Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
While those articles clearly articulate the associations with the RPA industry and Congress, we have yet to see those associations have much of an effect on military operations and military decisions to date.What all of those articles fail to make clear is what the goals of the industry members of that organization are, I think military ops are not close to the top of the list.
I don't think we'll see the effect of lobbyist on military decisions nor operations but rather purchasing. (An additional concern of mine is Homeland Security/LE use..but that is a different thread all together.) The Air Force purchased the Block 30 Global Hawk for about $200 million per aircraft and now suddenly claims that they are not performing to expectations and are ending procurement. Makes you wonder what influenced the Air Force to "buy in" for what is now an inadequate product.
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
Dude, the fallacy that many have been operating under is that it hasn't ALWAYS been a rob Peter to pay Paul world. Just because the DoD budgets were allowed to spiral with no controls in place over the last few years doesn't mean that reality wouldn't set in at some point (or that reality shouldn't have been imposed earlier).
True, a famous idiot once said "We don't go to war with the military we want, but the one we have." Yes, there was a time that we didn't live in the "rob Peter to pay Paul" world. However, the sad fact is that our Congress has spent so irresponsibly in the past decade someone has to pay. I think we all know that some sacred cows will not be sent to slaughter, so we are stuck in a rut to save one program at the expense of another. I don't like it one bit. But, it is what it is. Over the past decade we have been sold a bunch of "shiny nickles." "Shiny nickles" are what I call projects that are insanely expensive, benefit certain defense contractors in certain Congressional districts, and are pushed aggressively by lobbyists often at the expense of other vitally needed spending.
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
Our entire airlift fleet doesn't have to be C-17s when only a small percentage of our airlift requirement requires outsized cargo capability or austere field delivery - maybe if we reduced our C-17 buy by 25% and spent that money on lesser capable airlift aircraft we'd have 25%-35% more total airlift aircraft in the fleet. Look at how many hours we're putting on C-17s with aeromedical missions, channels, etc (all missions that don't require C-17 capabilities), aging the fleet prematurely, when we could more evenly distribute those hours across a larger fleet had we spent the money better.
Couldn't agree more, not knocking the C-17 it's a fine aircraft and definitely has it's place. But, some aspects of the program are a fine example of lobbying out of control and Congress trying to give us more "shiny nickles."
The Senators
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
The same goes for the F-22. 187 F-22s total for a global air superiority mission???? Only 25% or less of the possible scenarios require pure F-22 capes and we only really need enough F-22s to accomplish that mission. We'd be better off with 50 F-22s and 250 upgraded F-15s (assuming a 2:1 cost of F-15 upgrade to F-22 purchase - an over-estimation of the upgrade cost).
+1, another example of how defense lobbying can get out of control and we get stuck with "shiny nickles."
When Gates stared down the F-22 lobbyists - CSMonitor.com
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
The only combat helos we have now are the UH-60s and the V-22, and we don't have very many of them.
Don't let my CV-22 brothers hear you say that, they prefer to be called "tilt-rotor."
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
How many times has ACC given away and taken back the rescue role? All of that was over nothing more than ACC not wanting to divert dollars from fighters/bombers to helos.
ACC/AFSOC/ACC,really didn't matter who we belonged to. The only change we seen was the color of the patches on our flight suits.
Originally Posted by
LivingInMEM
We need a full-spectrum military. In particular, our USAF needs to be able to support the Army across their entire spectrum of operations... And, to tie this to the thread, nowhere in there is a mandate to keep a man in the cockpit. It's all about the mission, and it's the job of military leadership to do what it takes to accomplish the mission (killing the enemy and keeping US forces safe), not pad someone's logbook. If it takes RPA to give everyone who needs it ISR, so be it. If it takes RPA to give everyone who needs it CAS, so be it. As I've said in another post, it isn't MQ-1 vs F-16 for the guy on the ground, it's MQ-1 or nothing because we don't have that many F-16s anymore. We didn't get rid of F-16s because we bought RPA; even the ANG F-16 squadrons that converted from F-16s to RPA - they were losing their airplanes regardless. Thankfully, we had RPA to replace the aircraft we lost.
Couldn't agree more, we must be able to procure the best technology available on limited funds to support the warfighter.
Most people would care less if the next platform to replace the Block 30 Global Hawks are manned or unmanned. As long as we aren't getting sold another "shiny nickle" by some defense lobbyist and it's truly the best platform to support the warfighter then so be it.