You had to know this was coming:
The word within the U.S. Department of Defense is that the White House wants to collect six to eight “scalps” — major program kills — in this year’s Quadrennial Defense Review…
(While) most of the military services are scrambling to protect programs, at least one is getting ready to offer up a signature weapons system. The U.S. Navy will propose removal of one aircraft carrier and air wing from its posture, dropping the number of carriers to the lowest number since 1942…
That step would cut the Navy’s projected shortfall in strike aircraft by half. So billions of dollars are saved by skipping the refueling, cutting the purchase of aircraft, and eliminating the need to sustain 6,000. personnel associated with ship operations and air-wing support.
Loren Thompson posits that the cuts are driven by a Bush era plan to increase ground force end strength by 92,000. Just in time to bring them back home again. Truthfully though, then-CNO Vern Clark was already considering this step as late as the 10th of September 2001, before history got in the way.
Put three ships on deployment, three returning from deployment, three preparing from deployment, two in post-deployment maintenance and one in a complex overhaul, and you get 12 ships. Go to 11 ships and you get seven t0 eight month deployments (and sailors start voting with their feet). Go to ten, and you can find yourself in a position where you take on considerable warfighting risk with exceptionally valuable assets.
Meanwhile, the mission set never changes.
We’ve gone through all of this before, cutting force structure because it’s too expensive to maintain. We always seem to forget that once cut, it’s well-nigh impossible to reconstitute – there’s only a finite pool of industrial capability to build and maintain nuclear powered aircraft carriers, and if the work dries up, those resources get re-deployed elsewhere.
Each ship of a class and its associated air wing also come with an aggregate life cycle support tail. When those aircraft and ships are eliminated, the support tail is commensurately reduced. Which means, in effect, that a few years hence we’ll have the same kinds of budget shortfalls Navy faces today, but with less combat capability. Which is how, back in the late 90s, we managed to “recapitalize” the surface fleet down from a Reagan era high of nearly 600 ships to a barely adequate 280 or so.
Hmmm. Bring back RAdm Daniel V. Gallery…. I think we’re in the midst of scuttling the navy.
Madness, ABSOLUTE madness.
(But like we were supposed to expect anything less out of the Lightworker?)
I say this with a very heavy heart, but sometime during my lifetime, the United States is going to lose a conflict, badly, along with alot of lives of the best this nation has to offer, on the altar of these politically expedient and foolhardy decisions.
This nation will almost certainly expand its military once again, but it will only be after a very painful, very sobering experience. Too bad the politicians that cause the loss of alot of American lives are never the ones to have to live with the risk their inept actions impose. Given the amount of money that’s been pissed away in the last 6 months, the procurement budget is a mere pittance in comparison. And, yet, it somehow breaks the bank. Do Democrats have ANY affinity for the military, or are they so disconnected they just don’t give a damn? Do they really feel we are soooooo invulnerable, we can continue to lose capabilities with no consequences?
I am sooo tired of this endless f-ing drawdown…..20 years and no signs of letting up.
But those who seek the easy life, one without risk, and with little effort, shall be provided for materially.
Until it is too late, will they even realize they have suffered the equivalent of being dropped off, naked, unarmed, without a cell phone, in a bad, bad neighborhood, late at night, probably after a ride in a dark trunk with duct tape mitigating their movement at the hands of their elected representatives?
If they’re lucky an impoverished Marine (now no longer in the employ of the Nation, but still a Marine) lives close enough in his/her Government housing to hear the cries for help. If not, they’re so much fodder for those who walk the streets in search of prey.
So we are unlikely to see the 30 ships that we should have, to have the force projection we should have in the most dangerous era since 1942.
The interesting question is what Congress will have to say. They have been most unwilling to allow cuts in CVBGs.
Of course, the real cure is to rethink the need for an extra 92,000 troops. The Great Big Lesson of the Iraq campaign is that the American public lacks the staying power for a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign. Accept this fact, and the need for additional troops goes away…freeing funds for the kind of capabilities we CAN use.
