The B-25C without a boat hull could fly at 284 mph at 15, 000 feet but would be flying low over the water to evade Japanese air defense detection so cruising speed was 233 mph carrying just 3, 000 pounds of bombs and for a range of only 1,500 miles and would RISK TWO ENTIRE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 10, 000 MEN (USS Enterprise 2, 217 + USS Hornet 2,919 and 16 other ships!) In contrast, the Mars seaplane could cruise at 185 mph but could fly for 4, 000 miles unrefueled only risk a couple of tender ships and deliver 34, 811 pounds of bombs!. That's over 11 times the amount of bombs one B-25C could deliver. In fact, with 16 x Doolittle B-25 raiders launching from the Hornet, a pair of Mars seaplanes could deliver more damage than a squadron and a half B-25s at 50 mph slower speed, which if done at NIGHT would be a wash. As we know now with 20-20 hindsight, no B-25s were shot down even during daylight on the surprise Doolittle raid, but resulted in the execution deaths of some brave Americans by the sore loser asshole Jap militarists after they were forced down in China and captured. We know ALL of the Doolittle raiders crash landed or parachuted into occupied China because they RAN OUT OF FUEL since there was no "Plan B" to recover them after the mission since the B-25s didn't have tail hooks to land back on the Hornet. Which in any case was high-tailing it out of the area before they got attacked and sunk. So here is the point, and I'm sure you see it coming.

WE SHOULD HAVE ATTACKED THE JAPANESE HOME ISLANDS WITH A SQUADRON OF 12 x MARS SEAPLANES AT NIGHT DELIVERING 360, 000 POUNDS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVE BOMBS AND INCENDIARIES UPON JAPAN ACHIEVING SIGNIFICANT MILITARY DAMAGE POSSIBLY EVEN STARTING A FIRESTORM IN A WOOD/PAPER RESIDENTIAL CITY.

Furthermore, seaplane tenders could have been waiting to refuel the Mars bomber crews after the mission enabling them to FLY HOME SAFELY. There is a good chance that NONE of these raiders would have died at all. None would have been forced to crashland or bail out in China because they didn't have a way home. AND 10, 000 MEN AND TWO ALLEGEDLY VITAL AND "SCARCE" AIRCRAFT CARRIERS WOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO BE PLACED IN SEVERE RISK TO STRIKE JAPAN. 250, 000 Chinese were murdered by the Japs trying to find Doolittle's men; if we had used self-recovering seaplanes they wouldn't have had been provoked to seek revenge on them for helping the American raiders.

http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/WWII/SeaPlaneOps.html

Japanese Seaplane Operations in the Marshall Islands

by Dirk H.R. Spennemann

The atolls of Micronesia are ideally suited for seaplane operations. Atolls are rings of coral reef usually with a large and quite calm lagoon in the middle. The islands on the windward side of the reefs provide an ideal plane anchorage on the leeward beach, sheltered from wind and waves. The lagoon is usually clam enough to permit unrestricted landing and take-off of larger flying boats, and so it is not surprising that the lagoons were used as seaplane bases first by civilian and later by military aviation.

Civilian seaplane operations

A reliable long-range seaplane, the Kawanishi H-6K type 97 flying boat ("Mavis") had become available to the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in 1936. The seaplane base were officially operated by a civilian airline, the Dai Nippon Koku K.K. (Greater Japan Airlines) although numerous of its pilots were reserve naval pilots. The first irregular air service flying Yokohama, Saipan and Palau opened in 1935, after successful test flights had been carried out in 1934. The flights became more frequent in 1937 and a regular air route from Yokohama to Saipan (via Belau) was officially opened in December 1938 or April 1939 with hopes for an eventual extension to Papua New Guinea and Australia. The Annual Report of the South Seas Government, the Japanese administration of Micronesia, for the year 1938 states that the airline Dai Nippon Koku Kaisha began and air service connecting Japan with Saipan and Belau. In 1939 Pohnpei and Jaluit were added. During the Pacific War the Dai Nippon Koku K.K. continued its long-distance services, flying scheduled services on its three routes Yokohama-Saipan-Palau-Timor, Saigon-Bangkok and Yokohama-Saipan-Truk-Ponape-Jaluit.

Military development

By 1937 the Imperial Japanese Navy was calling the shots in Micronesia and initiated construction of major improvements in air, sea and land facilities in Micronesia. Seaplane facilities had already been built for the Nan'yõ-Cho (South Seas Government) in the late 1930s on several islands of the former Mandated Territory and between 1935 and 1937 the Japanese government spent almost Yen 1,000,000 on further construction of air facilities.

The Japanese air routes in the western Pacific.

1--Yokohama-Saipan-Palau; 2--Palau- Chuuk-Pohnpei-Jaluit; 3--Saipan-Manila; 4--Saipan-Saigon; 5--Palau-Port Moresby-Australia (planned).

The atolls of the Marshall Islands were ideally suited for seaplane bases. All that was needed to establish a fast seaplane base was to detail a seaplane tender to the atoll, from which the planes could be supplied and serviced. The personnel would sleep in tents on the beach and no permanent structures needed to be erected. The planes would be beached at a sandy beach. Such seaplane bases could be set up almost ad hoc if the situation demanded it. The development of a float plane version of the successful Mitsubishi A-6M Zero fighter meant that advanced fighter bases could be erected ad hoc on any of the atolls of the Eastern Caroline, the Marshall Islands and Kiribati.

A temporary seaplane base could be even set up by the means of one or more supply submarines waiting for the arrival of the flying boats or aircraft. In the Marshall Islands, known seaplane bases with shore facilities were located on Wotje, Wotje Atoll; Ebeye, Kwajalein Atoll; Jabwor, Jaluit Atoll; Djarrit, Majuro Atoll; and Engebi, Enewetak Atoll. Suspected seaplane facilities or temporary seaplane bases may have existed on Rongelap, Mile and Bokak.

Military operations

Long-range seaplanes became available in 1936 with the introduction of the Kawanishi H-6K flying boat and in 1942 with the introduction of the Kawanishi H-8K flying boat. In addition, single-engine float planes were used for anti-submarine patrol. The seaplane base in Jaluit, for example, is known to have harbored in mid-1943 the Mitsubishi A-6M2N's ("Rufe"), a float plane version of the "zero" fighter The aircraft visible on a contemporary photograph possibly represent two air wings and all belong to the 802nd Kokutai (Squadron).

The bulk of the military operations of the seaplanes constituted the flying of long search patrols in a set search triangle, looking for enemy submarines and surface shipping. The planes were equipped with communications and small anti-submarine bombs. Attack operations were less common:

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 8th, 1941, was partially launched from bases in the Marshall Islands. Not only came the submarines providing the submarine screen from the base of the 6th submarine fleet in Kwajalein, but also several flying boats taking part in the Pearl Harbor as well as in the raids on the U.S. bases on Wake I., Howland I. and Canton I. were launched from the seaplane bases of the Yokohama Kokutai (later 802nd Kokutai) on Wotje and Jaluit.

Kawanishi flying boats based at Jaluit and Wotje were also used as long-range bombers and on March 4-5, 1942, bombed Oahu, Hawaii, in retaliation of the U.S. carrier strike against the Marshalls in early February 1943. The French Frigate Shoals, some 700 miles northwest of Hawaii Island, were to be used by the Japanese seaplanes as a rendezvous point with submarines carrying fuel and bombs. The French Frigate Shoals had not been used by the Japanese Fleet as a seaplane base in the 1941 carrier attack on Pearl Harbor which began the Pacific War. Having come into classified U.S. Navy Information with the fall of Wake I. on 23 December 1941, however, the Japanese then possibly decided to utilize the atoll. Refueling and arming of two Kawanishi H-8K flying boats took place in the night of 3 March 1942 (U.S. time), which carried out a successful raid on Pearl Harbor the day after.

Another scheduled Japanese rendezvous of three submarines with long-range flying-boats and submarines at French Frigate Shoals had to be called off between May 26th to 31st. The flying-boats were to have reconnoitered Pearl Harbor in preparation for the attack on Midway. Following the Battle of Midway, the U.S. Navy erected a complete Naval Air Station on French Frigate Shoals, which precluded any further Japanese rendezvous.

In September 1942 another major flying boat raid was conducted, attacking the U.S. bases on Funafuti, Tuvalu, and Canton I. It appears that these flying boats either never returned to their home bases in the Marshall Islands or that they were relocated in order to avoid any psychological draw-backs for the 802ND. In addition, flying boats from the Marshall Islands were once more scheduled to bomb Pearl Harbor. As had been the case in March 1942, the French Frigate Shoals were to be used by the Japanese seaplanes as a rendezvous point with a submarine carrying fuel and bombs. However, the Pearl Harbor raid did not eventuate, as the submarine scheduled for a rendezvous with the flying boats found the shoals occupied by a U.S. Naval Air Unit and the rendezvous had to be called off.

As the war progressed, and the U.S. air attacks against the Marshalls become more common, flying boat operations became less frequent, and a number of boats were sunk at their moorings by U.S. fire, such as the three flying boats of Ebeye or the boat off Wotje.

