Red Wine with fowl try lobster and crustaceans at the Airmens Mess
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Originally Posted by
Valin
That's why I joined the Air Force. Although there were times when the cooks served red wine with fowl....yet somehow we managed to survive. :D
The catering officer at RAAF Base Tindal (Think Nellis without Las Vegas or an Alaska town in the desert) used to hold back a little of the daily mess budget for a once a month big lunchtime spread. It worked out to more than one lobster be person, not counting prawns, oysters, balmain bugs, hot scallops etc per person. The army engineers who had just spent two months in the bush eating ration packs were speechless, when they came in for lunch before flying back 'down south'. We just told them this was the normal spread for lunch. Best base I ever ate at followed by Darwin. Memories......
Every conflict is relatively static for foot infantry...that still weigh a lot
A primary tilt rotor weakness, aside from cost/complexity, is lack of hover maneuverability and lift. Wilf’s RUSI reference at the bottom of page 2 has a footnote showing:
“A UH-60L helicopter can lift (fuel and useful load) over 5,600lbs at a takeoff altitude of 10,000 feet versus only some 2800lbs of equivalent load for the V-22 Osprey. The UH-60L can also carry 3000lbs of useful load at this altitude to some 250 nautical miles, a feat unmatched by the V-22.”
In addition, the hover-out-of-ground-effect ceiling (required for sling loads and hover maneuver well off the ground) is just 5400’ for MV-22 which isn’t particularly helpful in places like Afghanistan. For a UH-60M at ¼ the cost, it is a higher 6,000’. I'm also wondering why the 82nd CAB Army helicopters were used to air assault Marines into low altitude Marjah instead of MV-22. LZ size? Night LZ brown-out concerns? Are MV-22s well suited for desert landings at night given their tremendous downforce in a small disc-loading area?
The other point about the MV-22 is that most Army and Marine AOs are not so large that tilt rotor speed and range are essential. This is especially true when all you can carry with an MV-22 is foot infantry and a few growlers. There is little difference in times between a helicopter and tilt rotor flying from airfields to Now Zad or Marjah LZs. While tilt rotor advocates like to talk nautical miles, fighting AOs often involve lesser kilometer distances.
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Originally Posted by
Rifleman
I think tilt rotor technology has promise. Remember Operation Rhino? The raid force from 3d Ranger Battalion was inserted by parachute and withdrawn by helicopter. That works but it's an extra link in the plan.
With tilt rotors the drop aircraft could also be the extraction aircraft for parachute raids. At least sometimes. I know it's not the answer for every situation but it has application for some.
Good point. There are contingencies where ship-to-AOR distance is extensive, as COMMAR points out. But if Wikipedia is correct, at Rhino, 200 Rangers parachuted from 4 MC-130s. Not sure room exists in a MV-22 for 20 paratroopers. Even if so, 10 tilt rotors would be required to match 4 MC-130 that have better jammers, terrain-following radar, etc.
Wikipedia also mentions that CH-53Es moved Marines to Rhino 372nm through Pakistan using aerial refueling. That, too, could have been a good MV-22 mission accomplished in only 1.5 hours. But MV-22s did not exist then, so the cited four CH-53E must have carried the Marines in around 3 hours, and other Cobras, Hueys, and CH-46 from several different landing ships used an en route FARP probably requiring 4 hours. However, C-17s and KC-130 moved the rest and tilt rotors would never substitute for that kind of extensive continuous lift.
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Originally Posted by
COMMAR
The USMC has a Vertical-Lift package that utilizes the V-22 not only as a Medium Lift Asset but as a intra-theater High Speed Connector, the CH-53 for Heavy Lift, & a Light/Medium Lift Cargo UAS, Greatly Reducing the Foot Print at the Coy-MAGTF Level.
What Helo only Package allows the USMC to act in their Expeditionary Role as efficiently?
But as pointed out in my last sentence (above your quote) about the Rhino Marine expeditionary assault, intratheater high speed lift will always be primarily a large USAF C-17 and C-130/KC-130 function.
Plus, I've read that a San Antonio Class LPD can launch four helicopters or just two MV-22 from its open deck area...meaning an equal 40 Marines get to shore initially, and with H-60s another three aircraft could be moved out from inside the hangar area...which I believe holds just one MV-22.
So that suggests the Marines would be better off to station more numerous helicopters on LPDs and fly MV-22s in from centralized land locations in CENTCOM, PACOM, etc. rather than putting them on boats where maintenance for the few carried is still complex, time-consuming, and underresourced. That way a smaller total procured quantity of MV-22s could be maintained together at primary theater land bases while still able to support intratheater contingencies due to their speed/range. Helicopters would commence the air assault from on board LPDs, with MV-22 linking up just in time to pick up and move troops off now empty decks. Best of both worlds.