What do you think our military composition should be?

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:00:40 -0400

Try to ignore what current forces we have and start from scratch. What do you think the shape of the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, or Coast Guard should look like?

I'll post about the Navy since I would be largely guessing about the other services.

I think it will be interesting to see what we come up with!

Response by 1stSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2015 11:03 AM

1stSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:03:37 -0400

I believe about 220,000 Marines. THat allows us to stay in the fight and still have personel for down timw and B Billets

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 2 at 2015 11:09 AM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:09:11 -0400

Navy:

Using some really rough math that isn't 100% accurate I'm going to say it takes 3 carriers to have 1 deployed continuously. With that said, I think there needs to be a carrier at all times in the Gulf, another deployed in the Atlantic, one at all times near SE Asia, and another in the Pacific. That makes 4 deployed, but I also think we need to have a surger carrier, which makes 5. That adds up to 15 to support the 5 deployed at a time. Yikes! Obviously a huge cost associated with that kind of increase from right now.

I'll leave the other ships of war a little vague because for the most part they'd be in CSGs or ARGs/ESGs.

I think in addition to the 5 deployed carriers we also need 4 deployed "helicopter carriers" of one flavor or another. That makes 12. So that's 9 deployed "groups" at a time needing 27 sets of ships to sustain the deployment of those.

Submarines are a completely different situation. Attack subs are part of those groups, as well as having independent requirements. I can't really guess at this. Ballistic missile subs are a little easier. Let's still go with the 1/3 ratio to keep them deployed. How many subs to we need for the nuclear deterrent? I'd argue not that many. We need survivability and backups, so lets call it 4 deployed at a time. that makes 12 total.

As far as aircraft go I feel it's pretty simple expansion on the number of carriers etc. If we assume Naval Aviation is all off carriers (I actually sort of think this should be the case) it's simpler. Since we know it's not we'll just toss in a few expeditionary squadrons of each type. Helicopters are harder, but would be based largely on the number of ships as well, but also include smaller ones. Lets say 4 hornet squadrons, a growler squadron, a hawkeye squadron and a C2 squadron per ship for now (until of course you take into account new aircraft etc.) That makes 12 of each of those except hornets which would need 48 squadrons!

Some pretty random thoughts, but there you go, that's how I'd make the Navy! Of course in the process of implementing my plan (hopefully before) I'd realize I had done all kinds of things wrong, and left out tankers, P-3s, etc.

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Oct 2 at 2015 11:15 AM

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:15:39 -0400

In a perfect world?

We would have a Land Force, a Naval Force, and an Air Force. We would "attach" elements of each using a Joint methodology to fill expeditionary needs. This would effectively create the Naval Landing Components, the Air Ground Components, and the Naval Air Components, which would effectively be our "Marines."

Response by SGT David T. made Oct 2 at 2015 11:27 AM

SGT David T. — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:27:45 -0400

I am in favor of a single unified service and the units in the services as they currently exist would be modular. Marine units would still have the same capabilities, Army units as well, same with the Navy and the Air Force. As joint warfighting is the norm now it makes sense to have a single unified command structure and culture. When I worked with the other services there were always challenges to overcome due to the differences. So standardizing everyone into the same culture and rank structure would minimize this. Also, this would lessen the logistics footprint as all of the materiel commands would be merged and redundancies would be removed. I think that the best traditions of each service could be preserved in order to make this more palatable. Of course whenever I mention this people immediately reject the idea lol.

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Oct 8 at 2015 1:13 PM

SSG Warren Swan — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:13:23 -0400

An honest assessment of mission vs. need. For the Army, do we need it as big as it was? Can the mission be accomplished with the Marine Corps? Both have very efficient infantry mechanisms. Does the USMC mission need an overhaul? With that is the Amphib mission part of them outdated? How about the air wing of the Corps? Could that be absorbed by the Navy itself? The Air Force has a lot of nukes, could we shut some of them down, being that the Navy already has as many if not more that can be in place undetected within minutes? This is a dream in my opinion and would never happen, but we have many missions that cross over the branches and either could be consolidated, done away with, or lessened. It would save time and manpower costs.