Why is Stealth So Important?

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 23:51:14 -0600, "Gene Storey"
wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

Yep. Lots of losses of helicopters. Lots of helicopters. Lots of
intrepid Army aviators shot down multiple times. An incredibly
hazardous mission.

So hazardous the missions were flown by Warrants:

"These commissioned warrant officers are direct representatives of
the president of the United States. They derive their authority from the
same source as commissioned officers but remain specialists, in contrast
to commissioned officers, who are generalists."

To put it nicely.


Yes, a lot of Army aviators are warrant officers. A lot are also
commissioned officers.

Yep. But the great majority of Army aviators are, and were at that time,
WO's/CWO's.


Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or the
other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the situation that
existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were indeed "just" WO's, so to
speak. A few years back the Army came up with this nifty plan to
"commission" its senior CWO's (which would I guess make your "oxymoron" a
reality) so that they could meet all of the requirements set forth for
commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it all
turned out in the end, but I *think* they made it happen. If there are any
serving CWO's out there, feel free to correct that view.


Whether or not a warrant officer is an appropriate rank for a job has
nothing at all to do with the hazard involved.

Very true.


One might want to review the ranks of the POWs in the Vietnam war to
check regarding the hazard and warrant relationship.

That would be a factor of geography more than anything else, as the WO
aviators were doing the vast majority of their flying down south where the
likelihood of becoming a POW was quite a bit less--unfortunately, the
likelihood of finding yourself *dead* was not that much different, as can be
attested by the fact that over a thousand Huey pilots died during the war.
That said, I do remember serving with one former aviator type CW4 (he had
lost his flight ticket due to medical reasons and was serving out his last
years in the maintenance arena, and helped support our construction
operation in Central America) who did indeed end the war as a POW. He had
been shot down while flying an OH-6 Loach near the DMZ, and got snagged by
the NVA and transported northward. I believe his observer/co-pilot did not
make it.

Brooks



Ed Rasimus

"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or the
other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the situation that
existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were indeed "just" WO's, so to
speak. A few years back the Army came up with this nifty plan to
"commission" its senior CWO's (which would I guess make your "oxymoron" a
reality) so that they could meet all of the requirements set forth for
commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it all
turned out in the end, but I *think* they made it happen. If there are any
serving CWO's out there, feel free to correct that view.

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1 rank is not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:

Army has WO1 - CWO4 (may have adopted CWO5 by now)

Air Force has no Warrant Officers

Navy and Marines have CWO2 - CWO5 (no longer any WO1s)

John Weiss
LCDR, USN, Ret (not a Warrant Officer)

"John R Weiss" wrote in message
news:SsUNb.70673$nt4.95664@attbi_s51...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or the
other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the situation
that
existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were indeed "just" WO's, so
to
speak. A few years back the Army came up with this nifty plan to
"commission" its senior CWO's (which would I guess make your "oxymoron"
a
reality) so that they could meet all of the requirements set forth for
commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it
all
turned out in the end, but I *think* they made it happen. If there are
any
serving CWO's out there, feel free to correct that view.

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1 rank
is not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are
Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:

Army has WO1 - CWO4 (may have adopted CWO5 by now)

The CWO-5 grade has been used in the Army since around 1999/2000.

Brooks


Air Force has no Warrant Officers

Navy and Marines have CWO2 - CWO5 (no longer any WO1s)

John Weiss
LCDR, USN, Ret (not a Warrant Officer)

From: "John R Weiss"
Date: 1/16/2004 10:39 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id: SsUNb.70673$nt4.95664@attbi_s51

"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or the
other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the situation that
existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were indeed "just" WO's, so to
speak. A few years back the Army came up with this nifty plan to
"commission" its senior CWO's (which would I guess make your "oxymoron" a
reality) so that they could meet all of the requirements set forth for
commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it
all
turned out in the end, but I *think* they made it happen. If there are any
serving CWO's out there, feel free to correct that view.

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1 rank is
not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are
Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:

Army has WO1 - CWO4 (may have adopted CWO5 by now)

Air Force has no Warrant Officers

Navy and Marines have CWO2 - CWO5 (no longer any WO1s)

John Weiss
LCDR, USN, Ret (not a Warrant Officer)


If memory serves the C in CWO is for chief. I don't believe warrants are
considered commissioned.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

B2431 wrote:
From: "John R Weiss"
Date: 1/16/2004 10:39 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id: SsUNb.70673$nt4.95664@attbi_s51

"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or
the other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the
situation that existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were
indeed "just" WO's, so to speak. A few years back the Army came up
with this nifty plan to "commission" its senior CWO's (which would
I guess make your "oxymoron" a reality) so that they could meet all
of the requirements set forth for commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ
stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it all turned out in the end,
but I *think* they made it happen. If there are any serving CWO's
out there, feel free to correct that view.