As a dyed-in-the-wool Army guy, it kills me to say this, but yeah, you are better served by maintaining a Navy than an Army. You can reconstitute an army in about 5-10 years. But it takes a generation to reconstitute a navy.
For a maritime nation…a necessity. Reference: Six Frigates by Ian Toll.
I’m with Mike…a lot of voters/taxpayers are going to be burning the wires up calling/emailing their congress-critter, all of them screaming, “HELL NO, THEY WON’T KILL OUR PROGRAM!”
You can reconstitute an army a lot faster than five years. Have a look at American performance in both World Wars.
The smarter move from a ground force perspective would be a substantial enlargement of the reserve component.
But the real key is a strategic shift away from a continental to a maritime strategy. Control the seas and you control trade…and can deploy a smaller but well-trained army where it can do the most good. See the British Empire for the classic example of this strategy. Or the first part of the Peloponnesian War.
MikeM ~ don’t forget that that Army was reconstituted in the face of the Depression. Now is a different time…though the similarities are striking…
I think I’m paraphrasing somebody, but I don’t remember who … he who controls the world’s oceans controls the world.
Larry,
Your fear is all too plausible. The thing that really concerns me is that we’ve never fought a power any where near our league yet. We had huge advantages over Germany and Japan (and we were fighting with battle-hardened allies) – the U.S. had lots more population, a continental-sized space, more industry and a homeland safe from serious damage. Scratch all of those advantages if it ever came to a serious dust up with China (or maybe even India – the new issue of The Atlantic on India’s would-be authoritarian leader and pogromchik by Robert Kaplan is sobering).
Even more importantly, before that happens we might discover that there are a lot of evils our hegemony has prevented that we will be unable to hold back when we are simply one power out of many (we are probably beyond the point where we can simply forbid by fiat a nuclear exchange in the Middle East or Southwest Asia – or even a nuclear arms race). We are going to have to learn to not only fight hard but to fight very, very smart at the strategic level and in a highly complicated and fluid political and ethno-religious environment, not the relatively straightforward one of WW II (which still produced a murderous Soviet regime as one of the winners).
And I just don’t know if we can – the problem with wanting to imitate European social welfare programs is that Europe has an American protector – to whom will we turn to when we decide we don’t want to pay for our protection? And yet, given our tendencies to dangerous simplifications of politics and ethno-national issues (US dogmas – “everyone wants democracy,” ” separation of religion and politics is natural and easy,” ” you need to think of yourselves as one people – not as x/y/or z different “ethnic” or “tribal” groups”) I think we as a people on the whole are unready to fight in a world where we don’t have a preponderance of power. Combined with our insistence that we only fight when the issue is clear, when we can apply overwhelming force with a clear exit strategy (glad we weren’t so hampered during WW II since I hear we still have a stray division or so in Germany and Japan over 50 years later), and our love of isolationism and freedom from foreign entanglements we might not even want to be able to fight intelligently enough to preserve our capacity to be one effective player out of many. So, to use Michael Scheuer’s not so felicitous phrase, we will need to learn to look on the deaths of others with greater equanimity (and certainly even now it would be worthwhile to realize that Afghan girls – at least the Pashtun ones – are not going to go to school). In addition to such bracing moral realism, we best start getting used to doing without the prosperity that comes with expanding trade. I just hope we need not discover in our lifetimes whether radioactive waste from the stray nuclear exchange in the Eastern Hemisphere will give our children a healthy glow.
This is a truly a sad day. I was in the Air Force. I would echo, “XBradTC’s” comment with some editorial privileges. “But it takes *generations* to reconstitute a *good* Navy.” We have made some poor choices by *some* of the Military. How do we make the best use of this time? What is the saying about warfare? “Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.” If we look at this sad day and say, “The day is darkest, just before the dawn”, it tweaks our view. Sadly, many of us and our children will never see the full sunshine of that day. As we go through this whole process, not just the Military, but the whole Nation. When the time is right, you’ll have a sense that there is a “New Spirit of Unity” from the Post 9/11 World.
