Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: tdrinkar@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu (Terrell Drinkard) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Military Cuts Message-ID: <12757@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 4 Jan 90 04:24:43 GMT References: <12686@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo Lines: 77 Approved: military@att.att.com From: tdrinkar@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu (Terrell Drinkard) In article <12686@cbnews.ATT.COM> randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) writes: > > >From: randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) >Whether or not you think there should be cuts in military spending, surely >everyone will agree that there are programs that provide less "bang" per >"buck" that we really want. So my question becomes, what do you think they >are? > >Here is an personal example. The U.S. Army still has more than 100 OV-1's, and >the Marines have many OV-10's. These are light turbo-prop aircraft used for >battlefield recon. I wonder how long they would live in a world filled with >sholder launched SAM's. Also, there function can be filled by helicopter, >which has tha added advantage of being able to hide behind trees. I would point out in these days of budget restraint that it costs about $1100/hr to operate a UH-1. The OV-1/10 class aircraft can operate for roughly 1/9 the cost per hour. I would also point out that the UH-1s tubine engines just as the OV-1/10s do. >P.S. If it were up to me, I would cut Army "heavy" divisions and strategic >weapons first, and *NOT* air-mobile and naval forces. What do yall think >on this? Strategic weapons? What strategic weapons? Only the Air Force has Strategic weapons. The Army *had* an IRBM (the Pershing) but it was sacrificed for world peace in the INF treaty (rightly so, IMHO). I would also be interested in your reasoning for disbanding a 'heavy' division. I'd also like to hear what a 'heavy ' division is. If you mean armor, then I submit that this is a foolish whim and that the US would be better served by disbanding B-52 wings. We might also do well by considering whether or not we really *need* 17 attack aircraft carriers (that was Reagan's touted goal, I'm unaware of how successful we've been in stopping that nonesense) and assorted numbers of nuclear missile boats. The Air Force has been incredibly successful in avoiding the purchase of appropriate logistics aircraft so that they could afford larger numbers of B-2 bombers and F-117 fighters (which so ably demonstrated precision vacant lot bombing in Panama :-) with which their officers could fly very fast and make rank quickly. Now, I love airplanes. I'm an aeronautical engineer. But there must come a time when we need to look at what we are spending our money on and the results we get from it. The US is looking at a long period of low-intensity warfare where it will be more important to be able to air-move a division or a brigade quickly than to bomb Moscow. The Air Force has not had the neccessary cargo aircraft to perform this kind of mission since WWII. They have consistently sold the Congress a line that goes "We have all the logistics aircraft we need to perform our mission, but we another wing of F-16s just in case the Albanians break through Greece with MiG-31s". In case you hadn't guessed, I'm not convinced. As a side-note, retiring the A-10 is not a good idea IMHO. Replacing it with the F-16 is ludicrous. Terry >-- >_______________________________________________________________________________ >"Tiger gotta hunt, bird gotta fly, man gotta sit, sit and wonder why. > Tiger gotta sleep, bird gotta land, man gotta tell himself that he understand" >-Bokonon [Address:Randy@ms.uky.edu] Disclaimer et la Signaturo: Hell no, I'm not responsible for what I say! If everyone were responsible for what they said, we'd have had a balanced budget in 1984.