The last Japanese flying boat operations in the Marshall islands occurred in the first and second week of February 1944, when flying boats from the Japanese headquarters in Chuuk flew to the then by-passed bases of Taroa/Maloelap, Wotje and Mile to take off fighter and bomber pilots stranded there.

Bibliographic citation for this document

Spennemann, Dirk H.R. (1992 [2000]) Japanese Sea Plane Operations in the Marshall Islands. Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage, Charles Sturt University, Albury. URL:

http:/marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/WWII/SeaPlaneOps.html

The article first appeared in the Marshall Islands Journal on 25 December 1992

CONTACT:

Dirk H.R. Spennemann, Institute of Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, P.O.Box 789, Albury NSW 2640, Australia. e-mail: dspennemann@csu.edu.au

So if you think this is just theoretical, theorize again with FACTS. The facts are the Japanese actually DID use two fast Emily 4-engined seaplanes to bomb Pearl Harbor after their first raid. They used uninhabited island lagoons west of Pearl to get smooth water to land on and refuel from submarines. The Emily was faster than all our WW2 large seaplanes but didn't have much of a bomb load, but it PROVES that long-range seaplane bombing was feasible, especially if one has large seaplanes that can land on the open ocean doesn't it?

Guess where the Japanese got long-range seaplane technology from in the first place before the war?

In fact, 20-20 hindsight reveals that the entire reach-the-Japanese-home-islands-by-aircraft carrier mentality is a crock of shit. Japan is NOT that far from either Hawaii or our western-most Alaskan islands. Land-based planes could have been bombing the Japanese home islands in 1942 that's right---3 years before we reached them the "long way" on the un-needed give-the-navy-and-marines-a-chance-to-showboat-their-large-aircraft-carriers-and-their-amphibious-warfare-3-ring-circus-against-fortified-beaches and-heavy-casualties central Pacific advance. We could have taken the northern Japanese Kurile islands from Alaska and set up Army long-range bomber bases and started plastering the Japanese home islands IF they really were a threat, which they were not. The truth of the matter is that the Pacific war was a sideshow because the real mortal threat to America was the German military as we raced to over-run them before they fielded weapons of mass destruction. Look at the casualty figures. Germany inflicted 50+ MILLION DEATHS UPON THE REST OF THE WORLD at a cost of only 11 million of themselves, most of which was civilians we killed in bombing raids. The Japs didn't kill much of anybody except the Chinese and nothing on the horrific genocidal millions upon millions scale as the Germans. Don't get me wrong, those people back then stunk and that's why I refer to them as "Japs". They were mass murderers but nothing like the Germans. And look at U.S. casualties in the Pacific war compared to Europe; the narcissistic and egotistical marines whine and cry about their "heavy" losses of less than 20, 000 dead against a weak, low technology foe (they never fought the Germans in WW2) when the TRUTH is OVER 185, 000 ARMY SOLDIERS DIED DEFEATING THE FAR MORE DANGEROUS HIGH TECHNOLOGY GERMANS. The marines don't have a fucking clue about what "heavy" losses are and need to shut their fucking mouths up about who paid the highest price to defeat the greatest threat to America and I don't care what the stupid American people feel or think about this just because they were fighting the hated "Japs" who showed themselves as obvious enemies. The enemies you have to worry about are the ones who do not reveal themselves; the ones whose axes are grinding and when they strike could be fatal, there is no second chances in total war with WMDs if you are stupid and only act in emotional knee jerks to the obvious which would be too late.

If we had really wanted to put Japan out of the war business we could have finished her off in 1942 by attacking the home islands directly through the Alaska-Kuriles axis of advance. Now I am not saying we could have used the Mars seaplanes to continually bombard the Jap home islands from there; I think with their slow speed a Pearl Harbor Revenge Mission was a one-time deal. However, the as-is Mars seaplanes could have SEA MINED THE JAPANESE HOME ISLANDS IMMEDIATELY ON NIGHT MISSIONS preventing supplies from going down to their island garrisons in the south Army General MacArthur skillfully bypassed with operational art. As we continued sea mining with Mars seaplanes, R&D would have went into a slimmer hull design like the P-6M SeaMaster but in 1943 not the mid-1950s to get 300, 400 and eventually 600 mph speeds with the advent of jet engines. Today's turbofan engines would up the speeds to 700 mph and double the range to intercontinental distances.

If we had struck Japan with two-way Mars seaplanes/tenders instead of one-way B-25s/aircraft carriers the POLITICAL EFFECT would have been registered in the minds of the American public that the best way to employ long-range aircraft power at sea is the SEAPLANE. Of course the aircraft carrier mafia wanted and still wants none of this. Mars seaplane transports that could fly entire Army and marine half-battalions and light tanks would have picked off islands surrounding Japan's home islands with lightning amphibious assaults instead of the ponderous slow and obvious ship bombardments followed by marine frontal assault blood baths. Japan would have been starved and firebombed into submission no later than 1944, precluding the use of the atomic bomb. What this would have meant for today is the U.S. Navy would not be a bogus un-balanced ego club for the bloated over-priced supercarrier mentality based on the "Midway Miracle" myth of aircraft carriers winning the Pacific war when the truth is that U.S. submarines were the ones who strangled Japanese supply liners so our troops could bypass and starve out the Japanese island garrisons taking the slow way to the home islands. We are now saddled with a bogus microcosm of the Doolittle raid living still in our expensive aircraft carriers since WW2 too large to even pass through the Panama Canal and with short range planes inefficient at LA bombardments but able to put on a good PR show for the american public until their airmen get shot down and become torture recipients at enemy Hanoi Hiltons. This Midway and Doolittle Large aircraft Carrier Myth that carriers are the only or best way to get LA political effect from the sea to placate the American people or do the bidding of unscrupulous Presidents has polluted our Navy from its purpose and best efficiencies.

Listen to the Kaiser, Harry Kaiser that is

Martin had the right idea, but didn't realize TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE. The military mind will not do drastic things except under drastic war time pressure. Its tragic that Martin didn't let Harry Kaiser mass-produce his Mars flying boats to unfuck the Navy/Mc slow surface ships with men inside packed like sardines mentality. Once we started moving BATTALIONS of marines at a time by large seaplanes, it wouldn't be long before BRIGADES and DIVISIONS could land and do surprise amphibious assaults.

The Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum

www.marylandaviationmuseum.org/history/martin_aircraft/14_mars.html

Martin Models 170, 193 and 199
XPB2M-1, JRM-1 To JRM-3, Mars Flying Boats
Variants/Specifications

In some respects the PBM represented an interruption in Martin's work on huge four-engine flying boats. These had become something of an obsession with the firm's founder and president. In 1938 the Navy ordered a single prototype Martin Model 170 as an experimental patrol bomber, designated XPB2M-1. This was to be the Martin Mars, a 140,000-pound behemoth that was the largest plane in the U.S. military inventory until the arrival of the B-36 intercontinental bomber in 1947. The Mars was originally conceived as a "sky battleship" or "flying Dreadnought," armed with multiple gun turrets, capable of flying long distances with huge bombloads (and marine paratroopers as well). In speeches and articles, Glenn Martin predicted that a single Mars could capture an enemy island or "totally destroy" a rail center or shipyard. A squadron of them, he wrote, could "devastate Tokyo in one trip."

The XPB2M-1 was accordingly treated like a warship. Its keel was ceremoniously laid on August 20, 1940, with Glenn Martin driving the first rivet. Its launching into Dark Head Creek on November 5, 1941, was stern-first, after a bottle of champagne had been duly smashed over its bow. The plane's interior was laid out with separate mess rooms, berths, and washrooms for officers and enlisted men. Its commander had a private stateroom and issued his orders from a desk behind the pilots' seats. A huge bomb-bay, located in the hull underneath the wings, contained racks capable of holding five 1,000-pound bombs each. When it came time to drop them these could slide out on either side along the lower edge of the wing.

Initial taxiing tests in Middle River came to an abrupt end on the Friday before Pearl Harbor when one of the giant laminated-wood propellers threw a blade. It just missed the Martin flight engineer inside the hull and started a fire in one of the huge Wright R-3350 engines. The stricken sky battleship had to be towed closer to shore to allow firemen to put out the blaze. When the smoke cleared serious damage to the starboard wing and number-three engine nacelle were apparent. Repairs took more than six months, by which time the plane's mission had undergone a complete re-evaluation.

Pearl Harbor showed that fast carrier planes made very effective bombers indeed, while German U-boats turned the Atlantic coast into "Torpedo Alley." Thoughts naturally turned to a "sky freighter" as an alternative way to ship supplies to Britain and other battlefronts, invulnerable to torpedoes. The industrialist Henry J. Kaiser suggested that, given Martin's blueprints for the Mars, he could quickly build hundreds of the planes in his west-coast shipyards. Martin's response was ambivalent. Although the company issued calculations suggesting that building the Mars in quantity would be more cost-effective than Liberty ships, Glenn Martin was not inclined to share his prize plane with another manufacturer. Kaiser joined forces instead with Howard Hughes; this was the origin of Hughes' 400,000-pound "Spruce Goose." Like Hughes, what Martin really wanted was government support for an even larger flying boat. Plans for the 250,000-pound Model 163, projected back in 1937, were dusted off and modernized. Building five hundred six-engine Model 193's could win the war, declared Glenn Martin, and company ads frequently depicted it as a postwar airliner. Meanwhile the Navy redesignated the original Mars as a transport, XPB2M-1R, and Martin began to remove its turrets and bombing equipment.

