Friday, July 24, 2015

F-35 is endangering the Marine Air-Ground Team...is it unfortunately time to do away with fast jets in the Corps?


I was doing a quick review of some of the stuff I've read on the F-35 and one theme keeps popping up that isn't getting proper attention.  There are a few people in leadership (influenced by SLDInfo and others) that are actively talking about leaving the Ground Combat Element on the dock and sailing big deck LHDs with only F-35's aboard.

Think about that for a minute.

There are some in the USMC that seek to break the Air-Ground Task Force concept that has been the hallmark of USMC operations for years.....all to justify the F-35!

Don't believe me?  Check this out!  via USNI News....
But Davis, a former Harrier pilot, said he’s thinking much bigger and believes, based on the operational test, that the ship could handle many more jets.
“Could we go out with 16 and four tiltrotors?” he said, noting that the Marines would soon be adding a roll-on/roll-off package onto the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft so they could act as a tanker.
“So I could actually now take 16 F-35s on that ship, more on an America-class ship, plus some V-22 tankers, and I have a fifth-generation strike capability in numbers if we needed to do that,” he said.

“We haven’t assessed that – we’ve looked at six, and we’d probably want to look at it again, how would we do with more. And I think we leave that up to our Marine Corps leadership and Navy leadership and national leadership to say, how do we maximize the capability of this particular machine and this particular capability for the nation.”
THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS HERE!

I've worried about the USMC becoming a sea going 101st, but if the Assistant Commandant for Aviation has his way then we'll be lucky to have a ground element at all!

The incoming Commandant (we'll talk about all the churn that has been caused by this deep dig for our next Marine Corps leader and the trouble that this administration is hoisting on the Corps soon...I'm still wrapping my head around the names and running down all the joint billets that are filled by Marine stars) has one task.

He needs to put our house in order.

Aviation is out of control.  He either reigns them in and makes them a SUPPORTING, NOT SUPPORTED part of the team or its time to consider doing away with fast jets in the Marine Corps.


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