is silly.  

[Bigred]

23 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

To summarize-- If your kids were in an ODA working sources in enemy territory with an ambush imminent and could only get 1 aircraft assigned to them, would you rather have a U2 or armed ISR?  The answer is obvious; I'm not disrespecting anybody else's platforms or jobs or usefulness, but the answer in that situation is obvious and this discussion is silly.  

Bit of a false dilemma because your two options are tactical and strategic ISR. The U2 has adapted to tactical ISR but it was not designed as such, so it obviously cannot carry weapons. 
 

To you point, the answer is obvious, but the greater answer is simply having someone overhead is better than none. 

[tac airlifter]

16 minutes ago, Bigred said:

To you point, the answer is obvious, but the greater answer is simply having someone overhead is better than none. 

Yea, I said that.    

 "  If you can have a massive stack with gunships that'd be great, but these guys couldn't get it.  Of course if you can only get unarmed aircraft to support you: something is better than nothing"

The context of my statement in this year old thread had nothing to do with strat vs tac ISR or what asset is best, and that's not a subject I'm interested in.

Edited 5 hours ago by tac airlifter

[brabus]

16 minutes ago, Bigred said:

but the greater answer is simply having someone overhead is better than none.

Sure, but still kind of a red herring for the situation. Saw it all the time - armed assets available for ODAs, but dipshits somewhere decide not to for zero valid reason. Employed weapons more than once after I proactively moved my “do nothing” XCAS container to another one because I talked to the guys night prior and found out their JTARs were denied. The ASOC actually got mad after they caught on because I was not “letting them do their job of managing air assets.” Similar type of level 69 dumbasssery with Niger, Benghazi, etc. etc.

[Lawman]

Yea, I said that.    
 "  If you can have a massive stack with gunships that'd be great, but these guys couldn't get it.  Of course if you can only get unarmed aircraft to support you: something is better than nothing"
The context of my statement in this year old thread had nothing to do with strat vs tac ISR or what asset is best, and that's not a subject I'm interested in.

There is a massive gulf of use between being naked on the ground and where you are considering strike capable ISR.

The ground commander owns his/her scheme of protection, and we are increasingly empowering them for a host of reasons to be capable of that on their own.
1. Your service is taking JTACs away, so that’s helpful.
2. The democratization of effective weapons to provide that overhead search and strike particularly while mobile is increasing every day.
3. Sometimes I want protection and recon security to do just that and not get sucked into strike. That was one of the primary reasons we didn’t arm group 3 ISR when the question was there. It’s why Apache is a terrible recon platform. It’s also why there is an argument to maintain the 19 series because Infantry sees every thing as a nail when we have them the recon security tasks and drones to perform them.

What you should have said is any time we have troops on the ground there should be an effective fires/strike capacity to achieve immediate overmatch with the expected threats. Same reason we make those guys truck a Javelin and mortars around when we know we can probably get air if we scream loud enough on the net.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk