Commanders are dropping like flies this year

[WheelsOff]

17 hours ago, BADFNZ said:

 

 

Putting two and two together here...was the OG/CC responsible for this the same WG/CC that just got shit-canned at Dyess?

Fuzz may be able to answer for certain, but I’m guessing it’s a high probability. The recent Wg/CC there was the Og/CC at McChord just a few short years ago. 

[Fuzz]

On 6/12/2018 at 9:44 PM, BADFNZ said:

Putting two and two together here...was the OG/CC responsible for this the same WG/CC that just got shit-canned at Dyess?

Yes however, while a contributing factor the people were typically Pheonix Reach or similar types who were upgraded to IP too fast and were there to check a box not learn and employ the C-17 mission. 

[HarleyQuinn]

The commander who was fired over a lost machine gun and grenades has a new job in the Air Force

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/06/15/the-commander-who-was-fired-over-lost-grenades-and-machine-gun-has-a-new-job-in-the-air-force/

[Breckey]

Let’s realistic, an O-6 cop commander has nearly 0 to do with a box of Mk19 round s falling off a vehicle or an M240 missing from an armory. 

[MC5Wes]

12 minutes ago, Breckey said:

Let’s realistic, an O-6 cop commander has nearly 0 to do with a box of Mk19 round s falling off a vehicle or an M240 missing from an armory. 

You mean like the Wing and Group commanders having nearly 0 to do with some misplaced nukes at a Ammunitions Squadron?

Colonel Emig, the commander of the 5th Bomb Wing, Colonel Lundell, the commander of the 5th Maintenance Group at Minot, and Colonel Westhauser, the commander of Barksdale's 2d Operations Group were relieved of their commands or positions and reassigned.

[Azimuth]

25 minutes ago, Breckey said:

Let’s realistic, an O-6 cop commander has nearly 0 to do with a box of Mk19 round s falling off a vehicle or an M240 missing from an armory. 

They’re the boss homeboy.

[waveshaper]

24 minutes ago, MC5Wes said:

You mean like the Wing and Group commanders having nearly 0 to do with some misplaced nukes at a Ammunitions Squadron?

Colonel Emig, the commander of the 5th Bomb Wing, Colonel Lundell, the commander of the 5th Maintenance Group at Minot, and Colonel Westhauser, the commander of Barksdale's 2d Operations Group were relieved of their commands or positions and reassigned.

Just another normal day a Minot. Additionally, the Secretary of the Air Force Michael Winn and Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Michael Moseley were s#&t canned (rightly so IMHO) as a result of this SNAFU. The recommendations from the investigation of this incident also resulted in the creation of Air Force Global Strike Command to control all USAF nuclear bombers, nuclear missiles/bombs, and personnel.

Edited June 16, 2018 by waveshaper

[Waingro]

5 hours ago, waveshaper said:

Just another normal day a Minot. Additionally, the Secretary of the Air Force Michael Winn and Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Michael Moseley were s#&t canned (rightly so IMHO) as a result of this SNAFU. The recommendations from the investigation of this incident also resulted in the creation of Air Force Global Strike Command to control all USAF nuclear bombers, nuclear missiles/bombs, and personnel.

The main reason top leadership got leg-swept in 2008 was because they weren't playing nice with the Army and CENTCOM's insatiable desire for RPA orbits, and wouldn't back down on 5th-Gen at a time when we were committing 150,000+ soldiers at a stretch to fight a counter-insurgency against the stone age. They replaced CSAF with a yes-man who would play ball, thus setting the service back a decade while throwing our remaining resources at the Army's insatiable appetite for ISR feeds in exchange for a GWOT participation trophy. There are a lot of separate issues that factor into the black hole we're in right now, with respect to manning, experience, and morale. But if you wanted to pick a single point along the timeline where the wheels came off, it was firing CSAF in 2008 for ignoring illiterate enemies on mopeds in order to focus on a 5th-gen war. The Minot nuke fiasco, while unsat and hugely embarrassing, made for an easy way to sell the firing, but ultimately wasn't the main driver. Hell, the pilot-in-command of the B-52 continued on her HPO track after the deal.