This is just pure madness… I am just a civilian but even I understand that you cannot do that to the carriers… and you just do not cut on the defense spending during the war…
Mike M. and the Navy was built in 5 years in WWII. Things are a little more complex now. But the basic equipment of an army isn’t that complex in terms of lead times for construction. A Navy? Just a little more complex.
And with good NCOs, you can stand up a unit in the army and be ready in a year or two. The navy? Eh, not so much.
You need to look at the underlying geopolitics of the next 4 years. If the ONE cuts/slashes/reduces our ability to project power than we no longer need to project power. What need is there for expeditionary operations when we want to snuggle up to the Irans, the Cubas, the Venezuelas, the Russias and we seem so eager to sell out our allies like we just did with Poland and the Czech Republic? We don’t need KC-135s or a replacement for them because we don’t plan to wage any deep strikes or any at all except for the deep 3rd world in Africa. Israel is a gonner and poor Taiwan has to know that it won’t survive a single sabre rattled in its direction. The ONE just demonstrated his affection for our special relationship with our foremost ally. No doubt those that were wavering will appreciate the subtle display of affection and start casting about for steadier partners. You know, allies/partners that don’t just suddenly decide to give GE a stop work order on all overseas direct commercial sales of LM2500 turbines while they reconsider the nature of our relationship with India and Australia. A shifty bunch.
So do you cut the DDX and CGX to save the carriers? Retire a Trident or two? What is the correct course of action?
The Navy may be able to live with 10 carriers-but it cannot live with 9 airwings. Not enough aircraft inventory.
If they do go to 10-then overseas homeporting of an airwing/CVN-needs to be looked at, or reconstitution of CVWR-20 as a tactical airwing. In addition to the FDNF. Putting an air wing in Guam could be done.
I think one of the key mistakes the navy makes some times is tying number of airwings to number of carriers. Its the number of airwing missions that experienced mission creep-and they don’t always have to be based on the CV . Especially if CNAF would ever get serious about overseas expeditionary maintenance concepts like the Marines have. Instead of Repair and return to CONUS.
I’m not keen on shrinking to ten carriers, but there are ways to cope-without going back to 9 month deployments. 10 carriers and 12 air wings might actually be a cheaper alternative to gain the same capability.
From a total noob perspective… isn’t the provision of “dismounted” air wings the raison d’etre for all those people in the light blue?
May the reason for this shift have something to do with shuffling missions not requiring a carrier (in the sense of a highly mobile source of airpower, rather than an airfield that happens to float) off on the Air Force?
I’ve seen the suggestion of an air wing on guam several times in this thread and others. I had two tours at NavMag there and receintly visited for a vacation, and I don’t know where you’d put a wing. Anderson is packed, and GovGuam isn’t about to give up the old NAS. I suppose you could build a new NAS at the old Orote point site on Navsta, but where would you get the money?
Insanity.
Worse it is a deliberate undermining of the critical primary obligation of Congress and the President: To provide for the common defense.
Even worse yet, is that it is not even camouflaged as part of an aggressive overall austerity program driven by the huge defecits.
Instead it is a stand alone effort to slash out national defense. At the same time as unprecedented sums of money are being squandered purposelessly (except as pork for political benefit) to ostensibly build needed “stuff” and provide “jobs” for millions of people, and “educate” young people to do something. If a small percentage of the wasted stimulus and pork funds were instead invested in defense it would have much greater benefit for our country.
But the long term benefit for our country is apparently not a major goal of the Obama adminstration.
Watch for him to say he is convening a summit to rebuild our weakened military strength—immediately after slashing the defense budget- and blaming future weakness on Bush’s use of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sadly, the current Commander in Chief can neither be believed nor trusted. About anything. Ever.
Oh, by the way, Ms. Obama visited the troops today somewhere. Same time as their scheme to force disable vets to pay for their care is revealed. Nothing to trust or believe with Ms. O either, it seems.
