Redstate

Major Bases

Submarine Base, New London, CT

Fort McPherson, GA

Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, ME/Naval Shipyard Portsmouth

Fort Monmouth, NJ

Cannon Air Force Base, NM

Ellsworth Air Force Base, SD

Red River Army Depot, TX

Lots of reserve centers and along with them the full-time military and civilian technicians. The implication is that USAR, in particular, force structure is going to take a huge pounding as the Defense transformation effort gathers steam.

Lots of Navy Recruiting District headquarters being shut down indicating a significant consolidation of USN recruiting efforts. Not surprising since the Navy is going through the equivalent of a RIF right now.

Looks like maybe the last vestiges of the Army GOCO Ammunition Plants are on the chopping block as well as a handful of maintenance depots.

the claims that the Pentagon can't tamper with Guard installations without state approval?  I personally find it practically without merit, but then again you are a touch more federalisty.

All out Atlantic Fleet subs in one port (Norfolk)?

All the B-1s out of Dyess AFB in Texas?

A lot of eggs in one basket.

A lot of Guard facilities are federally owned and operated. The state could always pick up the tab out of the monies the state contributes towards maintaining the Guard but I suspect that would be very painful in most cases.

How important are long-range strategic bombers and nuclear submarines to our current and probable future strategic posture?  I think they still have a role (particularly the subs) but I can understand de-emphasis to some extent.

based out of Kings Bay, GA and of course a lot of Atlantic Fleet subs are foreward deployed.

B-1B Lancer bombers dropped about 40% of the ordnance in Operation Enduring Freedom, and are capable of launching JDAMS as well.

Unfortunately, the Air Force has been scaling back the B-1 program from 90 aircraft to only 60, and spare parts can be hard to get for existing aircraft. I'd expect that the B-1 may be going out of service in the next few years - sad, because it's now a proven and effective aircraft.

I'm sure it's a helluva a bomber.  Just less important for achieving what we want than other things.  Those big, bad battleships we unmothballed and remothballed were pretty much the ultimate floating artillery supports for seaborne invasions, but we just didn't really need them anymore compared to other things we could spend our money on.

I'd love to keep the B-1s.  I was just commenting on how I can see that they are expendable.

Complete List Here

Kings Bay (Georgia) is going to pick up a substantial amount of what is at New London.

Our fast attack subs have been very heavily taskeed with low profile (but highly important) ISR (Intelligence/Surveillance/Reconaissance) missions.  

I see that in Section 10, page Tech 24, that at Wright-Patterson, "additional operations may further impact the Indiana Bat, a threatened and endangered species."

That's myotis sedalis, to you, my friend.

To elucidate, each recommendation for closure or realignment has a section, "environmental impact." Makes for interesting reading.

"Active-Duty integration" is the buzzphrase here.

The goal is to have Reservists drilling along side active duty people as much as possible.  To make this possible, centers that are hundreds of miles away from their service's nearest base are being closed.  

Just another part of the Rumsfeld's transformation...

The B-1B is probably a better plane to keep in service than the B-52.  Younger faster, and much more payload.

The real interesting thing is that the B-1 usually only goes with internal carriage of its bombs.  If they ever decided to use the external hardpoints, the B-1 advantage in payload increases even more.  We ought to be trying to re-open that production line, and the B-2 line as well.

big-ticket items for that purpose, wouldn't you say?  I'm sure they do a great job, and the cruise missile strike capability is also very helpful, but those subs were built to fight a blue-sea war, the possibility of which no longer exists.  Attack subs are great at pinprick force projection, and I'm not arguing they are no longer useful, just, as above with the bombers, I can see them taking cuts.  I think it's also one of the reasons why we discontinued Seawolf and have moved on to a smaller, less capable craft for the next generation.

The B-1B is probably a better plane to keep in service than the B-52.  Younger faster, and much more payload.

Too bad the electronic warfare system never performed to spec. And it's a bigtime maintenance hog relative to the B-52.

do we need more bombers designed to penetrate heavily defended Soviet airspace to drop nuclear bombs?  Yeah, I know strat bombers have other uses too, and I'm glad to have them around, but why on earth do we need more when what we really could use is 360+ more F-22s to ensure air superiority?  We don't get to have it all, and quite frankly I'd rather own the airspace and bomb opponents with a swarm of Cessnas, Super Etenards and Sopwith Camels than lose the airfight and count on the B-2's stealth ability or the B-1's speed....

I mean heavily tasked  Worked to the max.  No way you could cut them at this time.

The cost of maintaining what's currently in the fleet is lower than trying to build a 'smaller, cheaper' version.

In fact, I think the only thing we really disagree with is whether or not, compared to other assets, submarines are a bit lower on the priority list.

I'm also in no hurry to replace what we have.  Make use of it while it's still effective.  But I think the future of the submarine fleet is indicated by our move to a different kind of nuclear attack submarine than previous interations.  That's all.

They carry lots of payload over long ranges.

A B-2 from Whitman AFB in Missouri can service a target anywhere in the world in 48 hours.  B-52s and B-1Bs can launch cruise missiles and also hit targets.

Pretty much, they can respond faster than the Navy's carrier groups.

...because they can be there on a persistent basis.

Once that bomber's dropped the bombs, it has to go back home.

In my opinion, they complement each other quite well.  I'd love to see more investment in both the carrier battle groups (and their air wings) and the bomber force.

Is a story in and of itself. The way it is being covered, the only bases that are being closed are in South Dakota and Mississippi, with the specific intention of hacking off Trent Lott, and making a liar out of Thune.

Having been stationed at Ellsworth back in the late 70's I want to throw my two cents in.

Ellsworth and Rapid City are in a lovely part of the country and the people in Western South Dakota were always nice to military folks in general. Ellsworth is something like 15 miles outside of Rapid, to the East and other than military folks, there's not a lot out there in the way of neighbors who might get upset by the sounds of freedom (B1B are pretty loud on full AB).

Ellsworth and the most of what were called the Northern Tier bases were located to support the manned bomber leg of the Nuclear Triad of; Bombers, Subs and Missiles. There was no conventional war purpose for these bases, only an over the pole mission into the old Soviet Union and for a mission that thank God was never called on to be execute.  By the way in my day the base was home of B52G models, now also retired.

So why close a nice base in a nice area?

The cold war is over, SAC is gone, there are no bombers standing 24/7/365 alert anymore and very little if any need for the Northern Tier bases to strike over the poles into the Soviet Union.  Basing the remaining B1B aircraft in Texas will save money for the AF by reducing a whole bunch of logistics tasks which would be duplicated for a smaller force over two bases for a smaller fleet of aircraft, there are economy of scale business issues at play.   Also consider deploying a bomber force from one place to say South West Asia is much easier from one base instead of two. This issue of all the eggs in one basket is real but a bit misleading in that if we can't defend Dyess in the middle of Texas, then we can't defend any military asset.

I guess it's so long old friends best wishes in converting Ellsworth over to civil uses.

is the reason we need bombers that can penetrate enemy airspace, deliver their ordnance and (hopefully) get back home.  Same with all of our strategic forces.  China is not our friend.