The state of USMC aviation

ryan1234 said:
Well it's not like they mortgaged their entire future on one jet.....
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True, but as I said in a different forum that has a much higher dividend to pay for them than getting on the Rhino train with the rest of the Navy.

They've already effectively lost control of their C model fleet, first being "integrated" into the Navy's boat rotations to do things for what the Carrier needs, not what the MAGTF needs. Then again when they had all their low trap birds cherry picked by the Navy to stretch their legacy C/D model squadrons and turn the Marines into essentially a Navy Reserve. I have little to no doubt if they "converted" to E/F models they would find themselves accepting trapped out beat up time aircraft while the Navy took new lots from the Factory.

If anyone getting rid of the Hornets and going to an all 35 fleet will get the Navy to finally leave the Marine Air to support the Marines as was intended.
 
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The F-35B appears to be coming along well in the VMFAs with regards to demonstrated TTPs

 
Last I heard, there will be no USMC F-35 carrier squadrons, not sure if that means no F-35C as well for them, though that would be my guess if that info is true.
 
I had two reactions when reading this.

1. Readiness stats used to be highly classified info. Now squadron commanders are giving updates to the media. There's no official Cold War at the moment, but it's still pretty chilly out there in some regions. I wonder how widely shared the Chinese translation of this has been.

2. I used to sleep better at night thinking we were at least out training potential adversaries. This appears to no longer be the case in some important units.
 
///AMG said:
Last I heard, there will be no USMC F-35 carrier squadrons, not sure if that means no F-35C as well for them, though that would be my guess if that info is true.
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Last I saw they were still getting the C.

2015 Marine Aviation Plan shows a planned procurement of 67.

Edit: Shows C's going to Beaufort and Mirama. Starts at 2.3. But it is already out dated, and most likely subject to change.

https://marinecorpsconceptsandprograms.com/sites/default/files/files/2015 Marine Aviation Plan.pdf
 
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PGT said:
Why do you think this matters much, or at all?
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Other nations evaluating both our capability and our will is very much actively going on.

You think China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Etc don't actively evaluate the big bad United States ability to suddenly and without your input put a force equal too or greater than your combat power in a particular region quickly? It's happening every day while the Chinese continue their strategy of access denial by building islands with airbases and double digit SAMs out in the middle of the West Philippine Sea.

It's the same kind of decision that Saddam made when he invaded Kuwait. He evaluated the status of the US and our national will based off the Vietnam war and other conflicts. Putin is doing it right now based off his annexing of countries in Eastern Europe.

Advertising we can't do what we used to while maybe useful if your boss will do something about the collective outrage may accomplish good, it's also blood in the water for regional tyrants and despots. Problem is there is no national will to spend more on the military as the last couple years of continued waining support has demonstrated. The side against it is more interested in taking More money from the military to spend on desired social programs like the free college pipe dream.
 
@ PGT, an additional part of that theme is whether you feel like getting some value out of the extremely expensive hardware our military has procured over the last 15-20 years. We can argue all day about whether it is/was/will be needed, which is not my point, but the fact is that we did buy it. In the on-going battle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, espionage and the like are the way that we lose much of the money we invested. Take some notional multibillion dollar weapon system that has some exceptional capability. Now let someone expose its weaknesses, and within a few years, there will be something fielded on the other side that could capably defeat it. While you may not agree with massive defense spending, the historical trend speaks otherwise, and I would argue that in such a fictional scenario, we would end up throwing another several billion dollars at the problem, much sooner than we might have otherwise. Just being realistic there. I'd think that, as a taxpayer, you might at least want to avoid that.
 
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Lawman said:
Other nations evaluating both our capability and our will is very much actively going on.

You think China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Etc don't actively evaluate the big bad United States ability to suddenly and without your input put a force equal too or greater than your combat power in a particular region quickly? It's happening every day while the Chinese continue their strategy of access denial by building islands with airbases and double digit SAMs out in the middle of the West Philippine Sea.

It's the same kind of decision that Saddam made when he invaded Kuwait. He evaluated the status of the US and our national will based off the Vietnam war and other conflicts. Putin is doing it right now based off his annexing of countries in Eastern Europe.
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I don't think that Chinese Anti-Access/Area Denial is the strategic chimera that most people think it is. Like you mentioned, the recent events in Crimea and the South China Sea are not necessarily about capability. They have more to do with the threshold for action, whether NATO Article V or a UN Security Resolution, and the scalability of that action. Contrary to popular thought, strategy is not necessarily about a singular outcome (i.e. a "decisive" victory), but rather shaping and adapting to a condition over time. Consider that the most obvious vulnerability (right now) of China is its dependence on imported diesel and jet fuel. Land-based shipping in China is not really conducive to efficiency (or at least for rates of consumption) due to the geography. China also shares risk in respect to globalization. They have just as much, if not more, to lose in a contest of A2AD.

I also think that combat power is very relative term. The product of technology, whether an F-35 or a Littoral Combat Ship, is a solution to a specific tactical problem or problem set. In order to be asymmetrically utilized, it generally needs an opponent that is willing to face it head on. Essentially, it needs somewhat fixed problems to solve. Unfortunately, history has proven that technology gaps open and close – advantages are cyclical and with every capability there usually comes a specific vulnerability. Likewise, the planning of a certain technology almost always address a structurally complex system (say an IADS), not necessarily an interactively complex system such as international relations, strategy, or war. One particular A2AD system, the French Maginot Line is a great example; it represented state of art technology and excellent tactical considerations - so much so that was simply side stepped by the Germans.

There is no doubt that our acquisitions process is lethargic at best, but I believe that we need to open our aperture to adaptability rather than focus on predicting specific tactical problems. The need for strategy doesn't stop when the military gets sequestered or the budget can't handle excessive deferred costs.
 
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