Speaking of lack of trust or belief, that reminds me that the lying news media which was largely responsible for getting Obama elected is steadily closer to financial collapse. Serves them right.
And, as a final insult, Obama names “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh’s defense attorney to head the Justice Department Civil Division.
Now, now…The One is just balancing the budget…the political one.
He owes many around the world much, including Hugo, and Chris Matthews…just to name two. He’s not doing it kind, it’s more like a bartering system. Trading things of value.
Even in WWII, we fought that war with the ships we had until the ships purchased in 1938 and 1940 started arriving in 1942.
Thank god for block-obsolecence. All of the ships we lost in the first year, already had their replacements finishing construction.
There is a reason the Constitution says maintain the navy and raise armies….
But like today with teenagers and 20 somethings knowing they are far too smart, we will abandon the wisdom of the men who thought much of this through in detail.
You know…old men now. What could they know that could possibly apply to our thoroughly modern nation?
Lex makes a great point, in that it takes years to train a competent sailor, specifically the folks like the Air Boss, mechanics, damage control crew, even the deck crew takes a couple of cruises to start getting it right.
Maybe not so much for the cooks, but I digress.
How long for a competent soldier?
We’ve proven time and again that we can take a mildly-educated person, run them through 13 weeks of basic training to turn them into a soldier, run them through another two months of AIT to turn them into a mostly effective soldier, and within another couple of months of experience probably have a very effective soldier on our hands.
Audie Murphy is a shining example of when this works correctly, though he did already know how to shoot before the Army got hold of him.
How long does it take to train tankers, helo pilots, and the assorted specialties in a modern Army? Is it similar to the specialized skills in the Navy? Are there fewer in the Army and Air Force now, compared to the Navy, and more of the introductory positions? Could it be the reverse, where quickly-trained silo-sitters outnumber the missile techs and pilots?
And, as Lex notes, you start increasing deployment time you start limiting your available sailors. Retention rates fall, you spend your money in training which takes two people on the payroll, the instructor and the student, rather than just the trained student. Costs go up, abilities go down.
I can assume it’s the same for each branch of the service.
Rep. Charles Rangel [D-NY] introduced H.R. 393 as recently as 2007, call it the Draft Act. Compulsory military or government (he uses the term civilian) service for all people between the ages of 18 and 42.
It will be interesting to see if this is introduced again to help bolster the lower volunteer and retention rates in the Navy as we cut the fleet.
Somehow, I’m not holding my breath.
I note with some amusement that the age this bill applies to is far greater than what the services will accept volunteers for. Which pretty much motivates people like me, at the high end of the range, to spend as much time as possible bore-sighting our bunks rather than improving ourselves and contributing to the team. What the heck, the pay is the same and it’s not like we’re going to be allowed to stay in and make a career of it.
I suspect I’m seeing the decline and fall of a maritime empire here, I’m merely uncertain if it’s through malice or ignorance.
– Max
“It’s always darkest just before it turns totally black.”
MAX/
I’m sittin’ here watching Adm. Mullen on Charlie Rose PCTime drunk-blogging. A smooth, diplomatic weasel, but a weasel nonetheless. Talks of moving even more to “re-balancing” forces to unconventional side. Want’s to “reach out” be more “globally, culturally” focused. Wants retain experienced “warfighters,” etc. (Yeah, right) Most optimistic about “young men and women currently serving”–and their families. Is most pessimistic about AF and PAK. –slow deterioration, etc. All about increasing reliance on “soft power”,” hearts and minds ” (WHAM-ye Gods, he really did F*****G say that!) An entire hour and NOTHING about China despite latest incident (may have been taped previously+missed 1st few minutes.) NOTHING about budget cuts, latest VA health proposals DESPITE mewling about how much he cares about “our people, etc., –the typical political soldier–all smooth and calm, sweet reason on the exterior hiding the organizational rot going on inside. One of the reasons I got out out; the service promotes guys like Mullen as opposed to types like “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell who, emerging from a forced march retreat out of Burma, stated plainly–and publicly: “We got the shit kicked out of us!” If Vinegar Joe had said that today he’d be retired tomorrow at a grade level below, quicker than than greased shit thru a Goose.
