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via Real Clear Defense
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a stunning setback for a nuclear missile force already beset by missteps and leadership lapses, the Air Force disclosed on Wednesday that 34 officers entrusted with the world's deadliest weapons have been removed from launch duty for allegedly cheating - or tolerating cheating by others - on routine proficiency tests.Read it all here.
The cheating scandal is the latest in a series of Air Force nuclear stumbles documented in recent months by The Associated Press, including deliberate violations of safety rules, failures of inspections, breakdowns in training, and evidence that the men and women who operate the missiles from underground command posts are suffering burnout. In October the commander of the nuclear missile force was fired for engaging in embarrassing behavior, including drunkenness, while leading a U.S. delegation to a nuclear exercise in Russia.
A "profoundly disappointed" Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, the service's top civilian official, told a hurriedly arranged Pentagon news conference that the alleged cheating at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., was discovered during a previously announced probe of drug possession by 11 officers at several Air Force bases, including two who also are in the nuclear force and suspected of participating in the cheating ring.
"This is absolutely unacceptable behavior," James said of the cheating, which Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said could be the biggest such scandal in the history of the missile force.
One thing is becoming painfully obvious. The USAF is incapable of handling the nuclear mission.
Lets be blunt. Air delivery of nuclear weapons is at best a joke. 19 B-2 bombers, B-1's and B-52's? That is weak sauce. They won't penetrate enemy air space and if they get in, they won't get out. As far as our land based nuke missiles are concerned I fully expect them to be targeted first and due to inertia in command and control, they'll probably be destroyed before they even launch.
That's before we talk about the damage that the USAF did to itself by destroying the Strategic Air Command.
The US Navy with its boomer fleet need to be the vanguard of the US nuclear force.
It only makes sense.
You've pretty much nailed it on the head there, Solomon. As much as I hate to, I agree the Air Force legs of the triad should probably die a quiet death.
ReplyDeleteI don't buy the "official explanation" here AT ALL. This is a soviet style "purge". The "crime" is that these airmen remain loyal to the constitution.
Deletethe only thing they're loyal to is the drugs they're taking and the tests they're cheating on.
DeleteI was thinking that USAF or rather AFGSC still posses some 450-500 LGM-30 ICBM ready to launch then I really don't see that they had stop to be vanguard of nuclear force in US forces.
ReplyDeleteSay again.
DeleteThe Navy's Trident II have htk capablity. Does the US really need fixed ICBMs for accuracy anymore?
DeleteAccuracy is not the most important part when you carry 12, 475 kilotons warheads. Couple of km right or left...
DeleteWell, of course as the very last resort when you're at the point where you can only punish the other guy by vaporizing his cities, accuracy isn't the most important thing. But there is no point of not having a 'no first use' policy if you don't have the capability of striking first with accurate nuclear weapons. My point is, the submarine force provides both countervalue (cities, industry, human beings) and counterforce (missiles, bombers) capabilities.
Deletei contend that accuracy hasn't been an issue for 25 years. i think it has more to do with institutional "pride". in my opinion the USAF's nuclear strike role with manned aircraft was lost in the 1960's and even with the introduction of the B-2 has never recovered. additionally if we can keep up with what the Russians are doing, its obvious by how they're developing their nuclear missiles that land based icbms in fixed sites are no longer considered survivable. the US basically told us that when the midgetman road and rail launched system was proposed. then when the MX was proposed in super dense sites. land based ICBMS have been obsolete for many years.
ReplyDeleteStill US land based ICBM's are the most powerful nuclear strike force, both in firepower and numbers. I don't know if yanks are developing some new ICBM's or are rather happy with, well pretty old LGM-30 series.
ReplyDeleteAircraft strategic nuclear strike indeed ended in 60' with rise of more powerful and multi warhead ICBM's, even now how much in % is chance that even one nuke can be intercepted with some missiles ? Yeah yanks develop a missile shield but it's new tech, untested in real situation and I hope it will stay that way.
Russians or rather Soviets pretty fast understand that "bomber will not get through", that's why they invest time and money in mobile systems and new generation of ICBM's. Because missile will get through.
But they have not resign from static launchers, some time ago ( kill me I don't remember when ) in that time president Miedwiediew order to build new top tech ICBM's base.
