USAF Weighs Scrapping KC-10, A-10 Fleets

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**Seaward**

The real problem with the F-35 is the ideas it's going to give bean counters who don't know any better. The Marines are going to have their B variant fully operational for four or five years before the Navy's C is up and running; some chucklehead's undoubtedly going to float the notion that we should just ditch CVNs with F-35Cs and go with STOVL carriers with F-35Bs.

**KalashnikovMarine**

The B variant is functioning quite well from what I understand. I find that odd as hell to tell the truth. Normally if there's going to be a problem child it's going to be a S/VTOL ANYTHING.

**Peregrine**

Seaward wrote:
I'd start with most social programs, personally.

IOW, society should exist for the sole purpose of having a military? Who cares if people are living in crippling poverty as long as we have the ability to bomb ten separate countries at once? Getting rid of social programs to sustain a level of military spending far out of proportion to any real need seems like the worst possible idea.

But the F-35 isn't going anywhere. Everyone's got way too much invested in it to simply dump it. It's in a sucktastic state now, especially the C, but in twenty years it's going to be incredible.

I have to be skeptical of claims of performance that far in the future, especially since that's enough time for entirely new weapons and technology to be developed and cut into the F-35's advantage. Or even entirely new fighters, really.

(And yes, I know that fatigue life issues alone are enough to ensure that the F-35 isn't going anywhere.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seaward wrote:
The real problem with the F-35 is the ideas it's going to give bean counters who don't know any better. The Marines are going to have their B variant fully operational for four or five years before the Navy's C is up and running; some chucklehead's undoubtedly going to float the notion that we should just ditch CVNs with F-35Cs and go with STOVL carriers with F-35Bs.

Again, cost. Are CVNs clearly superior? Of course. But that's not the question anyone (at least anyone intelligent) is asking. The real question is whether we need to keep out-spending the rest of the world combined (using money we don't have) to have the absolute best possible carriers, or if cheaper carriers would be adequate for our realistic needs. And unless you insist on writing the military a blank check at the expense of everything else that's a question you have to take seriously.

**Seaward**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The B variant is functioning quite well from what I understand. I find that odd as hell to tell the truth. Normally if there's going to be a problem child it's going to be a S/VTOL ANYTHING.

I'm surprised as well. I thought the B would be the one that gave everyone headaches. Turns out it's the C.

Peregrine wrote:
IOW, society should exist for the sole purpose of having a military? Who cares if people are living in crippling poverty as long as we have the ability to bomb ten separate countries at once? Getting rid of social programs to sustain a level of military spending far out of proportion to any real need seems like the worst possible idea.

No. It simply means the federal government should stick to its actual purview.

I have to be skeptical of claims of performance that far in the future, especially since that's enough time for entirely new weapons and technology to be developed and cut into the F-35's advantage. Or even entirely new fighters, really.

You can be as skeptical as you like, of course, but it's surprisingly impressive now, and very, very rarely do we make a given aircraft functionally worse over the course of its service life. It's going to change the way we approach a lot of aerial combat

Again, cost. Are CVNs clearly superior? Of course. But that's not the question anyone (at least anyone intelligent) is asking. The real question is whether we need to keep out-spending the rest of the world combined (using money we don't have) to have the absolute best possible carriers, or if cheaper carriers would be adequate for our realistic needs. And unless you insist on writing the military a blank check at the expense of everything else that's a question you have to take seriously.

The answer to that depends on if you wish to continue to be a superpower or not.

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
We have the money. There's plenty of other stuff we could cut without ever touching the defense budget.

Yeah, that's true. It would be entirely possible, even easy, to design a Federal budget with equal or even larger military spending that still balances spending against revenue. But in a democracy you don't get the budget you personally want, you get the budget everyone more or less end up finding agreeable enough.

And that means that to get other people to agree to cuts on their favourite bits and pieces, you have to agree to spending cuts on your favourite bits and pieces.

**Dreadclaw69**

d-usa wrote:
I saw this picture just moments before I read your post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_campbell_damage_a10.jpg

So that thing flew home after all of that...

That's nothing until you read this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II#Durability

The A-10 is exceptionally tough. Its strong airframe can survive direct hits from armor-piercing and high-explosive projectiles up to 23 mm. The aircraft has triple redundancy in its flight systems, with mechanical systems to back up double-redundant hydraulic systems. This permits pilots to fly and land when hydraulic power or part of a wing is lost. Flight without hydraulic power uses the manual reversion flight control system; this engages automatically for pitch and yaw control, and under pilot control (manual reversion switch) for roll control. In manual reversion mode, the A-10 is sufficiently controllable under favorable conditions to return to base and land, though control forces are much higher than normal. The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing.[49]

Its self-sealing fuel tanks are protected by fire-retardant foam.[50] The A-10's main landing gear is designed so that the wheels partially protrude from their nacelles when the gear is retracted so as to make gear-up belly landings easier to control and less damaging to the aircraft's underside. Additionally, the landing gears are all hinged toward the rear of the aircraft, so if hydraulic power is lost the pilot can drop the gear and a combination of gravity and wind resistance will open and lock the gear in place.[44]

The cockpit and parts of the flight-control system are protected by 1,200 lb (540 kg) of titanium armor, referred to as a "bathtub".[51][52] The armor has been tested to withstand strikes from 23 mm cannon fire and some strikes from 57 mm rounds.[46][51] It is made up of titanium plates with thicknesses from 0.5 to 1.5 inches (13 to 38 mm) determined by a study of likely trajectories and deflection angles. This protection comes at a cost, with the armor making up almost 6% of the aircraft's empty weight. To protect the pilot from the fragmentation likely to be created from impact of a shell, any interior surface of the tub that is directly exposed to the pilot is covered by a multi-layer nylon spall shield.[50][53] In addition, the front windscreen and canopy are resistant to small arms fire.

Proof of the durability of the A-10 was shown when Captain Kim Campbell, flying a ground support mission over Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq on 7 April, suffered extensive flak damage to her A-10. Iraqi fire damaged one of the A-10's engines and crippled its hydraulic system, which required the aircraft's stabilizer and flight controls to be operated via the back-up mechanical system, this being known as 'manual reversion mode'. Despite this damage, Campbell managed to fly the aircraft for nearly an hour and landed safely.[55][56]

There are several reasons for the unusual location of the A-10's General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofan engines. First, the A-10 was envisioned to fly from forward air bases, often with substandard, semi-prepared runways that present a high risk of foreign object damage to the engines. The height of the engines decreases the chance that sand or stones will be ingested. This also allows engines to keep running while the aircraft is serviced and rearmed by ground crews, reducing turn-around time. Without the limitations imposed by engines, the wings could be mounted closer to the ground, to simplify servicing and rearming.[57]

The engines' high 6:1 bypass ratio provides the A-10 with a relatively small infrared signature, and their position directs exhaust over the tailplanes further shielding it from detection by heat-seeking surface to air missiles. The engines are angled upward by nine degrees to cancel out the nose-down pitching moment they would otherwise generate due to being mounted above the aerodynamic center of the aircraft. This avoids the necessity to trim the control surfaces against the force. The heavy engines require strong supports, so their pylons are connected to the airframe by four bolts.[57]

The A-10's fuel system components are protected in multiple ways. All four fuel tanks are located near the center of the aircraft, reducing the likelihood that they will be hit or have their fuel lines severed. The tanks are separate from the fuselage; thus, projectiles would need to penetrate the aircraft's skin before reaching the outer skin of the tank.[50][53] The refueling system is purged after use so that all fuel in the aircraft is protected from fire.[58] All fuel transfer lines self-seal if they are compromised; if a tank is damaged beyond its ability to self-seal, check valves prevent fuel flowing into the compromised tank. Most of the fuel system components are inside the tanks so that fuel will not be lost in case a component were to leak. Most importantly, reticulated polyurethane foam lines both the inner and outer sides of the fuel tanks, retaining debris and restricting fuel spillage in the event of damage. The other source of possible combustion, the engines, are shielded from the fuel system and the rest of the airframe by firewalls and fire extinguishing equipment. Even in the event of all four main tanks being penetrated and all contents lost, sufficient fuel is carried in two self-sealing sump tanks to allow flight for 230 miles (370 km).

Frazzled wrote:
Eliminate the Army.
Give Marines Power Swords and Terminator Armor.

Let the Great Crusade begin!

What if they run into enemies with a 2+ save?

**Peregrine**

Seaward wrote:
No. It simply means the federal government should stick to its actual purview.

Which is a completely unrealistic plan. No party with more than 5% of the vote is going to do anything remotely resembling that. The scope of the federal government is never going back to some mythical ideal of what it used to be. So the question is whether we should have a huge government with a bigger military than everyone else combined, or a huge government that does things like repairing bridges before they collapse.

(And if you want to go back to that original intent thing then I suspect our country's founders would be horrified by the thought of out-spending the entire rest of the world combined on our military instead of just keeping the bare minimum for defense.)

You can be as skeptical as you like, of course, but it's surprisingly impressive now, and very, very rarely do we make a given aircraft functionally worse over the course of its service life. It's going to change the way we approach a lot of aerial combat

I'm not saying it's going to get worse, I'm talking about it becoming obsolete. What if 10 years from now we get a breakthrough in laser technology that means instant death to any aircraft within line of sight of a laser? What if radar/passive IR/etc improve enough to break the whole concept of stealth designs and shift the ideal design back to extreme-speed aircraft with the ability to out-run missiles? What if someone else decides to build a new generation of fighters that do what the F-22 did to the F-16? Etc. A lot can happen in 20 years and I think it's pretty idealistic to expect the F-35 to be dominating everything at that point.

The answer to that depends on if you wish to continue to be a superpower or not.

And, as I've said, the question is not about what we wish, the question is about what we can afford. If the price of being a superpower for a while longer is driving the national debt up to even more obscene levels, slashing spending on education/infrastructure/etc, leaving millions of people in poverty, etc, then no, I don't want to continue to be a superpower.

**Ouze**

Peregrine wrote:
And if you want to go back to that original intent thing then I suspect our country's founders would be horrified by the thought of out-spending the entire rest of the world combined on our military instead of just keeping the bare minimum for defense.)

The US, in fact, had no permanent standing army at the time. The army raised to fight the revolution was disbanded several years after. Which... you probably already know.

But yeah, I agree the thought of our current state of affairs- essentially a permanent state of low-intensity war and the economy-devouring apparatus that fuels it - would probably be pretty horrifying to them.

Certainly if we didn't keep paying for that giant hammer year after year after year, we'd be able to look at problems as something other than nails, and the whole rest of the world would stop demanding our carpentry.

**MrMoustaffa**

Seaward wrote:
KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The B variant is functioning quite well from what I understand. I find that odd as hell to tell the truth. Normally if there's going to be a problem child it's going to be a S/VTOL ANYTHING.

I'm surprised as well. I thought the B would be the one that gave everyone headaches. Turns out it's the C.

Peregrine wrote:
IOW, society should exist for the sole purpose of having a military? Who cares if people are living in crippling poverty as long as we have the ability to bomb ten separate countries at once? Getting rid of social programs to sustain a level of military spending far out of proportion to any real need seems like the worst possible idea.

No. It simply means the federal government should stick to its actual purview.

I have to be skeptical of claims of performance that far in the future, especially since that's enough time for entirely new weapons and technology to be developed and cut into the F-35's advantage. Or even entirely new fighters, really.

You can be as skeptical as you like, of course, but it's surprisingly impressive now, and very, very rarely do we make a given aircraft functionally worse over the course of its service life. It's going to change the way we approach a lot of aerial combat

Again, cost. Are CVNs clearly superior? Of course. But that's not the question anyone (at least anyone intelligent) is asking. The real question is whether we need to keep out-spending the rest of the world combined (using money we don't have) to have the absolute best possible carriers, or if cheaper carriers would be adequate for our realistic needs. And unless you insist on writing the military a blank check at the expense of everything else that's a question you have to take seriously.

The answer to that depends on if you wish to continue to be a superpower or not.

Being a superpower doesn't do me a lick of good when the roads I drive on are riddled with potholes, the school I send my kid to only exists to teach kids a test to get into colleges that don't even help them, and in general cities are having to decide which districts get police/fire department coverage and which get to have street lights. We have dozens of bridges that shouldn't even be allowed to be driven on, and our infrastructure in general is becoming a joke.

The Soviet Union was a super power too, by funneling all their money into the military. How well did that work out for them again? You know, besides the total collapse and all that. Call me crazy, but I don't want the same thing to happen to our country. We're spending insane amounts of money on the military at the expense of everything else. What's the point in being a military superpower when we're rapidly becoming a 2nd rate country? Why on Earth are we funding 200 million dollar fighter jets when our education branch can't even afford enough textbooks for more than a single class worth of students at a time?

**Seaward**

Peregrine wrote:
Which is a completely unrealistic plan. No party with more than 5% of the vote is going to do anything remotely resembling that. The scope of the federal government is never going back to some mythical ideal of what it used to be. So the question is whether we should have a huge government with a bigger military than everyone else combined, or a huge government that does things like repairing bridges before they collapse.

