What indeed "does the Navy do best?" - I do not know anymore (nore do a lot of people)
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SOAR
- Thread starter KODAK
- Start date
The stuff only the USN can do: ASW, SUW, and LOG.
ASW and SUW is so relevant even the USMC is trying to get in on it.
Maybe AFSOC should fill their C-130 with buoys and Mk48s with pontoons and scramjets.
Ironic that the it was the AF that took 2 Marine Corps airframes - The H-53 and V-22 - and with innovation, engineering and training, out flew and out operated the Marines with these aircraft - well beyond what the Marines could ever do with them.
Here is a fantastic (free) book by Air University Press on the MH-53 Pave Low program- that looks at the program from the very first loaning of CH-53A's, initial engagements with NARF/NADEP, engineering developments, to history in every major campaign from 80s to 2000s
700+ pages. (@Pags and @Gatordev @HSMPBR @Jim123 and the rest should enjoy this)
Air University Press
Here is a fantastic (free) book by Air University Press on the MH-53 Pave Low program- that looks at the program from the very first loaning of CH-53A's, initial engagements with NARF/NADEP, engineering developments, to history in every major campaign from 80s to 2000s
700+ pages. (@Pags and @Gatordev @HSMPBR @Jim123 and the rest should enjoy this)
Air University Press
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You keep saying this and keep promoting the notion that AFSOC "outflies" USN/USMC and I don't think you're being very objective in your analysis. AFSOC acquires and flies aircraft that meet their unique mission requirements. There's nothing special about what they did other then provide unique requirements for their platforms based on what they are asked to do.
If the USN and USMC had the same requirements and funding they could certainly have the same capabilities. But the DoD hasnt identified the need for all RW platforms to be SOF platforms. Sometimes you just need a truck or a bus and anything beyond that is unnecessary gold plating.
The only difference between a CV-22 and an MV-22 is a few boxes and the mission computer SW load. The only difference between the pilots is their post-FRS training.
Because it’s true. The marines came in and crashed a V-22 on a casevac mission creating more injuries because of poor airmanship. Think that was in Yemen? Training matters. The reason that the navy doesn’t do csar well is because the guy in the right seat of lead is playing five different roles as opposed to actually playing a single role in a large training event.
No, no it doesn't. As Pags already points out:
What is the purpose of landing near those islands? Are they occupied? I imagine a giant Herk landing in the water nearby is not going to lend itself to keeping any infiltration/exfiltration a secret. If it is just landing personnel, why not do it by parachute? If they are going to land a significant amount of supplies, how are they going to get it off the aircraft? They're aren't too many flying boat ramps left in the world and unless you plan on bringing a crane or a boat you ain't getting more sizeable stuff off the bird easily.
Then you get to bigger questions, like why we would need to do an infiltration/exfiltration at such a long range in the first place? Should we even attempt it via this method given the extremely high risk? How does that fit into the bigger strategy of a conventional conflict in the Pacific? To be frank SOCOM is going to likely be a supporting player at best in a peer-to-peer conflict in the Pacific, playing second or third fiddle to conventional forces. To me this is SOCOM burning good money for something that has not been thought through. At all.
That gets to another big thing that no one has pointed out yet, the training and currency needed to actually being able to utilize this operationally. It has been almost 40 years since we have merely operated an amphibious fixed wing aircraft and almost 55 since we have operated them operationally (P5M and USAF HU-16's until ~1967 in Vietnam). From what very little I know about seaplane operations, mainly from reading histories on them, taking off and landing from water is a completely different kind of flying altogether with significant differences between ocean and freshwater ops. I don't even know where they would start given that all the experience with seaplane ops nowadays is either private or foreign.
All that certification/qualification/currency for the crew is going to eat up a considerable amount of time and money that would certainly be better spent on more realistic uses. Even SOCOM only has so many planes, pilots and flight hours to get all their training and certifications done and to add this to all of that makes little sense to me for the questionable return.
