i wonder ho many of these men left rather than serve under traitor in chief 0bama?
Posted on 10/21/2017 11:21:10 AM PDT by be-baw
Ya can’t “occupy” from the air. You can’t see what is in the hidy-holes unless you walk into them. So on...
It could also be preparation for NK.
The Air Force doesn’t even have warrant officers. The last one retired in 1980, and he was inherited from the Army Air Corp. All other services have warrant officers.
>>Even if you want to fly, trading [I assume you meant training] slots are limited.
Delta flight ops in ATL used to be very generous with granting simulator time to charities to auction off at fundraiser galas. I’m hearing those days are gone, that all available time is allocated for flight training. We got time in a 777 simulator about 3-1/2 years ago this way.
“Pilot training pipeline is at max capacity right now, ... NCO pilots ... are doing extremely well. ... But there are limits on how many pilots can be trained ... It would make more sense to recall these pilots and put them behind a desk, ...” [ExNewsSpook, post 59]
A decent summary, as far as it goes.
US Army officers who became the first pilots, then USAAC/USAAF officer-pilots of the 1930s and 1940s, and ultimately USAF pilots, have always struggled to prevent enlisted troops from becoming pilots.
Read _Training to Fly: Military Flight Training 1907-1945_ by Rebecca Hancock Cameron (ISBN-10: 1477547762, ISBN-13: 978-1477547762). You will learn:
That before WWI, all US Army pilots who were commissioned officers signed a letter to the Chief of the Signal Corps, begging the Army not to allow enlisted men to undertake flight training. Mere troops were not deemed able to understand the physics or physiological/sensory aspects of flying, nor could they ever attain the athletic abilities one needed to judge all those objects moving at high speed in relation to each other, through the air. (Translation: gentlemen ranker collegiate-tennis types didn’t want the lower classes threatening their ticket to the higher levels of US society.)
During the leadup to and prosecution of the Second World War, various groups of USAAF pilots argued strongly against training enlisted pilots. They did succeed in part, largely confining enlisted pilots to “support” jobs such as aircraft ferrying, liaison work, cargo aircraft, training, and air-assault gliders. Combat aircraft were considered the place for “true warriors” (commissioned officers) only.
In the demobilization following WWII, many USAAF leaders (all pilots) who shortly became USAF leaders, and their supporters in the ranks of pilots, got rid of as many enlisted pilots as the possibly could, as quickly as they could.
By then there were many multi-place aircraft in inventory, and not all crewmembers had to be pilots. Some were commissioned and rated (navigator/observers, bombardiers, radar operators), some were enlisted (gunners, flight engineers, some radar operators, radio operators etc)
Attempts were made to require all aircrew to be pilots, but this backfired immediately. It was discovered that not enough training hours could be found in a day to keep everybody current and qualified in piloting, plus all the other specialized inflight duties they would have to perform. Pilots dug in their heels over the looming prospect of being worked seven days a week. Additional details about what almost became the SAC pilots revolt can be found in _Building a Strategic Air Force_ by Walton S Moody (ISBN-10: 1478125578, ISBN-13: 978-1478125570)
In the 1960s, the in-house argument began revolving around who ought to be in command.
Air Force pilots were by law the only officers permitted to command flying organizations (a part of US Code Title 10, dating to the Air Corps Organization Act of 1926); pilots attempted to broaden this to encompass command of any USAF unit, an ever-expanding number of which had no aircraft and did no flying. In this they were sporadically opposed by nonrated officers and by navigators, who had become the “dumping ground” for all flying specialties requiring rated officers that did not involve taking off, steering, and landing.
The film _Bat 21_ is taken from a true story, but the script never mentions the reason for the largest, costliest rescue operation US forces mounted during involvement in southeast Asia: the downed individual in need of rescue, Iceal “Gene” Hambleton, was a rated navigator who had pioneered a big chunk of USAF ICBM operations. He was in command of a missile squadron when a fighter pilot was assigned as commander of his missile wing; the fighter pilot promptly relieved Hambleton of command, declaring that no nav would command anything in his outfit. Hambleton was immediately assigned to an EB-66 unit in theater; when his aircraft was shot down, a large portion of USAF’s hierarchy came near to panic - he held more specialized weapons-code knowledge inside his head than any other USAF officer alive. Fears ran high, that if he was captured, most war plans would be compromised.
Hence, the rescue effort. All because of a fighter pilot.