They're not mutually exclusive options, fortunately.

I'm not saying it's going to get worse, I'm talking about it becoming obsolete. What if 10 years from now we get a breakthrough in laser technology that means instant death to any aircraft within line of sight of a laser? What if radar/passive IR/etc improve enough to break the whole concept of stealth designs and shift the ideal design back to extreme-speed aircraft with the ability to out-run missiles? What if someone else decides to build a new generation of fighters that do what the F-22 did to the F-16? Etc. A lot can happen in 20 years and I think it's pretty idealistic to expect the F-35 to be dominating everything at that point.

I don't think it's that idealistic, personally. Outrunning missiles...is tough.

Anyway, sure, it's technically possible that some Tony Stark sort out there somewhere could be MacGuyvering up something that nobody's ever thought of, but we're pretty good at forecasting technological advances when it comes to military aviation. We know what's next, basically, and there's nothing around the corner that suddenly makes the F-35 flying scrap. Is it going to become obsolete eventually? Sure. But that's why we've already got guys working on sixth generation fighter concepts.

Nobody else is likely to build anything that suddenly takes us by surprise. The only other folks in the game are the Russians and the Chinese. The Russians build good planes, but they're pretty far behind us - we have a fifth generation fighter in service, they're still trying to get one in production - and the Chinese are still reliant on the Russians for engines and avionics, so they can't even be considered a major player yet.

And, as I've said, the question is not about what we wish, the question is about what we can afford. If the price of being a superpower for a while longer is driving the national debt up to even more obscene levels, slashing spending on education/infrastructure/etc, leaving millions of people in poverty, etc, then no, I don't want to continue to be a superpower.

Fair answer. However, I take issue with pretending it's the defense budget that's responsible for all the problems. It was 19% of the federal budget in 2012; why are we insisting that 19% pare itself down while the other 81% is allowed to grow?

**sebster**

Ouze wrote:
But yeah, I agree the thought of our current state of affairs- essentially a permanent state of low-intensity war and the economy-devouring apparatus that fuels it - would probably be pretty horrifying to them.

It might horrify them, but I think it wouldn't be all that unfamiliar. In fact, I'd say they'd be very familiar with a nation in a permanent state of low-intensity war spending massive amounts on maintaining the military apparatus to wage those conflicts, as they'd just beaten such a beast in the revolution.

Well, the British also had periods of high intensity war, but still.

Certainly if we didn't keep paying for that giant hammer year after year after year, we'd be able to look at problems as something other than nails, and the whole rest of the world would stop demanding our carpentry.

It might even force the rest of the world to go and get their own hammers. Well, probably not, but it'd be nice if they did.

**Peregrine**

Seaward wrote:
They're not mutually exclusive options, fortunately.

They really are. We already have problems with things like fixing bridges before they collapse, so it's hard to see a plausible argument for how balancing the budget without cuts to military spending is going to make those problems go away.

Outrunning missiles...is tough.

Tough, but possible. SR-71, B-70, we've done it before. It hasn't been all that long since everyone was absolutely sure that the best defense was speed + altitude. I'm not saying it's inevitably going to happen, of course, but talking about the F-35 continuing to dominate 20 years from now is making the assumption that stealth remains the best defense.

We know what's next, basically, and there's nothing around the corner that suddenly makes the F-35 flying scrap.

Maybe not, but I have a problem with making decisions about the F-35 based on assumptions about how things are going to be 20 years from now. After all, back in 1925 there were a lot of people who were very confident that battleships were going to dominate naval warfare for the next 20 years.

Fair answer. However, I take issue with pretending it's the defense budget that's responsible for all the problems. It was 19% of the federal budget in 2012; why are we insisting that 19% pare itself down while the other 81% is allowed to grow?

Of course that 81% needs to be cut. I don't think anyone is arguing that we should balance the budget without even attempting to cut waste and inefficiency out of non-military spending. But any realistic plan to cut overall spending is going to have to include cuts to military spending, and that means decisions need to be made based on what we need, not what we want to have. And if the end result is that we can't afford to keep our superpower status then we need to accept that fact and start making realistic plans based on it, and not cling to our last bit of power at all costs.

**Seaward**

Peregrine wrote:
They really are. We already have problems with things like fixing bridges before they collapse, so it's hard to see a plausible argument for how balancing the budget without cuts to military spending is going to make those problems go away.