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1
rank is not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are
Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:

Army has WO1 - CWO4 (may have adopted CWO5 by now)

Air Force has no Warrant Officers

Navy and Marines have CWO2 - CWO5 (no longer any WO1s)

John Weiss
LCDR, USN, Ret (not a Warrant Officer)


If memory serves the C in CWO is for chief. I don't believe warrants
are considered commissioned.


This is a fairly recent change, but a Chief Warrant Officer is now
categorized as a "commissioned warrant officer," which is a class of officer
distinct from both "warrant officer" and "commissioned officer."

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/alma...as/officers.ht
ml

"The lowest ranking warrant officers serve under a warrant, but they receive
commissions from the president upon promotion to chief warrant officer 2.
These commissioned warrant officers are direct representatives of the
president of the United States. They derive their authority from the same
source as commissioned officers but remain specialists, in contrast to
commissioned officers, who are generalists. There are no warrant officers in
the Air Force."

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
ink.net...
B2431 wrote:
From: "John R Weiss"
Date: 1/16/2004 10:39 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id: SsUNb.70673$nt4.95664@attbi_s51

"Kevin Brooks" wrote...

Don't know the source of your quote, but it starts out with an
oxymoron, "commissioned warrant officers". They area either one or
the other.

He is probably confusing the contemporary situation with the
situation that existed in the Vietnam era, when Army WO's were
indeed "just" WO's, so to speak. A few years back the Army came up
with this nifty plan to "commission" its senior CWO's (which would
I guess make your "oxymoron" a reality) so that they could meet all
of the requirements set forth for commissioned officers (i.e., UCMJ
stuff, command, etc.)--not sure how it all turned out in the end,
but I *think* they made it happen. If there are any serving CWO's
out there, feel free to correct that view.

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1
rank is not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are
Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:

Army has WO1 - CWO4 (may have adopted CWO5 by now)

Air Force has no Warrant Officers

Navy and Marines have CWO2 - CWO5 (no longer any WO1s)

John Weiss
LCDR, USN, Ret (not a Warrant Officer)


If memory serves the C in CWO is for chief. I don't believe warrants
are considered commissioned.


This is a fairly recent change, but a Chief Warrant Officer is now
categorized as a "commissioned warrant officer," which is a class of
officer
distinct from both "warrant officer" and "commissioned officer."


http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/alma...as/officers.ht
ml

"The lowest ranking warrant officers serve under a warrant, but they
receive
commissions from the president upon promotion to chief warrant officer 2.
These commissioned warrant officers are direct representatives of the
president of the United States. They derive their authority from the same
source as commissioned officers but remain specialists, in contrast to
commissioned officers, who are generalists. There are no warrant officers
in
the Air Force."

Exactly. Thanks for the clarification, Tom.

Brooks


--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

You certainly make yourself a "moving target"--you say something
outrageous, then when it is refuted you jink into some other
preposterous assertion.

The definition of the term "outrageous" usually changes with time or better
with knowledge base,for example if you could go one century back and tell a
famous turn of the century era what you have in your household he probably had
called it a outrageous claim.
The (passive) stealth issue is probably best example,stealth proponents think
that f22 (orB2) has a bird size frontal RCS,so that they cannot be detected by
any radar at meaningful distances,while I say that f22 frontal RCS is insect
size,not bird size but it,like all other stealth platforms its very easy to
detect and track f22 at very long ranges with different radars.
The very first version of US multistatic went into service in early 1998,almost
a decade behind German version,so there is lots of room for catch up work here.

Andropov's
administration, but you overlook a lot of conflicts from 1946 onward.
Certainly the level of capability grew, but the perceived possibility
of nuclear war was present during the Berlin Crisis, the Korean War,
the Czech and Hungarian uprisings, the Cuban Missile crisis, etc. etc.
etc.

Do you think I forgat them?,during none of them including much publicized Cuban
misille crisis we were closer to nuclear war than short Andropov era,because
that was first and only time Soviet leadership was ready to say to US "Stay at
home or else"
Thanks to Mr.Philby,a top product of capitalistic west.

