• 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

Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

No doubt it would be expensive, but curious to as how much cannibalization from the boneyard could alleviate that.

How much does it work for our current fleet?

Platforms are more expensive to maintain as they age- at some point, that cost exceeds the cost to replace them and/or degraded reliability becomes a risk to mission.

If you want to outfit a reserve military unit with gear and properly fund them, I might listen. As an independent force, I don’t think it makes sense- you’d just have another agency that has to learn how to play nice with everyone in the sandbox, and duplicates a lot of your military’s logistical needs.
 
Think about how incredibly expensive that equipment is to maintain though. There are probably more cost-effective ways to use those aid dollars.

Better (in my opinion) to have enough naval vessels and other equipment that units can be re-tasked when needed.
Perhaps being 2 deep on hospital ships and where we currently are on ESBs isn’t the most optimal fleet we could have. These are the kinds of questions I’d like seen at confirmation hearings instead of the noise we do get.

At the same time I’d rather not adopt the Chinese Belt and Road Temu quality foreign assistance model. Remember all the early soft power moves early COVID of flying pallets of aid and gear that turned out to be worthless? Lot of countries starting to wake up to the B&R stuff with its long term baggage.
 
...unless you're going to point out the same terms every time someone expresses themselves with a pejorative toward a third-party around here. I will go out on a limb and bet that you aren't willing to do that. Rather, the SOH gets trotted out whenever someone feels like their guy/gal is being slighted.
I beg to differ. I have been consistent on allowing expression, free from the oft apparent threats of verbal abuse by some on this site.
We (as a forum) may not, and apparently, do not agree on many things. But there are some here who thrive on belittling others who are not of the same opinion.

When it comes to certain topics, such as the President of the United State, I will take offence to anyone who blatantly disparages the President. I have no issue with someone being adamantly opposed to a President's actions, stating such, and expressing their opinion of what should be done. But the President is the President, and as such deserves some level of respect, even if it is only to the office. I have always taken this stance no matter who in in the Oval Office, from Nixon through today. Using the pejorative "Orange Jesus" is offensive on many levels, and in no way can be looked at a predicate for informed discussion.

And with that, I feel we should get back to the ongoing discussion(s).
 
But the President is the President, and as such deserves some level of respect, even if it is only to the office.

If only Cheeto Jesus treated others with the same level of respect. The hypocrisy from some members here is astounding. Perhaps the memes of shitting on protesting citizens was a little too nebulous for you guys? Atlas would be jealous of the massive cognitive dissonance you guys must carry on your shoulders.
 
But the President is the President, and as such deserves some level of respect, even if it is only to the office.
Perhaps by those of us in uniform as per regulation, but the average American is under no obligation to pay respect to the president or any government official. Insulting one's head of state may be uncouth, but is still protected speech.
 
Perhaps by those of us in uniform as per regulation, but the average American is under no obligation to pay respect to the president or any government official. Insulting one's head of state may be uncouth, but is still protected speech.
I think that is the point PhrogPhlyer is trying to make.
 

Ok… so back to the point at hand of the thread and something I think I brought up earlier….

I think given their current ship building capacity a future joint Asian alliance class of sub to meet all the now acknowledged shortcomings in ours and our ally’s capacity this could be a huge step towards a right direction in hedging against future expansionist Chinese plans. Doesn’t solve the issues at hand currently but I’d feel way better about a 2035-2050 Pacific if we recognized quantity can and does have a quality at scale.
 
No doubt it would be expensive, but curious to as how much cannibalization from the boneyard could alleviate that. Having done civilian vertrep with a much smaller detachment than the Navy, there are savings to be made.
Nothing like a CH-46 is going to be reconstituted from the boneyard at this point. Even if you managed to get a couple of them flying, there's zero logistical support. You aren't going to be able to cannibalize basic things like tires and rotor blades. There's zero engine repair capability. It's a foolish proposition.
 
Nothing like a CH-46 is going to be reconstituted from the boneyard at this point. Even if you managed to get a couple of them flying, there's zero logistical support. You aren't going to be able to cannibalize basic things like tires and rotor blades. There's zero engine repair capability. It's a foolish proposition.
Columbia Helicopters would very much dispute literally all of your points.

And while yeah that isn’t buying a lot of available load for the logistical footprint, there is a lot of life left in the 60 A/L platforms currently going to boneyards not because there was no time or logistics behind them but because it was judges as way to hard a lift to turn them to M/V standards in a rebuild when we are simultaneously downsizing the fleet in total.

The last Pumas were built in 87, SA-330 still out there getting it done. Only reason the 8/17 series dried up wasn’t a parts available issue it was an embargo caused by a war.

Anyway I don’t think it’s a dumb idea to have a floating NGO-expeditionary unit because you can’t get parts, I think it’s a misappropriation of dual use funding that could be better spent on stuff that does that but also Y, and Z. Which a MEU or other such budgetary effort gets you.
 
Last edited:

Ok… so back to the point at hand of the thread and something I think I brought up earlier….

I think given their current ship building capacity a future joint Asian alliance class of sub to meet all the now acknowledged shortcomings in ours and our ally’s capacity this could be a huge step towards a right direction in hedging against future expansionist Chinese plans. Doesn’t solve the issues at hand currently but I’d feel way better about a 2035-2050 Pacific if we recognized quantity can and does have a quality at scale.
Yeah that has gotten surprisingly little public attention.

The ROKs can build ships. Frankly, unlike most of our allies, they are better by many measures of shipbuilding industry than we are, as is Japan. There’s a reason SecNav was asking them for help to turn our domestic yards around and they’re investing in Philly shipyards.

Going nuclear would be a big change for them. But perhaps it’d pay off for us. The main change I see would be the possibility of them developing that into real deterrence against the DPRK and PRC, which may be beneficial to us if things ever go hot with China.
 
Columbia Helicopters would very much dispute literally all of your points.

And while yeah that isn’t buying a lot of available load for the logistical footprint, there is a lot of life left in the 60 A/L platforms currently going to boneyards not because there was no time or logistics behind them but because it was judges as way to hard a lift to turn them to M/V standards in a rebuild when we are simultaneously downsizing the fleet in total.

The last Pumas were built in 87, SA-330 still out there getting it done. Only reason the 8/17 series dried up wasn’t a parts available issue it was an embargo caused by a war.

Anyway I don’t think it’s a dumb idea to have a floating NGO-expeditionary unit because you can’t get parts, I think it’s a misappropriation of dual use funding that could be better spent on stuff that does that but also Y, and Z. Which a MEU or other such budgetary effort gets you.
I’m talking about a platform like CH-46. That idea, remains dumb, and will never, ever happen.
 
I’m talking about a platform like CH-46. That idea, remains dumb, and will never, ever happen.
A platform like… you mean the one currently flying in a civilian capacity. Yeah that’s what Columbia helicopter is doing today… right now… and has been for years. Maybe you missed those very civilian lively 46s at Bagram and other locations. Google who Columbia is and what they’ve done with your chosen example, it’s not like they haven’t done a lot with 46 and other surplus’s airframes.

If you think you are being pursued somehow unfairly it’s because at this point you are clearly being at best argumentative and worst deliberately obstinate.

I don’t disagree of the idea of a big beautiful boat (that’s also old as F if we retired it) probably serves no better purpose for a floating NGA tool than an old cruise ship we turn into floating FEMA housing. It’s still not gonna be rapid or readiness to lean on as a tool over sending the guard etc.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top