Lawman

SDB, Brimstone, CBU-97 etc etc .... There are more options than just the GAU-8 and Maverick. Point still stands. We the Army and you he Air Force operate on the doctrine to have 2 divisions of ground forces in place ready to fight and the air to cover them in 45 days. The Marines have to hold the beach head, port, TAA, whatever during that time. You can either give them what they want by putting Air Force fixed wing opcon to the ground commander today where he owns your aircraft and doesn't just request assets and get told what he can have, or you can let the Marines use their own organic air.

Ok we've used this capability before. The Marines despite protest to the opposite are critical because they provide a rapid deployment of real firepower. We used it before in the build up in desert storm. Airborne jumped in, Marines reinforced until the heavy division assets could be moved. It's why we maintain propositioned supplies and fast sea lift and it worked exactly how it was supposed to. With Pacific pivot it's even more critical. Less airfields, easier for an enemy to deny the air element freedom to land and offload heavy equipment, now it has to come by ship ala LPDs etc. and it has to last longer because of that 45 day doctrinal requirement of putting an Army Corps on the ground ready to fight. We maintain the airborne element of the 18th brigade for the first 3 days. IE short enough time that an actual assembly of enemy troops is required, they can't just roll down immediately. Those airborne troops have shit for organic firepower. Their heavy weapons consist of mortars and javelins with stingers to counter enemy air. And now that we have eliminated the light CAB they have no air. So they are fixed in place if they deploy until relieved. The Marines are the element that comes in behind that and SOF. Exactly what happened in DS, if Iraq had been able to pivot and move it's mechanized forces it would have rolled over the 82nd in days. The Marine brigade that reinforced did so with all their organic assets and provided a real stop. You can't fight armor without air or artillery. The Marines don't carry much artillery to be fast and mobile so they take air. And they operate in the chaos of the first 30 days when nobody can guarantee a ground combatant commander any kind of Air Coordination and tasking that supports his mission. So yeah they need their own air and I don't blame them. More importantly they need air to counter a peer threat. Something that can live and support with standoff outside the WEZ. OV-10 or Super Tacano or whatever else are great fighting dudes in man dresses. He second an enemy with SA-18s opposes you your air just left let alone the scary stuff like Gauntlet or Greyhound.

I'm curious how many people in his formation are combat lifesaver or whatever the AF equivalent is. Or any of about 2 dozen other useful tasks they could have been doing other than mastering resiliency by learning that life is really full of gumdrops and sunshine if you think hard enough. Just thinking of the time wasted in some command and staff meeting discussing this while troops in some shop somewhere were waiting for their commanders and NCOs to return so they could continue the days duties is infuriating. "Hey we gonna fly today?" "I can't get mission approval because the boss is stuck in a training meeting listening to Cpt Knoblicker publicly congratulate himself for 30 minutes so were gonna run out of duty day..."

Having guns in Germany is a pain in the ass. One of the reasons I left mine home when I pcs'd. Just too many hoops to jump through for something as simple as wanting a gun in the house for protection, never mind being subject to a legal system as a forigner. That's probably the biggest element that would keep me from living in another country after retirement. I loved Phuket, and I could definitely stretch retirement pay comfortably, but I'd also always be the outsider over there. Which is fine... Until shit goes wrong.

That's not just you that's a military wide ###### up. You could never defend our promotional system in the private sector. -Putting emphasis on a 300 pt score above the NCO that can actually write a sentence with some manner of grammar... Hey guys I know mongo is a retard but he can run fast and do lots of pull-ups he'd be perfect for VP of sales. -Every write up having the bullshit fluff language of everybody being a winner some are just bigger winners than their peers... Tell people they are ######tards... And do it early so they learn to apply for work elsewhere. Stop making reading/writing an OER an exercise in decoding some secret language. -PME that is conducted long after it would have been useful. Like teaching officers public speaking in a course when they've operated on staffs and been in command for years... -everybody gets an award because if they don't they won't be competitive with all the candy medals we handed out in the beginning of the war...

