The “Checkmates” of VS-22 have ended their final deployment in Iraq, forward deployed out of al Asad airbase – a sea combat squadron, providing ISR support ashore:
In the twilight of the aircraft’s five-year sundown phase, the Viking has been flying vital missions over Iraq, helping to meet the secretary of defense’s urgent call earlier this year for additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets in the Middle East…
The assignment came about after an announcement in April, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a rare public demand for the service branches to provide more ISR aircraft for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was “like pulling teeth,” Gates said.
At the time, the Navy had few ISR assets to spare. The Navy’s main ISR planes, P-3 Orions, faced serious problems. Nearly 25 percent of its aging fleet was grounded in December 2007 and remained in the depot because of fears that the wings would break off in flight.
So the Navy turned to its last S-3 Viking squadron.
The Checkmates have re-deployed stateside, and the last War Hoover squadron will disestablish in January, after having had sailors mucking around ashore, with rifles.
Like Vikings.
Salute.
Sad to see this capability removed from the carrier deck. After all it does have range and sensors and of course ELINT/COMINT/SIGINT if one wants.
The carrier is one of the most powerful weapons we have yet the management of it has turned into some kind of Excel spreadsheet used to squeak a few more pennies out of somewhere to throw into dumb projects like DDG-1000, LCS and other silly ideas from the Groupthink gallery.
Well, I, too, am saddened by this occurrence. It’s terribly short-sighted, and again leaves a huge gap in both ISR & ASW that, coupled with the demise of the P-3 and the continued push-back of the P-8 replacement, leaves our fleet in a precarious position.
Meanwhile, the old game gets played, with Russia moving a pawn on a flank, testing the waters, as it were, and the Chinese adding more pieces to their side of the board. New players appear on the stage for a turn or two, and all the while, we sit and stare at what’s going on like some somnabulent ox, basking in the warm sun of our past accomplishments, and occasionally swatting an errant fly with our tail.
Enter the new administration, stage left…
Gives a whole new meaning to littoral combat! Wonder what the Al TaliQueda thought of the infamous whvooooooom sound of the Hoover? Nice to see them getting some too. Enough hunting to go around for all. Now if we could only deploy the Yeoman/Personnelman Counter Death Squad, we’d have it all!
I spent 35+ years working on/in/with the mighty War Hoover and the last project I worked was grafting the LANTIRN system into it.
Frequent poster within these pages, BadBob (B2) was a major ‘ringleader’ in that effort as well. He too has spent the better part of a lifetime flying and working new gear into them as well.
I miss that howling they made on start up and of course the groaning while taxing around the flight line. While not as loud as say the fast movers are while in the Break, you did know one was overhead (whistling s***can comes to mind).
I hope the one NASA uses out flys us all. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/news/pressrel/2008/08-005_S3.html
BT: Jimmy T Sends.
Carthage must be destroyed! If we don’t get a handle on Medicare and SS these pac-men twin budget destroyers will see increasing replications of things like this.
Just the re-arranging of the deck chairs, over and over and over ad nauseum.
I think some people in the Navy are going to be fired if they don’t start embracing the value of ISR and UASs, much like how a couple high placed USAF folks were let go. Unmanned Aerial Systems have replaced the term UAVs by the way. The continued push for manned systems, men in cockpits, future command positions and some antiquated requirements for flag rank seem to keep us from fully accepting the value and flexibility that UASs provide. BAMS and UCAV are great starts, but there’s no reason XCAS over Iraq couldn’t be provided by 24 hr endurance UASs. Before I get pounded by the pointy nose guys who read or write this site- we’ll never eliminate the need for brave pilots in jets, but we could save money, lives, deck cycle times, and more money by going full scale with at least one squadron of UASs on the flight deck. SSC being the primary mission for them, but the missions don’t end there. Large, medium, and small UASs should be integrated into the fleet much faster than we are doing it IMO.
Personally, I have no problems with UAS’s. They make especially good air combat targets
On a serious note, I have some serious concerns about their usefulness in the ASW envelope. I am not yet convinced that the direction we are headed in ASW is the correct one, but I’m not in the loop anymore, just an outsider now reading and watching and mulling it over.
respects,
I was a big fan of that Airframe — even if it did lack props. Mail call and extra gas for the airwing.. What’s not to like about it?