Frankly, I think it's hard to see a plausible argument for how cutting military spending is suddenly going to make those problems go away, either. Does the federal government suddenly become efficient overnight, does Congress suddenly stop becoming partisan hacks chasing pork?

Tough, but possible. SR-71, B-70, we've done it before. It hasn't been all that long since everyone was absolutely sure that the best defense was speed + altitude. I'm not saying it's inevitably going to happen, of course, but talking about the F-35 continuing to dominate 20 years from now is making the assumption that stealth remains the best defense.

Neither of those were fighters; they were high altitude penetrators. We can build big, unmaneuverable bricks that go very fast, very high, but that's a terrible design for anything resembling a fighter. After the F-15, we revisited the notion that everything in the air needed to hit Mach 2.5, and discovered the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. You need to sacrifice and over-engineer too much to reliably get there, and it's capability that, ultimately, not every fighter needs.

As far as outrunning missiles goes, it's just not a realistic scenario. We built for speed to intercept strategic bombers, not to try and defeat incoming missiles. There's nothing in the sky that'd be capable of accelerating to the needed speed fast enough, anyway.

Fortunately, low observability isn't the F-35's only defense. It's one of them, sure - and it's a very big deal - but it's far from the only one.

Will its low observability be less of a defense in 20 years? Quite possibly. But so what? The Air Force got the F-15 in the mid-seventies, and it's still around and not at all obsolete. I think you're creating a scenario where the F-35 goes from cutting edge to useless overnight, and that's just not the manner in which technology advances. Again, it's not just the stealth that's a big deal with it.

Maybe not, but I have a problem with making decisions about the F-35 based on assumptions about how things are going to be 20 years from now. After all, back in 1925 there were a lot of people who were very confident that battleships were going to dominate naval warfare for the next 20 years.

Well, what decisions are we really making? It's been bought. It's what everyone's going with. I personally wouldn't have chosen to use one basic design to fit all three services' needs, but they didn't ask me, so, there you go. The decisions have all already been made.

Of course that 81% needs to be cut. I don't think anyone is arguing that we should balance the budget without even attempting to cut waste and inefficiency out of non-military spending. But any realistic plan to cut overall spending is going to have to include cuts to military spending, and that means decisions need to be made based on what we need, not what we want to have. And if the end result is that we can't afford to keep our superpower status then we need to accept that fact and start making realistic plans based on it, and not cling to our last bit of power at all costs.

Then we're not currently operating on a realistic plan, because it's mostly the defense budget feeling the heat, while everything else is expanding.

**Kilkrazy**

Seaward wrote:
MrMoustaffa wrote:
Where?

Because the military gets far more funding than the rest of our government combined.

I don't like the idea of our military funding being lowered, but I'm sure there is PLENTY of spending that could be cut with minimal pain (cough F35 cough)

I'd start with most social programs, personally.

...

You'll have a hard time convincing the grey voters of that.

**Seaward**

Kilkrazy wrote:
You'll have a hard time convincing the grey voters of that.

Which is why I need to be elected Generalissimo Supreme.

**motyak**

Seaward wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
You'll have a hard time convincing the grey voters of that.

Which is why I need to be elected Generalissimo Supreme.

If you feel you need to be elected, then you don't have the strength of will to be Generalissimo Supreme!

**sebster**

Seaward wrote:
Then we're not currently operating on a realistic plan, because it's mostly the defense budget feeling the heat, while everything else is expanding.

Sort of. Defense as a percentage of the budget has dropped by a one and a half percent from its peak in 2008 (18.94% currently, compared to 20.53% in 2007), but that 2008 peak was the end of an eight year period of year on year growth in defence spending as a % of the total budget (anyone who figures out what's causing thatpattern gets an internet cookie).

Through that eight year period the average spend was 18.78%, which is lower than the current total. So while its true to say that defence is feeling the pinch right now, it is on the back end of a period of sustained growth in which it grew from 16.49% to up to 20.53%, and has now been pared back to 18.94%.

Source, for those who are interested;
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43904

Oh, and for the record you spent significantly more than 20% throughout the 1970s, and reduced the deficit considerably over that time. The social security system was, broadly speaking, at least as generous. The difference is that you taxed more.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Seaward wrote:

If something absolutely has to go, the A-10's not a bad call, but I'd contend that something doesn't absolutely have to go.

