Women in combat (but not really) Vol. III

You mean Gay and Gayer?

 

That's precisely what he said, you favorite movies. I don't understand the question.

 

hey now...those are about Naval aviators and their highways to the danger zone...

 

Your love snake.

 

There are no Mavericks in the chair force.

 

I have a one word response to the "Chair Force" quip...and since a picture is worth a thousand more words, make that a 1,001 word response.

Hog

 

What is there to be envious of? My every day life consists of rescuing dip(*)(*)(*)(*)s from the Arabs while listening to "One Vision" on a cassette player. Livin' the dream.

Sure.

...he is a B-list actor.

Good. He is dangerous.

Oh. Did you not hear? The AF does not need the Hog because it requires an aircraft that is capable of more than one mission, regardless of how critical that one mission may be.

 

The Fighter Mafia does not like heavies. We've got B-52's manufactured when Eisenhower was President. They will probably cancel the C-27J program...along with retiring quite a few C-130's.

I've heard the A-10 is losing some squadrons, the Air Force wants to get out of the close air support business apparently...
and the tactical airlift business...and the bomber business.

*addendum*

On the + side they did cancel the Global Hawk drone block 30 program and are sticking with manned TR-1s;
again though the fleet of Dragon Ladys is getting older.

 

I've always heard the Air Force loves shiney fighters and stealthy bombers over CAS.

 

Haha. Fighter mafia? Not much longer before we start getting the ax. Already saw it with the Albino.

One AD squadron and I think two or three from the reserves. I have been really lazy lately and have not read the whole thing yet. I do know it is one AD squadron though. CAS should be our business. As should airlift and bombing. Who the hell else will do it? Oh right. We do not think in those terms.

Score one for man! I do not know if the U-2 will ever die. Just like with the A-10, they have always talked about replacing it. It might outlive us.

 

The Navy and Marine Corps

 

That'd be great . . . if you were fighting a war in a nation with a coastline.

 

F-18s/Cobras/Harriers can fly from bases too! They're very active in landlocked Afghanistan. Plus something like 80% of the world's population lives within 100 miles of the coast.

 

Good luck with that without the Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN).

 

Of course the Air Force is still needed and provides a lot of close air support. I'm just saying the Marine Corps and Navy also provide a pretty significant amount. I only ever saw Navy/Marine Corps F-18s flying air patrol when I was in central and northern Iraq over a 3 year period.....even with Army in our AO.

 

The Army provides CAS also...even artilllery can be a form of CAS.

The main purpose of the Navy is not to fight wars in the first place. It's mere presence prevents a lot of escalation.

 

Artillery would be indirect fire.

My point here was that the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army all have pretty extensive CAS capabilties. The Air Force doesn't seem that interested in it, and it seems they would rather invest in the sexy fighters and bombers. I think there's been a generational gap between the Air Force and the Marine Corps/Army. The later have scrapped, or put on the burner, the heavy duty "cold war" stuff to meet the demands of Iraq/Afghanistan. This is natural since these two organizations have been bearing the lionshare of the burden in these conflicts. The Air Force, and to lesser extent the Navy, seem to have come out of the other side of the WOT fundamentally unchanged. This could be a good thing, I'm not really sure. I tend to think somewhere in the middle is best.

I think percision CAS is an extremely vital component of the future low intensity conflicts largely anticipated by defense experts. In Iraq when we went on small mounted patrols twenty or thirty miles from the nearest help, it was comforting to know that you could have F-18s and Cobras at your beck and call in five minutes. These future low intensity conflicts tend to rely on significantly less troops, spread over larger areas, in more dynamic situations. CAS is a great equalizer. It can also provide incredible deterence. We used to provide security for rather risky key leader engagements with 20 guys in a small city of about 20,000 with tight winding streets. It would have taken at least an hour for a quick reaction force to get to us. Sitting smack dab in the middle of the city square by yourself was iffy to say the least. We countered this by having Cobras and AH-64s buzzing around overhead. The pilots gave us continuous overwatch, reported any movement in adjacent streets, and scared the crap out of any insurgents.

In WW2 or even Vietnam it would have taken a battalion or two to "secure" the city. We in essence "secured" the city with 20 Marines and 2 helicopters in this new low intensity type of conflict. Air power and UAVs are very important to that.

 

Well, yeah. We're not focused on CAS. CAS is why the Army has Apahces and Marine aviation exists at all. CAS is a side mission for the Air Force. Always has been. Even the A-10 and the AC-130 were intended for interdiction, not CAS. We're there to ensure the bad guy's CAS never makes it to the target, our bases don't get bomb (and the bad guy's does get bombed) and disrupt his infrastructure so as to eliminate his ability to fight effectively in the first place. And a dozen or more other side missions (Airlift, ISR, etc.) Fighting an insurgency was not a planned for mission, it's just something we have had to adapt to.

That will depend on how the future unfolds. If we wind up with more insurgencies to fight, then we're going to be viewed as continuing to fight the Cold War. If we wind up with a peer opponent, we'll be seen as precient. Seems like a stupid gamble, but there's much more to lose if we wind up with the peer opponent and have to bulid up to fight him, assuming we get the chance.

And I hope you're right. I hope we end up with egg all over our faces and get called out at every turn for wasting money on 'sexy' jets and bomber. I hope people lose their jobs over it. I hope we never fight another balls-out war where the techincal edge we have is the only deciding factor over an enemy who is just as well trained and prepared for war as we are.

In the mean time, I have a fifty year-old trashhauler to preflight. Later!

 

good luck on finding Top Gun 3D w/o the Navy's GPS satellites.

 

Women have been serving in various combat roles since 2001.
In this day in age, you don't have to be a grunt to see combat.
The days of front lines are long gone.

Women go out in sector with the MPs, on supply convoys, and in civil affair operations.

Even though I see no point in the integration of women in combat arms, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But, to say that women can't preform combat roles on the ground, is also inaccurate.

 

They cannot perform ground combat arms roles on the ground; a distinct difference.

 

Please enlighten us with what ground combat arms roles you're talking about.
Being a former 11b myself, I'm dying with curiosity.

 

11b would be a great example of the type of jobs I'm talking about. Ground combat arms MOSs....Infantry, Armor, Artillery, and Special Forces.

 

Why couldn't a woman command, load a shell, or drive a tank?
There are also plenty of jobs in artillery that a woman is capable of doing.

I'm not saying all women are cut out for combat arms, hell there's men that aren't even cut out for it.

But saying women aren't capable of preforming in combat operations is false.

 

It's not economically feasible to employ women in combat arms. They are more prone to injury, are less deployable, and according to one Canadian military study, less than 1% could physically meet average male standards. This means it would cost SIGNIFICANTLY more money to allow women the opportunity to go into combat arms.

As an 11Bravo you should know that there's more to armor/arty than loading shells and driving tanks. These units directly assault the enemy and support Infantry operations, and in a pinch are expected to operate as such.

Ironically, loading shells quickly is probably a big obstacle to most women.

Myself and others have posted many links earlier in this thread to scientific/academic studies on the issue.