Long before either Mars transports or the Model 193 could have been ready, the tide had turned in the Battle of the Atlantic. The Mars was sent to the Pacific instead, where it built an impressive record between 1943 and 1945, carrying cargoes of up to 34,811 pounds. Particularly impressive was the plane's ability to carry ten tons of cargo on the critical California to Hawaii route.

In January 1945 the Navy ordered twenty more Mars transports, now designated JRM-1. In comparison to the original, their hulls were to be six feet longer and the split PBM-style tail replaced by a single 44-foot vertical fin. Fewer internal bulkheads and an overhead hoist would assist cargo-handling. Maximum take-off weight grew to 148,500 pounds. Recalling the China Clippers a decade before, the first JRM-1 was christened the "Hawaii Mars" in July 1945. It crashed just two weeks later in a landing accident on Chesapeake Bay. Four more JRM-1's were completed in 1945, but, in the wake of V-J Day, the Navy order was cut to six.

Peace allowed Martin pursue the long-cherished goal of selling giant airliners. The Mars was offered in several commercial versions for passengers and cargo. Re-engined with massive four-row Pratt and Whitney R-4360 Wasp Majors, the largest piston engines made, Model 170-21A offered transatlantic range with 58 sleeper or 79 coach seats. Model 170-24A could seat 105 for shorter ranges. But the construction of so many long runways during the war eliminated one of the flying boat's principal advantages. Martin recognized this and began work on a 145,000-pound landplane using the same engines and wings as the JRM-1; the Model 199 was to have a floor level no higher than that of a truck. Other four-engine airliners were already on the scene, however. There were no airline purchasers for either the 170 or the 199.

The Navy did purchase its sixth and last Mars with Wasp Major engines, which enabled the single JRM-2 to carry an extra 18,000 pounds of cargo on the San Francisco-to-Hawaii run. The four earlier planes were eventually re-engined with Wasp Majors as well and designated JRM-3's. All five served in the Pacific, carrying military personnel, Korean-war wounded, blood plasma, and other priority cargo over the same routes as were once flown by the glamorous clippers. Like them, they were duly christened for Pacific destinations: Philippine, Marianas, Marshall, a second Hawaii, and Caroline.

A fire destroyed the Marshall Mars in 1950; the other four JRM's served the Navy until 1956. They were then sold as surplus to Forest Industries Flying Tankers Limited, a Canadian firm, which uses them to drop 60,000-pound loads of water and foam on forest fires. The Marianas Mars crashed in an accident in 1961, and the Caroline Mars was destroyed in a hurricane a year later - but as they approached age 40 both the Philippine and Hawaii Mars were still flying.

Since WW2 when Martin unwisely did not exploit Harry Kaiser's offer to mass-produce his Mars seaplanes to get at least the MANEUVER aspect of seaplanes established, the aircraft carrier navy brass have conspired to eliminate any and all competitors to their ego BS floating airfields. First, they got rid of the small "jeep" escort carriers since it was actually their numbers that smothered Axis submarines so we wouldn't have to suffer the fate our unrestricted submarines did to the Japanese. Next, they got rid of catapult-launched small float seaplanes from cruisers/battleships so there would be no other means to get fighter-bombers into the air from ships than by dry flight deck carriers and to handicap the former's guns so they couldn't hit LA targets ashore lest their risk no man, HE efficiency be realized as the best way to do gunboat diplomacy--with a gunboat. Then, they began to use the Korean War's example where the carriers had no sea control threat and just did floating airfield rivalry with the USAF doing LA to justify ever bigger and less numerous supercarriers. Again, not getting the public ego limelight, the Navy's improved PBMs and P-5M Marlins did great work busting enemy mines and rescuing downed fliers, but who the fuck cares? This enabled the Navy to squeeze the large seaplanes and LTA blimps out of existence by 1962, leaving only the submariners as their only rivals left to control of the navy ego bureaucracy. The submariners are out of sight and out of mind and as a "silent service" not going to steal money and political effect from the American public. They have got their wish to emulate the parts of the WW2 force structure that they want to do, both the navy and the marines and have in the process put our nation at risk of a monumental strategic fucking defeat at the hands of a navy that actually practices and works at naval warfare. We have less than a dozen supercarriers that cannot even field a full compliment of aircraft types to defend itself from air and submarine attacks packed full of 5, 000 men ready to die in the water with no seaplanes or LTA blimps to pluck them out of the ocean. The marines have legacy-worshipping amphibious ships likewise packed with thousands of men ready to die if someone challenges us at sea and decides not to just let them go about their LA PR-grabbing "strike-at-Japan" (Japan is ANYONE the American public at large is pissed off about, today's its "terrsts") make-the-American-public-feel-good operations and evacuations. Our navy and marines have squandered BILLIONS of tax dollars on their warped BULLSHIT.

We have let morons in the Navy and the marines set up thousands of men into a handful of unarmored vulnerable ships poised to do land attack ASS U MING that they are unchallenged at sea and can pompously do whatever we want because "we are Americans". Our Waterloo at sea is impending.

What's worse (is it possible to be worse here?), its not even very good naval land attack. The best way to project high explosives is to PROJECT HIGH EXPLOSIVES ie; naval guns not FLYING HE in a plane and dropping it on the enemy who is going to shoot back. If you think you're such a clever fuck that the planes will be "unmanned" think again and think with facts; you get what you pay for on planet earth. No human in the plane fighting for its survival, guess what? It doesn't survive. UAVs have a 50% crash rate. Are we that rich that we can just throw away half our planes whether we launch them in peacetime or war? If we try to train on these, we will soon have none left when needed in war. This is all great for the MICC-TT that wants to build the least amount of BS for the greatest costs, but its bad for America...you know what the military SERVICE is supposed to be serving? If a nation-state enemy threatens us has need for oil tankers and cargo container ship commerce, the ability to lay LOTS OF SEA MINES to blockade them is the BEST way to strangle them into submission at least cost and deaths. We need long-range SEAPLANES to efficiently sea mine blockade such foes and we do not have them and will not have them as long as the bad WW2 re-enactment morons continue to run the Navy/Mc. If the threat is sub-national "terrst" groups (SNGs), we need submarine amphibious assault ships that can deliver SEAL commandos by small seaplanes deep inland by 3D maneuver and over the shore M113 Amphigavin amphibious light tanks to support them with 2D maneuver. It will take a while to field these, so in the meantime, we need container ships converted into commando carriers with stealthy, long-range, long loiter time fixed-wing prop planes, stealthy NOTAR helicopters and Amphigavins to 3D/2D maneuver deep into closed terrains where SNGs are hiding to root them out. We don't need a 174, 000-man marine corps of loud-mouthed braggadocio asshole narcissist marines who all they want to do is foot-slog or ride in wheeled trucks once ashore after a glorious beach assault or a flaming entrance a bit inland by V-22s. America needs to wake up, WW2 WASN'T ABOUT THE JAPANESE. IT WASN'T ABOUT PEARL HARBOR. IT WAS ABOUT THE GERMANS, STUPID. Stop wasting our money on a Navy and marines hell-bent and going-to-hell worshipping themselves with cultural narcissism that is patently un-American, unethical and exceedingly stupid.

Unfortunately without the go-getters of WWII around, today's DoD is physically dysfunctional; with every electronic mental capability added, a physical robustness is dismantled by our own conscious choice to be lazy and opt for some push-button firepower choice. What arguably, the other greatest man of the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt warned us about time and time again not do: forget to challenge ourselves physically with our new technological means to preserve human virtue. That the DoD is constantly "emasculating" itself only occurs if the new weapons system is agreeable to all parties, which by groupthink convolution does not equal the most efficient way of doing things, so the muscle continues to be cut. Clearly the 1940-1970 time period was a physically-oriented age and the post-1970s world we live in is increasingly mental and increasingly weaker physically as we diminish the physical as a visible sacrifice to the false god of "high-technology" showing we truly believe. Clearly, if the 9/11 terrorists had been on a Boeing 707 in 1960 with a planeload of WWII combat veterans, their box-cutter knives would have been taken away from them and used to make them into human hamburger. We have almost become the aphysical society of wimps shown in the sci-fi film, "Demolition Man" and warned about by H.G. Wells in "The Time Machine" or President Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the century. They all saw this aphysical age coming and warned us to stay connected with the physical.

Here is a quick run-down of how far we have gone astray in small anecdotes:

*Manned triple-supersonic SR-71s that can actually photo-map in detail the battlefield retired in favor of ineffective, easily shot-down UAVs because the former bruises the egos of the slower at best double-sonic fighter-bomber jocks running the USAF; resulting in poor air reconnaissance and the enemy escaping in Iraq, Kosovo and now Afghanistan.

