U.S.Army Is Starting Its Own Air Unit

[cwo_ghwebb]

I do not know, I was offering my Arm Chair General Opinion .... apparently the attempt to make the move was made ( that does not read right ) but that 1948 agreement prohibited it .......





so if all it is, is a "POLICY" paper, there is no real reason for the change not to have already taken place .... IMHO - except the AF would lose personal and budget ..... but I would just directly transfer the Wing's to Army Aviation Brigades and be done with it

I remember the Air Force having a fit when the Army went to helos that actually carried missiles. And anything fixed wing (other than observer aircraft) was a definite no-no. They were a young service and fought their turf wars very aggressively. I agree with the transfer of assets the the Army/Marine Corps directly. If the Air Force doesn't want to do the missions, give the aircraft to someone who will.

 

[Dougstermd]

I think this whole argument is as old as the airborne flying forces. During the early 90's There was some propaganda to assign the forces a certain mission

Airforce = all fixed wing aircraft
the army all rotoray wing aircraft

the navy all ships.


It was such a great idea that it never happened.

Those C12 and King airs are a great tool for low budget targeting missions.

 

[Larry Gude]

In my...

Well aware of history. The Army lost that bureaucratic fight to the Air Force. The army is evolving forward after stepping backwards. Or do you prefer the AF providing close-in ground support?

Kerad, each service has its role to play. And the Air Force doesn't win wars alone, contrary to some who actually believed that b.s. about Bosnia. All the services have to coordinate well to get the objective accomplished. Sounds like in this case the Air Force isn't coordinating well (most pc thing I've said all year).


Your ignorance is just astounding.

...view, close ground support of army folks should be an in house operation and obviously so.

It's one thing to have them drop some bombs for you from 5 miles up. It's quite another to have them shooting right over your head and be from a different branch.

 

[cwo_ghwebb]

I think this whole argument is as old as the airborne flying forces. During the early 90's There was some propaganda to assign the forces a certain mission

Airforce = all fixed wing aircraft
the army all rotoray wing aircraft

the navy all ships.


It was such a great idea that it never happened.

Those C12 and King airs are a great tool for low budget targeting missions.

I can understand the need to eliminate redundancy in procurement. Lord knows how the government wastes money. But different services have different needs. A Navy carrier based aircraft isn't quite the same as the Air Force version (and there have been a few models that were used by both). I think the problem here is more the mindset of mission criticality. The Air Force doesn't believe these missions important enough to justify the cost of providing the assets. The Army disagrees. So if the Army wants to budget for the cost, and the Air Force can free up some budget money, why not?

 

[itsbob]

Yeah 30mm DU round cuts through most anything

a 30mm Armor Piercing Disposing Sabot with a titanium penetrator will go through any tank. I don't quite understand what the DU was about, though it was effective.

 

[RadioPatrol]

a 30mm Armor Piercing Disposing Sabot with a titanium penetrator will go through any tank. I don't quite understand what the DU was about, though it was effective.

DU= Depleted Uranium

 

[Larry Gude]

I think...

DU= Depleted Uranium

...he meant he doesn't know why they went with that vs. the sabot rounds.

I'm pretty sure bob knows all about DU.

 

[RadioPatrol]

...he meant he doesn't know why they went with that vs. the sabot rounds.

I'm pretty sure bob knows all about DU.

 

[Dougstermd]

I can understand the need to eliminate redundancy in procurement. Lord knows how the government wastes money. But different services have different needs. A Navy carrier based aircraft isn't quite the same as the Air Force version (and there have been a few models that were used by both). I think the problem here is more the mindset of mission criticality. The Air Force doesn't believe these missions important enough to justify the cost of providing the assets. The Army disagrees. So if the Army wants to budget for the cost, and the Air Force can free up some budget money, why not?

Yeah like the chair force is gona give up any money??? Thats why in the end the marines still have to have a flying tanker fleet cause the chairforce does not see the tip of the spear as a critical mission WTF.
I am glad to see the ARMY doing what they have to do to protect their soldiers.

 

[Ken King]

The Army's main function is to protect and defend the United States (and its interests) by way of ground troops, armor (tanks), artillery, attack helicopters, tactical nuclear weapons, etc.