[Disco_Nav963]

1 hour ago, Waingro said:

The main reason top leadership got leg-swept in 2008 was because they weren't playing nice with the Army and CENTCOM's insatiable desire for RPA orbits, and wouldn't back down on 5th-Gen at a time when we were committing 150,000+ soldiers at a stretch to fight a counter-insurgency against the stone age. They replaced CSAF with a yes-man who would play ball, thus setting the service back a decade while throwing our remaining resources at the Army's insatiable appetite for ISR feeds in exchange for a GWOT participation trophy. There are a lot of separate issues that factor into the black hole we're in right now, with respect to manning, experience, and morale. But if you wanted to pick a single point along the timeline where the wheels came off, it was firing CSAF in 2008 for ignoring illiterate enemies on mopeds in order to focus on a 5th-gen war. The Minot nuke fiasco, while unsat and hugely embarrassing, made for an easy way to sell the firing, but ultimately wasn't the main driver. Hell, the pilot-in-command of the B-52 continued on her HPO track after the deal.

One of the great contradictions of U.S. military history in the early 21st century is that Bob Gates was exactly the man the DoD needed as SecDef after Rumsfeld... But was also the worst possible guy for the Air Force's long term interests. And the decision to cap F-22 productions looks worse and worse every year. Considering the Air Component + SOF + Iraqis/SDF just had to spend 2014-2017 winning back what the Land Component won in the surge of 2007-08, it is hard to say those additional RPA CAPs back then were worth it. (Because they weren't.)

You also have to think Gates' couple of years as an Air Force intel officer before he joined the CIA hurt us. He was just familiar enough with us to have both a shoe-y contempt for flyers, and especially the CAF, but also enough to have the confidence to throw his weight around with us... Confidence a SecDef without a prior association with the Air Force might have lacked.

[war007afa]

3 hours ago, Waingro said:

 The Minot nuke fiasco, while unsat and hugely embarrassing, made for an easy way to sell the firing, but ultimately wasn't the main driver. Hell, the pilot-in-command of the B-52 continued on her HPO track after the deal.

She was actually the RN, and the only one who actually looked at the window to see if it was the correct version. Ain’t that some shit?

[HarleyQuinn]

On 6/16/2018 at 2:52 AM, Disco_Nav963 said:

You also have to think Gates' couple of years as an Air Force intel officer before he joined the CIA hurt us. He was just familiar enough with us to have both a shoe-y contempt for flyers, and especially the CAF, but also enough to have the confidence to throw his weight around with us... Confidence a SecDef without a prior association with the Air Force might have lacked.

How many missions have you flown in Afghanistan or Iraq where HVIs, VBEDs, Taliban leaders, or IEDs where identified and blown to shit from above, there by saving lives? Maybe you never got to see the Army guys eating their first hot meal in the chow hall after being on the side of a mountain for weeks. Or seeing guys close up after their vehicle hit an IED.

If we weren't in Afghanistan and Iraq to fly more missions per Gates, there would have been far more dead mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters from the Army, Marines, and Special Forces. Thanks to the USAF, lots of the enemy got the death wish they were always screaming about on YouTube. No virgins included.

Edited June 17, 2018 by HarleyQuinn

[SurelySerious]

48 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

How many missions have you flown in Afghanistan or Iraq where HVIs, VBEDs, Taliban leaders, or IEDs where identified and blown to shit from above, there by saving lives? Maybe you never got to see the Army guys eating their first hot meal in the chow hall after being on the side of a mountain for weeks. Or seeing guys close up after their vehicle hit an IED.

If we weren't in Afghanistant and Iraq to fly more missions per Gates, there would have been far more dead mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters from the Army, Marines, and Special Forces. Thanks to the USAF, lots of the enemy got the death wish they were always screaming about on YouTube. No virgins included.

No way man. Gates’ obsession with and increase to 69 caps of RPAs was a total waste due to the utter inefficiency of the Army intelligence priority and assignment system. We could have given them so many fucking drones to cover every inch of Afghanistan for every hour of the day and they would have fucked it away. The USAF crews that were  working those AORs did indeed do great work, but it was in spite of the way it was waged. Gates does not get credit here. 

Edited June 17, 2018 by SurelySerious

[Waingro]

47 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

How many missions have you flown in Afghanistan or Iraq where HVIs, VBEDs, Taliban leaders, or IEDs where identified and blown to shit from above, there by saving lives? Maybe you never got to see the Army guys eating their first hot meal in the chow hall after being on the side of a mountain for weeks. Or seeing guys close up after their vehicle hit an IED.

If we weren't in Afghanistant and Iraq to fly more missions per Gates, there would have been far more dead mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters from the Army, Marines, and Special Forces. Thanks to the USAF, lots of the enemy got the death wish they were always screaming about on YouTube. No virgins included.