*Battleships with guns to saturate land areas with fire to clear them for amphibious forced-entries retired, in their place weakly armed and armored cruisers with small caliber guns that simply refuse to fire in anger since there is no minesweeping capability and staying over the horizon is safer

*Fighter-bombers that could operate from grassy and dirt fields replaced by jets that need long pavement runways on comfy fixed air bases and cannot fly for long without refueling or fly over extended periods of time without need of overhauls due to their complex designs (air cover over U.S. cities to prevent another 9/11 terrorist use of commandeered airliners ramming into buildings had to be halted recently, fighter-bomber planes simply could not continue 24/7/365 air operations) The A-10 "Warthog" flying tank ignored with most collecting dust in the desert when they should have been sent into Afghanistan from day 1 to provide responsive close air support (CAS) to our Army troops from short airstrips. The Russians built a clone of the armored A-9 CAS aircraft which lost the CAS competition to the A-10 called the SU-25 Frogfoot that has been very effective in Afghanistan and even deploys from aircraft carriers!. Armored Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) A-10s would be ideal for flying air cover over American cities with their long loiter times or flying off from USN aircraft carriers to provide effective slow-enough-to-see-target CAS for ground troops (instead of deathtrap unarmored AV-8B Harrier STOVL jets rolling off USN amphibs without ski jumps and with exhaust nozzles co-located with fuel tanks) but they do not look sexy and fly fast enough to be fighter-bombers to try to win wars by airstrikes alone for the USAF/USN egotists to have multiple squadrons in service. A-10s should be owned and operated by the U.S. Army and AFSOC to escort deep Airborne fixed-wing and Air Assault helicopter penetration operations not the fighter-bomber jock USAF.

*These same fighter-bomber type aircraft navalized to operate from huge, visible, vulnerable aircraft "supercarriers" by giant sling-shots struggle to cope with enemy defenses as more and more electronic gadgets are added onto them since they are not stealthy

* Extremely effective Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Lighter-Than-Air blimps retired in 1962 despite their 100% success rate in WWII defending surface ships from submarines.

* Small catapult-launched Seaplanes from surface ships retired leaving them dependant upon less than a dozen, large supercarriers to provide air cover that cannot even defend themselves much less anyone else

*Tracked tanks and armored personnel carriers that can go off-road, swim, be parachute airdropped are ignored and some retired because there is no institutional Cavalry Branch in the Army with enough clout to insure general purpose mobile warfare forces exist; instead the heavy armor and narcissist light infantry "mafias" want to exchange 70 tons of tank security blanket for a thin box on unarmored, air-filled rubber tires with a hope that their computer screens will somehow keep the enemy from shooting at them as they stay "safe" behind an imaginary line of troops on a non-linear battlefield where friends and foes are intermingled

* Large Seaplanes for long-range ASW, AsuW, LA, mine-laying, CSAR, SOF and maneuver force delivery

The need for the physical must return in the 21st Century or we are finished as a nation-state

The U.S. threatened by both sub-national and nation-state threats must be able to physically project real military power to defeat these threats before they graduate to a "nuclear 9/11" type attack; this means actual ground maneuver that encircles, collapses and decisively defeats enemies to include separating civilians from sub-national terror groups like Israeli leader Ariel Sharon's magnificent Operation Defensive Shield---not just pinprick air/sea strikes regardless of how "brilliant" and precisely electronically guided with sexy gadgets. This means we actually have to be there in person for the war, and this takes muscle and physicality even though general American society is drifting against this towards service-industry "virtual reality" that doesn't actually produce any durable goods (hardware) just software (BS) for the more physical to use or the majority to use as an escape. If you look into it, our costly electronically gadgeted and physically weak platforms are costing us more and more money such that we have less and less of them. This "death spiral" is hitting the Navy so hard that its retiring its S-3 Viking anti-submarine warfare aircraft, soon its tanker S-3s and electronic warfare EA-6Bs. The result will be F/A-18 Hornets doing EVERYTHING except what helicopters and turboprop Greyhound aircraft do. The absurdity of fuel-hungry fighter aircraft trying to air refuel other fuel-hungry fighters is beyond words. The stage is being set for a third world country diesel/electric submarine to sink one or more of our Nimitz class supercarriers with 5,000 men aboard.

Powering the DoD's nearly 6 decades long meltdown is the lowest common denominator groupthink of the service branches and the existentialist egotism driving their sub-factions. Simply put, DoD does things that please the egos of the ruling powers not what is the best and most cost-effective approach to the problem. Thus, towards the end of the enlightened physical age, the jet-powered seaplane on the verge of complete equality with landplanes was abandoned because it didn't have a powerful enough institutional bureaucracy with individual egotists fighting for its existence and fulfillment (the shore patrol community wanted it but has less clout than the naval aviator and aircraft carrier, surface ship and submarine "mafias").

P-6M SeaMaster coming ashore!
With dolly wheels
Taxi in the water

The U.S. Navy had developed the amazing P-6M SeaMaster heavy jet seaplane bomber that could actually fly about 100 mph faster than the land-based B-52s while delivering a heavy bombload. The old handicap of the seaplane's boat shape ruining its aerodynamics was finally solved after 4 decades of struggle by the brilliant engineers at Martin Aircraft Company, yet the Navy "gave up the ghost" and has been suffering ever since. Until very recently the name "Martin" has not been connected with aircraft design and production as the company gave up after the SeaMaster backstab by the short-sighted Navy brass playing their favorites. The Aviators would instead deliver nuclear bombs by A-3D SkyWarrior and A-5 Vigilante jets flying from aircraft carriers, escorted by the "black shoe" navy with SUBROC nuclear depth charges to kill enemy subs. The Submariners would launch Poseidon nuclear SLBMs to hit enemy cities if they did a first strike. The Patrol Navy would shut up and patrol the oceans in civilian airliners to keep the rest of the Navy informed where the Soviet Navy was at so they could do battle and get the glory. In other words, the patrol navy was told to shut up and be second class citizens as the other ego clubs absorbed the taxpayer's money to perpetuate their club activities regardless of what was best for the common defense of the American people. Decades later, we now have a dozen supercarriers and nuclear missile submarines sailing in circles in the ocean and NOT A SINGLE AIRCRAFT THAT CAN LAND IN THE WATER to control the seas from sub-national terrorists who could wipe out an American city by sneaking a WMD device in unannounced.

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591148782?v=glance

Attack from the Sea: A History of the U.S. Navy's Seaplane Striking Force
by William F. Trimble

Naval Institute Press, $27.95
Hardcover | 248 pages | 1591148782 | March 2005

An award-winning aviation historian chronicles the Navy's efforts to develop a powerful sea-based strike force through the use of long-range attack seaplanes supported by surface ships and submarines. William Trimble traces the concept back to the early 1930s when American strategic planners sought ways to mount an assault across the Pacific with minimum air support. But it was not until 1950, when the Navy was threatened with losing its big carriers and long-range aircraft, that the idea of a Seaplane Striking Force was resurrected. Lured by breakthroughs in seaplane performance and the promise of the turbojet-powered Convair SeaDart fighter and the Martin SeaMasterack flying boat, the Navy believed it could challenge the Air Force in the strategic role, the author explains, but found that the technology did not live up to expectations.

This book investigates the difficulties of weapon system procurement within the context of strategic realities, inter-service rivalry, and constrained defense budgets. It also looks at an alternative weapon system that the Navy saw as a means of extending its conventional reach and as a complement to the carrier and land-based bomber used for nuclear deterrence. That weapon, however, proved unsuccessful in the end. The author helps the reader understand that while conceptual and operational flaws kept the Seaplane Striking Force from achieving the goals set for it, the idea of a mobile weapon system capable of long-range attacks from the sea remains valid. Other books touch briefly on the subject, but this is the first to examine the concept in depth.

William F. Trimble, a former Lindbergh professor at the National Air and Space Museum, is chair of the history department at Auburn University. He is the author of several books.

ITS AN EXCELLENT BOOK, regardless and helps explains why the Navy is so fucked up today.

Lessons Learned

1. Do not share difficulties with assholes trying to stop what you are doing

The villain here who cancelled the P-6M SeaMaster jet seaplane bomber was narrow-minded pro-aircraft carrier asshole, a second stringer from WW2, asshole Admiral Pirie inadvertently helped by Martin not cutting costs and fixing design problems quietly. If you have a new important capabilities-delivering platform, get a chunk of money and time to develop it and get the bugs worked out QUIETLY, THEN ask for production money, and DO IT QUICK. Field it. Get it into operation. Then tinker with new applications. With DoD you are not dealing adults you are dealing with imbecile egomaniacs wed to vanity platforms.

2. The Seaplane is going to return when the fucked up, large aircraft carrier Navy gets sunk probably by the Red Chinese in the coming war with Taiwan

Today, we could and should actually field the Seaplane Striking Force (SSF) OFF THE SHELF.

Read that again.

We said OFF-THE-SHELF.

