What's wrong with the Air Force?

[ThreeHoler]

If you want airmen to be expeditionary then you have to train for the fight. All these training days off medical and finance receive, some needs to be converted into days where they shoot, practice MOPP, and combative skills. Most of them will never use this training unless they PCS to Korea to sit in MOPP gear.
When a base was attacked in Afghanistan, a bad ass from special forces went outside the wire to kill one of the insurgents in PT gear. Watching it on video looked really cool. Wasn't AF that ran outside of the wire. When the bases are being attacked it's Special Forces or a Task Force that rolls up the bad people. 
Does anyone remember the attack on Camp Learherneck in Afghanistan where the insurgents took out 2 harrier jets? So insurgents were able to penetrate a base held by Marines. Just think about a base with only shoe clerks and Security Forces protecting the base and aircraft.
Shoe Clerk Airbase: "The insurgents are attacking! Did they not see the sign on the gate because we are doing training and X-mas party planning."
Insurgents: Oh, we will come back later.
 

You mean Camp Bastion where they destroyed 6 Harriers?

[HarleyQuinn]

17 minutes ago, ThreeHoler said:

 

You mean Camp Bastion where they destroyed 6 Harriers?

 

I believe it's a joint base with the Brits so it Leatherneck/Bastion if I am correct. It could have very well been 6 aircraft. Didn't look it up on the classified side.

[Bode]

At the time yes it was a joint installation. Now there is only a USMC component and AF det.


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[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

If you want airmen to be expeditionary then you have to train for the fight. All these training days off medical and finance receive, some needs to be converted into days where they shoot, practice MOPP, and combative skills. Most of them will never use this training unless they PCS to Korea to sit in MOPP gear.

When a base was attacked in Afghanistan, a bad ass from special forces went outside the wire to kill one of the insurgents in PT gear. Watching it on video looked really cool. Wasn't AF that ran outside of the wire. When the bases are being attacked it's Special Forces or a Task Force that rolls up the bad people. 
 

If you want your finance troop to be effective at combat, then you have to actually train them properly on how to be effective. That means training with firearm outside the CATM range doing convoy ops, base defense, CQB, etc. Otherwise they are just checking off items to green up a slide and are more of a liability than an asset. 

[Homestar]

1 hour ago, Bode said:

At the time yes it was a joint installation. Now there is only a USMC component and AF det.


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It was the single largest loss of Marine aircraft in an attack ever. If I remember right. 

[dream big]

10 hours ago, Prozac said:

Why does a pharmacy tech need to be a uniformed military member? Seriously. That question applies to any number of jobs. 

They don’t have to be, but it helps, here is why: you can’t force a civilian to come in at 2200 on a Saturday to give malaria pills or ambien to aircrew deploying short notice the next day.  Also, it’s a lot harder to fire civilians when they suck at their jobs.  

[Karl Hungus]

10 hours ago, Prozac said:

Why does a pharmacy tech need to be a uniformed military member? Seriously. That question applies to any number of jobs. 

Same reason the US is still in Afghanistan, with no end state in mind and zero incentive to ever win.  ForeverWar feeds the jobs program that is the Defense Industrial Complex.  

As another poster pointed out- once you realize the purpose of the DoD is to spend taxpayer money, everything starts to make sense.

 

[Lawman]

It was the single largest loss of Marine aircraft in an attack ever. If I remember right. 

 

It was also over in minutes. Not before Marines on the flight line led by the squadron commander (who was KIA) dropped whatever they were doing to stand too and fight. Those Marines were reinforced by Rangers from TF 3-10 and the insurgents basically died fighting in place.

 

They took out every Harrier in the squadron (9 at the base) with a platoon size element that snuck through the post incident identified serious security hazard of a shanty town allowed to build up next to the perimeter fence. Dudes were wearing a cobbling together of stolen Coalition uniforms and sneakers/small arms with a bunch of grenades they used to demo the aircraft. Once they got a fire going, the moved to the next in succession. Doesn’t take long for aircraft in parking to end up like this

 

It didn’t help the night of the attack it was near zero illumination and crap ceilings. So complacency of “nothings going down tonight, let’s play some Xbox” was in full effect.

 

After that we finally got some level of security with T walls and an active security force in the towers at Mustang Ramp in KAF. We obviously completely forgot all those lessons though after my last trip to Taji.

 

 

 

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[uhhello]

1 hour ago, Lawman said:

 

It was also over in minutes. Not before Marines on the flight line led by the squadron commander (who was KIA) dropped whatever they were doing to stand too and fight. Those Marines were reinforced by Rangers from TF 3-10 and the insurgents basically died fighting in place.