The primary mission of the Air Force is to defend the United States (and its interests) through exploitation of air and space.

The Navy's primary mission is to maintain the freedom of the seas.

The primary specialty of the Marine Corps is to assault, capture, and control "beach heads," which then provide a route to attack the enemy from almost any direction.

Reading the article it seems that the interest is in getting and exploiting more RPV type assets and not the acquisition of a fixed wing air to ground attack aircraft. The two “conflicts” ongoing at this time are of a nature where air-superiority isn’t at issue as it has been achieved almost immediately from the onset.

The Navy/Marine and Army air-arms train regularly with their ground forces for supportive roles, as they should, which makes them better at that function. It’s all in the nature of the operational beast and if our ground forces were facing enemy air assaults the present need of an Air Force would be undisputed.

 

[cwo_ghwebb]

Reading the article it seems that the interest is in getting and exploiting more RPV type assets and not the acquisition of a fixed wing air to ground attack aircraft. The two “conflicts” ongoing at this time are of a nature where air-superiority isn’t at issue as it has been achieved almost immediately from the onset.

You're right, I unintentionally got this thread sidetracked with the A-10 discussion. The Army and Navy have been using Predators for over 10 years. I was a bit surprised the Air Force had operational control over these assets.

 

[itsbob]

DU= Depleted Uranium

Understand DU.. The choice for DU over titanium or other hard metals was probably cost, but don't know. Trying to remember what the penetrator rods were on the APDSFS rounds on the M60 and M1 were, but it's not coming to me. Tungsten maybe?

I know in training we fired 100% aluminum rods. They'd go through a PC like it was paper, and I witnessed holes in the sides of M48's caused by the aluminum rounds.

25MM aluminum training rounds would penetrate both sides of a M113, and peel back the back plate like a banana peel. I was a witness to an incident involving a Bradley and the same round did NOT pentrate it's armor.

ANd the answer to DU:

DU is pyrophoric; the heated fragments of the penetrator ignite after impact on contact with air, setting fire to fuel and/or ammunition in the target vehicle, thereby compensating for the lack of an explosive warhead in the penetrator. Additionally, DU penetrators exhibit significant adiabatic shear band formation. During impact, fractures along these bands cause the tip of the penetrator to continuously shed material. This erosion maintains the tip's conical shape and increases the amount of pyrophoric fragments released behind the target armour

 

[cwo_ghwebb]

Understand DU.. The choice for DU over titanium or other hard metals was probably cost, but don't know. Trying to remember what the penetrator rods were on the APDSFS rounds on the M60 and M1 were, but it's not coming to me. Tungsten maybe?

I know in training we fired 100% aluminum rods. They'd go through a PC like it was paper, and I witnessed holes in the sides of M48's caused by the aluminum rounds.

25MM aluminum training rounds would penetrate both sides of a M113, and peel back the back plate like a banana peel. I was a witness to an incident involving a Bradley and the same round did NOT pentrate it's armor.

ANd the answer to DU:

DU is pyrophoric; the heated fragments of the penetrator ignite after impact on contact with air, setting fire to fuel and/or ammunition in the target vehicle, thereby compensating for the lack of an explosive warhead in the penetrator. Additionally, DU penetrators exhibit significant adiabatic shear band formation. During impact, fractures along these bands cause the tip of the penetrator to continuously shed material. This erosion maintains the tip's conical shape and increases the amount of pyrophoric fragments released behind the target armour

Dammmmmnnnnn!

 

[RadioPatrol]

I read one article that said, Nuke Companies gave away the DU ..... it was a by product ....

but then the writer was also going on about all the DU laying around after all 940,000 30mm rnd fired and the 1000's of M1 main gun rounds fired

 

[clevalley]

Forward? How about back to the future? My grandfather flew...for the army...in WWII!

That is what I thought - didn't the Air Force spawn from the Army Air Corps?

 

[itsbob]

I read one article that said, Nuke Companies gave away the DU ..... it was a by product ....

but then the writer was also going on about all the DU laying around after all 940,000 30mm rnd fired and the 1000's of M1 main gun rounds fired

Couldn't have been too many M1 rounds laying around..



They don't miss, and the Iraqui's didn't have too many tanks!!