Monday, December 21, 2015

USMC aviation modernization at the expense of the ground side of the house.

 I've been complaining about the modernization priorities of the USMC and how its biased toward aviation at the expense of ground combat power.  Don't believe me, believe your own lying eyes.  First up, let's take a look at how many new toys aviation is getting....



We've gone from the AH-1W to AH-1Z.



The UH-1N to the UH-1Y.



From the CH-46 to the MV-22.



From the CH-53E to the CH-53K.



And of course, we're going from the Harrier to the F-35...and to make it even more of an aviation dominated train wreck, we're killing the Harrier early so that more F-35s can be bought sooner...even though NAVAIR has stated that with the planes bought from the Brits, the Harrier was viable until 2030.

Meanwhile the AAV will soon be reaching 50 years old with no replacement in sight till 2030 (being realistic...even the projections place it being replaced around 2025...another 10 years!)

The original replacment for the AAV, but shit canned because of cost and/or reliability...HQMC refused to buy a simplified version after the time and expense of making these potentially excellent vehicles mine resistant.

The unadulterated bullshit fed by the Amos administration to the Corps.  This was during his sales pitch that we would have to launch from over 200 miles offshore.  Everyone with common sense saw this for what it was.  A push to buy more MV-22s.  It did serve to distract and many believed the fuckery he was selling.  Notice that we haven't heard anything else from this DARPA project.  It was a toy, a diversion and an excuse wrapped up in a tech demonstrator.

The ACV.  A project that started out as the MPC but somehow has morphed into our future infantry ride.  Question.  Why can you sole source a high ticket item like the CH-53K but have to do testing, demonstration periods etc for a ground combat vehicle?  Easy.  Because the dumb fucks simply want to delay it so the things they consider important can be bought.  The F-35 is fucking the Marine Corps and changing a war winning institution because a flier got to sit in the big chair and instead of being a Marine, he decided being a political lackey and aviator were more important.

Oh and if don't believe me when I say that the US defense budget has made a drastic and alarming swing toward aviation at the expense of ground combat power then click here.  Notice how certain USMC assets are buried under "joint" acquisitions (even though they're clearly majority Marine Corps) to hide the bloat.

HQMC is broken....aviation is now running the joint and ground combat power is a sad afterthought.

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