It's not binary. I've strafed and dropped bombs in troops-in-contact situations. I've given numerous "cleared hot" calls from the ground. I've spent many nights far removed from the FOB, and enjoyed that "first hot meal" after a few weeks that you reference. Happy to do it. None of that changes the takeaway here.

How many RPA orbits have you seen pissed away by the Army SPC sitting at the S2 desk on the TOC floor who doesn't have a real task, so tells the MQ-1 crew to just start cycling through the target deck looking for "suspicious activity"? (Rhetorical, but I saw it nightly for the better part of a year). Big Army asked the Air Force to go all-in to throw resources at a problem that the Army maneuver elements didn't have, and nobody on the ground knew what to do with any of it.

Your argument can be distilled down to "you haven't seen the ground truth, but the USAF focus on supporting US Army COIN actions over the last decade saved American lives and killed some bad guys." To that I say "noted."

We stopped F-22 production, TAMId a bulk of our talent, extended deployments to 180 days, and deployed weapons officers / test pilots / instructor pilots to do non-flying jobs that could be done either stateside or by an A1C with no training. We RIF'd a bunch of experience, and then grounded half the fleet in 2013 for "sequester" because we wanted to fall on our sword rather than playing the budget shell game we finally started playing in sequestration every year since then.

RPAs are cool, they do good work, they're far superior than a Hawg, Viper, Buff, or Strike Eagle for a persistent ISR tasking. No disagreement. That doesn't change the fact that we hollowed our entire force and culture, perhaps irreparably, to fight a war against enemies equipped with little more than small arms, rocks, cell phones, and motorcycles.

[HarleyQuinn]

Well, 70% of men and women between the ages of 17-24 are ineligible of joining the military. Due to weight issues, drugs, arrest record, and just can't meet the testing requirements. Meaning there is no backfill for any career fields. The AF and Gates didn't do this to us. Blame the every kid deserves a trophy parents. Great example is the attempted, but failed 100% promotion rate. 

It wasn't an F-22 that found Saddam Hussain and it damn sure wasn't the reason Bin Laden became fish food. If we weren't at Bagram AB, Bin Laden would still be sitting back in his Pakistan mansion. A replica of Bin Laden's compound was constructed at Bagram and utilized as a training ground prior to the raid. 

[FLEA]

On 6/6/2018 at 10:27 AM, Weezer said:

I'm pretty sure you don't get charged with an "alleged crime."  When you are charged, they are "alleging" that you committed a crime...they crime isn't alleged; you're guilt is.  If they aren't certain a crime was committed (i.e., it is only an "alleged" crime), then they probably won't be charging anyone with it.  I've been wrong before, but I'm pretty certain that's what JeremiahWeed was referring to..

 

Let's not forget that all this and the Army also owned enough resources to sustain ~35 CAPs on their own but refused to go to a remote split ops architecture because it would mean loss of organic control of their assetts. 

Personally, I think it was right to go all in on the COIN fight. I am not a believer a 5th Gen war will ever happen. However I do believe the capability is necessary deterrence. That said, it was rather aggravating watching all of this come off the backs of Airmen while Army had significant capability to support their own air support requirements and did not want to update their Command and Control to the 21st century.

 

 

[Disco_Nav963]

6 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

How many missions have you flown in Afghanistan or Iraq where HVIs, VBEDs, Taliban leaders, or IEDs where identified and blown to shit from above, there by saving lives? Maybe you never got to see the Army guys eating their first hot meal in the chow hall after being on the side of a mountain for weeks. Or seeing guys close up after their vehicle hit an IED.

If we weren't in Afghanistant and Iraq to fly more missions per Gates, there would have been far more dead mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters from the Army, Marines, and Special Forces. Thanks to the USAF, lots of the enemy got the death wish they were always screaming about on YouTube. No virgins included.

23 missions over Afghanistan and 18 over Iraq, dropping 180 weapons (Danger Close 19 times) by the time I stopped counting with two months left in the deployment. GFY. It was possible to adequately support the Land Component without mortgaging the future of air superiority, which is one of our core functions and the umbrella under which the Land Component has to fight in any future conflict where the enemy has airplanes.

Edited June 17, 2018 by Disco_Nav963

[SurelySerious]

3 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Well, 70% of men and women between the ages of 17-24 are ineligible of joining the military. Due to weight issues, drugs, arrest record, and just can't meet the testing requirements. Meaning there is no backfill for any career fields. The AF and Gates didn't do this to us. Blame the every kid deserves a trophy parents. Great example is the attempted, but failed 100% promotion rate. 

