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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Tactics can be trained to fairly rapidly if/when the need arises. In fact we tend to train pretty heavily during the pre-deployment workup period based on the missions that we intend to execute...do other communities not do this?
What needs to be maintained inbetween that time is proficiency in the basics - safely getting the ship/airframe to and from its destination. Part of doing that will involve a paper trail to ensure that the proper maintenance was done with the right parts at the right time.
I would also argue that you actually need an actual enemy OOB and operational tendencies to fully train in tactics. There's only so far you can go training against generic 'Red' forces.
If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute, right?
Did anyone suggest we stop maintaining aircraft? I hope we can do a lot more with our expensive war machines than safely get from point A to point B.
What?
As with everything, context is key. I have no idea what the point of the Strike Flight Air Medals is. I'd argue they serve no purpose other than making people feel good. A regular Air Medal or an AM w/ a V? I'm absolutely all for those.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
No, it takes a few months tops if you make it a priority and have a good, rigorous training plan.
No, no one suggested we stopped maintaining aircraft. What are you talking about?
So you think that the characteristics, tactics, and capabilities of a Shang are the same as an Akula III which are the same as a Type 212? You think that an Udaloy is the same as a Luyang? Fighting against one is the same as taking on 3 is the same as taking on 10? All big hunks of metal that are approached the same way, right?
Insanebikerboy said he thinks the navy is too focused on admin and that more time should be spent on "tactics", which I assume applies mostly to his community, H-60's. Your response was that they can just learn that stuff during work ups, which is fine if you want the bare minimum of competency and corporate knowledge. Of course if you don't have the luxury of a full work up you're pretty much screwed.
Why did you say anything about needing to focus on getting from place to place and good maintenance practices? What did that have to do with the discussion at all? I don't think anyone disagrees that good maintenance is a good thing, so why did you say it?
I said "what" for clarification. I guess that upset you because you responded with a bunch of straw men that aren't worth responding to.
It is a symbol to show you have flown missions in 'combat' and is roughly analogous to several other decorations/badges/markers in other branches to include Combat Service Identification Badge (or 'Combat Patch'), the Combat Infantry Badge, Combat Action Badge and the Combat Action Ribbon (the last three cannot be earned for aerial actions). And some of those have even looser criteria than the Strike/Flight Air Medals. Did a tour in the comfy confines of HQ in Qatar? You get a 'combat patch'! Have some random IDF land somewhere about 25 yards or so from you? Get a CAB!
You aren't the first to complain about them either, Chuck Yeager makes note in his autobiography of the Army helo pilots in Vietnam earning scores of Strike/Flight Air Medals earning a point for each 'flight' in country, sometimes a dozen or more a day, when he had to fly to 8 hours to Germany and back just to get the same point they got on a 0.2 hop from a FOB to a firebase.
But it is what it is and I think it still serves a purpose, much like campaign medals, to show that you have actually been somewhere 'downrange'.
Note: I have no Strike/Flight AM (or any AM), so I really have no dog in the fight, but for discussion's sake...
Which just reaffirms my supposition that it's there to make people feel good. That doesn't mean making someone feel good is a bad thing. Other than my HSM, I have a NAM that is probably the award I'm most proud of. It technically should be a straight-stick Air Medal, but it was a hastily generated award and was issued as a NAM. At the end of the day, does it matter what it actually is? Maybe, but mostly just to make me feel better about my flair, and not because either one degrades what we did.
I think my basic issue is when you see two people who you know were flying in the same theater, same basic location, and were doing the exact same job, but one has a "5" on their ribbon and another has a "1" for no other reason than how the points were scored was different between the two CSGs, is kind of silly.
Which just reaffirms my supposition that it's there to make people feel good. That doesn't mean making someone feel good is a bad thing. Other than my HSM, I have a NAM that is probably the award I'm most proud of. It technically should be a straight-stick Air Medal, but it was a hastily generated award and was issued as a NAM. At the end of the day, does it matter what it actually is? Maybe, but mostly just to make me feel better about my flair, and not because either one degrades what we did.
I think my basic issue is when you see two people who you know were flying in the same theater, same basic location, and were doing the exact same job, but one has a "5" on their ribbon and another has a "1" for no other reason than how the points were scored was different between the two CSGs, is kind of silly.
