lenochs%drcoa1.decnet@drcvax.af.mil (DRCOA1: :LENOCHS) (03/27/91)
From: "DRCOA1::LENOCHS" <lenochs%drcoa1.decnet@drcvax.af.mil> In Issue 6.86, Craig Good said a friend saw footage of a missile being extracted from a C-5. "...the AF decided for a number of no-doubt very good reasons not to try for a fleet of flying submarines." I can not *over-stress* the political manuvering involved in weapon aquisition programs. In my two years at the Pentagon, I overheard a number of bartering sessions in lavetories (the stalls have ears, gentlemen!), all of which were pure inter-service politics. When thinking about the rationale behind a certain weapon being purchased, look behind the merits of the item and, instead, focus on the benfits the gaining service would receive from the perspective of a rival branch. Wasteful, I know, but that's how the system works. In early March, a 'suggestion' was made to the Army Aviation Command to investigate how the F-117 maintained its astonishing fully mission capable rate during the war. They went to the briefing, and promptly went back to business as usual. AvCom had already rejected a prototype automated data system for Apache (and capable of supporting *all* Army rotary wing assets) which had been developed by the same folks who built the system used by the F-117 for the past 8 years. AvCom has an inhouse version, and it would be a career ending decision to reject the inhouse product for an outsiders product, regardless of that product capabilities, because someone approved the inhouse version and that person is probably still in the Army (and can kill your promotion). As far as the C-5/Minuteman is concerned, I saw that footage in 1975 or 76. It was a story line in the then-monthly AF movie "Air Force Now" which was almost a mandatory commander's call feature. It was indeed a Minuteman launched from a C-5 and targeted at the Pacific Test Range. Good strike, on target. The Navy went absolutely berzerk. The Navy has always been concerned that the AF has two-thirds of the strategic triad. Any attempt by AF to increase that proportion will, by definition, decrease the Navy's strategic importance (read as dollars for SSBNs). As I understand it, the AF dropped the C-5/ICBM project and in return, the Navy went along with more money to develop the B-1 concept. Such is life! Hopefully, SecDef Cheney and Chairman Powell will start to get a handle on it. ----------------------------------------------- On another subject: Gary Owens wrote in Volume 6, issue 85 about over-the-shoulder and lofting bomb release techniques. As I recall from reading and old documentary footage on "Wings" and other sources, these tactics were used in the early days of tactical nuclear weapons. Employing these tactics allowed the aircraft droping the 'shape' to get out of the blast area as quickly as possible (there was not much need for glow in the dark aircraft :-) ). Loyd M. Enochs (ex-USAF) - Dynamics Research Corporation - Andover, MA Munitions Maintenance, 1974-1980 - Computer Programmer/Analyst, 1980-1987