Dinosaurs Leave Iraq

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the Pentagon has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, I’ve decided to give ya’ll an unhappycamper summary of the article and a link to the OP. To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.

To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

I didn't realize that the Pentagon/MIC could restrict my First Amendment rights as well as morph the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107 with zero, zip, nada Congressional approval. (NOTE: I am going to revise the preceding sentence.) It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.[br />
unhappycamper summary of this article: I flew to Turkey for a NATO assignment in 1964. I guess we got our money's worth from Boeing for a change.



The Air Force has 17 E-8Cs, which were first used in combat during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/08/airforce-joint-stars-in-iraq-083110w/

[zipplewrath]

1. Replacement for the AWACS

I don't think they officially list them this way, but the JSTARS is basically the modern AWACS. And they were pulled out of development for deployment to Iraq in '91, and afterwards brought back to finish their development. They actually got to fold in some improvements from what they learned while in service. I do wonder if they are working on a replacement/upgrade for the aircraft.

[unhappycamper]

2. Of course they are.

Why else would the MIC put out a press release?

I would expect to see some rumbles about the urgent requirement to upgrade our 50 year old JSTARS aircraft, followed by an RFP later this year.

[zipplewrath]

3. That would be the normal pattern

I think we might all need to get used to a new pattern though, no less predatory. There is a very real case that everything we have been using for the last 9 years is worn out. These systems weren't designed for this many duty cycles. Alot of equipment will need to be replaced. There will be a competition between replacing them with existing designs (that have many obsolete parts) or creating new, more modern designs.

The option that won't be considered, unfortunately, is replacing them with simpler systems based upon the real demands of their previous deployments. And there should be serious consideration given to making them extremely cheap, and larger in numbers, so that when we do wander into these pointless and endless wars, we have sufficient assets to actually sustain our capabilities without wearing out the entire inventory.