Free Republic

Irregular warfare offers new role for propeller driven aircraft By Stephen Trimble Bringing back the propeller-driven fighter in the age of counterinsurgency may seem to some a belated no-brainer or to others a wasteful diversion with potentially suicidal risk to the pilot. As late as early 2008, the leadership of the US Air Force sided firmly with the sceptics. Lt Gen Donald Hoffman, then the USAF's top-ranking acquisition official, implied to a group of reporters in April of that year that the idea of deploying propeller-driven aircraft in modern combat is too risky. "We can rebuild the [North American] P-51...

Note: The following text is a quote: Mullen Stresses Precision, Innovation to Graduates By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service FORT LESLEY J. MCNAIR, Washington, D.C., June 10, 2010 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today told graduates of the National Defense University here that their careers will be dominated by their understanding of the precise application of military force and national power. NDU’s National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces graduated 603 people from the armed services, civilian agencies and many foreign countries. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and King Abdullah of...

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead has signed off on the Navy’s “Vision for Confronting Irregular Challenges.” The Navy will buy ships and aircraft that provide “broadened” and “balanced” capabilities to deal with a range of irregular opponents, including pirates, terrorists, criminal organizations, insurgents and other state and non-state actors, the document says. By “balancing shifts in our investments” the service will better address and incorporate “urgent and emerging requirements” to confront the “hybrid nature” of future challenges. It emphasizes buying " ships and aircraft,” oriented to “lower end operations,” such as Littoral Combat Ship mission modules, Riverine squadrons...

Beyond the Unconventional. The Pentagon has decided on a name for the kind of war we have to be prepared to fight in decades to come. Unconventional? No. A couple of generations ago, the clash of national armies following the rules of the Hague and Geneva Conventions was called conventional war, as against a more terrifying unconventional war, which meant “nuclear” for a time; then that meaning changed to denote “special operations.” Any terminology now rooted in convention would be confusing. Asymmetrical? The meaning of that adjective is “unbalanced,” which carries the wrong connotation; besides, the term has been taken...