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US Army CAS Aircraft


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I don't mean to start any fires here, but the Air Force forbid the Army from obtaining fixed-wing aircraft by convincing Congress that it falls under USAF responsibility. During the 1950s and 1960s, SAC received nearly half of the national military budget, leaving the rest of the Air Force, and all other branches to share smaller cuts. When Truman tapped LeMay for tactical assets, LeMay grudgingly contributed Reserve and Guard units. Later after being further pressed, LeMay deployed his worst B-29 squadrons to operate over the DPRK. During the Vietnam War, Johnson asked LeMay how many of his bombers could drop conventional ordinance to which LeMay responded with a grin, "none of them." After being pressured personally by the president, LeMay sent some B-52 squadrons to support operations in Southeast Asia. This led directly to modifications such as the "big belly" applied to B-52Ds before deployments.

Sorry to rant, but I have been studying a lot of history regarding the politics behind the Vietnam War, and the politics between Civil and Military leadership during the time period. I hope I brought new information for some folks in the dark about military politics of the period. In this way maybe some can understand why the Army hasn't had significant fixed-wing assets for many decades, and even had to hide a potential MiG kill by an OV-1 Mohawk!

Edited by Exhausted
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Well, they must have had authorization from someone to run a test program.

Even if the program only ran for a short time and then got canceled, it did indeed run in the 1960's.

For more on the Skyhawk, G-91, F-5 US Army story, there is a short section with multiple photos in Tommy's Scooter book.

And most modelers with more than a passing interest in Skyhawks have participated in past threads about the mods to the A-4C for grass field use by the Army. The last thread on ARC before Tommy published his book was started by discussing how to make the gear wells for the Army A-4C and the "big doors" for the last few A-4Ms.

once the book came out, we now had 3 photos of Skyhawks related to the Army tests, and a better photo of the A-4M "big door mod",,,,,,along with more than a page of text describing the Army test program.

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Good comments and background info. G-91 photos was in Air Progress in early 60s.

The "agreement" that cancelled the program also revised AF helicopter use.

Air Force Troop-carrying helicopter projects ended and gunships stayed with the Army.

Army A4s and F5s naturally lead to thoughts of what-if models.

Consider other types actually operated by the Army, for test purposes, but did have Army markings (at least "Army" on the side instead of "Navy" or "US Air Force"): A-3, P-2, ....

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The agreement that cancelled this type of Ground Support test program was in January 1967, ending the Army's use of aircraft such as the Caribou and their further efforts towards their own air support, while retaining the Transport and Attack Helicopters.

The actual trials that involved these three jets were only a 2 month program, and was before Vietnam started up,,,,,,it was so early that the N-156 hadn't been named F-5 yet.

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Just another item - the G-91 not only had US insignia, a large white 'ARMY' on each side of the fuselage, and dayglo nose and tail, it had yellow 'U.S.ARMY on top of the starboard and bottom of the port wing. This last item is often missed in illustrations.

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This may be a "discussion" type post, but relative to Exhausted's CAS posting: Before the Air Force was even the Air Force, they espoused a 'single manager' doctrine for airpower. This was not unique or parochial, the Army insisted (and still does) on single ground commanders, thus the USAF has no equivalent to the RAF Regiment. As for the Navy, a brief perusal of inter-service clashes in the Pacific in WW II shows how seriously they take naval control of naval assets. The Army's attempt to rebuild the old Army Air Force not only violated Air force doctrine, but also the 1947 National Defense Act. It is also significant that Westmoreland had to intervene to get the Marine Corps to abide by the joint doctrine. The subject is complicated, but there's more to it than mean Air Force generals picking on the Army.

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