What you first said, when I asserted that Stealth (active or passive)
has resulted in low losses and high target success rates, was:

What active or passive stealth got to do with the extremely low
f14,15,16,Tornado,Mirage etc losses???

Now, you come back with "so what" only one F-16, no F-15s, no F-14s,
no B-2s (none participated in the Balkans,) and, of course only one
F-117. The more effective air defense of Iraq had no success against
stealthy airplanes either.


The most effective air defense US faced after Vietnam war was undoubletely
Serbian defenses,as Gen.Jumpers put out "Missions over Serbia on day 78 were as
dangerous as the missions on day 1".
Serbians wanted to conserve their limited air defense assets and did not use
use their assets agressively and US did not want to take to much risks.
This one of the main reasons why Serbian air defenses finished war almost
unstratched and US finished wae with extremely low losses.
After Balkan conflict many studies about the ineffectiveness of US SEAD efforts
have been completed.
You are wrong B2s participated in Balkan War and the events triggered by a
spoofed guided launch aganist one them caused a diplomatic crisis.

Really?


Yes

Nice editing here. The "Really?" was a follow up to your assertion
he

Air defenses,or the quality of any defense effort, could only be as good
intellectual,scientific and technological level of the people that own and use
them,as British learned it hard way during Boer War.
Iraq was and is a backward third world country whereas former Yugaslavia,though
not an advanced country by many standards,was not a backward third world
country either.
They managed to hit two f117s,whereas Iraqis, although they had better
equipment on the paper,were only capable of launching a couple radar guided
SAMs aganist them,and their guided launches were spoofrd easily.

ich of course, would lead the astute reader to question why, if the
US couldn't put out the radar eyes, they couldn't deter the attacking
aircraft? Either we did kill the radars effectively, thereby enhancing
survivability. Or, we didn't kill the radars and they continued to
operate incredibly incompetently

Almost every possible ECM asset were transferred to Balkan arena after hits on
f117s ,does it say something ?

EF-111s have been retired. ECM, for the most part is self-contained,
carried by the tactical aircraft themselves. Stand-off jamming is

Yes,EF-111s were retired in 1998,a perfect example of Air forces correct
judgement capability.
Do you know how the Navy argued to keep minesweeper force after Balkan war?

"B2431" wrote...

If memory serves the C in CWO is for chief. I don't believe warrants are
considered commissioned.

Partially right...

The "C" in CWO does stand for "Chief," but the CWO2 - CWO5 ranks are indeed also
Commissioned. A few quick references:

Warrant officers hold warrants from their service secretary and are
specialists and experts in certain military technologies or capabilities. The
lowest ranking warrant officers serve under a warrant, but they receive
commissions from the president upon promotion to chief warrant officer 2. These
commissioned warrant officers are direct representatives of the president of the
United States. They derive their authority from the same source as commissioned
officers but remain specialists, in contrast to commissioned officers, who are
generalists. There are no warrant officers in the Air Force. --
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/alma.../officers.html

Officers in the Navy are either Line officers or Staff Corps. Among these
are also Limited Duty Officers and Commissioned Warrant Officers. Staff Corps
and Commission Warrant Officers wear Insignia in place of the Line officer's
star. -- http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ranks/rankrate.html

Commissioned officers in the Navy are either Line officers or Staff Corps
officers. Some have advanced through the enlisted rates and are designated for
duty in certain technical fields. These are Limited Duty Officers (LDO) and
commisisoned warrant officers (CWO). CWOs and Staff corps LDOs wear their
specialty insignia on the sleeve of the dress blue uniforms and on their
shoulder boards in place of the star worn by Line officers. On Winter Blue and
khaki uniforms, the specialty insignia is a collar device worn on the left
collar while the rank device is worn on the right. --
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...t/ldo-war.html

Also see http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...rs/o-rank.html


BTW, I made an error earlier -- the USMC still has WO1s; the Navy and Coast
Guard do not.

"John R Weiss" wrote in message
news:SsUNb.70673$nt4.95664@attbi_s51...

There are "just" WOs and Commissioned Warrant Officers now. The WO1 rank
is not
a Commissioned Warrant Officer, but all CWO2 through CWO5 ranks are
Commissioned
Warrant Officers. Last I knew:


The "C" in CWO is for "Chief", not "Commissioned".

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote...

The "C" in CWO is for "Chief", not "Commissioned".

True. Still, the CWO2 - CWO5 ranks are Commissioned.