When I see culture differences like this it's really hard to think that you once used to be Army. 0400 Sunday health and welfare in an enlisted dorm in garrison/tradoc? That used to be a pay period activity in some units. Typically a battalion worth of leadership on hand to see exactly what the troopers were doing. It's a top level check of troops as well as first line NCO's. Is it annoying, sure but so is pissing in a cup every few months. Thing is that we catch a lot of stupid shit and it immediately becomes a handled problem. It also determines that while Pfc Knutfukker needs to be chartered out of the Army for ____, that his squad leader who was ignoring the problem isn't ready for more responsibility. Now needless shakedown of combat crews and officers who should be afforded the respect befitting their station... Yeah that's a bit stupid. But hey it's happening in Korea at Humpheys right now so hey back to Garrison we go.

No they share blame so yeah fire the guys, I'm saying what has really changed to deter anybody from hitting us again in a similar way. We didn't do anything up near mustang ramp other than put in a few T walls, same as many of the other fobs I was on after the attack. That is hardly a refocus on security that you would expect after something like this happens. I'm not gonna go into detailed list of faults as Bad guys read the internet too, but for an example maybe it's time to put the guys writing speeding tickets on guard duty.

Oh I don't doubt it but there's sure as hell lots of blame to go around for the Taliban cashing in on our stupidity. Wasting force cap to have MPs write speeding tickets instead of do their job as combat security. Driving around in vehicles who no crew serve weapons and minimal equipment. Perimeter fences with urban areas built up next to them (the whole river side of bastion) providing enemy with free movement. After Frontnac's success it was only a matter of time till word got out and they tried something bold. Sacking these two generals was just the latest in our "look we did something about it" knee jerk leadership model.

"Airfield Security" might be a bit of a stretch... The night of that attack, the 25th CAB commander put the pathfinders out on the line to guard the perimeter at Mustang Ramp.... First time and only time during that deployment where I actually felt safe sitting in an aircraft running it up. Before that there was a chain link fence guarding half of the helicopters in southern Afghanistan. Security is a joke at most of our airfields. Look at the whole area of KAF surrounding housing on the south west side, nothing but container yards and roads that lead to nowhere. It's almost like we are hoping any enemy incursion wastes it's time and ammo trying to get somewhere it can do damage rather Han actually have an effective QRF.

While we are up for this massive culture shift in the military, lets get rid of Betty. I am offended for.... For someone I'm not sure who but I am. The implication at men can only respond to the shrill sound of what can only be presumed to be an Angry 33 year old divorcee collecting yet another child support check while she tells me everything I'm doing is wrong is just insulting. It can't be a hot sounding chick either... If I listened any better to pretty girls my wife wouldn't be so pissed off I was ignoring her all the time.

That's not that crazy... Daleville Alabama (shit town of 5000) has an M113.

No I'm with you on this Bcan, but this problem is like 90% skills training/10% platform. But that's just it, no matter what comes out on the CAS brief the only real concern is gaps in coverage. No mission has ever been stopped and ruled out because we asked for 30mm frontal fire, whatever and got told "all I've got available is viper and hornet." Caveat*Not true with the Special Ops guys but that's it's own weird animal. Seeing what stack they require as a minimum and then being told on a conventional day I was supporting half of RC-E with 2 Apaches is kinda insane. We get into a no shit fight where the Air Force isn't giving the GCC the air he asked for because they'd rather task the aircraft they do have to do strategic shit then the generals will have it out and the Army guy that's usually in charge will evaluate priority. Point is if we spend the next 10 years waiting and keeping A-10 at the suffering of money to train with it then really how is it doing the job any better than any other platform who due to budgetary reasons said "###### it we'll do it live." Doesn't matter what they are flying off the IP with if the guy is fumble ######ing it in the cockpit he's just as useless in a Hawg as any other plane. Organic CAS never gonna happen. And frankly we wouldn't know what to do with it. Anybody that's been to joint firepower in my community says the same thing. If you gave us something like the A-29/Hawg/Harrier what we did with it wouldn't resemble what you would. Remember we don't view the Apache as a CAS platform, I'm a maneuver element same as Abrams or Cav Scouts or any other organic fires platform. We operate with a much looser set of rules than you do, the flip side is I own my bullets whether I'm terminally controlled or not. You guys might like the sound of being able to release ordnance etc based simply on overall commanders intent, but there's some nasty hang ups to it too.

