To: tanknetter
Probably can take off empty. Not sure fully armed.
No MEU commander is going to sacrifice 53s or MV-22s for a capability that will probably not be used for routine deployments. Then you have to find space for the support personnel. Makes more sense to put all the support personnel on the C-130 to Rota or Hawaii//Okinawa/Diego Garcia.
Yeah. That ride in the Pacific would suck.
69 posted on
09/12/2014 1:46:27 PM PDT by
Salvavida
(The restoration of the U.S.A. starts with filling the pews at every Bible-believing church.)
To: Salvavida
No MEU commander is going to sacrifice 53s or MV-22s for a capability that will probably not be used for routine deployments. Then you have to find space for the support personnel. Makes more sense to put all the support personnel on the C-130 to Rota or Hawaii//Okinawa/Diego Garcia.
Yup, but we're talking about a situation where the planes would be flown ashore as soon as basic airfield (unimproved, roadways, etc) facilities were available to handle them. So we're not talking one MEU but several.
Recall that during Iraqi Freedom the USN/USMC turned one or two LHDs into dedicated "Harrier Carriers" by transferring the helos to other decks and absorbing (I think) the other decks' AV-8B complements. What I'm really talking about is sort of a Doolittle Raid scenario but for CAS.
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