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Marine Squadrons on Carriers
- Thread starter markvanes
- Start date
When it happens, will it mean the MarDet will no longer serve drinks and appetizers on the flight deck to the local dignitaries during deployment port calls?
(Are there even MarDets on the carriers any more?)
I wondered if the MarDets went away when the items they were protecting quit being deployed. It was up for debate with AIRLANT wanting to keep them for anti-terrorism/force protection when I left the carrier. The MarDet CO on TR and I became good friends and drank heavily together during port calls. Than after we both left the ship, we ended up on the same UN mission to the Western Sahara and drank heavily together there. I even got him to serve the drinks on occassion.....Good times.
Think he's already taken over. "Steiner" has been gone a while, and his deputy should have rolled by now I think. Should put the Marine in office by now I think.
As far as they know, we'll just attribute it to newer lot jets.
They were def. more aggressive on the engagements - I'll give 'em that.
As part of the Navy-Marine Tactical Air Integration plan (the official name), there will be a Marine VFMA squadron (single seat) attached to each Air Wing. Additionally, 2 or 3 Navy VFA squadrons (C's) will be put in the UDP cycle (deploy with the Marine MAG's).
Why are they doing this? The official reason is to better integrate Navy and Marine aviation to counter the threats to the US, to make us better warfighters, or something along those lines.......The real reason is money. The Navy and Marine Corps cannot sustain the number of Tacair squadrons that we have now and this allows them to cut back. Some of the thinking is that if they really need the Marine Hornets for the Marines they will pull them off the Air Wing's temporarily. Some links:
Congressional Research Service Paper (PDF): http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RS21488.pdf
GAO evaluation of the plan: http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-04-900
National Defense Magazine Article: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2003/Jan/As_details_of.htm
Quotes from GAO eval:
Under this Plan, the two services will perform their missions using fewer units of more capable aircraft and reducing total program aircraft procurement costs by $28 billion over the next 18 years.
The Plan also reduces the services' tactical aviation force structure by decommissioning five squadrons, thus decreasing the number of Navy and Marine Corps squadrons to 59, and reduces the total number of aircraft they plan to buy from 1,637 to 1,140.
In a related note, the Navy plans on reducing the number of planes per VFA squadron from 12 to 10. Again, saving money.
If you don't think the Navy is hurting a little bit for money, I just saw in hte news that the Navy will dip below 280 ships next year
. Wasn't it just a few years ago we were trying to get to a 600 ship Navy? It really is not suprising when the proposed DDX will cost somehting at least $1.7 billion a ship (maybe up to $3 billion when you cout in all of the costs of the program). http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/dd-x.htm
Quotes from GAO eval:
Under this Plan, the two services will perform their missions using fewer units of more capable aircraft and reducing total program aircraft procurement costs by $28 billion over the next 18 years.
The Plan also reduces the services' tactical aviation force structure by decommissioning five squadrons, thus decreasing the number of Navy and Marine Corps squadrons to 59, and reduces the total number of aircraft they plan to buy from 1,637 to 1,140.
In a related note, the Navy plans on reducing the number of planes per VFA squadron from 12 to 10. Again, saving money.
If you don't think the Navy is hurting a little bit for money, I just saw in hte news that the Navy will dip below 280 ships next year
Well Flash, I think we now have more admirals than ships.
I remember the old days when an airwing was almost 90 aircraft. 14 plane Intruder squadrons, 14 plane Tomcat squadrons and 5 plane Prowler squadrons. Now we are lucky to have 70 airframes on a flight deck.
Well Flash, I think we now have more admirals than ships.
I remember the old days when an airwing was almost 90 aircraft. 14 plane Intruder squadrons, 14 plane Tomcat squadrons and 5 plane Prowler squadrons. Now we are lucky to have 70 airframes on a flight deck.
Funny you should bring that up. I think we have the same number of ADM's (and GEN's) as we did at the end of the Cold War, yet we have half the number of ships and about a third less people in the military now. Makes you wonder........