In 1975, the offending section of Title 10 was repealed. Many non-pilots moved into command billets, but it happened only slowly in flying outfits. Gradually, each professional specialty developed its own career path, greatly reducing the chances of any outsiders acceding to command. Civil engineers commanded civil engineering squadrons, transportation officers commanded transportation squadrons, missile officers commanded missile squadrons, computer officers commanded computation systems squadrons, etc.
Pilot ascendancy enjoyed a major advance after 1992, when SAC was inactivated; its units and assets were farmed out to other commands. No one could ever figure out what to do with ICBM units, but all bombers were placed under ACC (always commanded by fighter pilots) and all tankers were placed under the newly-created Air Mobility Command (then commanded by a fighter pilot).
The fighter pilots worked like the dickens to remove all navigators from every aircraft they could: tankers and airlifters lost their navs, much to the consternation of many actively then flying. Aircraft with an “F” in front of their designation with more than a single seat were retired as quickly as possible. “Navigator” as a rated specialty was actually discontinued; they are now called “combat systems officers” or some such foolishness.
Severe undermanning of many more specialties than “pilot” continues all over USAF. But Air Force personnel experts remain timid in attempting to keep pilots in uniform; talk never ceases, about how incentives and bonuses can be pushed higher still.
But as owners of overblown, over-coddled egoes, pilots resist. Fighter pilots, owning the biggest egoes of all, are the most difficult of all to hang onto. They grouse about being worked so hard; if they are reassigned to non-flying duties, they complain of boredom and under-utilization. Despite tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses and incentives no one else in USAF uniform ever gets to touch, they whine about lack of money. They are allowed to command any unit that pleases, whether they have any knowledge, experience, or abilities in the field or not.
Active Duty ping.
I assume no such thing, as an ex-navy guy I know there are battle-group, theatre and administrative Admirals. However, the ratio is way out of whack from where it was even in the 80s and ridiculous compared to the 40s/50s.
The bureaucratic Admirals I’m referring to are project/administrative in the pentagon - jobs that would have been between LT-Navy Captain level in the 40s and LTCMDR-Captain in the 80s.
Many talented people shy away from field where a huge investment of time and money can be undercut by politicians importing foreigners to deflate wages. For pilots in particular, it is hard to ask someone to commit to something that requires so much training when something as simple as a vision problem shortly afterward ends your career.
Infantry still determines who wins, from Vietnam to Afghanistan/Iraq. It might not have to be American infantry, but whoever has “boots on the ground” owns it.
Even without the French/Spanish navies during the Revolution, Britain still had to fight this war from an ocean away; it simply couldn’t be done as long as the colonists could live independently of them (and they could - I’ve seen the ruins of hidden furnaces and forges where colonists illegally produced their own goods prior to the Revolution).
You realize that has not been the case for over 20 years right?
You have to go to thirty if you want fifty.
And with the "up or out" system only senor officers and E9s are retiring with 50%.
i wonder ho many of these men left rather than serve under traitor in chief 0bama?
I guess we will see. I hope many return. We need them.
What year did it change to getting half base pay at 30 years? I got 50% when I retired at 20 years in 1993. and if one retired with more years, they got more.
“Ya can’t “occupy” from the air. ...”
You’re thinking too small.
If we kill enough of the enemy, occupation doesn’t matter.
Many other approaches are possible, and some very good ones are not even especially new. Forum members ought to read up on the RAF’s doctrine of air control, as developed in the Middle East in the 1920s.
Yet traditionalists repeat the “can’t occupy from air” phrase as if it were a timeless truth. It’s just something they say over and over - which doesn’t make it true.
One hundred years ago, the advent of armored vehicles put conventional infantry on the skids. Today, the development of remote control, high-resolution sensors, digital devices, robotics and AI, miniaturized components of every sort, are only beginning to transform ground combat.
Instead of complaining about loss of honor and glory, traditionalists ought to thank the technologists. Fewer lives will need to be put at risk. Unless, of course, traditionalists find that too demeaning.
100%
Everyone who signed up after that date has to go to 30 to get 50.
“I think it would be a good idea to recall some of the really fine generals ...”
There aren’t any.
For decades, USAF has been promoting officers “below the zone,” to the point where every conventional thinker has come to believe that they cannot succeed unless they gather a bevy of these fast-burning hotshots unto their own unit. What everyone ends up with are high rankers who haven’t been around long enough to develop any seasoned judgment or maturity of character, who are impatient to a fault, ambitious to the extreme, and who never stick around any one place long enough to face the consequences of their bad decisions.
If that isn’t enough, USAF insists on promoting only fighter pilots, and on putting them in command everywhere. Foments naught but trouble: they are technically competent - sometimes - in their own specialty, but too big of ego, too little mature in judgment. Hopeless as leaders.
