"Within 36 hours we had eight jets on the line ready to go," says Maj Gen Glenn Walters, commander of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The only issue that slowed down the USMC response was gaining diplomatic clearance to fly the aircraft over to Afghanistan, he says.First Dave is missing the point that the attack could easily have occurred at Kandahar Airport. Destroy a couple of C-17's and one 747 on the tarmac and you have a much larger loss in money terms. The failure wasn't in where the aircraft was based, the failure was in the force protection plan for these high value, low density assets in theater. There are no front lines so basing (yes I'm repeating myself) isn't the issue. NOT AT ALL!
A total of 14 aircraft were deployed in two groups. The first group consisted of eight jets while the second included a total of six Harriers.The Marines deployed the aircraft quickly, "because we can't let the enemy dictate that tempo," Walters says.Nonetheless, while Marine air operations quickly recovered from the Taliban attack, it does call into question the wisdom of basing such expensive assets in areas where they could be left vulnerable to enemy attack. Say these weren't Harriers, but F-35Bs--that would have cost a ton of money.
Second, Dave is trying to do a quick jab at the STOVL concept. Honestly I'm a little disappointed. I didn't think that he bowed at the alter of Sweetman and Aviation Week but apparently he's either a true believer or is drinking the Kool-aid. The concept is valid, that is not at question. The question is whether or not the US government will fund it or not. But again, the concept is valid and is being employed by the USMC, Royal Navy, Italian Navy and Spanish Navy. Additionally the Indian Navy and Thailand are (or were) using Harriers and the Japanese and S. Koreans (and even possibly Singapore) are all interested in the F-35B.
I won't give up on Dave yet but that was a surprising attack from an unlikely direction at Marine Corps doctrine and the F-35B.
NOTE:
I'm impressed by how fast the Marine Corps was able to reconstitute VMA-211. Very impressed.
thank you Solomon...I am tired of reading this in all of the news.They forget that iraq anf a-stan dont have a front line,that it is an assimmetric war.I the 1984 book Future fighters and combat aircraft,Bill Gunston states that the biggest Aquilles heel of NATO is the fact that their aircraft rely on air bases that the Soviets could easely destroy...he states that he is impressed how air forces have taken so long to invest on STOVL and that the future against peer opononents would depend a lot in not depending on known airfields that can easaly be taken out by strike fighters or cruise/ballistic missiles...he them states that the perfect airplane should be a supersonic STOVL strike fighter whith VLO(Know a plane like this?) ...This makes me wonder if any of these «experts» have eaven read a single book on aerial warfare in their lives...
ReplyDeleteextremely well said!
DeleteCommercial brake: :-)
ReplyDelete...And if I might add, this is exactly the reason that Gripen and Viggen looks the way they do. They were designed to be dispersed at hundreds of small airfields around the country, hopping around between them to make it impossible for the soviets to knock them out all at once.
Now the commercial brake is over, I can say that I agree with you that the plane itself can't be blamed for this attack, it would have happened to any airplane (or helo) on that base. And if the base weren't there, they would have attacked another base.