 

They took out every Harrier in the squadron (9 at the base) with a platoon size element that snuck through the post incident identified serious security hazard of a shanty town allowed to build up next to the perimeter fence. Dudes were wearing a cobbling together of stolen Coalition uniforms and sneakers/small arms with a bunch of grenades they used to demo the aircraft. Once they got a fire going, the moved to the next in succession. Doesn’t take long for aircraft in parking to end up like this

 

It didn’t help the night of the attack it was near zero illumination and crap ceilings. So complacency of “nothings going down tonight, let’s play some Xbox” was in full effect.

 

After that we finally got some level of security with T walls and an active security force in the towers at Mustang Ramp in KAF. We obviously completely forgot all those lessons though after my last trip to Taji.

 

 

 

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Loved flying over that house directly on the fence every day and picturing a dude stepping out with an RPG and making things interesting

[HarleyQuinn]

Expeditionary Mindset - Complete loss of SA on the peacetime aspect when you are captured because you strayed across a border during an exercise in a military vehicle. How do you handle yourself? Thinking of Navy P-3 crew who declared an IFE and landed an ISR asset in China. They received specialized training for peacetime that I was fortunate enough to attend as well.

Most countries will quickly realize SrA Hung and SSgt Ball are just finance troops. They strayed across the border because both were playing Fortnite on their phones or using the  Polish Tinder app.

 

Edited November 9, 2018 by HarleyQuinn

[waveshaper]

How many aircraft has the USAF lost to ground attack since the Vietnam War?

A look back at ground attacks on USAF Air Bases, Aircraft Destroyed/Damaged, Casualties, and Evolution of USAF Air Base Defense during the Vietnam War (1964-1973).

- Total Attacks; 475.

- Aircraft Destroyed/Damaged; US Aircraft Destroyed 75/US Aircraft Damaged 898 and RVN Aircraft Destroyed 25/RVN Aircraft Damaged 305.

- Casualties; US Casualties KIA-155/WIA-1702 and RVN Casualties KIA-154/WIA 504. 

- Data from 10 USAF Air Bases; Bien Hoa (BH); Binh Thny (BT); Cam Ranh Bay (CBR): Da Nang (DN); Nha
Trang (NT); Phan Rang (PR); Phu Cat (PC); Pleiku (PK); Tuy Hoa (TH); Tan Son
Nhut (TSN).
- Type of attacks: Standoff (m); Sapper (SAP); Standoff and Sapper Multi-
Battalion (MBN); Sabotage (SAB); Automatic Weapons (AWP).

 

https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/21/2001330253/-1/-1/0/AFD-100921-023.pdf

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2018 by waveshaper

[HarleyQuinn]

2 hours ago, Lawman said:

 So complacency of “nothings going down tonight, let’s play some Xbox” was in full effect.

I had internet in my CHU in Iraq and B-Hut in Afghanistan. The internet was really good in Afghanistan.  Got on top of my CHU in Iraq and slapped a 4 ft antenna on top and never had to go to the Community Center. You think I'm rolling out of my CHU with my M-9 with my baby momma on video chat looking all good? 

[Lawman]

I had internet in my CHU in Iraq and B-Hut in Afghanistan. The internet was really good in Afghanistan.  Got on top of my CHU in Iraq and slapped a 4 ft antenna on top and never had to go to the Community Center. You think I'm rolling out of my CHU with my M-9 with my baby momma on video chat looking all good? 

 

The shit people forget is Bastion wasn’t the first attack. It was the 4th.

 

Salerno, they hit it and got plastered. Just a poor combined attack and timing basically blowing their wad on the VBIED and then strolling in after the shock and audacity effect had already worn off.

 

Frontnac, they hit well and got in but had no clear goal other than “attack!” Ended up dead but took the chow hall with them.

 

Shank... huge VBIED cement truck. But they hit the bazaar and really only killed a lot of Afghans.

 

After each of those we did... pretty much nothing.

 

After Bastion people suddenly remembered this was a war and actions like the brigade at KAF put the pathfinders on the line in the dark because we had no idea if we were next. T walls instead of a cheap unguarded chain link fence. Crew chiefs were launching aircraft strapped, because of anything is more vulnerable than a parked aircraft it’s a parked aircraft with an APU and engines running. Really it was a wake up call to stop pretending just because you could go to the boardwalk and get ice cream you weren’t in a war zone.

 

 

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[HarleyQuinn]

1 hour ago, Lawman said:

Really it was a wake up call to stop pretending just because you could go to the boardwalk and get ice cream you weren’t in a war zone.

