Posted on 05/23/2008 8:19:20 AM PDT by STARWISE
My relevant point is that an entire V22 can be loaded into C17.
The Osprey will never, ever, carry but a few percentages of total personal and cargo of even the Marines.
You make very valid points that echo the eternal cost effectiveness dilemma that becomes so sharp especially for the military. We value our troops and strive to give them the best we can but we all know errors are made. The cut-over to the M-16 was very poorly done in Vietnam and Macnamara's multiple Wizkid ideas make him anathema to many. Yet I also recall many who swore that the Abrams MBT would never work in the sandy environment because of its turbine engine.
To the point of your reply, the Osprey is an expensive aircraft with perhaps limited uses. Still, I wonder how the 'Desert One' rescue attempt might have turned out if the Osprey had been available? And I am not so quick to reject the notion that this technology may find applications elsewhere. These development costs cover new tech in areas other than just the obvious tilt rotor concept.
In a more perfect world we would never spend an unnecessary tax dollar on anything that we did not actually need. In our actual reality, I can only offer that having invested the money already, I hope that the military makes maximum practical use of it.
Basically, everyone up from Delta was a mess, right up through the Joint and to Carter.
The Iranians knew if Reagan got in, the Marines would of been landed on the Iranian coast and marched right to and taken Iran, which is what Carter should of done as the Iranians had out and outright committed a clear act of war.
Think how different Iran would be now? By the way, I was a E-4 medic in HHQ Co, 3/4th Bn. ADA, 82nd. We supplied two air defense NCO's for Delta. At the time we had Redeye missiles. We only had one medic platoon for the entire battalion because in war time the battalion would be farmed out to other commanders and the troops would get their care from the local units. So, we only had enough medics for shot cards, sick call, and covering ranges and jumps, which was pretty good because unlike other peace time units, we medics got a lot of work. Anyways, my section Sargent, SFC Duke tells me two troopers are going to need full medic bags and give them anything they want. It was a real odd request because we were pretty stingy with our supplies. Only one NCO came in, a tall black guy. I gave him two brand new medic bags and then said I needed to know where he was going because there was no way to carry everything for everything. He thought for a bit and said Saudi Arabia. Which, outside of heat stroke, and sun cream, didn't really help me. Anyways, I gave him a bit of minor stuff, aspirin, and my personal favorite, heavy bandages, which if it's minor, what the heck you could cut up, but if you had a real bleeder, you would want. I also went into the locked room and got him a couple of wide spectrum antibiotics, morphine, codeine, a IV kit for each. I wrote down simple instruction for all the drugs. They went with Delta and had motorcycles and Redeyes and at Desert One rode out away from the aircraft a mile or so for Air defense. At the time I didn't put two and two together as were were always detailing good NCO's here and there.
Thanks for the reply and info - interesting and informative. Definitely agree about the organizational mess, too many ‘idiot chiefs’ trying to cross-manage. My thought on the Osprey here was that *sometimes* a better tool can reduce the consequences of human error.
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