Posted on 11/02/2007 1:36:49 PM PDT by DesScorp
“This kind of short-sightedness ALWAYS gets us in to trouble. If we had not down-sized air defense as part of the “peace dividend” at the close of the Cold War, 9-11 might not have been so tragically effective.”
That may be true, but NORAD was designed and equipped to “look out” to aquire, track, and intercept threats from the outside.
Yep, I know what you mean. NAS Pensacola has some very historic buildings, especially that “haunted” lighthouse.
“None of those can take off or land on a Carrier.”
They landed a C-130 on a carrier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBDAfG4nX5s
‘While everyone agrees that the United States military requires air capability, it’s less obvious that we need a bureaucratic entity called the United States Air Force. ‘
This Veteran agrees with the above 100%.
The fact a Air Force General is still trying to claim a war can be won ‘from the air’ especially a guerilla war (insurgency) only reinforces my position.
‘Granted, the USAF wears postal uniforms and has confused military bases with country clubs, but we don’t go around disbanding an entire military branch because we might be able to get by without it for the next 15 minutes.’
Nobody is saying ‘disband’ its more a ‘realignment’.
Anyone else remember the Air Force insisting the Army couldn’t put weapons on Helicopters?
I do. It was in the 1960’s, and a lot of our troops on the ground died because of that nonsense before it was corrected.
Integrate it into the Army. Perhaps then we will get the ground support aircraft needed, without the bickering interservice.
However, this problem predates the USAF. Students of history will remember that the Army itself was divided during WWII between the strategically minded Army Air Corpse and tactically minded ground forces. It is interesting that the Ninth Air Force was created to satisfy the latter. The Army examined WWII and concluded that more direct air support would have been greatly beneficial. The Army Air Corpse examined WWII and decided that they had won it by themselves. Indeed, the Air Force returned very quickly to building pursuit type fighters with little mind to ground attack. Bombing was focused on nuclear delivery.
There is no doubt that if the Army’s requirements were given higher priority, the USAF would look more like A-10s than F-22s. I think the answer could be withing the USAF, if Congress were to specifically task the service to provide X number or percentage of aircraft to focus primarily on direct support, to be placed under the command of the Army commander in theater, once deployed.
Of course!!!
“That may be true, but NORAD was designed and equipped to “look out” to aquire, track, and intercept threats from the outside.”
Also true! The sheer confusion that occurred that day was, quite probably, almost impossible to overcome. But more units, closer units, MIGHT have made a huge difference. As things stood, we had almost NO chance at all. But, yes, it took too long to overcome the “looking out” mentality.
It would have made a difference, IMHO. We used to have aircraft on strip alert at McGuire AFB, only 56 miles from the WTC. Thanks to the so called "peace dividend", F-15's from Otis ANGB had to respond and they were 196 miles away.
I am going to repeat this. I DO NOT WORK FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and anyone who says differently is a slanderer. However, I don’t believe that Federal agencies are automatically evil, nor are many of the people in them mindless bureaucrats. Of course, I work in IT, where the Federales I do meet are pretty sharp.
Companies have a natural lifespan. Agencies don’t. They just try to change the mission. Instead of thinking that way, think of an agency as a project — something with a definite goal and end — not as a permanent creation.
Of course, one size does not fit all. Certain functions are so vital they must be kept going. However, that list should be pretty small.
Yep, same story for several other locations too.
How could anything established under the miserable presidency of Jimmy Carter be useful except as another agency to provide jobs for the dreaded bureaucratic administrators?
In the case of catastrophes the individual states need to provide the necessary emergency services. The 'central' government should provide little in the way of services or anything for that matter to the states.
Providing large and disgusting pork barrel projects to their constituents and rewards to those that finance bloated political war chests is what today's government is all about. It is what is shoving this nation into the dustbin of history so that in a few more decades this nation will be unrecognizeable from its present form....which is unrecognizeable in the form it presented 40 years ago.
Federal agencies are evil and are, by and large, staffed with mindless bureaucrats who appear to have traded their souls for a high-paying government job.
What you do not understand is how air power gets to be air power in the first place. You cannot have close air support if you do not own the sky. In World War II we kept the air war up against the Germans and Japanese until all their best pilots had been killed, their air fields in ruins, and their aircraft smoking holes in the ground.
After that, it was possible to become the artillery of the air and support the troops on the ground.
Today, that same vital lesson still applies. Ground attack aircraft such as helicopters and A-10s are wonderful weapons but against air superiority fighters are quickly swept from the skies. Then the enemy can deploy THEIR ground support aircraft. American ground forces haven’t been strafed and bombed since WWII. You do NOT want that to happen today.
Airwar lesson for the US Army: First rule — Control the sky
Second rule — Strike the enemy deeply. Hit his resupply, staging area, and concentrated forces
Third rule — Take him out at the battlefront. Support our guys on the ground.
That is the order of things. From a soldier’s perspective, the third rule is the only one that matters. I understand this. But without rule one and two, we couldn’t keep rule three sustained for more than a few moments.
Well, the USAF was developed in large cause to the efforts of Gen. Billy Mitchell, who was courts-martialed for releasing the results of bombing tests that he conducted to prove the necessity of a stronger air power. The Army was sealing them to protect their own dominance of air power.
In a sense there is a healthy degree of fighting within the branches, which requires each to make a case for its own survival as a unique force.
I am sure that there will be several realignments over the course of the next 100 years, as the methods of warfare change.
Being an Air Force vet, I obviously see the need for the Air Force as its own DoD branch. It is true that the Navy/Marines and Army each have their own forms of air power, but this makes sense because their uses of their own forms of air power support their missions directly.
There are reasons that the Navy uses the aircraft on the aircraft carrier, and just for the sake of cutting red tape, those planes need to be under the control of the Navy. The Army needs to maintain control of their helicopters. Because the Marines fall under the Department of the Navy, it makes sense for the Department of the Navy to maintain control and use of the Harrier, etc.
The Air Force has always relied on the need for more permanent bases, usually farther back from the battle lines. With this, they can use radar and respond quickly to an air threat. The nature of the US Army requires them to be at the front, which does not provide the necessary security to the aircraft that our military uses. It does not take long for an enemy aircraft (stealth or flying under radar) to take out a whole squadron of aircraft. Furthermore, I’d like to see a bomber land on an aircraft carrier.
Very good points. I suppose what irritates me about the Air Force is the flag officers that obviously still haven’t learned from history.
You can do many things with airpower.
You can’t hold ground, however, and you damn sure can’t counter an insurgency. That any flag officer within the Air Force even mutters it is insane.
“How could anything established under the miserable presidency of Jimmy Carter be useful except as another agency to provide jobs for the dreaded bureaucratic administrators?”
Because I’ve undergone FEMA training and they were very good trainers. Really, it was a very small and very good training and coordinating agency.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.