3 ms·
The Air Force doesn't do close air support. (They barely want to do air superiority. No, really, check out the history of the AAF going into WWII and B-36 in Ko
by mcguire 7y ago
The Air Force doesn't do close air support. (They barely want to do air superiority. No, really, check out the history of the AAF going into WWII and B-36 in Korea.)
The Navy can do close air support, but likes to keep its planes on its ships rather than forward deployed where the Marines need them.
The Army uses helicopters for close air support to get around the Air Force, but those have the problem of loiter time.
If you did manage to bludgeon the Air Force into handling air support, those units would have to be so tightly tied to the Marines and Army that their careers would be compromised in the Air Force.
- jonstewart 7y agoOur services could use some bludgeoning to work better together. There’s no question that CAS is an important mission. Providing it with F-18s and F-35s through an underresourced mini-air force within the USMC seems kind of dumb. Give the USMC drones to handle some basic missions, make USAF provide CAS, and use a more diverse, cheaper, and specialized set of platforms.