Where are the US airforce and Navy ground Units

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Olefin

"Some medium flatbed trucks carried the Soviet-made ZPU and ZU-23-2 towed anti-aircraft twin or quad barreled guns, as well as recoilless rifles and S-5 rocket helicopter rocket launcher pods. Some rebels have improvised with captured heavy weaponry, like BMP-1 turrets and helicopter rocket pods, as well as lower-tech methods such as using doorbells to ignite rocket-launched ammunition."

Good point. I've seen some great photos on this forum and dedicated Technicals threads on other forums showing some of the wild and crazy technicals the Libyan resistance were fielding during the recent "regime change". In particular I was pleased to see helicopter rocket pods being succesfully used in improvised vehicle mounts as in my last T2K campaign the PCs got their hands on an up-armoured dirt track speedway sedan with a rocket pod mounted on a roof ring mount.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

The first problem I see with ground support mounts for Vulcans is the ammo consumption.

My thoughts are (as you can see in the Marines thread) these ex aircraft weapons would be used as makeshift AA weapons and employed by the 2nd LAAD battalion. My thoughts are the M1097's had their original Avenger turrets removed (and stripped for parts to keep the others in action) and the aircraft guns mounted in their place.
Ready ammunition may be only what the donor aircraft carried unless the feed system is also modified, but additional rounds could be carried either on the vehicle or in a trailer.
Use in the ground support role would be avoided as much as possible due to the lack of protective armour and high visibility of the vehicle as a whole. One or two units would be located with Divisional, Regimental and perhaps Battalion HQs with the nearest to the front lines being perhaps a mile or two away (unless the shit had hit the fan).

The main problem I've found with fielding more of these makeshift weapon systems is available personnel to crew them. Roughly one third of the 2nd Marines have had to be dedicated to support positions (and that's nowhere near what I consider enough), about another 600 to armour, recon and combat engineers leaving just 2,200 to divide up between the three foot mobile infantry regiments. Even with only 8 tanks and a few dozen LAV-25s, it's hard to justify an increased fighting vehicle presence based on support requirements.

[rcaf_777]

I am think that the idea of having Navy and Airforce provide rear security and services is good

The high technical nature of the many trades they could assiting with salvage of high components or repair of vehicles, gun systems ect, this could free up other army personel to provide combat troops replacment.

IRL the USN Navy Provisional Detainee Battalion 2 was formed for duty in Iraq under the coomand of the US Army's 16th Military Police Brigade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Pr...ee_Battalion_2

Also the Canadian Navy has provide Clearance Divers to Army for Counter IED duty in Afghanstian, most notable was Petty Officer 2nd Class Craig Blake who killed in Afghanstian while attemting to disfuse an IED - one of the best divers I ever met

[Greylond]

The U.S. Navy has had a "Auxiliary Defense Force" for years. Back in the mid/late 80's it was decided by SecDef/SecNav that the Navy would provide it's own base defense and only use U.S. Marines for critical installations and/or Defense Reaction purposes. It was never said outright but Navy ASF was basically a "tripwire" that freed up the Marines from standing regular guard duty and if something happened ASF would provide first line defense and the closest Marine unit would provide a Reaction Force to come in and kill the bad guys. The Navy ASF was composed of various members of the base. These sailors would go through a one week(sometimes two weeks) training. It covered weapons familiarization(M14s, M60s, Shotgun, and Pistol(.45 and later 9mm), peacetime legal search/siezure, use of deadly force in a Law Enforcement situations, arrest and evidence handling, first aid, basic vehicle/IED searches, basic combat/base defense tactics and a short ground exercise lasting a few hours or full day. The weapons training was just enough to allow each member of ASF to be able to the weapon and basic marksmanship, in TW2K v1.0 terms I'd say a CRM: 10 and PST: 10) The training was given by local Navy Security Departments augmented with local Marine trainers from the closest Marine unit. Like any other unit that was made up by service people that had to be seconded from a parent unit ASF basically had two types of sailors; those that the local Departments/Shops wanted to get rid of because they were worst members of the department(lazy, incompetent and/or insubordinate) and those that really wanted to go through the training because it was a chance to learn something about weapons and tactics. Usually most of the ASF was made of the first group and a few of the second.

How do I know about this? I was a member of Navy ASF in Guam(1988-89) and San Diego(1990/1991), and I was a member of the second type(volunteered for it both times). I went through the entire training program twice, once at each base. When I was on Guam our base went through multiple day exercise with an "Aggressor Force" made up of a Reservist SEAL team. The ASF team that I was assigned to for that exercise had the job of protecting the Captain and XO living quarters. Our team was the only one that "Won." We were the only group to not only resist the Aggressors but we actually repelled an attack on the CO's house. Several of the factors in our favor were the fact that it was a daylight raid and the XO's living quarters were empty because the XO at the time was single and still lived in the BOQ, not having moved to the XO House yet so the raiders split, half the team hitting an empty house(bad info/intelligence) and the other half hitting the CO's house. And unlike the rest of the ASF we actually hid in the bushes and ambushed the raid team, which they didn't expect because of the general incompetence of the rest of the ASF. Our group just happened to be made up entirely of a group that had Volunteered to be on ASF and got a kick out of it. We repelled/"Killed" the team hitting the CO's house and by the time the other half of their team realized the XO house was empty the Marine Reaction team had gotten there because as soon as we saw the raid team our team leader had radioed in for assistance. In fact, I didn't even get to point my empty rifle at any of the raid team because I was the last one protecting the flank of the house/and front door and the "Raiders" all "Died" before they got to the front door. We were lucky in our engagement, other teams got hit at night and by raiders who had better info. There was a debrief in which they showed us a video taken by an aggressor team that sneaked up on a ASF team at night who never even realized that they had been there until the debrief!

Basically, here's my points;

1) yes, there is precedence for it.
2) Any Department Head/Shop Supervisor is going to send the worst of their command out first with a few members being really motivated but the overall unit quality is going to actually be pretty low, IMO.

A lot of the Navy is very technical oriented, in fact Navy Electronic Repair shops already have experience with Marine ground radios so using the Navy personnel for rear area maintenance/refit is not only possible but IMO very likely because the Navy already has those shops in operation. My last duty station(1991) was SIMA San Diego. SIMA stands for "Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity" and don't let "Intermediate" fool you, our mission was to restore equipment to "Like New" condition. We would tear down radio and RADAR systems completely down, refurbish the equipment cases(grind down to bare metal and repaint) and do a total component level rebuild. For example along with shipboard communications, our shop repaired PRC-77 and man portable satellite radios used by the Marine units in southern California.

So, I can really see a lot of the non-technical members of the Navy being used for Base Defense or other positional Defense points but all the technical repair/maintenance types(which is a very large part) being held back for maintenance and possibly even fabrication of some replacement parts. Each Navy ship has a machine shop of varying size and the larger ships/bases have pretty extensive machine/fabrication shops.

[dragoon500ly]

This link to the US Navy Naval Infantry...the USN actually trained naval infantry as late as the mid-1960s.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/...l_infantry.htm