* Russian A-40Ms can be the "SeaMaster" patrol bombers.

* F-35B STOVL Joint Strike Fighters can be the "SeaDart" air defenders.

* Shin Meiwa flying boats with BLC for STOL can be the "Tradewind" resupply, ASW and CSAR birds.

* Amphib ships, sealift ships and nuclear subs are available to do refueling and act as mini-aircraft carriers.

What's the Navy's excuse today?

They are morons still in love with reliving the Midway myth.

A second edition of this fine book should point out that ALL of the elements for a SSF are available TODAY off-the-shelf, and put the heat back on our Navy to adapt to modern warfare demands as they are not how we wish them to be

Now let's look at bombing. For the current U.S. Navy to aircraft bomb inland it needs an aircraft carrier to house, fuel, maintain, launch and recover fighter-bombers that are basically sexy-looking "lawn darts" that need to be burning fuel at a high rate to produce forward thrust so they can stay moving fast through the air to generate lift over their thin wings to keep flying. They have to be flung into the air by a steam slingshot and then when they land they come in hot and have to be snared by a tailhook wire because they are "darts" that want to dive not "seagulls" that curve their wings to generate lift to stay aloft almost motionless in the sky. So our huge nuclear aircraft carrier standing several stories tall, longer than a football field holds 5,000+ men and 80 aircraft, of which half are there to defend the carrier itself from attack! Removing this overhead, you have 40 expensive ($56M for one F-18 Stupor Hornet), complex fighter-bomber darts less nimble due to carrier landing/take-off gear and training than a land-based fighter-bomber dart and pilot flying inland to bomb targets with a total of 200,000 pounds or 200 x 2,000 pound precision guided bombs. This strike force can ideally hit 200 things on the ground in one mission always keeping in mind there is no perfect or near perfect "situational awareness" and more and more we are blowing up decoys, civilians and dirt with more and more expensive bombs as the enemy employs C3D2 (Camouflage, Cover, Concealment, Deception and Deceit) measures against us.

However, this entire strike force unravels if the enemy resists at sea and can get just one bomb to explode on a crowded flight deck full of fuel and bomb-laden fighter-bomber darts as the USS Forrestal fire in 1967 proved. Visible from space satellites, its highly likely that a single Falklands war-style precision anti-ship missile (ASM) or seamine strike on a nuclear supercarrier will prevent 200-at-a-time target strikes from the TacAir onboard. However, the nuclear aircraft supercarrier employs 5,000+ seamen on a job more exciting than flipping burgers in CONUS, gives 200+ pilots an excuse to have exalted egos, senior officers a chance to be on a staff and one to be "Captain Kirk" every few years. Its a huge ego club and welfare institution. This is why the carrier mafia hates the battleships and had them retired; they can put more ordnance on target by shooting it through a cannon tube and not having any pilots or aircraft fly overhead to drop it (or get shot down to be KIA, MIA or POWs) at a far lesser costs than aircraft supercarriers, whose original purpose was sea control/combat against enemy ships not shore bombardment. You can't walk into the officer's club in a flight suit and pick up chicks like Tom Cruise in "TopGun" if you are a khaki-clad gunnery officer on an Iowa Class battleship that has not been romanticized by Hollywood.

P-6M SeaMasters with turbojet engines could carry over 30, 000 pounds of nuclear, conventional bombs, sea mines, missiles in their rotary bomb bay: had the U.S. Navy been wiser these "seaplane B-52s" would still be in service today with turbofan engines and even more capable!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:P6M_SeaMaster.jpg

Wikipedia states:

"The P-6M-2 was certainly an impressive aircraft; its Mach 0.9 (1,103 km/h) performance 'on the deck' could be equalled by few aircraft of the time and not too many more now. A USAF B-52 can only reach Mach 0.55 (674 km/h) at low altitude. The planes were built incredibly tough, with the aircraft skin at the wing roots over an inch (25 mm) thick."

Now back to 1960 and the fabulous P-6M SeaMaster heavy bomber jet seaplane. Had the USN been driven by intellect and humility--not factions-within-the-branch egotism, these bombers would have been fully fielded and deployed and their superior 600+ mph, carrying 30, 000 pounds of bombs flight characteristics revealed busting the myth forever that a plane that lands on water cannot fly as well as one that can only land on land. The plan was for these amazing seaplane jet bombers to operate from modified surface amphibious ships by beaching themselves on a special stern ramp. After being refueled and rearmed, the ships would ballast their sterns down and the SeaMaster would float away for an unlimited length take-off run.

Mobile Forward Arming & Refuel Points for the Seaplane Strike Force (SSF)

By Landing Ship Dock (LSD)

By Submarine

By Repair Ship Seaplane Tender (AV)

In An illustrated History Seaplanes and Flying Boats, Maurice Allward writes:

At that time the Navy had dreams of creating a strategic Seaplane Striking Force (SSF), to help rival. The global influence of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command. This concept was described by the then Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, in the following terms:

"Also promising, I think, is the long-range attack seaplane. This has an additional advantage which the carrier force lacks - they can be widely dispersed overseas in many small, relatively inexpensive, units, in areas where maintenance of other forces would be too costly. Two or three seaplane squadrons in an area thousands of miles from American soil could maintain a threat to an entire flank and require a diversion of enemy defenses from other fronts, without exposing vulnerable fixed bases to an enemy's counter-attack. Failure to exploit this advantage would leave an enemy able to concentrate his forces in areas closest to the targets he seeks in the United States. With perhaps half a dozen seaplanes, a single tender, and a pair of tanker submarines, we could provide an integrated force that an enemy could not ignore."

To create the SSF, the Navy had ordered an initial fleet of 24 SeaMasters, but through the delay caused by the redesign work and the accompanying steep rise in costs, six aircraft were cancelled. The first production aircraft flew in February 1959, and the Navy boasted how well their new aircraft could mine the Black Sea, and claimed it was "a major new anti-submarine warfare system. . . able to go after enemy submarines in their home ports."

Steep costs? COMPARED TO WHAT? Compared to over a dozen different fighter/trainer aircraft types? Compared to a dozen bloated aircraft carriers? This is non-sense. The Navy carrier brass didn't want competition from the seaplane, this was about POWER AND EGO not about cost and what's BEST FOR AMERICA. Contrast the Navy BS and imagine that the USN had been run by adults and kept itself in the seaplane jet bomber business to the current day. A half-squadron of modernized, turbofan-engined 6 x P-6M SeaMasters operating from a couple seaplane tenders each carrying 40,000+ pounds of bombs totaling 240,000 pounds of bombs could out-deliver the entire strike force of a Nimitz-class nuclear supercarrier at a fraction of the costs of keeping a floating city going.

In fact, when you examine who is doing the "heavy" lifting bomb-load wise for the war in Afghanistan, its not the fighter-bomber "lawn darts" either AF or USN, its the P-6M's old nemesis, the mighty B-52 doing the lion's share of the work! (See graphic above). But the ironies here only expand, the mighty B-52s have to fly from thousands of miles away from Diego Garcia to work their heavy bombardment magic which is universally feared by our enemies as the Iowa class battleship's 16 inch guns are. Physical size and effect does matter in warfare, but you have to value the physicality of size and work to get it---mouse-clicking everything and cutting physical capabilities gets you LESS not more combat power. Why we cannot learn from the past and improve our physical capabilities and at the same time add a mental precision begs the question if those running DoD can chew bubblegum and walk without being rushed to an emergency room or given the Heimlich maneuver. In contrast, the P-6M SeaMaster bombers could have operated much closer to Afghanistan increasing their sortie rate and bombload since they wouldn't need as much fuel or time to get here as B-52s from distant land bases.

What's really embarrassing is that years later after the P-6M SeaMaster was cancelled, the USAF would have to use B-52s to help the Navy survive on the surface and do sea control and train to lay sea mines. The USAF would have to provide air tankers so Navy lawn darts didn't run out out fuel doing land attack missions since the stupid USN also cancelled the Tradewind seaplane combat transport and tanker.

And in another irony, today the "aircraft carrier mafia" that rejected the SeaMaster now has no optimized aircraft to do in-flight refueling, in fact naval aviation is dying with the retirement of S-3 Vikings, A-6 Intruders and F-14 Tomcats forcing one bloated, under-powered F-18 "Stupor Hornet" to try to do all missions badly. Had the Navy been less selfish and snobby, SeaMasters and Tradewinds could have been "seaplane KC-135s" and helped the aircraft carrier lawn darts get fuel with bomb bay in-flight refuel systems (see photo above).

Another Missed Opportunity: Nuclear-Powered P-7M SeaMaster Seaplanes

Had the navy not be stupid and snobby, the SeaMaster design could have progressed into the P-7M nuclear-powered version that could fly literally for weeks and months at a time! Nuclear SeaMasters would only need to stop to get rested crews and re-arm with high explosive and super high explosive (nuclear) weapons as fuel to fly would be not needed. In fact, the nuclear reactor could even power laser weapons so stopping for HE/SHE weapons from a ship or sub tender wouldn't be necessary. This all came to a stop when the Navy brass opted to keep on wasting $BILLIONS on bogus stuporcarriers.

