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> why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? The priorities aka politics of each military branch are diff

> why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? The priorities aka politics of each military branch are different. Canonical example: At Guadalcanal in WW2, the Navy was supposed to land supplies and support the Marines, but when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left - with most supplies still aboard. The Marines are still mad about that 75 years later. In more recent times, the problem is that the Air Force doesn't want to fly low and risk AF pilots - ie. provide CAS. And the F35 is the worst at CAS - high, fast and expensive with no loiter time.

nradov 7y ago
This is also one of the main reasons why the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) program ended up as such an expensive mess. The Marines insisted on getting their own VSTOL variant to provide CAS from amphibious ships so that they wouldn't have to rely on the Navy. And that forced the use of a huge single engine instead of smaller twin engines, making it less aerodynamic (shorter range) and less survivable for other missions. Designing and testing the VSTOL capabilities drove up development costs tremendously and delayed the entire program for years.
- greedo 7y ago
  Funny thing. Those F-35Bs fly off Navy ships. Marines have always relied on the Navy.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Initially, sure, just like they rely on the ships to get them to the beach. Early priority is often to seize an airfield, though. F-35Bs can happily fly off a land field.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      They can but why sacrifice fuel and weapons capacity for a VTOL engine you don’t need in that case? Once the airfield is captured you would want to immediately swap out those B’s for A’s. They are the wrong tool for operating from an airfield.
- potta_coffee 7y ago
  I don't think this was about "not relying on the Navy". The Marines have built an entire doctrine around the MEUs (Marine Expeditionary Unit) and the amphibious assault carriers are central to it. Who do you think the ships belong to?
  - frank2 7y ago
    I think you are agreeing with GP: the Marines have their own carriers, which they call amphibious assault ships, so they don’t have to rely on the Navy’s carriers the next time the Marines get pinned down like they did at Guadalcanal.
    - cstross 7y ago
      As a reminder? Those Marine "amphibious assault ships" are larger than the carriers operated by most other navies. (Russia, China, and India each have one carrier that's larger than an America-class; the UK has two. The USMC, in contrast, has nine (Wasp class and America class), to the USN's 11 regular CATOBAR-equipped carriers. Seriously, the world's second-largest carrier fleet, after the USN, is operated by the USMC, and it's bigger than everyone else's carrier fleet combined. (Speaking as a Brit, this is just crazy stuff.)
      - greedo 7y ago
        Not to be further pedantic, but in no way does the USMC operate these carriers. They are USN ships through and through. The Marine Corps is a part of the Navy, as much as they'd like to think of themselves as an independent branch.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>And the F35 is the worst at CAS - high, fast and expensive with no loiter time. True, but it's there quick (compared to the A10, C130 and any helicopter) which counts for a ton. Nobody ever called for air support and didn't need it now.
- masklinn 7y ago
  Being there quick is not useful when you do nothing of value and leave immediately though.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Experience gained in the last 20yr in the middle east (Afghanistan in particular) indicates that what we traditionally consider "fighter" type aircraft are capable of delivering various guided munitions with sufficient accuracy and that time to location is highly important. Having dedicated CAS aircraft is nice and it's probably wise to keep something of that nature in service at all time but it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness. Edit: You people (you know who you are) seem hellbent on interpreting what I have to say as being a much stronger statement than I am making. I am saying that aircraft like the F35 can do the job and that there are some pros to having those kind of aircraft do the job (namely speed). I am not saying they are better than a purpose built aircraft.
    - dmos62 7y ago
      > it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness. I would say it is foolish to make such a broad generalization like that a plane being new and designated multirole is enough for it to fill all CAS roles (there's more than 1 type of CAS mission) "with reasonable effectiveness". In the case of F-35 replacing A-10, we know that it won't be able to fill some of those roles.
    - redis_mlc 7y ago
      You're wrong on several points. The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good. And the F35 has such a small production run that the Air Force would run out in months. Which they won't do for another agency for CAS. In Vietnam we learned that having airplanes in-theater are much, much cheaper to operate than carrier and remote-based aircraft that take multiple refuelings to arrive on target. For those not familiar with high-performance figher/bomber jets, they have to be refueled immediately after carrier launch and typically at least one more time after that before a bombing run. It's ridiculous, and exposes the tankers to risk.
dmos62 7y ago
> when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left I'm not even an amateur pacific theater historian, but I know that this story is more nuanced than that, and your implication that the Navy didn't cooperate sounds naive. It's true that the US armed forces suffer from high division. My canonical example is the retirement of A-10 in favor of F-35.
- csours 7y ago
  Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. We are largely the stories we tell ourselves. One of the stories that Marines tell is that they hold fast where others retreat. Semper Fidelis. I can hold a nuanced view and still understand their viewpoint. (I am not a Marine, but I did just read Lewis (Chesty) B Puller's biography)
  - arkades 7y ago
    The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”
    - akiselev 7y ago
      Those Marines on the beach didn't just all die there. Many survived and worked up the Marine Corps ranks to become generals, left to join defense contractors, and became politicians, all of whom had influence over how the armed forces are structured. Assuming past experiences effect a person's point of view and future actions, and that society's institutions aren't created, nor operate, in a vacuum: how is their experience irrelevant?
    - danso 7y ago

nradov 7y ago

This is also one of the main reasons why the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) program ended up as such an expensive mess. The Marines insisted on getting their own VSTOL variant to provide CAS from amphibious ships so that they wouldn't have to rely on the Navy. And that forced the use of a huge single engine instead of smaller twin engines, making it less aerodynamic (shorter range) and less survivable for other missions. Designing and testing the VSTOL capabilities drove up development costs tremendously and delayed the entire program for years.