We are at politics–not war, sports-fans–and don’t you forget it.
I see that YOUR solution, Max is to “spend as much time as possible bore-sighting our bunks.” HA! Roger that! Either that, or it’s time to start building the duck blind across the street from the White House. (And I’m only HALF joking.) Naw, mebbe 20yrs ago–it’s somebody elses’ problem now, as an old buddy recently reminded me. I’ll just lay in a few more cases of my favorite Barbancourt 5-Star Haitian “Rhumb” before the Chinese fleet blockades the Gulf and Caribbean ports and the Haiti to New Orleans run is cut.
(Hell, the PRC ALREADY controls the Panama Canal as it is, not a great streach ro extend out in the Gulf with Cuba and Venezeula (sp?) beconing)
VenezUEla and “beckoning” Drunk-blogging has it’s limitations……
We’ve proven time and again that we can take a mildly-educated person, run them through 13 weeks of basic training to turn them into a soldier, run them through another two months of AIT to turn them into a mostly effective soldier, and within another couple of months of experience probably have a very effective soldier on our hands.
Max, it has been my experience that it takes about 2 years for a soldier to really become effective. I suspect that may have been trimmed down some, what with the large numbers of first tour soldiers having a war zone tour under their belt, but don’t think merely completing basic and AIT makes a soldier. Just like a CSG/ESG has to go through workups, so does a battalion, brigade and division. And those individual soldiers need time to learn the tribal knowledge. I’m all for maintaining the Navy but just want to make sure we don’t underestimate just how hard it might be to raise an army.
XBradTC said: “Max, it has been my experience that it takes about 2 years for a soldier to really become effective.”
Winston Churchill, who commanded troops in the trenches of World War I, said the same thing. That also applies to sailors, IMO.
I beg to differ on the 2 year mark. The success of American combat arms on the battlefield since Bunkers Hill shows what nonsense that is. Those experts who think it takes longer are probably factoring in all the required training courses mandated by modern regs and standards. Most of those consist of 5 hours of actual instruction crammed into a week.
Remember watching the invasion of Iraq on CNN while eating breakfast in Chinhae? (OK, I do.) The young marines were fumbling around and not altogether sure how to fire their missiles at enemy bunkers. It was obvious as hell they lacked the experience to do it right the first time because their training did not allow each of them that was expected to shoot the thing to actually fire one in training. Today? 100% of those in the platoon know exactly how to fire an aimed missile at an enemy. They’re blooded troops and they will provide the NCOs for the next 30 years of military operations. Right now none of them are ‘shake and bake’ draftee sergeants, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I know some great guys who left boot camp for instant sergeant school.
It’s always interesting to have lunch at the food court at MCRD (one mile from where I work) and watch the DI’s and cadre strolling around with their PH and SS and BS and most everybody except the recruits is wearing a CAR and unit award or two. I think they know now how to winnow through what is important and what is bogus when it comes to imparting knowledge to the youngsters who will shortly find themselves on a battlefield. I’m glad I was initially instructed by one of their compadres from Vietnam. He taught us all a lot about leadership and what really matters.
You all make salient points, but remember I made a generality and then posed some questions which were not answered.
In WW2 we had soldiers on the beaches in Normany well-trained in how to shoot, throw grenades, seek cover, operate the satchel charge and the Browning 30-cal and the bazooka. As they secured that beach and went inland they found they’d had no training on how to eliminate opposition from a farm house, or counter 88mm’s set up on a road in the hedge-row country.
That’s sort of what I’m asking about here — what does it take to go from mostly effective to very effective in each force, and what percentage share a common training? An army of entirely riflemen would be cheap and quick to deploy, but I suspect and am asking how long it takes to train the tankers, logistics folks, etc… in that group?
