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Originally Posted by Stan187
My gripe is, why doesn't the US military have a common doctrine in regards to this? If Marines get their own Air Wings, then why doesn't the Army, which has to either rely on the Air Force or helos, but has no fixed-wings of its own.
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Because the army has a different mission and does not want to become the USMC.
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I understand that there is a rule against them having it, I'm just questioning doing that to one service and not all of them.
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Certainly the air force could be reduced by the A-10 squadrons without doing any real harm. I would call the A-10 a light attack aircraft. Others have suggested the air force be relieved of its ICBM force as this is really just fixed artillery. Artillery is something the army is very good at. That really just leaves medium attack, strike, air defense and air transport as meaningful air force missions. If we do away with strike (nuclear) or transfer it to the navy (where it belongs) the air force becomes nothing but a very big cargo airline. I don't subscribe to that theory, other than moving nuclear strike to the navy and closing up the ICBM force. We should bargain these away as quickly as our diplomats can round up some arguably sober Russians to negotiate with. But, that is a different discussion for a different day.