Will our next nation-state challenger and us battle for Taiwan?

The Red Chinese have large seaplanes, the U.S. Navy has NONE

Let's turn our attention to combat against a capable nation-state like Red China (we do not mince words here). If they seamine the waters and patrol with attack submarines an exclusion zone around Taiwan, our nuclear aircraft carriers filled with 5,000 potential flag-draped coffins will be hard-pressed to get their fighter-bomber lawn darts into position to help defend Taiwan by air interception of CHICOM fighter-bombers and gulp...bombing raids on mainland China (may be politically off-limits). If USN Carrier battle Groups venture close to Taiwan they will be spotted from CHICOM ocean surveillance satellites and overwhelmed by missiles. Ditto for any marine amphibious ships needing to get through the seamines to land WWII clone line infantry who with a ruck on their back's worth of supplies would be yet another mouth to feed for an island cut-off from the outside world. Game over. Red China bombards Taiwan like the Japanese laid siege to Corregidor in WWII until they surrender from starvation. They win and successfully knock off a U.S. ally, U.S. superpower status is gone as they can pick off tiny free societies at will. This is not what America is all about.

The Fisher Report: Beware of Red Chinese Light Tanks

www.uscc.gov/researchreports/2004/04fisher_report/04_01_01fisherreport.htm

THE IMPACT OF FOREIGN WEAPONS AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CHINA'S PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY

A Report for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission

January 2004

by Richard D. Fisher, Jr.
Center for Security Policy

While we are fumbling instead of adapting and getting stronger from Iraq, Red China is putting together a dangerous Surveillance Strike Maneuver Capability to do nation-state warfare with a sophistication of fire, maneuver and deception we are not even close to matching.

We better get our heads out of our asses and stop our "RMA Jesus" computer crap and start building for decisive 2D/3D air/ground maneuver using our existing M113 Gavin light tracks and some seaplane transports.

Details: www.geocities.com/strategicmaneuver

Game is not over if the USN (or anyone with some balls in DoD) has seaplanes! They could simply be C-130s fitted with floats or skis, a modern version of the P-6M SeaMaster, A-40 turbofans bought from Russia or Les Grau's Wing-In-Ground (WIG) effect seacraft. The point is that America can still control the air she flies through and this means even if Taiwan's runways are cratered and covered in chemical agents, all she needs is some near shore waters clear and the seaplanes can land troops, swimming M113A3 Amphigavin light tracked AFVs and supplies to reinforce the island and keep it from falling into CHICOM hands via mobile, area defense by AMERICANS standing in solidarity not ambiguity--with the free people of Taiwan. But (mental) talk is cheap, if the U.S. does not develop the PHYSICAL capability to project power by fixed-wing aircraft that can land on water and fully utilize ALL of its fixed-wing land-based aircraft (militarizing all unused passenger 747s into cargo with airdrop side cargo doors, upgrading ALL C-130s to "J" propfans and in-flight refueling like the RAF's C-130s have) via parachute land airdrop and very short airlandings, then an enemy anti-access strategy could spell victory for the communist totalitarians in Red China.

Clusterfuck 101: The future of the marine corps is seaplanes or it has no future: Not Enough Reform results in the Navy/Mc still stuck in WWII amphibious assault time warp

Helicopters at best provide only a slightly better stand-off and dispersion than the WWII amphibious assault using water landing craft. The use of the nuclear weapon as the "boogie man" of a large devastating area weapon fails to justify Navy/Mc reorganization until there are many nations with nuclear weapons. However, today's precision guided weapons can achieve fatal lethality against massed surface amphibious ships like one nuclear weapon can and its high time the USMC heed the post-WWII Shephard board's radical conclusions and stop massing troops in vulnerable surface amphibious ships and start using jet seaplane transports to project combat power from the sea. EXWAR reports:

www.exwar.org/Htm/8000PopE1.htm

Amphibious Warfare: Cold War Era

1946 - Lieutenant General Geiger warns that atomic weapons threaten amphibious assaults In July 1946, the Navy supervised two atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the western Marshall Islands. These tests, dubbed Operation Crossroads involved more than 70 surplus ships and craft anchored in Bikini lagoon, and were mainly designed to evaluate the effect of atomic weapons on warships. Operation Crossroads examined the effects of both air and underwater explosions. During Test Able, which took place on 1 July, a bomb was detonated at 518 feet above the surface of the lagoon. Five ships sank, and the resulting blast, shock, and heat caused physical damage to almost 80 percent of the warships of the target fleet. Officials also estimated that, had the ships been manned, radiation effects would have incapacitated the majority of any crewmembers caught topside. Test Baker was conducted on 25 July. It involved an underwater burst that sank nine ships, including the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV 3) and two battleships. The mist that resulted from the burst also led to the widespread radioactive contamination of surviving ships and much of the atoll.

Test Baker, Operation Crossroads, 25 July 1946.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Lieutenant General Roy S. Geiger, Commanding General, fleet marine force pacific was the senior marine present at the tests. Immediately afterward, he dashed off a correspondence to the Commandant of the marine corps, General Alexander Vandegrift, summarizing his view of Crossroad's implications for the future of amphibious operations - and the marine corps itself. To Geiger, the test's results necessitated a complete review of amphibious doctrine. A future enemy would likely have large numbers of atomic weapons at their disposal. Given that, World War II-style amphibious operations such as those that had occurred at Normandy or Okinawa - operations that depended upon mass and the concentration of forces - would no longer be feasible. An assembly of warships, amphibious shipping, and small boats off a hostile coast would be a perfect target for atomic attack. Instead, Geiger believed that "future amphibious operations will be undertaken by much smaller expeditionary forces, which will be highly trained and lightly equipped, and transported by air or submarine." In addition, these assaults would be accomplished "with a greater degree of surprise and speed that has ever been heretofore visualized." General Vandegrift was not as convinced as Geiger that atomic weapon employment would become a common element of military operations. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to study the problem thoroughly. He appointed a special board consisting of Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Major General Field Harris, and Brigadier General O.P. Smith and charged them with determining how these weapons would affect future amphibious assaults. In turn, much of the board's supporting research was conducted by officers from marine corps schools, particularly Colonels Merrill B. Twining and E. Colston Dyer.The board reported back to Vandegrift in December 1946. Their review stated that the marine corps would indeed have to make fundamental changes in the way it conducted amphibious assaults if it was fighting a nuclear-armed foe. They were confident that a dispersed amphibious task force approaching an enemy coast could reach its objective without significant damage. Likewise, they believed that an enemy would not employ atomic weapons against a U.S. landing force once it was ashore and engaged in combat unless they were willing to obliterate their own troops as well. However, the board emphasized that waves of slow, relatively closely packed landing craft and amphibious tractors moving marines to the beach would be a tempting target for atomic attack. Had Japanese forces at Iwo Jima had these weapons, the board observed, they could have destroyed the two marine divisions involved in the assault as they moved from ship-to-shore. To avoid this, the board members recommended that the marine Corps develop a method by which its units could be airlifted by helicopters from the decks of their amphibious warships to weakly held points behind the enemy's coastal defenses. These air-mobile units would be able to rapidly engage and mix with hostile forces on the ground and would open the designated landing beaches for reinforcements carried ashore by landing craft or even fast seaplanes. An assault of this nature would deny the enemy a lucrative target for an atomic strike but would also permit the landing force to mass its efforts at decisive points. General Vandegrift concurred with the board's conclusions. However, there were many obstacles - and much knowledge to be gained - before the vision first promulgated by the board was realized. The most obvious obstacle was that fact that the marine corps did not operate helicopters in 1946. Moreover, helicopters at that time were generally small limited-capability aircraft that could carry only light payloads. In addition, the plan was not well received in all corners of the Navy and marine corps. Before they could even acquire helicopters, marine proponents of the new concept would have to convince the Navy to carry these aircraft on board its ships, something the Navy planners had not expected to do. Within the Corps itself, there were some who perceived helicopters as a threat to both fixed-wing close air support aircraft and ground-based artillery. Despite these challenges, vertical envelopment and dual air and surface amphibious assaults eventually became second nature to the marine corps and the Navy. Though their forces never fought in a nuclear environment during the Cold War years, Operation Crossroads and the possibility of atomic combat ultimately led to significant changes in the way the U.S. naval services would conduct all amphibious assaults.

Sources:

Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth J. Clifford, Progress and Purpose: A Developmental History of the United States marine corps, 1900-1970 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. marine corps, 1973. Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: A History of the United States marine corps (New York: The Free Press, 1991).