No I dont think you guys get it. The world will keep turning with or without the Hawg. There isnt some celebration every time the AMR cell publishes the CAS/Fires portion of an Op Order with the illation of "oh thank god we got A-10s." Your drinking your own Koolaid if guys under fire would care whether it was a Viper, a 15E, or a Sopwith Camel providing them with Air delivered Fires they just want something. Nobody is ever gonna see a situation where a fixed/rotory wing with guns checks in to a TIC and they say "awww no dude its cool we really need the A-10 to do this job." Maybe its the difference in how Army Aviators come into their jobs and the cultural difference between the service, but 80% of the Aviators in our community are prior enlisted dudes that went Warrant. A good size chunk of those guys (especially in the last decade) are Combat Arms (Infantry/Armor/SF/etc) who have actual experience. So its not hard for me to go talk to them about what they think, 3 of them work in my office. Some of them in my battalion are your biggest critics. We are more concerned that your actually able to have the money to come do coordinated excersices with us rather than have platforms with specific jobs that have never coordinated with each other because the money was used to keep different color horses in the stable.

I'm not saying I condone he idea of genoside to further your means.... But I'm starting to see more and more reasons that its happened in the past.

Good it'll fit right in with LCS, Comanche, Crusader, NLos, etc etc etc...... I'm convinced we didn't give awards to the Super Hornet program because it was so amazing a program, but because everybody else punted it into the bleachers so they were all that's left.

Fast forward 10 years after green lighting the program. Aircraft still not in production, costs 4 times what it was supposed to, was delayed over and over again to add something new, and when we try to kill it the company sues.

German Girls... They expect their husbands to pee sitting down. No shit... Ask around you'll find a guy who picked up a "souvenir" and got house broken afterward. But buying a dirndls for your American wife (mine has 2)... Yeah totally living out the beer maid fantasy.

And it's not thy hard to make a weapons processor, Abrams has the same deal does that somehow make it a less effective tank then the M60 it replaced. If having that kind of stuff is a liability then we wouldn't be the platform with the highest effectiveness rate for aerial fires. But your going beyond intent. I never said the A-10 was a shitty platform, I said it may be time to look at replacing the platform. The flip side to the we must always have this gun that you guys treat like its the Death Star is why are other platforms able to do CAS without it. Why does the Harrier (albeit with a list of other shortcomings in life) or the ATARS Hornet get to be to the Marines superior platforms for CAS in their service. One doesn't have a gun and the other doesn't carry it that often. Are they so inferior that the last 30 years of smart munitions development and sensor fused weapons cant offset some of that disparity? And no my gun isn't the mega death ray either. Grunts point on survivability is exactly mine. The Longbows charge of the light brigade was our wakeup call. We got our asses handed to us in 03 because of the need to validate a doctrine. "Deep attacked worked in 91 against the radar sites it'll work here," and did a piss poor planning and execution of it because it had worked at NTC. People (old warrants) in 1st Cav rallied against doing it, and lost when the old man said go do it despite the protests. And then we sent in the A model battalions which had better results.

