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Old February 26th 04, 12:15 AM
Guy Alcala
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Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
(puttster) wrote:

Then let me ask why the Marines need the V/Stol capability. I cannot
get a good picture of a mission where the marines would need 400+ of
them with all the support for them but still not have a decent runway!


Why are you limiting the situation to needing 400+ at once?

The situation is more like "we need a dozen for this small brushfire war
in a place where there are no good airstrips," or we need to put a small
landing force in at this area, and the bad guys have a few planes, so we
need a little fighter cover from the LHDs."

How (why?) were their Harriers used in Iraq?


To support Marine actions on the ground, without having to go through
the other services as much. They've been flying off of the USS Bonhomme
Richard.

Overall, Iraq hasn't been a good test of what we'd need the Harrier for.


Oh, I don't know, as the marines had their Harriers turning at a FARP/FOB
during the war, and based them there after the main fighting ended. The
only other fixed-wing a/c doing this were, surprise, surprise, A-10s,
because only these a/c were capable of operating from short runways in poor
condition. Gee, seems like exactly the kind of expeditionary ops the
marines are tasked with, and oddly enough, CAS Gen. Jumper and SECAF Roche
are both supporting buying some F-35Bs for the USAF.

Guy