It wasn't an F-22 that found Saddam Hussain and it damn sure wasn't the reason Bin Laden became fish food. If we weren't at Bagram AB, Bin Laden would still be sitting back in his Pakistan mansion. A replica of Bin Laden's compound was constructed at Bagram and utilized as a training ground prior to the raid. 

When you put together more than one coherent sentence, you keep changing the subject entirely, which points to you not having an argument.

Gates made the force hollow chasing a pointless metric. 

[pawnman]

7 hours ago, Waingro said:

It's not binary. I've strafed and dropped bombs in troops-in-contact situations. I've given numerous "cleared hot" calls from the ground. I've spent many nights far removed from the FOB, and enjoyed that "first hot meal" after a few weeks that you reference. Happy to do it. None of that changes the takeaway here.

How many RPA orbits have you seen pissed away by the Army SPC sitting at the S2 desk on the TOC floor who doesn't have a real task, so tells the MQ-1 crew to just start cycling through the target deck looking for "suspicious activity"? (Rhetorical, but I saw it nightly for the better part of a year). Big Army asked the Air Force to go all-in to throw resources at a problem that the Army maneuver elements didn't have, and nobody on the ground knew what to do with any of it.

Your argument can be distilled down to "you haven't seen the ground truth, but the USAF focus on supporting US Army COIN actions over the last decade saved American lives and killed some bad guys." To that I say "noted."

We stopped F-22 production, TAMId a bulk of our talent, extended deployments to 180 days, and deployed weapons officers / test pilots / instructor pilots to do non-flying jobs that could be done either stateside or by an A1C with no training. We RIF'd a bunch of experience, and then grounded half the fleet in 2013 for "sequester" because we wanted to fall on our sword rather than playing the budget shell game we finally started playing in sequestration every year since then.

RPAs are cool, they do good work, they're far superior than a Hawg, Viper, Buff, or Strike Eagle for a persistent ISR tasking. No disagreement. That doesn't change the fact that we hollowed our entire force and culture, perhaps irreparably, to fight a war against enemies equipped with little more than small arms, rocks, cell phones, and motorcycles.

Checks.  I personally have hundreds of hours using the Sniper pod in a B-1 to scan Highway 1 for "hot spots and cold spots" because they might be IEDs.  Burning 20K pounds of fuel an hour to do a task that an MQ-1 or MQ-9 was better equipped to do burning 20 pounds an hour.  But the CAOC had to make an attempt to cover every JTAR that came in, so we planted a multi-million dollar strategic bomber over an area where we never released a weapon in two deployments to act as an ISR asset.  Great use of resources.

[Guardian]

Gates does not get credit here. 

Read the book about Afghanistan from back before when the Russians are there. Read, I think it is, Ghost Wars. In it Robert Gates makes something like a $20 bet with a co worker that the Russians won’t leave any time soon. He was largely in charge of the American involvement at the time. So based on his $20 bet, I would wager he had little to no exit strategy hence us abandoning completely the people we were there to help and planting the seeds of their hate against us. I realize there is a lot of hate there anyways but Robert Gates didn’t help and shouldn’t be praised because we have been there for the last 17 years and that can be tied back to him.

 

I don’t know why he gets so much praise and not much criticism on these points.

[matmacwc]

3 hours ago, pawnman said:

Checks.  I personally have hundreds of hours using the Sniper pod in a B-1 to scan Highway 1 for "hot spots and cold spots" because they might be IEDs.  Burning 20K pounds of fuel an hour to do a task that an MQ-1 or MQ-9 was better equipped to do burning 20 pounds an hour.  But the CAOC had to make an attempt to cover every JTAR that came in, so we planted a multi-million dollar strategic bomber over an area where we never released a weapon in two deployments to act as an ISR asset.  Great use of resources.

Looking through a soda straw at a road for 20K lbs an hour?  Why are those planes over there?  If you say CAS, I fear for your grasp on reality.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

7 hours ago, Disco_Nav963 said:

23 missions over Afghanistan and 18 over Iraq, dropping 180 weapons (Danger Close 19 times) by the time I stopped counting with two months left in the deployment. GFY. It was possible to adequately support the Land Component without mortgaging the future of air superiority, which is one of our core functions and the umbrella under which the Land Component has to fight in any future conflict where the enemy has airplanes.

I took off for missions in country. We always had countless Army and Marines saying thanks in the chow hall. I see things a bit differently than you. I think 99% of us never left our CHUs (Iraq) or BHUTs (Afghanistan) when the incoming alarms sounded because we were too tired from flying. Let me die in peace while I sleep please.

