Production Line Relocation

[Matt Wiser]

That would be VSF-1 and VSF-3, disbanded when the ASW carriers went to mothballs.

[Johnnie Lyle]

That would be VSF-1 and VSF-3, disbanded when the ASW carriers went to mothballs.

Uncase the colors and stand them up.

[Poohbah]

The Navy's still going to want to have Harriers for the SCS mission (i.e. Killing Bear-Ds while out of range of land-based fighter cover). Either reform VSF squadrons or get Marines to go to sea in Bs.

Once the new CMC realized how bad things were with the Harrier (which was extremely quick), he pitched the Navy taking over the Bs at VMAT-203 and coming off of the Mickey D factory line, while the Marines would shove their pilots through VMAT-102 in the short term (using AMARC Skyhawks, CILOPing A-4Fs to A-4M standard, etc) and in the longer term through VA-122 and VA-174 (the A-7 RAG squadrons) while (a) The Marines pulled A-7A/B/C airframes and had them CILOP'd to what they called the "E-minus" version (they got the TF41 and that was it), (b) Navy STRIKFITRONs stood up with F/A-18s, passing their A-7s to the Marine Corps, and (c) LTV's production engineering team got the A-7E line restarted.

The Navy, who had been desperately wondering how they were going to get the Marines to give up their Harriers for the VSF mission, decided to say yes.

LTV ended up using GM's Willow Run plant as their A-7 production facility. First new production A-7E rolled out in August 1987, delivered to VMA-311. By war's end, most of USMC light attack was A-7s between Navy hand-me-downs, partial CILOPs from the boneyard, and new builds.

[Wolfman]

ISTR that A-4E and A-4F aircraft were simply pulled from the Boneyard, resprayed and overhauled, then issued.

[Poohbah]

ISTR that A-4E and A-4F aircraft were simply pulled from the Boneyard, resprayed and overhauled, then issued.

For various reasons to do with logistics, ~110 Fs from m the boneyard were upgraded to the 408 version of the J52 vs the 8B, and while there was a backlog of trainees at 102, about 30 of those got built out to the full Mike standard (ARBS, etc) and referred to (briefly) as A-4F(U)s, until a prude saw the designation and freaked out...

One thing that Ivan learned was that if you saw Marine Skyhawks coming OFF of the target, don't jump them. The Skyhawk was even more maneuverable than the MiG-17 once the bombs were gone, and a good Skyhawk driver was going to win an angles fight--or one of his buddies was going to gun you in the back while you were losing angles on the guys you were chasing.

[Bernard Woolley]

Are we thinking about using Willow Run (Air Force Plant 31)? It should be available for conversion back to aircraft production.

That would be VSF-1 and VSF-3, disbanded when the ASW carriers went to mothballs.

Pretty sure that was what we decided back on the old board. The two squadrons would sends detachments to phibs doing SCS duty and any MAC/CVE type vessels. Think that the USMC would still want to keep some AV-8s around to support potential amphibious operations.

[Matt Wiser]

Willow Run? Yep.

I'm of the mind to have at least one Marine AV-8B squadron available for support of amphib operations. Iceland, Kola, and GULF HAMMER all come to mind.

[Wolfman]

Willow Run? Yep.

I'm of the mind to have at least one Marine AV-8B squadron available for support of amphib operations. Iceland, Kola, and GULF HAMMER all come to mind.

I completely agree with you there, Matt.