There’s also this organization called, “Civil Air Patrol.”
Just a polite reminder, folks.
“Infantry still determines who wins, ... whoever has “boots on the ground” owns it. ... during the Revolution, Britain still had to fight this war from an ocean away; it simply couldn’t be done as long as the colonists could live independently of them (and they could ...”
Hadn’t seen such a succinct misreading of the American War of Independence before. Not to mention factually mistaken at several points.
I have heard it put more wittily, that in AWI the British held cities and thought they were winning, while the Colonists held the hinterland and thought they were winning. So nothing much happened for a while.
If kearnyirish2 were thinking, instead of repeating commonplace “timeless truths,” he (she) should be puzzled that the British did not prevail: they put more and better boots on the ground, at almost every turn.
American success hinged not upon winning, but on not losing: possessed of strategic insight and a goodly amount of luck, General Washington avoided complete collapse of the cause by not engaging in any standup fight, toe to toe with enemy, that might have finished off the Continental Army.
In this fashion, the Americans managed to escape utter defeat, stringing the British along until the attention spans back home in England were exceeded, and the French could be convinced to agree to an alliance with the fledgling United States.
Sea power figured prominently at several junctures:
- General Washington outfitted several small men-of-war during the siege of Boston, to go out and capture British supply vessels. They only captured one of any size, but the success completely revitalized morale in the investing American forces (not to mention augmenting supplies of munitions and other warlike stores). He considered the mission so sensitive he kept it secret from the Continental Congress.
- American forces built a fleet of small warships at Whitehall NY (then named Skenesboro) on Lake Champlain. Ably and daringly commanded by Benedict Arnold - who had commanded a merchant vessel before the war - it suffered defeat and great loss at the Battle of Valcour Island, but delayed the British advance southward until after the winter of 1776-1777, gaining time for the American cause, until effective resistance could be mounted - leading to the Battles of Bemis Heights and Freeman’s Farm, near what is now Saratoga. The only strategic American victories of the entire war; British invasion strategy collapsed. Whitehall is still known as the “Birthplace of the American Navy.”
- As autumn 1781 loomed, General Washington, tiring of prolonged inaction, resolved to assault New York, which the British had held since early 1776. The French allies advised him not to attempt it. He nevertheless ordered the start of the march into assault positions. At this moment, word reached his HQ that Lord Cornwallis’ forces had retreated to Yorktown, and that the French fleet was sailing from the West Indies.
With an adroitness and flexibility still envied by modern commanders, General Washington redirected the march from the Hudson River above New York, across northern New Jersey and southeast Pennsylvania, to Head of Elk in Maryland - the northernmost inlet of Chesapeake Bay. There, American forces took ship in a fleet of small vessels and sailed south to lay siege to Lord Cornwallis’ forces.
The French fleet under the Comte de Gras engaged the British fleet under Admiral Graves; the Royal Navy was defeated and driven off. The total number of sailors aboard both fleets outnumbered the British Army and the Continental Army combined, with boots on the ground at that moment, in North America. Lord Cornwallis could neither be rescued nor reinforced, and the French were able to land reinforcements, supplies, and heavy artillery for use by American ground forces and their French allies in the siege.
When Lord Cornwallis surrendered, even the most diehard British leaders realized the American portion of the wider war was over. But the larger war continued elsewhere: Spain came in on the side of the French, as did the Dutch. The British came out of it nicely, winning a great victory in the West Indies.
But is it false to say “boots on the ground” brought victory to the American cause.
And to correct further factual inaccuracies, the Colonists were not self-sufficient enough to live independently of the British, or some equivalent source of equipment, supplies, and finished goods. They may have wanted to, but British attempts to enforce mercantile policies were a contributing factor in bringing about AWI. And American forces went in dire need for the duration, short of weapons, ammunition, uniforms, equipment, rations, and every single one of the items without number that an army even then required, to field an effective force. French officers, richly attired, abundantly supplied, riding at the head of column after column of the best troops in Europe, derided the Americans as downcast and threadbare. Doesn’t sound much like self-sufficiency.
Lord Cornwallis went off to India. He and Admiral Graves spent the rest of their lives, trading gentlemanly barbs in professional journals, over Who Lost America.
The truth is, the United States was founded as a trading nation. All such entities by definition are never self-sufficient, though they may become self-reliant. All the verbiage to the contrary, about shining cities on hills and the like, were never more than PR flummery, to heat up isolationist sentiments among a population already far too inclined to self-righteousness, self-congratulation, and self-regard.
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