Our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq just sent a very clear message to the Russians and Chinese just recently. We have a level of cohesion amongst our services that you shouldn't f with and it was put on full display for the Russians up close. The Russians thought sending hired mercenaries and some Syrian forces to attack special forces at a gas plant in Syria was a brilliant idea. They were messing with US military personnel who all have tons of experience from Iraq and Afghanistan. All that combat time and experience came to bear on 200 now dead Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces in a matter of 4 hours.

Sergey: We lied, those are our men. "Can you please stop killing our guys."

Mattis: Sergey, can you hold for a sec? HIMARS 198...199...200. 

On that day US 200 - Russians 0. I will always take those numbers.

You can now walk into a bar with your AF ankle tattoo and at least have a very small amount of decency amongst our ground pounding brethren. Imagine that same scenario minus your tattoo of course, if the AF was fairly non existent in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Edited June 17, 2018 by HarleyQuinn

[Majestik Møøse]

No one is arguing that we haven’t done good work. Lots of good guys alive; lots of bad guys dead. The argument is whether or not it was worth the financial cost or the loss in ability to wage/deter a war against a peer enemy.

[SurelySerious]

2 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

I took off for missions in country. We always had countless Army and Marines saying thanks in the chow hall. I see things a bit differently than you. I think 99% of us never left our CHUs (Iraq) or BHUTs (Afghanistan) when the incoming alarms sounded because we were too tired from flying. Let me die in peace while I sleep please.

Our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq just sent a very clear message to the Russians and Chinese just recently. We have a level of cohesion amongst our services that you shouldn't f with and it was put on full display for the Russians up close. The Russians thought sending hired mercenaries and some Syrian forces to attack special forces at a gas plant in Syria was a brilliant idea. They were messing with US military personnel who all have tons of experience from Iraq and Afghanistan. All that combat time and experience came to bear on 200 now dead Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces in a matter of 4 hours.

Sergey: We lied, those are our men. "Can you please stop killing our guys."

Mattis: Sergey, can you hold for a sec? HIMARS 198...199...200. 

On that day US 200 - Russians 0. I will always take those numbers.

You can now walk into a bar with your AF ankle tattoo and at least have a very small amount of decency amongst our ground pounding brethren. Imagine that same scenario minus your tattoo of course, if the AF was fairly non existent in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

WTF are you talking about? You think China and Russia are going to stop what they’re doing because of our “cohesion”? If you’re not a bot or high school student, I’d be surprised. 

[Fuzz]

50 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

WTF are you talking about? You think China and Russia are going to stop what they’re doing because of our “cohesion”? If you’re not a bot or high school student, I’d be surprised. 

I going to go with young captain who’s first assignment was MC-12s.

Also HarleyQuinn, the last 17 years has been a smorgasbord for China and Russia. We’ve put a lot of our R&D and future programs on the back burner and they got an upfront seat to 17 years of TTPs, decision models, C2 structure, weapons capes etc. We needed to be in the fight but wearing out our best equipment with 17 years of fighting in a unforgiving environment was not smart move. China and Russia aren’t afraid, if they were we wouldn't be currently scrambling to figure out how to deal with the annexation of Crimea, the Southern China Sea, the Great Silk Road etc. 

[HarleyQuinn]

1 hour ago, SurelySerious said:

WTF are you talking about? You think China and Russia are going to stop what they’re doing because of our “cohesion”? If you’re not a bot or high school student, I’d be surprised. 

Feb 7 - Russian mercenaries suffer an embarrassing defeat. 

March 1 - State of the Nation speech, Putin revealed an array of new, powerful weapons he claimed were being developed for Russia's armed forces. (What a coincidence and a huge pivot.)

Apr 23 - Stealth fighter deal between Russia and India fall apart. (What's the count for US manufactured jets shooting down Russian made jets again?)

In my family's 33 year military history, nobody has touched Russia, China, or North Korea. What is there to gain? However, there is a ton for everyone to lose. The Chinese carries a ton of our debt already.

A US military helo was shot down over N. Korea and we didn't do a damn thing about it in 1994. So lets save the WWIII talk for another day. Seoul, Korea burning to the ground for a retaliatory strike  after a helo was shot down would be asinine.

Politicians and some military personnel have this constant mindset of we are in danger of a next huge war. A lot of you have failed to realize we have killed a bunch of top terrorist leaders. They all have kids that will be looking to even the score. This ain't over. 

Edited June 17, 2018 by HarleyQuinn