I don't have one either, bad timing I suppose!
I think it is a little bit more than that, the S/F AM and other similar awards/badges/etc. are used as a 'marker' to show who has 'been there, done that'. Like pretty much everything else those 'markers' are not without their flaws, several of my contemporaries from the mid to late-90's have little in the way of 'markers' to show what they accomplished in their careers compared to folks who started just a few years later, but they still serve as an important distinction or discriminator in the military culture. As a mindless bureaucratic drone now I definitely take note if someone's record matches their talk about having 'been there and done that', especially with the USAF and Army folks who often have only done tours in Qatar or Korea and count that as 'operational experience'.
Humanitarian Service Medal?
I ran into this myself my last trip to the desert in a flight suit and it is pretty stupid the services, or just the Navy itself, can't decide on a single policy. But it isn't just the AM or the Navy though, individual units in the Army were deciding on their own CAB criteria within their service's relatively loose rules governing that badge.
There are definite flaws in the system but not a reason to toss it out completely.
How do you know what missions you intend to execute? You have to be able to fight the unexpected and the only way to do that is to train constantly. Training constantly builds experience, so when you do have to fight you will be able to lean on that experience base to improvise to the fight that you get - not the one that you expect. Last time I checked, the enemy gets a vote.
Keep in mind that we (the US) have not been good in predicting who we would fight and how that particular nation / group would fight.
I think I kind of see where Spekkio is coming from.
I don't think he's arguing against (combat) training, rather that the advanced, threat-specific tactics are better left for when you can figure out what threat to focus on.
So for example, loading and firing torpedoes would be one of those "warfighter-y" things that is a good "basic" skill to learn and get real good at.
Ditto operating crew served weapons with very high proficiency.
Point being that if you are brilliant at the basics, incorporating more advanced TTPs gets a lot easier.
There's an additional point to be made that surprise gives a huge advantage to whoever uses it best.
The enemy adapts to our new systems and TTPs. Playing it close to the vest until game day can give us an advantage if we play it right.
It's the most utilitarian Go To War quality weapon I own. A fine investment. Do it. You won't be sorry.
You don't need to do a thing to it - perhaps sights if you feel the need to customize. Pair it with any number of affordable holsters. I can recommend Magpul's new aftermarket mags.
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You just made my point. You can't "train to tactics" in a short time, there is a huge difference in being familiar with and being an expert. It is possible to be an expert in tactics even if you don't have a specific enemy to train against.
I'll use an example from my community. Experienced crews taking 15-20 minutes to get a Hellfire off the rail. That's completely unsat but it's commonplace.
I'm also not advocating overlooking required stuff such as maintenance, etc, but it is possible to be good at both.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
He said Navy, not the H-60 community, so I assumed he meant his gripe was with the entire Navy.
As for the 'bare minimum,' if that wasn't enough to get the job done then it wouldn't be the minimum. The 'bare minimum' maintains proficiency in the basics, deployment workups are tailored to what you will be doing on deployment. Aside from that, I don't know what timeline you are envisioning where the entire Navy has to go to war overnight with little to no preparation, to include ships that are not in the appropriate phase of the deployment cycle where the ~2 week transit time wouldn't be enough to bring the crew up to speed. Even the next naval battle after Pearl Harbor/Wake Island occured 5 months later.
My comment was directed toward the 'too much admin.' Admin is how you know that the proper maintenance was done on the equipment you are taking underway/flying into harm's way.
No upset. Your post seemed sarcastic and so I responded in kind. My point was echoed by BigRed. You can prepare for the basics, but to be an expert on every adversary's capabilities and tactics in peacetime is very difficult if not impossible, and the juice is probably not worth the squeeze. In addition, we may not even know the enemy's capabilities until ordnance starts flying.
Deployment LOI via ISIC.
Which is why time is better spent maintaining proficiency in the basics at the unit level.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
You become 'familiar with' tactics during your initial training, you become more acquainted with them through continuing training and exercises. We're not talking about taking Joe Schmo off the street and sending him into battle here, we're talking about Sailors and Officers that have a baseline level of knowledge and training. When there is an enemy you can train to that specific force, which in many ways is simpler than training to be a being a jack-of-all trades in peacetime.