Posted on 05/01/2010 10:32:59 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Ever since early in the Korean War (1950-53), the United States has enjoyed a massive air superiority over every enemy we've fought.
Those days may be coming to an end.
"The Air Force won't be able to do all its assigned tasks as comprehensively as it once did, and will be aiming for simple sufficiency in areas where it's been accustomed to dominance," Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a recent interview.
Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank, said, "This is akin to the head of the French air force saying in the late 1930s that he was willing to cede air superiority to the Luftwaffe."
Our military air fleet is the oldest it's ever been. Some fighter pilots as well as many bomber and tanker pilots now fly airplanes that were built before they were born.
Age is a problem in a military air fleet not just because airplanes wear out, but because older airplanes are unable to contend with modern air defenses. Only a few of the fighters and bombers we have in service today are expected to be able to penetrate the air defenses Russia and China and Iran are likely to have in the next decade or so.
Warplanes are becoming obsolescent or just falling apart at a more rapid rate than they are being replaced. Of 5,631 aircraft in service in the Air Force, the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard, 2,231 are fighters or fighter-bombers. The Air Force expects that number to fall to about 1,800 by 2025
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Ping.
0bama is going to cut Defense to ‘cut defecit spending”.
He is a crackerjack and leaves "Pravda at the Point" fumbling for thoughts.
Good rundown Jack.
......and the POS in charge will see to it........
What makes us think other nations fight the same way? Just because we don’t use weapons of mass destruction on civilians doesn’t mean others won’t use them on us.
We’ve taken our air superiority for granted for decades, but the lessons of WWII still apply. No nation, no matter how determined, can withstand an unrestrained air war over their territory. Air superiority is essential.
If we allow an enemy to gain air superiority over our forces, and that enemy isn’t restrained by western civilization niceties like the LOAC, we will suffer unbelievable casualties...and lose.
Government really only has one job, and that is defending us and our territory. Everything else is seconday to its prime directive.
If there is a choice between guns and butter, its guns. We can get our own butter.
We’re used to wars in which our casualties are very light, because in recent decades we’ve always had air superiority. We can march into our enemy’s capital in a few days time with only a handful of losses on our side because we control the air. Lose that, though, and its back to World War One casualty figures, thousands dead in an afternoon.
Why spend money on things like national defense when you can throw it away on “The War On Poverty”?
“The Air Force won’t be able to do all its assigned tasks as comprehensively as it once did, and will be aiming for simple sufficiency in areas where it’s been accustomed to dominance,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a recent interview.”
News note: Recall the Air Force Academy recently ensured Pagans have their own worship place, the AF has taken the lead in ordering Chaplains not to use the name of Jesus so much, is actively downplaying Christianity.
It doesnt take long for the other shoe to drop.
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