Hagel to call for shrinking Army to pre-WWII size

The A-10 seems to have a bullseye painted on its back

NOOOOOOOOO! Not the A-10! Seriously, the plane is a sexy beast.

With the moves Putin is making the Cold War is back in business.

Wow, cutting 100,000 from the military. That's a lot of vets with a specific skill set.

Not to mention ridiculously survivable and effective in its role. I'd like to see the F-35 absorb 57mm cannon fire and keep on trucking.

They must be phasing it out because it's combat and cost effective.

Those Navy carrier groups are the key to their power.

Now, if our own government could figure out the potential flexibility, mobility of the Navy and how relatively easy it is to project power from quality ships ...

Maybe that's why Obozo wants the Navy cut down to four carrier groups.

I don't see the A-10 going anywhere. It'll be the B-52 of CAS aircraft, existing for decades upon decades.

I'll bet that at any given time, you have at least 3 carrier groups at sea, all in or near potential trouble spots ... the Strait of Hormuz, The Med., The South China Sea, for example. Ha anyone told him that to keep a continuous presence, you will need something like 8-9 carriers ... for every one at sea, one in work-up and one in re-fit. You might be able to push it to 6 or 7 but not without diminishing your reach pretty substantially and kicking the crap out of your personnel.

Carriers are being left alone for now, but many authors seem to write as if the USN still had 11 CVN's.

They're already down to 10, and apparently George Washington's refuelling has not been funded.

11 Guided Missile Cruisers, half the cruiser force, will be mothballed.

All three services are being "Obummered".

We're effectively down to six carriers right now given that four of the ten you cited are alongside at Bremerton and Newport News awaiting various services.

close down most foreign bases, and invest the savings in carrier groups which are essentially mobile bases that can project American power anywhere in the world within a week or two. Subic Bay should be kept for operations in eastern Asia and the western Pacific. The Japanese should also be encouraged to build up and counter the Chinese, Norks and Russians.

Subic Bay was shut down in '92.