Me or them? It's an equation so garbage in garbage out, but there are work arounds that do start dwelling into OPSEC. The laser is just my best range source, not my only one. Hoss, for ######ing Christ dude. Everybody gets replaced. The Sandy guys said exactly what ever hog guy is saying when it was their turn. The 111 guys said it about the mudhen, the 14s said it about the Rhino. The A-10 will someday go to the boneyard, the question posed is are you so irreplaceable either directly or by augmentation to make it worth it to keep you or start that process. If the whole world revolves around a gun nobody else has and the ability to get lower and slower and live in the WEZ of half a dozen systems light years ahead of the Gainful and Shilka that were top of the line when you were built then you'd better have something world beating, not just a different way to skin a cat. Standards, I'm a maneuver platform not CAS, different doctrinal standard. Surgical is the pro word of the day, if I shot the way I've observed you and any other strafing fixed wing did I'd go to jail. When you've got JAG and BSOs trying to fry guys because he had rounds land on the other side of a fence it's infuriating to watch hammer pound away at a compound or see you guys strafe the ###### out of a target area and everything around it.

when your round has a 4m burst radius you don't need 300 of them in a beating zone.

Your gun has a wider dispersion at 1200 meters than mine does at 1700 (12m vs 3x3m mean dispersion). You can pull that off open source. It's math dude.

No I'm saying anything physically bolted to the aircraft datum line starts off inherently less accurate than a system with full range of authority in az/el with a weapons processor that makes those compensations for you. Same reason my gun is more accurate than any of my helo brethren. Cobra doesn't have as expensive a Weapons Processor, and DAP shoots the same gun fixed from 1/6 the distance so they can hit accurately. Tell the truth do your gun scores get that way because your system is better than everybody else or because you spend so much more training working on it. And what I'm saying is if people want to leverage the future of the A-10 off all the good it's done in the last ten years, they need to realize there are dozens of other aircraft capable of doing the same job and there are ideas out there OV-10X/A-29/etc that are better suited to this conflict than even the Hawg. The people who think its gonna be pivotal to have the mud fighting down and dirty monster in the next war that has an actual FLOT though really need to go talk to some people about threat systems out there because that method of employment just got ridiculously more dangerous.

Statistics. I can kill a BMP with a 10 round burst from 1500-1700 meters and expect 5 of those rounds to hit the front glasis. Fixed gun iron sights vs a turret with a weapons processor and constant laser range, it's technology man. I'm more accurate than any of my Rotory wing competition either. I've been to Spangdalem and got the brief on how you shoot.... That line up the symbology buddy marking crap.... I'd go to jail if I did that.

Ok as one of those Apache brethren I'm gonna ring in here. 1. Nothing in our current fight reflects any manner of how we would be employed in a fit against any kind of force with near parity in firepower. We are aerial QRF, and so is CAS in theatre. 2. What does the A-10 drop at all of the other horses in the stable don't. Besides that bitchen gun you got, there isn't a weapon you carry that somebody else can't. 3. All this crap on desert storm and the great impact of whatever platform... That fight was 24 years ago. That fight predates 2S6, SA24, Gauntlet, and a host of other deadly ass shit that will literally bend over and rape any platform out there that gets in its WEZ titanium bathtub or no. Standoff, low observability, lots of expendables (which are getting less and less effective) is gonna be critical when you can buy a weapon with 4 fold better Pk than the weapon systems our aircraft were designed to take on. Observations I've had... I've been in the stack with Hawg... Other than that inaccurate (by our standards) gun they don't bring anything crazy awesome to the fight that couldn't be carried on another aircraft or a low cost idea like have been proposed. Your not there any longer because as the tanker orbits get fewer and firer between your on station time is offset by your slow cycle time in the yo-yo. You don't have a sensor that permits any better vid than the other aircraft (similar to how we have better eyes than the 58s). Will you be missed at Air Shows and by people with a place in their heart, sure. But the same is true of the Tomcat, and the sky didn't fall down when it was retired.

Why don't they start with making leadership stop distributing info via white board and see if that improves anything before they murder an hour of the duty day playing kindergarten.