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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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All you need is a navy.
The Air force should be merged with the navy.
All active army units should be merged with the Marine Corps.
The army should encompass all reserve elements of all the armed forces.
The Coast guard should be merged with the border patrol and the US marshal service under the Justice department.
All other federal Law Enforcement (DEA, ATF) service should be merged with either the Marshals or the FBI again under the Justice Department.
Maybe I went beyond the scope of this discussion, it just makes sense to me.
The constitution calls for the formation of a Navy: "To provide and maintain a Navy".
It then calls for raising Armies and Organizing Militias, but seems to restrict the funding capabilities.
So I think all the active military should be under the Navy. You could keep the Rangers separate from the Marines but under the Navy. There's nothing that says land based aircraft should be different from sea based in strategic terms just different staging mechanisms for long range artillery. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Jandar wrote: |
| All active army units should be merged with the Marine Corps. |
Whoo-ah. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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NY Times: At Odds with Air Force, Army Adds Own Aviation Unit
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WASHINGTON � Ever since the Army lost its warplanes to a newly independent Air Force after World War II, soldiers have depended on the sister service for help from the sky, from bombing and strafing to transport and surveillance.
But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have frayed the relationship, with Army officers making increasingly vocal complaints that the Air Force is not pulling its weight.
In Afghanistan, Army officers have complained about bombing missions gone awry that have killed innocent civilians. In Iraq, Army officers say the Air Force has often been out of touch, fulfilling only half of their requests for the sophisticated surveillance aircraft that ground commanders say are needed to find roadside bombs and track down insurgents. |
And a description of the "unit":
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The Army cobbled together small civilian aircraft, including the Beech C-12, and placed advanced reconnaissance sensors on board. Also assigned to the task force are small, medium and larger remotely piloted Army surveillance vehicles, including the Warrior and Shadow, with infrared cameras for night operations and full-motion video cameras.
All are linked by radio to Apache attack helicopters, with Hellfire missiles and 30-millimeter guns, and to infantry units in armored vehicles. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
American air power could and did damage and/or destroy, say, 80%ish of the Ho Chi Minh Trail at any time of its choosing. But the North only needed, say, 5% capacity to supply its people. (Very rough, spontaneous, and very approiximate figures, so please relax and just take the point.) |
I found that 5% figure here, too. Interesting...
...air planners must have realistic objectives. It is virtually impossible to totally isolate the battle area. Something will always get through, and that amount may be enough to sustain the enemy. For example, even if 95 percent of all supplies to Axis forces in Italy during World War II had been stopped, there would still have been enough material getting through for Axis forces to conduct effective defensive operations.
Curious, what is that 5% supposed to be? Cut my food supply down to 5%, I starve to death. I take it the VC/NVA were fed locally, and that's a supply line not easily cut by air interdiction. (Something the CAP program was assigned to address, IINM)
Ammunition mostly? That doesn't get used unless there's fighting going on, whereas soldiers must eat, fighting or not. Giap was a patient general --- content, perhaps, to take 20 times longer than x to stockpile supplies for his big operations. That's my guess for the moment. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 2:33 am Post subject: |
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| Interesting. I was guestimating based on McNamara's book. I think the 5% is all it needs to be to supply those who need the supplies 100%, at least for fighting effectiveness. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:06 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Interesting. I was guestimating based on McNamara's book. I think the 5% is all it needs to be to supply those who need the supplies 100%, at least for fighting effectiveness. |
Curious what the other 95% is. You may be familiar with the German supply effort at Stalingrad...
Crates of cellophane grenade covers but no grenades, along with condoms for the troops contributed absolutely nothing to the fighting ability of 6th Army. A shipment of wine for Christmas festivities arrived, but after having been frozen the bottles had shattered, leaving a rather unappetizing sludge which did nothing to alleviate the growing hunger of the starving soldiers of 6th Army. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| Bureaucracy. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Eavesdrop
U.S. intelligence officials recently obtained this quote from a Taliban leader:
"Tanks and armor are not a big deal. The fighters are the killers. I can handle everything but the jet fighters."
Even though the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are considered "irregular" warfare, precision bombing by fighters has proved valuable in taking out insurgent hide-outs. It was a bomb from an F-16 fighter in 2006 that killed al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab |
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/26/pentagon-notebook-mcpeak-calls-mccain-too-fat/?page=2 |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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At the very least if there must be an Airforce then the Airforce should have ground forces.
It would seem that the Army should be seen as an extension of the Airforce rather than the other way around.
If you look at ground warfare as "tactical" and Air warfare as "strategic" then your strategic planning should be support by the tactics where the tactics (tactile) feedback to the strategy (vision).
I think the navy does a better job of supporting the Marines because of this approach.
So maybe what I am saying is Airforce should be to Army as Navy is to Marines. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Jandar wrote: |
At the very least if there must be an Airforce then the Airforce should have ground forces.
It would seem that the Army should be seen as an extension of the Airforce rather than the other way around.
If you look at ground warfare as "tactical" and Air warfare as "strategic" then your strategic planning should be support by the tactics where the tactics (tactile) feedback to the strategy (vision).
I think the navy does a better job of supporting the Marines because of this approach.
So maybe what I am saying is Airforce should be to Army as Navy is to Marines. |
That doesn't make any sense to me. The Air Force cannot actually hold territory. I believe, as I said before, most of the Air Force has only a tactical range, at most the majority of even interceptors and AWACS-style command center platforms can only project power within one given theatre. So, nobody has said that the Air Force is purely strategic. In fact, the whole reason behind putting the Air Force back into the Army is to eliminate the delusion that so-called 'strategic' Air Force operations can win a war alone.
Strategic command is limited, and almost invariably centers around either intelligence gathering or nuclear capability. |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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The Airforce controls a large array of strategic weaponry.
Yes that the Airforce cannot hold territory, makes it strategic for the type of warfare being faced.
Containment would be the better strategy.
Boots on the ground territorial occupation is a boundary expansion empirical strategy.
Occupation is not necessary.
Occupation should not be the goal. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Jandar wrote: |
The Airforce controls a large array of strategic weaponry.
Yes that the Airforce cannot hold territory, makes it strategic for the type of warfare being faced.
Containment would be the better strategy.
Boots on the ground territorial occupation is a boundary expansion empirical strategy. |
Eh, maybe this would make sense if aircraft could acheive their necessary objectives alone. But as the article argues very persuasively, strategic bombing and air force operations has only worked once, against Serbia.
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Occupation is not necessary.
Occupation should not be the goal. |
Occupation is everything. If you don't occupy something, you cannot project force. If you don't occupy an airbase, how can you fly planes? If you don't occupy an industrial/tax-base, how can you have a military whatsoever? |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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Why project force, when all you need a cooperation?
You can use boots on the ground as a tactic, it should be the strategy.
The enemy (terrorists) uses quick strike tactics (IED, Suicide strikes) to counter this use larger strikes and leave a void. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Jandar wrote: |
Why project force, when all you need a cooperation?
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You're kidding, right? Who needs a military, we have diplomacy! |
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Jandar
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Walk softly but carry a big stick. |
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