What are the feelings over the National Guard losing all of their attack helicopter assets.

2014-04-15T00:58:42-04:00

The Guard will lose all of their attack helicopter assets to the active duty and have to restructure training. This will reduce the footprint of Guard aviation maintenance and senior pilots and mechanics will potentially lose their full time positions.

Response by 1SG Shane Hansen made Apr 15 at 2014 3:21 AM

2014-04-15T03:21:40-04:00

My thoughts are that it makes sense, but will creat some hardships if another war does happen.

The primary purpose of the national guard is NOT to seek and destroy. My understanding is that the primary mission is to respond to disasters and domestic emergencies with a secondary mission of going to war.

This puts more burden on the active aviation assets during times of war because there will not be the national guard attack assets to fall back on and provide relief of deployments.

For monetary savings and alignment with the new Army CAB structuring it does make sense though. The active army has to fill the void from getting rid of the antiquated OH-58D somehow. I don't think we can afford a new scout or attack helicopter development/fielding program right now.

This is just my opinion, but then again I am an assault guy, not an attack guy.

Response by SSG Jeffrey Spencer made Apr 15 at 2014 9:22 AM

2014-04-15T09:22:53-04:00

How are the NG going to be qualified and well-trained when they get called up to round out the ranks of the active unit?

Seems short-sighted to me. More political blunders in keeping a qualified force.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 15 at 2014 9:33 AM

2014-04-15T09:33:46-04:00

I have to say Im on the fence about this. During my three deployments the Guard aviation assets tended to be some of the most proficient and well maintained aircraft and aviators in theater. On the other hand, there is about to be approximately 400 less aircraft in the active component with the official (Maybe) retirement of the OH-58 Kiowa. I have no idea if this is really going to save the Army money as the Apache is a very maintenance heavy aircraft (Cant tell you how many hours I have working on them), and now the cost of maintaining approximately 300 more aircraft will be soley on the active Army. I think in the longterm this will prove to be a bad decision, but who knows, Im just a SSG.