Likewise a Navy Air Boss is a one-in-ten-thousand find. If he leaves due to longer patrols, how long and how many man-hours are spent replacing him vs. the swabbie that cleans the heads and mans a phone relaying orders during a drill?
I suspect we’re going to be gutting ourselves of the talent and institutional knowledge that keeps the services going, here I’m looking for information about how deep that gutting will go.
– Max
XBradTC, your point is well-taken. I believe the tribal knowledge is the sticking point, new folks in any service need time on the line to learn from their elders. The big question is if retention goes down how much of that knowledge will be lost?
Some of the commentary in this thread seems a bit overheated.
Carrier aviation is one of the Navy’s crown jewels. It has taken decades of hard-won lessons to establish the capabilities we have today. And although vulnerable in some ways, as a weapons system the carrier is fantastically long-lived and versatile.
Yet having said that, it is also a very expensive way to project power. Given our astounding budget deficit — doomed to grow larger given the coming avalanche of domestic spending — it doesn’t surprise me that cuts are being considered. CV/N numbers have declining for a long time. I don’t know what the correct number is (thanks, Skippy-san, for some informed insight) but dropping a hull does not strike me as necessarily madness or insanity. To make good use of those descriptors, you need look no further than the surface force planning process.
In that area, a series of poor design & acquisition choices have left us with the lousy combo of the DDG-1000 and LCS as the scripted way forward. We pretty much know we can’t afford the first, and whether the second will work still isn’t clear. The fleet is going to get a lot smaller unless we can come up with a good, versatile, affordable surface combatant. My vote would be for a new frigate — a ship design that nearly every other navy in the world makes good use of — but which is apparently insufficiently complex for the U.S. Navy. I keep hoping that someone sharp will makes this case in Proceedings…in the mean time, thanks to Lex for providing this forum.
I’d agree. With all the fancy new precision strike weapons coming out (UAVs, guided artillery, upgraded tomahawks), carriers are facing some serious competition for the most capable/cost-effective attack platform. They’re still the most flexible air-superiority platform, but 10 carriers are still plenty to wipe the floor with any plausible opponent in the next 30 years or so.
XBradTC said: “Max, it has been my experience that it takes about 2 years for a soldier to really become effective.”
I’d say that’s about the same timeframe as it takes to train up a reasonably effective helo pilot (flight school + progression once he/she gets to their unit).
There are couple of points that need to be remembered:
1) This is not the first time the Navy has offered up carriers to the budget ax. They did so in the 2001 QDR. 9-11 prevented that drop. Nonetheless the navy offered it up.
2) As near as I can see, Obama has not”told” the Navy to scrap a carrier. They have simply set budget targets that require something to be cut. Its the Navy that is offering up a carrier and an Airwing. They could scrap LCS and DDG 1000 instead. The Navy gets a vote and has voted to go this way.
3) The navy is not blameless here-its the one that made a train wreck of its aircraft procurement. It dodged tough decisions 6 years ago-because of its obsession with the Hornet and refusal to tell JSF to go take a hike. Meanwhile, the rest of Naval Aviation got screwed-and this during a DOD “friendly” administratration.
The President did not force those things-the Navy did it to itself. Still have 300 flag officers though. How many 1 or 2 stars will get cut if the Navy gives up a carrier?
We in deep Chimchi, fer sure Shippies. A lot of it was unforseen ($hit Happens Syndrome) but a lot of it was self-inflicted….
Hard to rationalize CVN’s with only 65 aircraft in an airwing…Plus, (besides OIF/OEF) what have you done for us lately against the bearded Jihadist with an AK-47 ? (well..a lot but we can’t see it back here)
Add in a little Carrier-envy (same as well you know what..) from the USAF, Our own Shoes, assorted ground pounders and “insightful’ deep thinkers who never served or observed the true operational level of symmetric warfare…
Given all that, what would you expect?
b2
I noticed in the second linked article, “America’s Naval Supremacy Slipping,” that the author claims that part of the 313 ship Navy would be a Nuclear Powered Guide Missile Destroyer.
