The debate over the F-35 is starting to spiral out of control. Want proof? Read the entire article but check out this blurb from National Defense....
Tactical aviation is the Marine Corps’ top modernization priority, Dunford said Dec. 7. “We haven’t bought new airplanes in a decade,” he said.I get the advocacy for the F-35. But the thought that the Marine Corps is nothing without it is beyond annoying.
The unprecedented involvement of the highest ranked Marine in a weapons acquisition program is proof that the stakes in F-35B — a fighter/bomber aircraft that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter — have become too high to leave anything to chance.
“Losing the F-35B would really collapse the entire structure of the Marine Corps,” said Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security analyst at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute.
The bottom line is that without F-35B, Marine aviation operations would be reduced to just helicopters. “They would become a consumer of other people’s firepower rather than a producer of firepower,” Donnelly said Dec. 7 at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum, in Washington, D.C.
Donnelly defended the Marines’ all-in strategy to ensure the aircraft survives both technical and budgetary challenges. A Pentagon budget crunch currently threatens the entire Joint Strike Fighter program — which also includes Air Force and Navy variants.
Marines should go even further in their advocacy of F-35B and make a case that Marine aviation can at times be more valuable than Navy carrier-based aviation, said Donnelly. “A large-deck amphibious ship with 30 stealthy jump jets may be more productive and capable in some cases than a large-deck Navy aircraft carrier with 60 F/A-18s,” he said. “That’s something that we should think about.”
Its obscene.
I want the airplane. I believe we need the airplane. But if we don't get it then we'll figure out another way.
That's what the Marine Corps is all about. I said in an earlier post that the Program Manager said in Grunt talk that the F-35 was fucked up beyond belief and that it needed to be sorted out and get its bearings before marching on.
Seems like HQMC needs to do the same. The only weapon system that identifies the Marine Corps is the Rifleman. Everything else is just a tool to achieve the mission.
NOTE:
Marine Air...God love ya, but to say they haven't bought a new airplane in a decade is a bit of a farce. We still have Marines getting the job done in AAV's that were first designed in the 70's. How about a little love for the ground side?