Dear Boss, I quit! A letter to Air Force leadership....

[jmcquate]

And they might be putting Sniper pods on the 15C's... for A/A of course. http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/05/air-force-f-15c-guard-pod-tracking-ability-051412w/

Did not know that but not surprising. Bombcat 2, know which way the wind is blowing and keep your funding.

 

[jmcquate]

I think most of us are on board with the leadership deficit/hypocrisy problem. We've had a million threads about it on this site. I was shocked when the service chiefs were quoted blaming junior officer and NCO leadership for our "conduct" problems. As an example, the Navy relieved over 5% of its ship captains in 2011. That's a failure rate higher than what I'd expect in a group of junior enlisted! Not to get religious, but I hear Christ was apparently a corporal once, and he said,"You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

The rest is just wanking about airpower. He forgets the key thing. Airpower will always be a SUPPORTING element. That not because it's not important, but because people don't live in the fucking sky.

Douhet and Michell still resonate in the USAF.

 

[phrogdriver]

Douhet and Michell still resonate in the USAF.

Mitchell was right about the need for an independent air force and about its usefulness against land and sea targets. He was the right man at the time, but I think everyone now agrees that an airplane can sink a ship.

Douhet had some ideas that were ahead of their time, but outside of nuclear exchanges, they're irrelevant to anything being discussed today.

They want their SAC glory days back. Isn't going to happen.

 

[jmcquate]

Mitchell was right about the need for an independent air force and about its usefulness against land and sea targets. He was the right man at the time, but I think everyone now agrees that an airplane can sink a ship.

Douhet had some ideas that were ahead of their time, but outside of nuclear exchanges, they're irrelevant to anything being discussed today.

They want their SAC glory days back. Isn't going to happen.

Couldn't agree more. Desret Storm proved it. The air campaign got to the point of deminished returns and additional sorties would only put aircrews in harms way. Marines and Army (boots on the ground) were needed and used to end it..........ground has to be occupied, like you said, no one lives in the sky.

 

[Jim123]

But... Kosovo...!

(As the saying goes, it's the exception that proves the rule.)

 

[squorch2]

and Kosovo wasn't really that great anyway...

 

[jmcquate]

But... Kosovo...!

(As the saying goes, it's the exception that proves the rule.)

Yea.....Kosovo is kinda weak as a affirmation of airpower trumps all (plus didn't one of thoses magic jets get shwacked over there).

 

[gotta_fly]

E-6's fly because of the umbrella of air superiority provided in the USA by the air force.

That's the best you could come up with? That just sounds ridiculous.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2 by a Navy E-6 pilot. In the Navy.

 

[Swanee]

I agree with you, I just remembered something I had read about an A-6 squadron armed with winders in VietNam. The last pure AA platform in the US inventory is the F-15C. Every other TacAir platform is multirole. The whole F-117 thing was a result of the AF hateing the letter A.

Just because an F-22 dropped a JDAM once to prove it could doesn't mean it will ever do it again....

 

[pourts]

You're right, I don't. And there's a metric fuck-ton more to the Marine Corp's mission than a strike package coming off a carrier.

Come back and tell me how necessary the Air Force is after you do a tour as a FAC with a BLT. You'll sail alone and unafraid, and do a myriad of the mission sets of a MEU(SOC) without a single Air Force asset/planner involved.

Again, it's getting tiring to say - but he said that NONE of the services could do their job without the Air Force. For my 10 years on Active Duty, every single REAL WORLD thing I did NEVER involved any support from the Air Force. Check that. One time I was on the way back from Al Qaim and couldn't pass traffic to DASC. JSTARs was bored, and relayed it for me. They really saved the day.

Maybe we should continue through PM, but its obvious neither of us is going to convince the other that he is wrong. Rather than be repetitive, I will bow out here. I will also go sing the Marines' Hymn 10 times as pennance for saying something commendatory about the USAF. Man, I feel dirty.

 

[helolumpy]

Yea.....Kosovo is kinda weak as a affirmation of airpower trumps all (plus didn't one of thoses magic jets get shwacked over there).

Kind of like when one Russian tank driver asked another as they approached the outskirts of Berlin in 1945; "So, who won the air war?"

How did this thread turn into a bash the Air Force, to an discussion about the Navy vs. Marine Corps to a Green on Green engagement?

Am I the only one thinking that the Air Force plan is to cause in-fighting between us DON folks so they can smooze a better budget from Congress while we're too busy in-fighting?

 

[picklesuit]

Ok, this is wierd that I am the one taking the air force side, but I will run with it.

I didn't connect all of those dots, my bad: E-6's fly because of the umbrella of air superiority provided in the USA by the air force. Here's an analogy: how would Europe's foreign policy be different if the USA didn't exist and act as global police man? I don't know exactly, but it would be very different.

I wasn't arguing against the necessity of the Chair Force...I just didn't get your reference...thanks for drawing the lines for me...
Pickle

 

[NightVisionPen]

There is a lot going in in this thread and many of you make valid points. I think most of us understand that local to medium range operations CAN absolutely be taken care of by organic units based on carriers, amphibs, MEUs, etc. however, to try and argue that strategic or long range operations can be conducted without Navy Sealift or Air Force support is naive at best, ignorant in the middle, and asinine at worst (depending on your level of experience, of course). Not too many Air Force fighter/attack jets were playing early on in Afghanistan, but neither would the carrier based platforms that Navy guys like to brag about had it not been for Air Force tanker support.

A few things need to be cleared up. As pilotman and pourts alluded to, the Rhino is NOT an air dominance fighter. It cannot operate in the "moronosphere" and it is not a long range tanker. It IS an incredibly versatile platform useful for a wide variety of missions and excels in more areas than it performs poorly, but if used as a first strike platform of choice against a highly advanced air threat, the kill ratio would be lower than using Raptors and Eagles.

However, times are tough, money is drying up, and the Rhino gets the job done for what we need now and is cheaper so both politics and fiscal requirements favor it over pure air to air assets. Additionally it is very difficult to fully understand the decisions made by our senior leadership without fully understanding the nature of the situations. And partly due to the complexity associated with these decisions, we are left to speculate on our own. And as many a good JO, we assume we know all the facts and could do a better job.

Personally I think the Air Force is being hurt the most by their lack of tanker upgrades because that is of a more immediate problem than having the next air dominant fighter available and it is a more strategic problem. I also think there are better and cheaper ways to manipulate the EM spectrum than stealth. But then again, I'm probably in the intermediate "ignorant" category as well ....

In the end we can walk, we can stick around with ignorant bliss, we can stick around and annoy everyone with constant bitching and moaning, or we can stick around and try to make a difference.

 

[squorch2]

I don't think anyone's arguing against the utility of strategic lift (be it sea or air-based) or long-range tanking assets - but then again, I don't think this guy is arguing for them either. His point seems to be more that the pure A/A assets of the AF aren't being utilized against... well, whoever who would be going up against them. And that's where the chafing starts...

 

[helolumpy]

If the Air Force wasn't having to deal with multiple lawsuits for pretty much every acquisition program they had recently (tanker, CSAR-X, Super Tacano) then maybe they would have more money to pay for things like flight time...