Are we really looking at that? I thought the Navy decided years ago that anything nuclear besides Carriers and subs was too expensive. Would be neat for the Nuke Sailors.
People – the answer is so simple. We will have Blue and Gold Airwings and CVN crews a la the sub manning model. Cross decks in Haifa harbor or Red Sea or Guam. Leave the big boys forward deployed using all those EPH steamin round the hotspots (not the WiFi kind).
And with less than 300 ships EACH ONE GETS THEIR OWN FLAG!!! No more “AA” (Admirals Anonymous), no more CNET, CNATRA, CNAL, NAVAIR. Give ‘em something useful to do.
Here’s how the budgetary shell game worked in the Clinton years.
WH presents a max budget amount to the services.
Services see what they can fund with the money available.
Navy picks a CVBG (and other things) to ax to meet unrealistic budget.
Clinton tut-tuts the loss of “vital assets” within earshot of reporters.
“News” media announces, “Navy demands cut in carrier strength over objections of Administration.”
G-man,
I like it.
Sort of a an anti-FRP plan, eh? Probably doable if’n we didn’t have so many Sailors out doing IAs.
Like I said. No escapin it. We in deep Chimchi!
Bottom-line:
If (when?) Naval Aviation from carrier decks (is there any other kind?) ceases or diminishes to insignificance (BTW, IMO we’re close), that will be the I&W that this nation is on the ‘backside of the power curve’ and definite proof that the USA is in decline.
Only our foreign enemies/competitors, those among us suffering from Carrier-Envy, those afflicted with military ignorance or those of the bean counting-political class could possibly agree that is the way to go. Can I be any more direct?
Gee, say what you really think!
b2
Well maybe we should just sell the things to the Chinese. They hold slightly north of 1 TRILLION of our debt. We give them 6 CVNs – with airwings minus avionics and weapons – they give us the I.O.U. back. Instant Naval Presence. Saves them their building program and we’ll even throw in some retired O-6 fighter attack guys with previous flight instrucotr experience to teach them! Then we can build more UAVs (X-47B Joint Unmanned Combat Air System) with stealth JDAMS to take out their carriers. Bet a CVN holds more than 65 strike fighter-oids.
I shoulda gone to work for DARPA when I had the chance.
[...] A related article from Neptunus Lex. [...]
TwoFiveZulu/
Where to get the money to build a new facility on Guam? Real simple. Steal it from Acorn. They’re going to be flush with a few billion soon thanks to the Lightwalker and Congressional Donkey Party friends.
Now that would be something to see…Acorn verses GovGuam. Hafa Dai, sign here, it’s just a formality, cookout at my house you bring the beer, OK brudda?
My case of San Miguel would have to go with the locals. Acorn would be on a plane back home in a week with no idea of what happened to the money, but they’d think they had a good time.
Curtis@24.2:
I’m not so sure how long cadres with combat experience really stick around. It’s a more ephemeral thing than it appears, IMO, what with losses due to guys putting in their papers to return to civilian life to fly airlines, etc., RIFFS (often of very capable people) and desk assignments that can take highly experienced people away from the training and/or ops side of the house such that their experience is lost to the FNGs, etc. coming on board behind them.
The Squadron that I joined in England direct from DaNang was, at the time I joined in Dec., ’68 comprised of only about 20% combat veterans. The percentage slowly rose as we got more people from SEA until at mid-point during my 3-yr stint the entire Squadron (100%) were combat veterans–but that lasted for only about six-months. As guys rotated out we began to get guys direct from Pilot Tng and Nav school plus Navs (we were an F4D outfit) from C-130s, etc. as back seaters. By the time I rotated out in fall 71 the Squadron was only about 60% combat veterans with percentage continuing to decline as the war wound down.
But you’re probably right about the NCO cadres–those people do tend to stick around the direct tng/ops cycle almost 100% of their careers, so I’m in agreement with you on that score.