I wouldn’t think having an academy makes the USCG superior to the UMSC.

Another good case as the USMC and the USN both attend the US Naval Academy.:cool:

I have a sneaking suspicion that the tightar$e Marines attend Annapolis because that way they don’t have to pay for an academy of their own. They do like to milk their dollars right out.

I wouldn’t.

The point was raised that the USMC wasn’t the equal to the other branches of the US Armed forces because it didn’t have an academy, and even the Coast Guard has an academy which by some sort of extension makes the Marines not the equal of the Coast Guard. Well, that’s how I read it anyway.

BTW, I’m not a Marine, or even an American, although I did get blind drunk with a bunch of Marines in Phuket last year which was good fun.

The USMC does have an Military Academy. It’s called the US Naval Academy.

Actually, officer-candidates from both the US Naval Academy (Annapolis) and the US Military Academy (West Point) can, upon graduation, choose to receive their commissions as Marine Corps officers.

Most of those who desire to become infantry/artillery/ground combat specialist Marine Corps officers usually attend West Point, while those who desire to become pilots/aviation maintenance/supply Marine Corps officers usually attend Annapolis.

Officer-candidates attending the US Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs) also have the option of receiving their commission in the USN, USMC, or USA instead of the USAF!

To be honest Bager that wasnt the first problem I’d have anticipated. I think the USN is too wedded to the ‘big deck’ concept to let go easily. You would have to recognise that the trust element would be a factor in that, of course, as the build of the ‘New Midways’ would naturally span a good few administrations.
…..
First would be manpower…currently the plan seems to be 3 Fords and 8 Nimitz (assuming Nimitz and Ike are replaced by the 2nd and 3rd Fords). In simplified manpower terms then you have about 13000 for the Fords and 44000 or so for the older boats for about 57k total. Move to the Fords with 15 of the CVN-M’s and its 13k plus 30k….43k all told. An immediate 20% decrease in manpower with, arguably, a gain in deployable combat power.

Then you look at the industrial dimension. Two factors present themselves – a) CVN77 has about 40yrs to run given the rough lifespan of a Nimitz CVN and b) the new Enterprise isnt set for launch until 2023. So there will be a span of about 30 years from the yards falling idle from the CVN80 build to the need to replace that last Nimitz. Thats a nice drumbeat of one CVN-M every two years to keep the US carrier building industry going for three decades. With the side effect that long build runs see very significant cost savings!.

So to sum up you have:

a) Increased operational flexibility and efficiency – WIN
b) Reduced manpower costs – WIN
c) Greater interoperability with allies – WIN
d) Reduced build costs from long run – WIN
e) Guaranteed work for US manufacturing – WIN

Doesnt look that it should be such a hard sell to the US administration at cursory glance!

But it should have been the first examined!
Politics drives 95% of military procurement… no matter what the services want or ask for, in the end it is what the politicians decide best fits their party positions and politically-allowable budgets that is actually bought for the military.

You are asking for 2 CVMNs to be built in the same time as 1 CVN… the shipyard could deliver, but the voters would not go for increasing the size of the fleet in this time of budget crises.

That the CVMN cost less than a CVN* would be irrelevant… all most voters and politicians see is the “total in the fleet”… and to them you want to expand the fleet to a larger size than even Reagan’s never-reached end-goal of 16 total carriers!

* likely it would cost ~75% or more of a Ford-class… half the reactor cost (1 vs 2) and ~65% of the steel cost (a very small part of the total), but nearly 100% of the cost of the rest of the systems, as most of the expensive systems are “per ship” without regard to the size of the ship.

What about the 8+8 force structure I suggested earlier (you can argue that based on how many ships you need to keep 1 on station: 8+8 gives you 2 fullsize CVNs and 2 smaller cousings on station at a given time)

The answer is the same as above… what the politicians and voters believe and see is all that counts in the end.

Besides, to increase the total numbers of carriers from the current 11 authorized to 16-18 would require increasing the numbers of destroyers and other escort/support ships… which would eat up a lot (actually, likely all and then some above that) of the “savings” from reduced ship-build cost and carrier manpower reductions.

Just to clarify by ‘smaller deck’ I’m thinking of something very similar to PA-DSX size – 290m or so, 65k tons, 2000 crew hard limit, nuke plant out of the Fords for 2 manned FJ sqdns, an E-2 det, Growler det and a dozen or more UCLASS. Built as 5 replace 3 Nimitz….ultimate carrier force then 2-3 Fords and 15 65k tonner ‘medium carriers’.

Com on, Jonsey… you know very well that, barring a complete reversal of current trends (likely involving a full-on “USA vs USSR”-style cold war between the US & China), that the ONLY thing building 65kt full-on carriers would get the USN is a 1-for-1 replacement of Nimitz-class CVNs with the new “more economically-reasonable” “nuclear-powered Midways”.

Your force structure would actually be 2-3 100kt Fords and 9-8 65kt “CVMNs”.

Does anyone understand the rationale behind the USMC requiring 340 F35Bs when the fleet of LHD/A’s to operate them from is only about 10, with a compliment of 6 F35B’s per amphib the total deployable, assuming all ships are available is c 60, what are they planning to do with the other 280?
Or was the order put in before the refocus of the USMC away from being a second army, with lots of austere bases when on ops etc?

The original USMC requirement was for 650 F-35Bs. Is a good indication of just how out of touch with reality the program has been from the very beginning. :p

That number represented a 1-for-1 replacement of both the USMC’s “fighter-attack” aircraft.

Yes, at the time 650 was the target the USMC had that many F/A-18 A/C/D Hornets and AV-8B/B+ Harriers! The original plan was for the USMC to operate only 1 F-35 model, to reduce training/maintenance/operational differences.

The reduced buy of 420 (340 -B & 80 -Cs) reflects both the REDUCTION in the numbers of USMC fighter/attack squadrons over the last 10+ years, and the USMC’s concession to the USN’s inability to fully staff its carrier air wings.

Note that the F-15SE (yes, Silent Eagle) FMS notification does not include the actual airframes (those are covered by a direct “Boeing>SK” sale), nor the engines.

And that the F-15SE sale piggybacks on the already in-place F-15 support, maintenance, supply, & training infrastructure… thus avoiding significant costs that ARE part of the F-35 FMS notification price!

So even if the airframes & engines for the F-15SE were included the prices STILL would NOT cover the same items!

Example please.

Moggy

I mentioned one in my post #7 above.

Specifically, entering B-17 “All American” (414th Squadron, 97BG) into the search engine returns the following:

The following errors occurred with your search:

1. Sorry – no matches. Please try some different terms.

This despite that being the exact title of this thread: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1994198#post1994198

This occurs whether “search titles only” or “search entire posts” is selected.

Just entering B-17 “All American” likewise fails to locate that or any other thread on this aircraft.

{edit: Ah… I see, you put up that sticky on 24 October 2012… AFTER my failure on 19 October 2012… I thought you were referring to the earlier instructions on using the forum search function, such as those in the FAQ.

In effect, you repeated my advice of 19 October 2012 to use Google search instead of the forum search function.}

Where do you put the “Asian Tigers” you left out… Japan, South Korea, Singapore, & Taiwan?

Or for that matter, Brazil?

All have (or are expanding to) over 100 fighter jets, most of which are at or near the best around… and all except Singapore have or are building their opwn jets (at least in part)!