-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
The million dollar question
- Thread starter Screamtruth
- Start date
Punk said:
Of course, this simulataneously demonstrates the USAF's greatest strength and its greatest weakness...
On the one hand, it has guys who are dedicated to one msision and become extremely good at it.
On the other hand, it has guys who are dedicated to one mission and are extremely good at it running the show. Those guys flew jets with a pointy nose, said "Not a POUND for air-to-ground!! I'll FINE you if you say the word BOMB in our ready room!!"... and they live in a bizarro-world where improvements in air-to-air capability are the order of the day.
So the A-10, wonderful platform that it is, is being retired (the way of the F-111 and EF-111 beforehand) in favor of pointy-nose, sexy, air-superiority platforms with limited A/G capability such as the F/"A"-22.
Meanwhile, the Navy asks "how many planes have we shot down in the last decade? How many bombs have we dropped?" and they decide to make their priority improving the strike capabilities of their aircraft...
Punk said:
i'm sure the grunts on the ground would take whatever CAS they could get, but i'm with Skidkid on this one ... all of the Marine FACs i've talked with who were in Iraq said they'd rather have Marine air on station when it comes to close air support. the common theme was the AirFarce, to include the A-10's, were too inflexible to deal with, and Navy fixed wing was unreliable due to them having to be back in the stack to make their cycle time.
the AirFarce would rather be doing SCAR instead so they don't have to deal with troops on the ground.
so NAVAIR spends the last decade try'n to unfuck the 2nd generation ATFLIR, while SuperHornets are still carrying 1st generation crappy ass Nighthawk pods, while the AirFarce is starting to carry 4th gen Sniper pods ...TurnandBurn55 said:
not unlike Marine Harriers ... not a knock on them but why do they practice A-A? and is the Corps still wasting money trying put dumbed down APG-65s & Aim-120s on all of them? here's something out of bizarro-world, goto WTI and watch Harriers try to escort a strike package of Hornets ... ??TurnandBurn55 said:
as much fun as A-A is, the Corps should invest most of its fixed wing money into making the Harrier & Hornet the most capable A-G platform in the US inventory ... my 2¢
S/F
Screamtruth
นักมวย
jarhead said:
Well put Sir,
I have only worked the AF jets a few times, mainly on OP Jack in Fort Hood. The problem with that was the AF controllers really had the authority......so we were limited. Also, if any of you have ever done CAS at Fort Hood, the airspace is so restricted that you essentially run the same 9 line over and over, using just one IP, same egress, but different targets. Even when we did CAS with USMC fixed wing, the Army required us to have an AF controller detachment with us on the hill, as a precaution; the Army just didn't like the fast movers in their airspace, eventhough we were just dropping blue death.
S/F back at you.:icon_smil
Screamtruth
นักมวย
Punk said:Woah, didn't mean this to get into a heated debate about CAS. I was just using to illustrate a point.
People do quickly get bent out of shape here, don't they?
Nah,
Not bent, just had an opportunity to bring up some CAS stuff...........
....and SkidKid.............never did much in Pendleton...............I was in the Stumps, so my backyard is where I did most of it...........the Fort Hood CAS was when I was in the reserves...........the only time we did Kernal Blitz in Pendleton, I was the TACP Chief, so I did not get too much call in time, but my teams did.
Screamtruth said:
and some very interesting points I gotta say
I remember talking to a Harrier IP about FLIR pods and such. Seems the Israelis are light years ahead of us. I thought he mentioned our 2nd gen pods were bought from the Israelis or something. Can't remember.
Even if the International Court of Dumb Arguments logically proves that the Air Force must be full of selfish, enlisted person disdainful, prima donna officers, or that the Navy is a righteous, true believer, EPs in the plane-type fighting force, is anyone really going to base their leadership style, career, or anything else on what the "System" allegedly sets them up to do? No.
The only difference is that maybe some Navy kid is gonna say, "oh, HAPL for real, well, if I did this right in practice, I'd get to continue with FAMs, but now it's real, 'yawn', so I'm deciding to speed, clean, check, etc. and not only save my ass but impress that hot girl who works at Florala when I tell the story over barbecue." and the Air Force kid would say, "holy shit, um, I would maintain control of the aircraft and analyze...dude, fuck this standup verbalization shit, I'm just gonna do the memory items!"
People get into dumb arguments like this over the Academy. If someone asks me where I went to school (especially if I'm in a really sharp uniform with mirror-like shoes, which I try hard to do, and especially if it's a senior officer) and the question is obviously posed to help that individual assess my personality or potential as an officer regardless of the naturally good first impression, I politely decline to answer, since the CNO himself has said it doesn't matter where you go to school. Had I known the not-so-fun bullshit I'd run into from answering that question, I would have attended community college.
The only difference is that maybe some Navy kid is gonna say, "oh, HAPL for real, well, if I did this right in practice, I'd get to continue with FAMs, but now it's real, 'yawn', so I'm deciding to speed, clean, check, etc. and not only save my ass but impress that hot girl who works at Florala when I tell the story over barbecue." and the Air Force kid would say, "holy shit, um, I would maintain control of the aircraft and analyze...dude, fuck this standup verbalization shit, I'm just gonna do the memory items!"
People get into dumb arguments like this over the Academy. If someone asks me where I went to school (especially if I'm in a really sharp uniform with mirror-like shoes, which I try hard to do, and especially if it's a senior officer) and the question is obviously posed to help that individual assess my personality or potential as an officer regardless of the naturally good first impression, I politely decline to answer, since the CNO himself has said it doesn't matter where you go to school. Had I known the not-so-fun bullshit I'd run into from answering that question, I would have attended community college.