Thread: WTF was this author thinking?

Originally Posted by iLLusioN

I did know that. Same goes for the Navy. But none of you fly the C-5's, the C-130's, or the C-17's that bring over the majority of life sustaining supplies. Nor do they fly the stealth bombers which wreak havoc on enemy supply chains, Anti Armor, power plants and other strategic targets. It doesn't change my point...Air has proven to be the most important military domain since the invention of the air plane...whoever has had the more powerful air force has won nearly war(I said nearly. - there are exceptions). Or satellites for recon and data transfer. Basically each branch focuses on maintaining superiority in a battle domain(with the Corps being the exception). The AF does that in air and space....they are all working on it in cyberspace. You could just make it all one giant military...makes more sense to me to specialize branches though. All branches do a little bit of everything...the difference is what they do a lot of.

Your talking about a VGMR squadron. The Corps has 5 of those. So yes we do fly c-130's. Oh and so does the navy and the coast guard. C-5 and c-17 i dont know but im gonna go out on a limb and say a few of our pilots could figure it out. Im sure between the other 3 branches of service we could find a few to drag a stealth bomber out.

I would disagree with you on all branches do a little bit of everything but you can make the argument the AF and Navy put a couple people on the ground in a hot zone. It would be a weak argument but none the less.

Your also getting away from what i said. I did not say the ari force doesn't provide a role. I said it doesn't provide a role that could not be completed by any other branch. There is a difference in distinction there. The reason being is there main role is air support which every other branch already does on its own. I say fold it back into the army and call it a day. Plus its hard to take the name Air Force seriously when the Navy has more fighter aircraft then it does. I mean really a branch centered around boats has more fighter aircraft then the Air Force. You dont find that a bit odd?

Originally Posted by iLLusioN

PJ's? Seals? Again, the point is focus and scale. AF has 83 C-130 squadrons, 13 C-17, 9 C-5 squadrons - roughly 900 planes. The Navy, Marines, and Coast guard have roughly 120 combined. And no, I don't find the Navy having more fighters particularly odd...they create an extremely powerful strategic capability with the aircraft carriers..it makes more sense to me to have Navy flying those planes because they are trained on the short flight line, long sea voyages and whatnot.

Neither of those units are really combat troops. They have a specific job but like i said a weak argument could be made. I still dont see how you have proved my point wrong. I understand AF wanting to think they fill a special niche but really they dont. The same job can be done by every other branch and currently is being done on a large scale. Something the no other branch can say about each other in a serious way anyway. Having a few planes only in that branch doesn't make the branch special. It just means at our current status no other branch needed to buy them. Why take away the few things they have and show they have nothing special.

Dont get me wrong service is service in my book. Im talking about the branch itself not those that join it.

Originally Posted by Gumby

the Navy opposed the creation of the Air Force. Sent from my S3 using Tapatalk

I didn't know that part.

Originally Posted by Gumby

Yeah the whole thing was a major controversy. The Navy wanted to develop strategic bombers that could be launched from carriers instead. They used the Doolittle raid as an example of the possibility. They also wanted to absorb most of the Army Air Corps. Congress decided the argument.

Sent from my S3 using Tapatalk

Well in the end they really still got what they wanted.