The National Security Act of 1947 has been a disastrous mistake pitting firepower in the USAF and USN permanently at odds with maneuver (Army and marines) and essentially ruining our national ability to fight wars in the most powerful, efficient joint ways possible. Making the marines a separate service has been an ego-laden disaster with them simply perpetuating WWII style amphibious assaults by packing men by the thousands into surface ships that sit in the middle of the ocean for months at a time so they are nearby, then landing them in essentially the same vulnerable and frontalist ways they were landed with heavy casualties in WWII. Having a SMALL landing force organic to the Navy fleet was vital at the turn of the century in order to seize advanced naval bases to secure coal supplies for ships. In WWII, these bases were "work-arounds" to the handicaps of land-based airplanes not having adequate range or in-flight refueling. Its not pretty, but today we can get our planes to where they need to be anywhere in the world. While land bases are needed to sustain long-term operations via supplies they are hard to come by using foreign nation-state soil. If we can retrieve supplies from ships at sea and without them getting sunk, this reduces the need for advanced naval bases to nil. Thus the U.S. marines have no mission except to be a "door opener" by seizing a port or a beach for U.S. Army forces who actually inland warfight to defeat enemy armies and overthrow nation-state governments. But to open this door in today's increasingly lethal surveillance strike systems so visibly demonstrated on land in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and at sea in the Falklands Islands War in 1982; the small but expensive MEU of a tiny battalion of foot-sloggers in vulnerable WWII amphib surface ship clones is a recipe for national disaster like the HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales being sunk by Japanese air strikes was to Britain in WWII. In the 1991 Gulf War, a SCUD Theater Ballistic Missile (TBM) landed within 300 meters of the USS Tarawa amphibious carrier with 2,000 marines inside and a nearby pier packed full of explosives and fuel. 300 meters closer and we would have had 3,000 men dead and several ships wiped out. Then there is the Navy's dying aircraft carrier wings that will soon be without S-3 Viking ASW/tanker aircraft and their worn-out civilian airliner P-3 Orions that are not being replaced. The stage is being set for an enemy diesel-electric submarine to smoke one of our carriers full of marines and sailors. The MEUs that can be forward-deployed offer the enemy a 4-digit casualty target that in itself could cause the conflict to be lost by a collapse of American public support since the American people have been pumped up with lies spewing forth by the self-serving marine corps propaganda machine about how great her marines are and when reality proves otherwise (just like the Beirut truck bombing in 1983 which killed 241 marines and caused a foreign policy defeat and pull-out) the psychological impact could be fatal in 4th Generation Warfare (4GW) where the target of enemy actions is the rather weak 21st century will of the civilian populace to resist.

What is needed is the immediate cancellation of the costly, unworkable V-22 hybrid tilt-rotor aircraft, the surfing AAAV assault vehicle [now called the "EFV"] both landing means designed to work-around Navy cowardice and unwillingness to clear the frontal horizon sea and beach areas by either saturation battleship naval gunfire or comprehensive seamine sweeping. The entire marine corps approach to amphibious operations using surface ships must be superceded by faster and more clandestine thinker-doer approaches that may be anathema to the institutional blind-obedience-to-create-19th-century-musket-fire-mass "lemming" ethos of the marines. The USN must decide if it wants a sea-based land army or not and to then develop the fixed-wing seaplanes and troop-carrying submarines to deliver marines en masse quickly from CONUS or with stealth and heavy armor forward-deployed to evade enemy SSC targeting to execute amphibious WARFARE--not base seizures. If the answer is no, then the 172,000 man/woman WWII-style marine empire must be eliminated and the manpower savings used to man two Iowa class battleships to fully empower and equip a small, HIGH-QUALITY beachhead seizing specialty force that accompanies the forward-deployed fleet with the accepted risks of packing just the hundreds of men required to take a small beachhead onto surface ships compensated by a more powerful, armored force structure that can get the enemy before they get them, and if necessary take some "licks" in the process. If America is going to continue "gunboat diplomacy" by visible surface ships it damn well better have the armored "gunboats". We need to relearn Teddy Roosevelt's admonition to "speak softly (humility not hubris like "the few, the proud, the marines") and carry a big stick". Today we speak loudly via trash-talk and have no stick.

In an article in the 2000 marine corps gazette, "The Case for Seaplanes: a fresh look at an Old Tool for OFMTS Sustainment" Lieutenant Colonel Gregory J. Baur (res) says the seaplane (flying boat) concept offers an important logistics capability for naval expeditionary forces which is independent of host-nation support. "A single squadron of STOL seaplanes, or even fixed-wing carrier on-board delivery type planes, would be an enormous force multiplier to offload supplies from the MPF ship of the future" (page 67). Visionary military innovator Carlton Meyer also proposes we get CL-130 floatplanes now and get into the seaplane power projection business.

CL-130 Float Planes NOW

The future of Naval Aviation is the Seaplane not the large-deck aircraft carrier

PBYs in RAF Service: Sank the German battleship, Bismark

Go back and re-read your WWII naval history. You will see that seaplanes and land-based patrol aircraft sank half the ships/submarines that were destroyed by both sides. Submarines/U-Boats sank the huge majority of the remainder, NOT AIRCRAFT CARRIER PLANES. And what aircraft carrier planes did do, the majority of the combat effects were from 100 SMALL CVE escort or "jeep" carriers not the bloated "fleet carriers" AKA "fast" ewwwww attack carriers as the naval aircraft carrier airdales like to call them. Since dickhead Pirie liked to see squadron insignia, lets start here by showing the "Black Cat" squadron artwork of the seaplanes he hated so much.

Maurice Allward notes:

"Coastal Command aircraft accounted for more than two-thirds of all the U-boats sunk. Between 1939 and 1945 flying boats had evolved from a harassment force into the most effective anti-submarine weapon of the war."

Seaplane Maritime ASW, ASuW, CSAR Patrol, Bombing & Special Operations: the Naval Combined-Arms Team We Don't Have Anymore

U.S. Large Seaplane Tactics in WW2

Seaplane WW2, Korea and Vietnam Combat Successes

The physical versatility of the large seaplane shames our current can't do wimpy age that seeks to escape reality and contact with the surface of the earth. Flying faster and higher must be for a purpose to effect conditions on the surface of the earth below not be ego ends unto themselves. The seaplane gets results on the earth's surface below and offers us an ability to use the waters covering the earth to fly larger and faster aircraft with greater safety than land based planes limited to paved runways.

Seaplanes Kill Submarines: the number #1 threat to surface ship survival as well as enemy surface ships

Seaplanes shoot down enemy aircraft when properly equipped

One of the dirty secrets of WW2 is that there were ACES-men with 5 kills or more of enemy aircraft WHO WERE NOT PILOTS but were GUNNERS as part of a TEAM in transport aircraft.

Did they get the Medals of Honor and valor awards that were handed out like candy to fighter pilots?

No they did not because they were not flying and we elevate flying the plane as the supreme act of human will, nevermind KILLING THE ENEMY IS WHAT COUNTS.

Seaplanes saves lives of men in peril on the Sea--it does happen and will continue to happen

Seaplanes move men and materiel around the globe even if there are no runways to land

Seaplanes can employ more and heavier devastating weapons than smaller aircraft can

Seaplanes can work together with other types of naval forces creating a combined-armed synergism offering no weaknesses to the enemy to exploit while stronger than just one approach

Seaplanes don't need large, vulnerable, costly aircraft carriers: a different approach to operating planes at sea and a healthy reminder that wheeled aircraft on dry decks is NOT our only option to get air cover/capabilities, though they can interface with carriers, too!

Seaplanes can cover far longer distances and ranges than smaller and shorter-ranged planes can: if you don't cover the earth, you don't get the enemy

Seaplanes can take-off and land in rough sea conditions where there is no dry land runway or airport

Seaplanes can interface with friendly ships and submarines to receive special operations commandos and/or fuel to do its own combat missions or refuel others, COVERTLY

By Sub:
By Surface Ship:

Seaplanes can recover themselves at sea if they cannot fly anymore and swim back or be towed to shore: no crashes, no deaths, no tragedies, everyone lives to fight another day

Seaplanes can last for decades of service; the PBMs and P5Ms were withdrawn for political corruption not structural reasons; the very large MARS seaplanes have been in continuous service since the 1940s and are water bomber firefighters TODAY

Foreign Navies copied our success and made their own "Mini-Black Cat" attack Seaplanes

Charles Kaman made this tilt-wing VTOL seaplane which frankly, still makes a heck of a lot of sense today!

Seaplane Rescues & Special Operations

P-5M Marlin Seaplane Parachute Insertion of Nuclear-Armed SEAL/UDT Commandos!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXr2ud89els

This amazing declassified film shows a Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) being parachute jumped by U.S. Navy SEAL/UDT frogmen with fins from a low-performance CH-46 SeaKnight helicopter and a high-performance P-5M Marlin ASW/maritime patrol seaplane:

Not only does this film show heavy equipments can be jumped by Paratroopers like folding mountain bikes, it reveals that when the aircraft carrier "mafia" hadn't ruined the U.S. Navy that our special warfare commandos used seaplanes to infiltrate/exfiltrate behind enemy lines. Today we lack ANY fixed-wing seaplanes to insert/extract our SEALs and land-based commandos, which is criminal military incompetence on our part.

