Forum: Air Power

I got the memo about it today.

Am I the only one that thinks the new USAF Mission statment is retarded? Maybe it would seem a lot less like a joke if they didn't have the word "cyber space" in it. I liked the old one a lot better and while I am sure there are a great deal of people working in the USAF fighting "cyber crime" I am almost sure they could have found a more appropiate synonym.

Sorry, //rant end//.

-Aaron

edit: I should add a disclaimer to this; whatever the mission is I support it. I just think that whoever wrote it could have picked a better choice of words. Sounds like the slogan of a toddler's power hero TV show fighting team.

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i just wish we could form some sort of history and tradition in the air force. We are changing sh*t constantly. And now no more squadron patches as well.

Change is how Colonels make General. Doesn't matter if the change is good or bad, works or doesn't work. It doesn't matter if the change is just a rehash of something that was done 30 years ago and has just been repackaged with a new name. Anyone remember the McAirForce and how much money Tony McPeak cost the taxpayers for stupid ideas? And from talking to people who worked under him he was that way his whole career.

akruse21 wrote:

i just wish we could form some sort of history and tradition in the air force. We are changing sh*t constantly. And now no more squadron patches as well.

I agree. The new BDU's look dumb. I'm not thrilled about giving up my ACC and squadron patches.

Did they go with the Blue Tiger Stripe or the Digital Print??

Cyberspace sounds good to me. I don't think they mean in the Google or AOL sense either. Much of our strike ability now is netcentric warfare ( NCW ). A wireless lan if you will in the theater battle-space and the world ( where sometimes some guy is even getting info or sending it to a UAV or other platform all the way back from the states.) NCW is growing. Much of that is a endless appetite for more bandwidth. It isn't easy lashing up all of the commo/computer stuff and making it talk to every platform of interest. We have come a long long way with it with much success but we still have a long way to go where everyone is happy or near happy. All of that NCW stuff has to be fielded to where it is secure and bulletproof in an electronic sense. So I think the cyberspace thing is OK. Desert Storm and OIF were night and day the way targets were handed out and executed. Where the cycle of detection/decision making/shooting in Desert Storm was more to the scale of many hours/days. This has changed to minutes/hours with more stress on the minutes. For it to be useful, it has to be assumed that the NCW method you are using is both secure and reliable ( and of course all the players in the frag chain..... well trained in it's use ). So yeah, I don't have a problem with the cyberspace thing when you look at how we hand out targets today. Look at the way Gums did CAS and how a STBYGAIN does CAS today. The concept of customer service is the same but how all the information gets to all the players and the time cycle is radically different. All of that information flying over a wireless lan on the battlefield that has to be secure.

Early in NCW video, we had a situation some years back where a person from the UK was surfing satellite video feeds and came across an unsecure NCW video feed from a real world op. So as you can imagine all of this NCW stuff is all about growing pains where technology changes so much. NCW methods are now becoming the way for any first team military to do things. Much of the tech is kinda cheap.... meaning that future enemies are starting to use these methods. We have to find ways to exploit their NCW before they become enemies and not after. Example, there are already posts on this forum stating that we are just beginning to learn all the things you can do with a platform sporting an AESA sensor. Where it isn't just a Sensor, but an NCW transmitter if need be.... yet so much more. Where if you have the right kind of NCW method driving it, it can input/inhibit/deny whole sections of an enemies NCW setup. Just in this one type of gizmo... AESA, there is so much you can do with it. And we haven't even tapped all it's uses yet.

I understand your points Elp, I agree, there are prolly a lot of AF Personel working in that kind of field... my point is the mission statment doesnt give that "kind of feel". As a member of the armed forces, anyone involved in the AF would want to carry a certain pride about them and the job they do. My concern with the mission statment is it sounds a bit like a joke.

2 on the BDUs, FUGLY, I dont know which one we stopped on but either way blue is just a nasty color like that.

Also... I'm sure you've all seen the new PTs by now? Whats with the shorts?

I wish the AF had a "If it's not broke" rule.

-Aaron

Yup. People look at change as "always good" without considering stuff that already works. Many times the big change/plan, just helps advance someone's career. The: "I saw it on PowerPoint. It must be correct." syndrome doesn't help either. Laughing

Quote:

my point is the mission statment doesnt give that "kind of feel".

Yeah I guess I agree with you there. Go to the MPF, LE Desk, NCOIC of the gym and ask them what Net Centric Warfare is. Laughing

I think we would be better if even the support people ...really everybody...had a little bit more airpower stuff on promotion tests and NCOLS, NCOA, FTAC etc so as they knew a bit more of what they were there to support and the reason why they exist.

Note to self: Become Gums agent/PR Manager. Set him up as a contractor and tour the air force giving public speaking spots to educate the "yutes". Laughing

Forum: Air Power

New USAF Mission