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What do you have against ice cream on the boardwalk? 🤣😂 But seriously, I appreciate your perspective because it gives me even more ammunition against shoe clerks who not only think they know what they are talking about, but don't even have the clearance to know how things really work. 

Edited November 9, 2018 by HarleyQuinn

[Fuzz]

Couldn't find a better place to put this; I wonder if Gen Johns will cite himself as a contributing factor to the issue by driving out a lot of experienced pilots from his time as AMC/CC.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/11/07/congress-names-aviation-crisis-panel-members/?utm_campaign=Socialflow+MIL&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

[DirtyFlightSuit]

8 hours ago, Lawman said:

After Bastion people suddenly remembered this was a war and actions like the brigade at KAF put the pathfinders on the line in the dark because we had no idea if we were next. T walls instead of a cheap unguarded chain link fence. Crew chiefs were launching aircraft strapped, because of anything is more vulnerable than a parked aircraft it’s a parked aircraft with an APU and engines running. Really it was a wake up call to stop pretending just because you could go to the boardwalk and get ice cream you weren’t in a war zone.

I don't understand how any one can consider a "conflict" like Afghanistan a "War" zone.  Yes stuff is exploding, people are dying, but I'm sorry when you've been at it this long it can't be considered a War any more.  It's like the 3 star making a plea to a auditorium full of pilots that are approaching their ADSC to please stay in because we are needed to keep releasing bombs, support the war etc etc.  I'm sorry but when I've been deploying to that conflict for my entire 12 years in, when that conflict was already 6 years old the whole point becomes lost. 

This isn't an excuse for people to get complacent, because that can easily mean you are risking others and your own lives while out there. But calling this long term live action shooting range a "War" gives it too much credit.    

[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, DirtyFlightSuit said:

I don't understand how any one can consider a "conflict" like Afghanistan a "War" zone.  Yes stuff is exploding, people are dying, but I'm sorry when you've been at it this long it can't be considered a War any more.....

This isn't an excuse for people to get complacent, because that can easily mean you are risking others and your own lives while out there. But calling this long term live action shooting range a "War" gives it too much credit.    

Afghanistan is definitely a war.  What is the timeline when a war becomes a conflict in your mind?  

[Breckey]

The "modern" Indian Wars lasted from the end of the American Civil War to almost 1900. Afghanistan still has a was to go if it wants to meet that benchmark

[MooseClub]

In my mind you try to win a war.  There is no timeline.  

When all you’re doing is maintaining the status quo...I’m not sure what the hell you call that. 

[HU&W]

2 hours ago, MooseClub said:

In my mind you try to win a war.  There is no timeline.  

When all you’re doing is maintaining the status quo...I’m not sure what the hell you call that. 

politics

[di1630]

Agreed, not a war. A lot of other things: monumental waste of resources among them tops my list.


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[viper154]

20 hours ago, uhhello said:

Loved flying over that house directly on the fence every day and picturing a dude stepping out with an RPG and making things interesting

Was always interesting driving around to other side of base through sniper alley with that house right there as well. There were a bunch of locals (I think, they had afghan style clothing) contracted to remove the old Russian mines that were within a rocks throw from the fence. For 4 months I was always on high alert, no one else in the crew can ever seemed to care but it had the makings of a great attack. 

[DirtyFlightSuit]

5 hours ago, MooseClub said:

In my mind you try to win a war.  There is no timeline.  

When all you’re doing is maintaining the status quo...I’m not sure what the hell you call that. 

Moose does a much better job of explaining my lack of respect for what we are doing in that region of the world.  Give me a clear obtainable objective and maybe I'd agree its a war.  But we are just spending blood, and treasure for nothing.

[tac airlifter]

5 hours ago, MooseClub said:

In my mind you try to win a war.  There is no timeline.  

When all you’re doing is maintaining the status quo...I’m not sure what the hell you call that. 

Fair enough.  I won’t quibble with semantics, and I concur with the frustration.  I still think AFG is a war; using your definition: one side is trying to win.  And succeeding.  It’s just not our side.  To me that doesn’t make this “not war” it makes us dumb.

We seem to think WW2, which was historically anomalous, is the standard “war” and drawn out, ambiguous, sporadic fighting is abnormal and unworthy of study.  But it’s all war.  We’re just bad at it.  Not trying to put words in your mouth, that spear is aimed at USAF PME.

And I don’t blame politicians, I blame our generals.

[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

And I don’t blame politicians, I blame our generals.

I blame both. I will also raise you the O-6s whispering stupid nothings via PowerPoint in between rounds of using up knee pads