If so, I would not be much astonished to see the Corps saying goodbye
to their F/A-18s earlier than doing the same with Harriers they're in
a better control of...

Sad to hear that... Now planes from the carrier flying five-plus-hours
XCAS missions, with not fewer than three refuelings and some (I
believe not much) loiter time "in the box", and it is all for
nothing?...

On the other hand, an aircraft carrier is a nice tool to deliver some
Marine TACAIR to a base ashore (if available) when something happens
in the region given, especially when Marine units are better suited/
trained to fulfill the task. I have heard such a practice (of having
several birds rotating at not-fully-equipped land airfield and fully
maintained on the Boat) was positively tested recent years.

Best regards,
Jacek


On 23 Cze, 17:08, "Arved Sandstrom" wrote:
The Navy has noticed - so has the Marine Corps - that if you want very short
response times for CAS, going into places like Iraq and Afghanistan, you
aren't going to ship-base anyway. When we handled AV-8's in Camp Lejeune,
they routinely touched down on a main road aboard base, after they got there
from Cherry Point...little bit of training doing that, then back up in the
air to attack G-10 impact.

During GW1 Harriers and Cobras did most of the CAS and CIFS for Marines.
Close to 70 Harriers actually operated from airbases on land, and they were
closer to Iraq than any carrier air. Only 20 Harriers were at sea. The
average turnaround for the land-based planes was about 25 minutes.

Considering that I was in one of the first planned assault waves for more
than one Kuwait landing, I got a warm fuzzy from seeing a mean AH-1 perched
on the deck. We usually had a few on USS RALEIGH.

The problem with an area like the Gulf and the North Arabian Sea is shallow
water and Iran. You just are not going to want to get that close. As fast as
planes fly, CAS is no good if it takes an hour to get there. You need it in
10 minutes.

AHS