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ReplyDeleteB-1s are conventional mission only. Look up NATO nuclear sharing for a real strategic head scratcher. I'd love hearing solomons opinion on that particular policy.
ReplyDeletewait! so what is probably our best long range strike platform is conventional only? that cuts it. the triad is dead we're down to land based and sub based platforms.
DeleteWell, there are the CV's which at one time had a Nuclear mission profile along with several CG's.
DeleteTalos comes to mind.
Sorry you think that. The B-1's were designated a the current Heavy Bomber, that was their intended role from day 1 back in the 1980's. B-2 (ATB) was the perpetrator, B-52 stand off, B-1 everything else. Per last years cost number not supporting the B-1's nuclear mission hardware, removing or disabling has actually drive the cost per hour down to less then the B-52. That and per our last treaty we are limited to 60 Bombers. The AF chose the B-2 to drop weapons and the B-52 for stand off. As we no longer have short range weapons the role for the B-1 is gone.
Deletehttp://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/why-cant-the-air-force-build-an-affordable-plane/254998/
The B-1's now are tasked with the conventional bombardment, anti-shipping, etc. That is why you see the B-1 doing the anti-shipping testing for the JDAM and JSSM weapons. The B-52 that used to do this.
A designated group of FA jets SoPOpSec have the capability to carry and deliver service stores of this type. perhaps the mission could fall to them with stand off munitions.
ReplyDeleteAP is spilling out a bunch of antinuclear deterrent propaganda to pave the way for another reckless cut in the peacekeeping arsenal. The queer flower picking fags are going to regret their stupidity when they start worrying about losing WWIII.
ReplyDeleteI will contend that the air wing of the triad is absolutely not obsolete. Its not the bombers that are the best delivery systems its the many, many aircraft that can do it if called upon to do so.
Navy guys like to think their submarines are king shit....and they are.... but that is because the war hasn't begun yet. They have more deployed warheads but drastically less platforms capable of delivering them.
And after a few months at war many of the Ohio class subs will be crushed on the ocean floor, and the remaining subs may or may not have replacement missiles to reload with. Never mind how hard or expensive it is to build a submarine or how much it cost.
Never fear america can shit some nuclear warheads throw at the enemy...but you'll just have to settle for whatever warhead or land based rocket we can come up with and they wont fit in your tubes.
By that time in the war many of the best aircraft are gone but so are the much of enemy's best air defenses. You would be surprised at the shitty old planes we can drop those crappy makeshift warheads from. You would be equally surprised at their survivability against a nuclear degraded opponent under persistent strategic bombing.
Did I ever mention that we have 100 times more aircraft and a 100 times more airfields than the navy has submarines and ship yards.
Its not an issue of which way is the best, its an issue of supporting the mission in general and ignoring the crap storm coming from worthless lobbies like green peace and ground zero and continuing to defend the United States.
you're talking about a protracted nuclear war! that's ..... new. i don't see much fighting going on once the first salvo and the return are launched. who is gonna fly those missions? fried capt joe? the horribly irradiated co-pilot? who's gonna get the planes in the air? the flash blinded ground crew?
Deletesorry but nuclear war means that our country and whoever launched are going back to the stone age. new zealand and parts of africa would probably be livable but little outside of that.
and if you're in the military and you have knowledge that we launched a first strike are you actually gearing up for a follow on or are you gonna grab your family and head to the hills with as much food and ammo as your truck can carry?
*sigh* do you need to engage in name-calling to make a point, KT?
DeleteFacts are facts, neither AP nor Reuters nor Bloomberg put drugs into the bodies of those officers NOR did they supply them with cribs for cheating on proficiency tests.
Maybe Air Farce should un-retire some old, crusty SAC veterans and have them eyeball the whole fucking organization, then weed out the weak and useless?
I still think an argument can be made for land-based deterrent, but I'm not interested in making it.
ICBMs, NMD, space missions and strategic reconnaissance should be the only missions of a new Aerospace Force ad it shouldn't number over 250,000 people in uniform.
Transports, tankers and Tac Air should be sent to Army, the bombers can be retired and be replaced by B747s that carry cruise missiles for anti -shipping and conventional stand-off strike.
Then Army and Navy/USMC can sit down and figure out how to deploy dozens of Army BCTs the quickest to reinforce a USMC large enough to kick in the door and seize ground.
