Pentagon cuts programs, including F-22

That's just the nature of War Nerd. It's wrong to think that he sees no value in the lives of military people. He sees no value in the lives of any people. That's why we love him so.

But he certainly had lots of technical problems in this article. I would read it more as a description of the kinds of conflict he thinks are more beneficial to the American empire than an article on the technical merits of certain bits of equipment.

He doesn't have a beef against the Navy. He has a beef against carriers. He thinks that in any real conflict the enemy will quickly turn them into very very expensive coral reefs. War Nerd generally prizes cheap quantity over expensive quality.

I'll agree with this. Lots of people knock the Super Bug's performance in many aspects, but I will always pick a plane with F-18's reliability and ease of maintenance over anything else. A plane stuck in a hanger doesn't help anyone.

I don't know how anybody can call themselves the war nerd and get that much wrong.
I mean... to not even know that USN, USAF, and USMC all have helos and fixed-wing.
FFS... I knew that as a child playing with micro machines and matchbox-car-sized F111s.

One could say that's exactly why we need the F18 -- to allow us to keep projecting our force onto far away shores. That's why it's important to have strike-first capability and the best reconnaissance.
In a "real war", people aren't going to just hand over airfields in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Doha, etc. for USAF to operate out of at their leisure.

I'd love to hear his opinion on Amphibious Assault Ships (mini carriers acting as helo/harrier/soon-to-be-VSTOL-F35 platforms), seeing as how those units were prioritized to receive V22s first and one of the biggest driving reasons to get them: they can also act as SAR at sea and greatly increase the mobility, range, carrying capacity, and capability of MEUs and prospective MEBs to drop Marines in.

He's the opposite of most war nerds, who know the technical features of weapon systems but don't know anything about how they are actually deployed. He has interesting ideas about grand strategy. I wouldn't dismiss him just because of this article.

But can that force be projected far enough so that anti-ship missiles or subs can't reach the carrier? Whenever we do war games against the latest generation of non-nuclear subs, it always ends up very badly for the carrier.

Well they were always a package deal, weren't they? The new amphibious ships were designed to be used further from shore, and the V-22 was a vital part of that strategy. That's why during the Osprey's teething problems when the opponents wanted to switch to buying new helicopters, the Marines said absolutely no. It would mean rethinking the ships and the strategy.

The point is that these are used in different kinds of war. You use the Marines against places utterly incapable of hurting the ships. Carriers can be useful there, but they are mostly built for a kind of war they might not actually be good at.

All of this F-22 VS F/A-18 discussion is fine, but the writing is on the wall: UAVs are the future.

They're cheaper, easier to upgrade, and you take the carbon-based life form out of the danger area.

I would imagine that UAVs will soon have performance envelopes the human body couldnt endure as well. War Nerd hates carriers as WW2 technology sure to be crushed by new tactics. Carriers have no defense for ballistic missile attack. If it develops that their mission is to defend themselves they can do that best in Jacksonville.

The USS Iwo Jima was commission in the early 60s. I know this because I spent 18 months in a barracks named after it. They really don't have anything to do with the V22 itself. We've been using helos off them for decades; the V22 increases the range and efficiency of these platforms but it's not a be-all-end-all.
The same can be said of the F35 replacing Harriers on MEUs. The F35 will be infinitely more reliable and capable than the ever-failing grounded AV8Bs. But MEUs today (and for decades) still operate effectively without the F35.

I don't think they are built for different wars. I mean, yes -- MEUs today are not operating the same kind of capacity as a Carrier task force. But in a real world a MEB, MAGTF, or even a whole MEF would use Amphibious Assault Ships to project Marines into combat and, for instance, take Airfields for the USAF to use. Any weakness a carrier has against subs, you can be sure an Amphibious Assault Ship has.
Without that projection, and with no air superiority the success rate of such missions drops tremendously. I assume this is why Carriers travel in a task force -- one that, presumably, includes anti-sub capabilities (those quite possibly being subs themselves.)

Despite the name of this thread, we have not been discussing the F22 at all. We've been discussing the V22 Osprey vs. the F18.

The F22 is obviously a more updated aircraft than the 18, but it serves an entirely different role and is not carrier-capable. The F35 will be an upgrade on F18s and Harriers for USN and USMC, and F16s for the USAF.

Except that isn't their mission. Their mission is to project air power because -- in a real war -- nobody is going to hand over air bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, or Doha for the USAF to operate out of at their leisure.

BTW, exactly what defense are you hoping a forward air base has against a ballistic missile? I can tell you from being in a MACS for 5 years that anti-ballistic missiles were a massive failure in every wargame.

I know all that. But it still applies. Perhaps not for the V-22, but for strike A/C, the trend is to UAVs.

Of course there have been helicopter carriers in use for decades. The point is that there is a new generation of such ships being designed and built, and they are being done so specifically with the V-22 in mind to carry out a new type of strategy - one where the ships are 400 miles off shore instead of 200 and the Marines are able to deploy and remain in supply at a higher rate and with fewer needs from nations bordering the one where the Marines are being sent to.

But the point is that the Amphibious Assault Ship isn't used in cases where we are facing an enemy with subs - it is used in cases where the local population decides they no longer want to grow bananas for us and revolt, requiring us to come in an beat heads. Carriers might be useful in those cases, but that isn't their main mission. When we were attacking Iraq or even during the Vietnam conflict most of our carriers were not where the fighting was.

The modern generation of non-nuclear subs are extremely effective and extremely stealthy.

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=64708

I don't know about that, they just built a new class not so long ago and are now building the America class for F35. MV22s started replacing CH46s on MEUs years ago. And MEUs were already designed to be self-sustainable for 90 days.

Right now that's what it's used for.
In "Real War", they'd be used for... an Amphibious Assault. One of which the first targets is almost guaranteed to be an airfield.
They're just as likely to face subs in a "real war" as aircraft carriers...

Yes, when we are fighting land-locked opponents and/or opponents with no Navy, and places like Doha hand the USAF airfields... carriers aren't a huge asset. But now we're talking about ops where conventional warfare isn't the main issue... which is odd, because you were talking about subs a second ago.

I don't doubt it. Why do you think I suggested the best anti-sub mechanisms are probably ... subs?
It also doesn't change the fact that our entire conventional war strategy is built around air superiority and air transportation. Carriers (and by extension Amphibious Assault Ships) are a necessity in that situation.