Looking at the organizations, I'd say that the Air Force can stand to lose some of it's officer corps. During the last manpower cut, they supposedly dropped around 43k enlisted airment, but ADDED 43 General Officer slots. Doesnt make a whole lot of sense, considering that those 43k airmen's salary probably combine to equal the 43 general's pay

There's been talk for a few years now also of combining the Army and Air Force into a combined force again, renaming USAF back to what it was in WW2, the USAAC

**Frazzled**

I thought the beauty of the A-10 platform is that it's also cheap. If any cuts needs to happen, look for other spendy toys.

I think you forgot how the Pentagon bureaucracy works...

**KalashnikovMarine**

There's plenty of fat to trim here and there, especially in R&D but the places we CAN'T take a hit are the Navy and honestly most of the Airforce (the latter can be made leaner of course) screwing with your blue forces is only ever an incredibly negative thing. You can always recruit or draft more meat, building ships, planes and training crews for them takes time.

Order in which budget should not be screwed with and why:
1. Navy - Blue water Navy is the heart of our force projection capacity and honestly the beating soul of our military capacity. Keeping the fleet equal to it's current numbers at a minimum is essential, but continuing upgrade programs and rolling in new ships to replace the aging is an important part of that process.
2. Airforce - While Airforce budgeting, R&D/procurement programs need serious new oversight installed with deep investigations on some of the recent utter CLUSTERFETHS we've been having over all keeping our airpower in good condition is vital. Critical place to save money: Our aging nuclear arsenal costs us stupid amounts money every year, let's get rid of that gak (not all of it, but a lot of it ) makes us look sexier on the world stage AND saves us cash midterm.
3. Marine Corps - While my status as a Marine makes me want tot put this higher, the smallest and tightest budgeted of the four services already provides pretty damn good money for value, as a hybrid blue/green service "America's 911 force" is always doing something some where, ranging from special operations, to humanitarian missions. Being able to pick up the phone and put a reinforced battalion of Marines on the ground any where in the world in roughly 24 hours is a nice capacity and the MEU system provides. A solid go any where, do anything expeditionary force.
4. Army - The Army really doesn't do much during peace time outside of say the Corps of Engineers. Equipment maintenance is vital but we can reduce man count and still maintain a solid military presence. Reduce manpower significantly focusing on retention of combat experienced veterans, the absolute best in their field, and the best and brightest of the new guys. These men and women will form training cadres for bulk enrollment when works up come, meanwhile several intact armor and infantry divisions can take care of business in the interim.

Non-Service specific critical places to save money:
1. Europe: Either send the EU a bill or stop providing for their defense. Close all bases in Europe except for major air mobility hubs. (England, Germany)
2. Congress: The handouts and pork hit us too, and that needs to be fixed regardless of what happens to our budget, like the story of the Army getting more Abrams tanks despite not wanting or needing them? We could be saving some cash there.

**Frazzled**

Meh. All we need is one deathstar, and a couple of storm troopers with proper range time. The the galaxy will be ours!

**Kilkrazy**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
There's plenty of fat to trim here and there, especially in R&D but the places we CAN'T take a hit are the Navy and honestly most of the Airforce (the latter can be made leaner of course) screwing with your blue forces is only ever an incredibly negative thing. You can always recruit or draft more meat, building ships, planes and training crews for them takes time.

...
...

Non-Service specific critical places to save money:
1. Europe: Either send the EU a bill or stop providing for their defense. Close all bases in Europe except for major air mobility hubs. (England, Germany)
...

It won’t be a very large bill.

Wikipedia wrote:The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, with 172,966 of its 1,372,522[1] active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories.

You’ve got about 70,000 people all around Europe, the great majority of whom are in the major air hubs you want to protect (UK and Germany).

As an oceanic power you would be fools to cut the navy too much. You probably don't need all the navy you have at the moment, though.

**KalashnikovMarine**

I'm saying a bill for the last 60 years of services Kilkrazy

**Dreadclaw69**

Kilkrazy wrote:
As an oceanic power you would be fools to cut the navy too much. You probably don't need all the navy you have at the moment, though.

Probably not, but with other emerging world powers attempting to build their navies keeping the bar set high may be no bad thing

**Easy E**

Frazzled wrote:
Meh. All we need is one deathstar, and a couple of storm troopers with proper range time. The the galaxy will be ours!

I think this idea was already scrapped.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/white-house-crushes-death-star-petition-nerd-dreams-everywhere/267112/