Hugging the Curvature of the Earth to Stay Undetected by Radar and Sight Over The Horizon

http://radarproblems.com/calculators/horizon.htm

The lowest altitude to parachute jump in the U.S. military mind is 500 feet. So if you are a SEAL team doing a "rubber duck" jump (boat with outboard motor on pallet with cargo parachutes you wear personnel parachute and swim fins and jump after the rubber duck is pulled off the rear ramp) you will be outside of radar detection up to 31.6 miles from target and 27.39 miles away will not be visible. Can you motor ashore these 27-31 miles in a small boat? Yes, but its no picnic.

Let's say we have the British Irvin parachutes and jump at 250 feet, radar is 22.3 miles and visual is 19.3.

Let's say we use a SEAPLANE flying 50 feet above the water. How close can we get before being detectable?

10 miles by conventional radar and 8.6 miles by visual.

Let's say the seaplane lands and has a 20 foot high tail...it can get as close as 6.3 miles by radar and 5.4 miles by visual.

Don't you think seaplanes are worth doing for special operations as an insertion/extraction means?

Large Seaplane Design R & D in the order fielded....

Crew Habitation for long-range missions

Water-Injected Emergency Power for Piston Engines

ASW/CSAR searchlights

Seaplanes can spot/bust sea mines

Use of JATO to take-off Seaplanes in rough water/shorter distances

Reverse Pitch Props not Available in WW2, but available ever since!

Turboprop Engines

The promising P-6Y had dipping sonar after landing on the open ocean to hunt for enemy submarines and not just toss out expensive sonobuoys was the replace the P-5M Marlin...cancelled in the 1960-destroy-the-seaplanes "purge" by the Stalinist aircraft carrier mafia assholes.

Contra-Rotating Props

When the XT40 contraprop/turbine combination failed in the SkyRaider improvement, SkyShark, and the R3Y Tradewinds, the AJ-2 Savage and the POGO, WHY DIDN'T WE GO TO THE BRITISH FOR HELP AND USE THEIR RELIABLE CONTRAPROP/TURBINES USED IN THE HIGHLY RELIABLE, SUCCESSFUL FAIREY GANNET USED FROM 1954 TO 1965?

The Gannet could do it...damn it...

3, 875 shaft horsepower....don't you think one Double Mamba

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Siddeley_Double_Mamba] is enough to fly a SkyRaider/SkyShark?

2 for the Savage and 4 for the Tradewinds? When American engines stunk we used British Merlins to make the P-51 Mustang the great success it was....Oh, I forgot...this was a decision made by the U.S. Army Air Corps...and they wanted the P-51 to succeed...

What's the U.S. Navy's excuse for not turning to the British for contraprop turbine help?

They have none. They wanted to kill the SkyRaider and all seaplanes ASAP.

P.S. notice the observation by the British that their AEW capabilities went to shit when they no longer had fixed-wing Gannets and now have to rely on short-range BS helicopters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Gannet

EXCERPTS:

The Fairey Gannet is a carrier-borne Anti-submarine warfare and Airborne Early Warning aircraft of the immediate post Second World War-era developed for the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. It has a conventional monoplane mid-wing and tricycle undercarriage. The pilot sits over the gas turbine engine atop the fuselage and behind the double, co-axial, contra-rotating propellers; the one (or two) crew sit in additional cockpit stations behind the pilot. The second crew member sat in a separate fuselage "bubble" facing the tail.

The Gannet's wings fold in two places to form a distinctive "Z" shape on each side. The first fold is at about 1/3 of the wing length where the inboard anhedral (down-sweep) changes to the outboard dihedral (up-sweep) of the wing . The second wing fold is at about 2/3 of the wing length.

Design and development

The Gannet was built in response to the 1945 Admiralty requirement GR.17/45, for which prototypes by Fairey ("Type Q") and Blackburn B-54 / B-88 ("YB 1") were built. The prototype first flew on 19 September, 1949 and made the first deck landing by a turboprop aircraft, on HMS Illustrious on 19 June 1950, by pilot Lieutenant Commander G. Callingham.

Engine

After considering and discounting the [liquid-cooled, piston engine] Rolls-Royce Merlin (actually, twin Merlins) due to size, the Fairey decided to install an engine plant based on the Armstrong Siddeley Mamba. The Double Mamba (also commonly called the "Twin Mamba") was selected, driving two counter-rotating propellors through a common gearbox.

The ASMD 1 engines (2,950 hp) were used in the AS 1, ASMD 3 engines (3,145 hp) in the AS 4, and ASMD 4 (3,875 hp) in the AEW 3 variant.

The Double Mamba engine could be cruised with one of the engines stopped, to conserve fuel and extend endurance. It has been said by pilots that, while this was possible, it was inadvisable at low altitude - in case the operating engine stopped for some reason. This happened frequently enough to be a "known fault," and created considerable disquiet for the crew while that or the other engine was restarted.

www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/gannet/

FAIREY GANNET

AEW.3 XL502; Garry Lakin

The Gannet was very much an unsung hero; it was vital to the Navy's anti-submarine defence for several years before helicopters took over this role, but it was in the airborne early warning (AEW) role that it ended its career. The lack of any AEW capability was to prove near-disastrous only a few years after the last AEW Gannet was retired. To this day the Royal Navy only has limited AEW capability in the shape of Sea King helicopters equipped with AEW radar - and these can never hope to even compare with the effectiveness of Fairey's most outstanding product.

Jet Engines

Supersonic Seaplane Bombers

Tender Ship/Seaplane Interfaces

Large Seaplane Catapult Launching

One of the key mistakes the Navy seaplane community made was not to keep pursuing CATAPULT LAUNCHING of large seaplanes from their tender ships. The XPBM-2 as large as it was, was catapulted from a large in 1942. The German U-Boat threat was so pressing, this improved model PBM with twice the fuel/range was dropped in favor of increasing basic PBM 1 production. Being able to launch from the tender ship would eliminate the sea state as an operational no or no-go mission consideration for getting into the air. Reducing the seaplane/sea interface to just landing by the tender would greatly increase flexibility and save time and work.

Narrower Hulls

Skis to make initial water contact

We discovered from bush pilots that all you really need to land on the water are skis or even a single ski...if you don't slow down you don't even need to float....the PANTOBASE ski system for water, snow and ice doesn't interfere with landing on ground and can be fitted to any aircraft. Sealing the hull and adding wing floats are minor changes that only impact aerodynamically by 2%. If you make the skis and wing floats retract, flight performance penalty is ZERO. The technology (know-how) is there. We just have to regain THE WILL to land in the water.

Sea Plane Refuel improvements

Seadrome Lights

Air Brakes act as rudders in the water

Amphibians with their own landing gear

Mobile Dry Docks for Repairs

Beaching Cradles for Seaplanes without Landing Gear

A History of Success that continues on...despite of the U.S. Navy and its marines...

60 years of Seaplane Design Triumphs in 1960; U.S. Navy Stabs Everyone Involved in the Back!

As you can see above, great progress was made in seaplanes by the Navy and by 1960, Martin had solved the aerodynamic handicap once and for all, and the aircraft carrier mafia realized their "gig was up" so they shut down seaplanes quickly before the truth got out that they were now more capable than land planes in EVERY way.

The aircraft carrier's contribution to the war effort is distorted as doing the lion's share of the work which is simply not true. Reports are that the extreme costs of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are forcing our Navy from 12 to 8 carrier battle groups. The aircraft carrier is a ship with a relatively small airstrip on top. While the ship sacrifices itself so to speak, by crashing forward through the waves it does this to keep the flight deck straight and level for LAND aircraft to land at sea! The oxymoron here is astonishing. The aircraft carrier is a "work-around" to the lack of range/payload of WWII-generation aircraft and to work-around the need for advance naval land bases. However, the limit of the flight deck reduces the size/payload of the land airplanes that can be slung off the decks and recovered to such a degree that the cost efficiency is far less than a large heavy bomber that can take-off from 10,000 foot runways or better yet giant seaplanes that have an unlimited water runway to use to get lift to take off. We understand that there are times when the sea conditions may be too rough for a seaplane to land, however these are also times when the aircraft carrier, on station cannot conduct flight operations without losses by mishaps due to bad weather. Nearly all aviators in all the services are reluctant to admit the simple fact that often bad weather on planet earth means they cannot fly and are grounded. Its all a question of immediacy, but its moot point if the seaplane bomber is resting on the stern holding ramp of a surface forward arming and resupply (FAARP) ship (seaplane tender) waiting for the seas to calm. Furthermore, the original Lockheed C-130 seaplane concept had a small hydrofoil that would greatly expand the sea state conditions the P-6M SeaMaster could land on.

The greatest asset of the aircraft carrier, on-scene presence is also its biggest curse, its one hell of a target and 4GW psychological prize if the enemy can get it. The Navy's going to discover, hopefully by wisdom and not 5,000+ dead necessity that it must conduct naval bombardments by seaplane bombers and FAARP ships and submarines so the enemy does NOT have a long-term target to track, hunt and destroy. The Navy's seabased "B-52", should be a "P-6MA2 Seamaster II" in modern form that will need fighter air cover from manned fighter-bomber darts and maybe Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) if the latter can be made to work, and these will still need flight deck aircraft carriers so there's no need to go out and sell your leather flight jackets.

Seaplane Fighters: YES