We'll call it NSC 2020
works for me!
DeleteLOL, Heading for the hills is a cunt move . WIN.
DeleteFrom a political standpoint, bombers are our most visible deterrent. You can park a sub on the enemies backporch and the enemy won't know about it. Blinking lights in a missile silo doesn't tell the enemy anything about our will and intent to destroy their nation. You park a B-52 over international airspace with ALCMs on the wings, and thats pretty much like pointing a revolver at thier head and saying "Make my day."
ReplyDeleteB-747? thats a fantasy drawn up by a 12 yr old on the back of his science class journal. Airliners do not make good heavy bombers. maritime patrol aircraft with a handful of small PGMs;yes. heavy bombers carrying cruisemissiles, rotary launchers, multiple bomb rack assemblies and heavy PGMs, no.
You forget about lasers... cruiser missiles, rotary launchers, multiple bomb racks, heavy PGM's and lasers, oh! and miniguns! lots of lots of miniguns!
Deleteschoolboy fantasy, huh? Here's an archived Air Farce paper on it.
Deletehttp://www.fas.org/man/eprint/benson.htm
http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/2011/12/blast-from-past-cruise-missile-carriers.html
747s are suitable. Payload, range, spares, in production.
Stick 40-50 Tomahawk equivalents, buy two hundred or so B 747s and you have 1000 cruise missiles that could sink an entire Navy one day, then start taking out airbases the next. It is an economy of scale we could achieve over the PLAN. We can always build more B747s and cruise missiles than they could destroyers or frigates.
You do realize that the "Archived Air Farce Paper" You quote is from a College Disertation. Check the title page.
ReplyDeleteA THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF
THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIRPOWER STUDIES
FOR COMPLETION OF GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS
So yes, it was written by a school boy. But on the plus side the school boy in question is a Major. Majors are always chock full of brilliant ideas.
The bigger the charge, the more brilliant ideas.
DeleteIs the School of Advanced Airpower Studies part of the USAF? Was it a USAF officer who wrote it? If you want to equate graduate level studies by Air Force officers with little boys in short-pants standing in front of a chalk board, I guess we can call it 'school boy'.
DeleteApart from ridiculing it, you've contributed nothing to the conversation. No arguments, no evidence, no criticism, just knee-jerk reaction.
I'd like to know why you think it is an unworkable concept rather than just having you shit on it, so offer up some of your reasoning.
Well Paralus you are right about the name calling, I get really frustrated with the defeatist pundits that crap on the military's efforts to defend them.
DeleteSolomon, I pulled out the calculator before I made the statement. With all the START treaties the dynamic of nuclear war is different.
Both sides have 1/6 of the warheads. and our AMD can shoot over half of them down. at a high alert posture.
Sorry to say it but mutually assured destruction has been traded for mutually unacceptable losses.
If there is a next world war you can in fact expect a long miserable campaign with a lot of conventional fighting. I want every a-bomb I can get.
I didn't read more than the abstract of the paper Paralus, like any collegiate paper its too long for my sunday.
I do agree that the cargo/heavy bomber concept will work but I feel it should be on an expedient basis. The concept doesn't really take into account the way the START treaty accounts for delivery systems.
I also feel all three of the fixed wing jet branches should be better equipped with tactically more survivable aircraft.
Future air war isn't a joke. There will be thousands of 3/4/5 generation fighters up there deciding whose gonna be the piss ants of the entire war. Similar statements can be made for surface and undersea warfare, sea and land based BMD, AMD, and heavy armored warfare capabilities.
In a very austere funding environment any one group can and occasionally does argue that their group deserves a bigger piece of the pie and its usually a poorly founded claim that would have created an asymmetrical portfolio that doesn't work.
The asymmetrical portfolio ends up getting genre exploited heavily ends up being bombarded until it crumbles by the elements it lacks.
Joint forces that don't criticize the other branches and work together are the only way to have an effective force.
We have to face the truth, military voters aren't the majority, and spending always has and always will come in lopsided spurts. That lopsided spurted approach is in fact the most efficient way to acquire the assorted masses of various equipment and capabilities.
We MUST support each other's hay days in those spending spurts or the entire structure will lack the needed support as a whole.