pinotandsugar t1_ix11ava wrote
Reply to comment by AbdelZn in How did reinforcements join a battle? by AbdelZn
Re: Deployment of Reserves
About half a century ago the USAF sent a troublesome Col down to the basement of the Pentagon to keep him from causing more trouble. Was a bad move for the hierarchy as Col Boyd, having changed the criteria for the design of fighter jets, developed a presentation on winning and losing based on history. When the generals called for a 1 hour brief on the presentation Boyd stood his ground, it was an all day presentation that looked back as strategies over the ages.
Relevant to this discussion ------Starting around Page 39 it shows how "reserves" were used in many historic battles.
For those not familiar with the name , he drug the USAF away from large, complex fighters and is considered to be the godfather of the F-16. Rejected by the USAF top brass he found an intellectual home with the Marines where he fathered the Marine's land battle doctrine of maneuver warfare. Along the way he was the father of the OODA loop , originally created as a teaching tool for fighter pilots he was training.
An interesting tribute to Boyd appears in the Arlington National Cemetery site and is well worth reading . Pretty much the hero you never heard about . Observers noted that most of those in attendance were Marines . His teachings were the foundation of their success in the first Iraq war.
TheRealGC13 t1_ixf1yra wrote
For what reason did you just post Fighter Mafia propaganda in this thread? You have one little link and a bunch of stuff puffing him up and lying about what he and his clique wanted the F-16 to be.
pinotandsugar t1_ixggz05 wrote
Were someone to read discourse on Wining and Losing they would not hear about jet fighters but rather about the strategies that resulted in winning and loosing over tens of centuries of wars and diagrams showing how reserves were used in various classic battles.
While Boyd would have preferred a simpler F-16 if fully focused on his strategy of great vision, highly maneuverable, affordable. His primary focus was on daytime fighter only missions. However , the evolution of the USAF mission called for all weather and some offensive air to ground capability beyond the gun. Boyd got 90% of what he wanted and the Air Force (and the air forces of many foreign nations) received what Boyd wanted and a great deal more capability.
Yes, thanks in large part to the Air Force bureaucracy Boyd left with few friends on the air side. But that served the nation well as Boyd inspired the Marine and allied land battle strategy for the first Gulf War that resulted in one of the most one sided battles in history. The Marines and a number of DOD officials gave Boyd credit as the foundation of their Maneuver Warfare strategy.
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