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"Navy rotary wing community abhors combat experience and does everything they can to weed it out. They'd prefer a safe tour on a boat to anything real. "
"Combat to the Navy is something icky, best handled far away from their ships, their PIM, and their self image as the unchallenged barons of the maritime "domain". Those that have done it are best treated with mild disinterest, as if they are in need of a good wash and a shave. "
(great commentary courtesy of https://twitter.com/mccainjack )
"Combat to the Navy is something icky, best handled far away from their ships, their PIM, and their self image as the unchallenged barons of the maritime "domain". Those that have done it are best treated with mild disinterest, as if they are in need of a good wash and a shave. "
(great commentary courtesy of https://twitter.com/mccainjack )
I really enjoyed my personal interactions with Whopper but I disagree with his take and I'll leave it at that.
I don't know the specifics of the mishap you're talking about but a mishap doesn't prove Chuck's point. AFSOC is able to train for a very narrow scope of work. For all sorts of reasons the USN/USMC communities do not have this level of mission specific training. But it's not like AFSOC aircrew are supermen. They're normal due course URL pilots who go through the same FRS as the USMC flying the V-22 using essentially the same capabilities besides the TF radar.
There's also probably something to be said for services/communities selling themselves to COCOMs as equivalent to niche capabilities to get a piece of the glory/mission/budget as opposed to doing what's in their ROC/POE. Just because an MH-60S and a SOAR MH-60M look very similar and have four characters in common doesn't mean that the aircraft and crews can do the same thing due to differing requirements that drive different airplanes, different training, different specialization, etc.
Or put more simply, we shouldn't be surprised that the Patriots are a better football team than the Red Sox. Sure, both teams play a game with a ball in Mass, both have teams made up of professional athletes, but that doesn't mean we should compare them and say that "the Patriots really play football better than the Red Sox."
Infil/exfil is a loaded term, I guess, implying needing heightened secrecy. I'm just saying there are lots of reasons to get to islands and then back off of them.
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO)
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations is a form of expeditionary warfare that involves the employment of mobile, low-signature, operationally relevant, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain
www.marines.mil
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations is a form of expeditionary warfare that involves the employment of mobile, low-signature, operationally relevant, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain naval expeditionary forces from a series of austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area in order to conduct sea denial, support sea control, or enable fleet sustainment.
It takes 10-ish hours to get a sea plane rating when starting from a land-based rating, for your average Joe pilot. We'd figure it out pronto.
We should buy some of these.
You Can Buy The World’s Largest Operational Flying Boat For About The Price Of A P-51 Mustang
Is owning a huge, 70-year-old firefighting seaplane on your bucket list?
www.thedrive.com
The Pave Low history is cool. Neat that someone took the time to write a comprehensive history of a platform and community like that. And it's got my buds name in it from the last operational flight.
Infil/exfil is a loaded term, I guess, implying needing heightened secrecy. I'm just saying there are lots of reasons to get to islands and then back off of them.
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO)
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations is a form of expeditionary warfare that involves the employment of mobile, low-signature, operationally relevant, and relatively easy to maintain and sustainwww.marines.mil
Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations is a form of expeditionary warfare that involves the employment of mobile, low-signature, operationally relevant, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain naval expeditionary forces from a series of austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area in order to conduct sea denial, support sea control, or enable fleet sustainment.
Why aren't the Marine's doing it then? Maybe because their plans have a modicum of realism?
First off, this:
Is not quite the same as this:
Secondly, "we'll figure it out pronto" really isn't a thing in the military.
We should buy some of these.
You Can Buy The World’s Largest Operational Flying Boat For About The Price Of A P-51 Mustang
Is owning a huge, 70-year-old firefighting seaplane on your bucket list?
We did, 85 years ago.
Why not? What do you think is the big difference? All of the basic principles should absolutely hold.
I think Flash's point is that while the basic principles do hold what this will look for an AFSOC pilot is an initial qual of X hrs (with class and sim time) followed by a recurring prof requirement for X water landings every Y days. And you'll need IPs who need their own syllabus to train the pilots. And probably a trip to a freshwater lake to minimize corrosion impacts on the airframes. And the time to swap in and out the floats and the follow on water landing conditional inspections. And then some relevant mission training scenarios that include NVD float penetration profiles.
And to you EAB proposal...how do you get the stuff off of the airplane when it's on floats? Don't say crane or beach party because then I'm going to ask what's the point if I need all this crap there ahead of time to make it work.
