They're at it Again...

[kham]

From Bring the Heat This AF Uber Alles crap somehow seems to pop up every decade or so. Last time I saw it was in 2001 at a convention where Larry Bond was giving a seminar on this and that, and at the coffee table q/a after (this was just after the games in Yugoslavia, remember) his exact words were "the air force is going to be in-fucking-sufferable, in-fucking-sufferable over this; dont need an Army, Navy, or The Corps, just send in the AF and all over, no fuss no muss..." Six months later Sept 11 happened. And other than BUFFS, Bones, and B-2s the only TacAir available was Naval Air. Then Special Forces, and Paras. History doesn't repeat itself, but stupid is hard to kill. The themes do repeat with alarming regularity. PacRim? Its 1937 girls, and lord a mighty, its the same damn players just with different toys. Japan v ChiComs with India backing Japan. Who would have picked THAT cage match?

[Mynock]

They've gotten used to being able to bomb shit at will with little to no worry about an opposing air force.

[bbjohn]

It sounds like the bureaucratic tendency to make oneself or one's department sound infinitely more important than it actually is in order to justify having money spent on that department. It happens at all levels of government, so it's no surprise that it happens in the military as well. Come to think of it, it probably happens just as much there as anywhere else.

It reminds me of the geeks (excuse me, computer software engineers) my older brother knows in Silicon Valley. He says they feel a need to justify their huge salaries, so they make "changes" to things that didn't need changing. It doesn't matter if they didn't improve its performance. It doesn't matter if long-time users can't figure out how to make something work. They changed things and they are brilliant, so you know it must be better. Therefore, they can demonstrate why they deserve the big bucks.

My older brother has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for over 30 years, so he sees this type on a regular basis.

When it comes to the military, each branch wants to make itself look important so they can justify Congress spending money on all the fancy toys they want. I constantly shake my head when I learn of weapons systems that don't work anything like they're supposed to, but go into production because the contractor is well-connected to the service branch involved, or some powerful member of Congress.

I sometimes feel like the real purpose of our military is not to defend the nation, but to make defense contractors rich. From what I've seen of some military spending, that's an easy conclusion to come to.

I suspect the Air Force is acting as they are because they know that they can't win conflicts on their own. We need those troops on the ground and the ships and sailors at sea to get the job done. They, in turn, need air support to do their jobs.

Here's the shocking reality for all branches of the armed forces: YOU NEED EACH OTHER!!

I know that's not an easy thing for the military-bureaucratic mind set to accept, but it's true. They should try it sometime. They may discover they can get a lot more real work done, and they can save their bosses (i.e., taxpayers) some money.

- Big Bad John

[kham]

It gets worse. The Marine Corps, the one service you would think retaining a shred of sanity is in the process of subordinating their entire budget to jamming money down the throat of the F-35B model to try and make it work; at the expense of the funds that you kinda need to train infantrymen. That whole, "every marine a rifleman" thing. God help us all

[nachtjaeger]

For that amount of money, we could reactivate half the planes in the "boneyard" with upgraded engines and avionics. Even do some nifty stuff like the EB-17 Megafortress- add jamming gear, fighter radar, and hardpoints so they can carry HARM missiles for SEAD and air-air missiles for defense. Would be nice to take all those retired F14 Tomcats and upgrade them to block D specs, too- except they had them all shredded. If the Tomcat was as obsolete and useless as claimed, why were we so obsessed with keeping the Iranians from getting ahold of spare parts for theirs?

Even if they work as advertised, no way we can afford to procure these weapons systems in the numbers required. Same problem the Germans ran into in WWII. They were eventually crushed by sheer weight of Allied numbers. As Uncle Joe Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own."

It gets worse. The Marine Corps, the one service you would think retaining a shred of sanity is in the process of subordinating their entire budget to jamming money down the throat of the F-35B model to try and make it work; at the expense of the funds that you kinda need to train infantrymen. That whole, "every marine a rifleman" thing. God help us all

[Mynock]

If only there was an easier way to VTOL and carry a shit ton of weapons at the same time......oh wait.....

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