‘Course we’d keep a weather eye out for any SoreButts from ’37 in vicinity of our showers. /heh
As an old Checkmate from the Wayback, I sorta take it personal that we are retiring the Hoovers when most of them still have half their airframe life left.
The airplane, as the article above demonstrates, has the ability to perform a number of different missions and do them well. With lots of room for toys inside, and the ability to carry a variety of nasty toys outside, great endurance and the ability to operate off “that big boat with a roof on it”, it provided a lot of flexibility to the force commanders. We even strapped one of our jets all the way forward on the old Sara Maru to do an EMCON entry into Gitmo back in 1980. Phone line from cockpit to bridge, APU and engine number one running to power the computer and very intense perusal of the FLIR display. Just glad it wasn’t me in the jet for that one. Sometimes it’s good to be junior.
And OBTW, we’ve been practicing for ASW UAV’s for years. LAMPS Mk. III is nothing more than the operational testbed and tactival development platform for said UAVs.
Chaff! Flares!
The Navy will bitterly regret retiring the S-3s…and the decision to gut the ASW systems as well. I just hope the price is not too stiff.
But there is a right-ness to that last deployment being into the thick of the fight. Typical S-3…the Dirty Harry of the air wing. Every dirty job that came around.
As to unmanned Naval Aviation, have a look at BAMS. The top levels of the MPA community are on board, big time.
I’ll always regard my tour with VQ-6 as the best tour ever in my career. Great platform, but as others, getting expensive to maintain it.
Nice work by the Checkmates
CLaudio
When the lettuce got handed out, the lion’s share of it better have gone to the maintainers. Having sat through a few of those dusters and seeing what that dust can get into (I still find it in various items, two years later), they deserve all the credit for any successes that squadron had.
ooh-rah
Well, as a former Bluehawk of HAL-5 I can appreciate the path these fine folks have trodden.
When Cammies, regular personal firearms training, living in tents in the desert, standing watch behind sandbags or a dirt berm, eating out of a can, sponge bathing once a week, and knowing the nearest ship is a 1,000 miles away become de rigueur, life is atypical of that envisioned by most any Sailor.
No pun intended, it takes grit. But we happy few enjoyed it.
Hoo Yah, Checkmates. Well done, Shipmates!
Another old Checkmate here. Since I’ve been out of the game for over a decade now I don’t know all the latest thats happening. However from what I do see as our current ASW, or lack thereof, it might need some work.
Like vikings?
You mean drinking mead and eating magic mushrooms?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerker
Tuna,
The Navy does not do ISR. SSC ain’t ISR. ISR ain’t SSC. Even in a UAS.
The Viking conducted NTISR deployment to meet the requirements of the SECDEF and the critical period of the ongoing Surge. “Surge”, as in real war, not postulated for future conflict…. As SecNav recently pointed out, those (4 ) S-3Bs with ISR capability were the only “system” the US Navy could muster up to help last summer (after being compelled of course).
That is also why you won’t see the Viking doing this again although the COCOMs need a like capability, badly. The US Navy chops forces “it wants” to the COCOM. It normally provides CSGs/ARGs only. The US Navy divested the Viking from it’s business model several years ago. Unwiseli, IMO, for a lot of reasons including ASW, overhead tanking , etc. etc. No one resisted then. No one will resist now. Come end of January- outta sight-outta mind.
To repeat- the Navy does not do ISR. All said, you are morally correct, somebody should be held accountable. If only for the troops on the ground and in harms way. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen though.
Claudio,
Just to update your anecdotes, the ES-3A is not your S-3B of today, er…yesterday. The ES-3 was a “pig” (aerodynamically) and stuffed with expensive and unique “E” systems operated from the flight deck. On the other hand, the S-3B is the cheapest cost per flight hour fixed wing aircraft in the airwing the last several years as documented by the NAE…Ashore, it is really inexpensive to operate.
BTW, any observations above are entirely my own and nobody elses. Simple facts based on public record and recent press reports.
b2
-2 of Double post removed! Solly Lex.
b2
B2- never meant to equate ISR and SSC- just two missions a UAS could provide from the flight deck, one of which I know is not given the full attention it may need now that the S-3 is gone. SSC was a big mission set for us and kept the Desron guys happy. ASW was dropped at the end of my first tour. True, no one resisted the loss or reduction in either mission, or at least not enough to get us away from Davis Monthan. Not exactly sure why you say the Navy doesn’t do ISR- I did a ton of it with the SSU.