greedo 7y ago
Funny thing. Those F-35Bs fly off Navy ships. Marines have always relied on the Navy.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Initially, sure, just like they rely on the ships to get them to the beach. Early priority is often to seize an airfield, though. F-35Bs can happily fly off a land field.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    They can but why sacrifice fuel and weapons capacity for a VTOL engine you don’t need in that case? Once the airfield is captured you would want to immediately swap out those B’s for A’s. They are the wrong tool for operating from an airfield.
potta_coffee 7y ago
I don't think this was about "not relying on the Navy". The Marines have built an entire doctrine around the MEUs (Marine Expeditionary Unit) and the amphibious assault carriers are central to it. Who do you think the ships belong to?
- frank2 7y ago
  I think you are agreeing with GP: the Marines have their own carriers, which they call amphibious assault ships, so they don’t have to rely on the Navy’s carriers the next time the Marines get pinned down like they did at Guadalcanal.
  - cstross 7y ago
    As a reminder? Those Marine "amphibious assault ships" are larger than the carriers operated by most other navies. (Russia, China, and India each have one carrier that's larger than an America-class; the UK has two. The USMC, in contrast, has nine (Wasp class and America class), to the USN's 11 regular CATOBAR-equipped carriers. Seriously, the world's second-largest carrier fleet, after the USN, is operated by the USMC, and it's bigger than everyone else's carrier fleet combined. (Speaking as a Brit, this is just crazy stuff.)
    - greedo 7y ago
      Not to be further pedantic, but in no way does the USMC operate these carriers. They are USN ships through and through. The Marine Corps is a part of the Navy, as much as they'd like to think of themselves as an independent branch.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>And the F35 is the worst at CAS - high, fast and expensive with no loiter time. True, but it's there quick (compared to the A10, C130 and any helicopter) which counts for a ton. Nobody ever called for air support and didn't need it now.

masklinn 7y ago
Being there quick is not useful when you do nothing of value and leave immediately though.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Experience gained in the last 20yr in the middle east (Afghanistan in particular) indicates that what we traditionally consider "fighter" type aircraft are capable of delivering various guided munitions with sufficient accuracy and that time to location is highly important. Having dedicated CAS aircraft is nice and it's probably wise to keep something of that nature in service at all time but it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness. Edit: You people (you know who you are) seem hellbent on interpreting what I have to say as being a much stronger statement than I am making. I am saying that aircraft like the F35 can do the job and that there are some pros to having those kind of aircraft do the job (namely speed). I am not saying they are better than a purpose built aircraft.
  - dmos62 7y ago
    > it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness. I would say it is foolish to make such a broad generalization like that a plane being new and designated multirole is enough for it to fill all CAS roles (there's more than 1 type of CAS mission) "with reasonable effectiveness". In the case of F-35 replacing A-10, we know that it won't be able to fill some of those roles.
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    You're wrong on several points. The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good. And the F35 has such a small production run that the Air Force would run out in months. Which they won't do for another agency for CAS. In Vietnam we learned that having airplanes in-theater are much, much cheaper to operate than carrier and remote-based aircraft that take multiple refuelings to arrive on target. For those not familiar with high-performance figher/bomber jets, they have to be refueled immediately after carrier launch and typically at least one more time after that before a bombing run. It's ridiculous, and exposes the tankers to risk.

dmos62 7y ago

> when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left I'm not even an amateur pacific theater historian, but I know that this story is more nuanced than that, and your implication that the Navy didn't cooperate sounds naive. It's true that the US armed forces suffer from high division. My canonical example is the retirement of A-10 in favor of F-35.

csours 7y ago
Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. We are largely the stories we tell ourselves. One of the stories that Marines tell is that they hold fast where others retreat. Semper Fidelis. I can hold a nuanced view and still understand their viewpoint. (I am not a Marine, but I did just read Lewis (Chesty) B Puller's biography)
- arkades 7y ago
  The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”
  - akiselev 7y ago
    Those Marines on the beach didn't just all die there. Many survived and worked up the Marine Corps ranks to become generals, left to join defense contractors, and became politicians, all of whom had influence over how the armed forces are structured. Assuming past experiences effect a person's point of view and future actions, and that society's institutions aren't created, nor operate, in a vacuum: how is their experience irrelevant?
  - danso 7y ago