"Andrew C. Toppan" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 May 2005 15:08:13 -0400, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:

That is a bit like saying that NTC/Irwin, or FT A.P. Hill, or FT McCoy,
serve no real purpose because they don't have much in the form of
permanently assigned/deployable forces on those bases...but gee whiz, they
each provide pretty valuable support to the force, eh?

Over-generalizations always sound silly; yours is no exception. They
each have a mission. The question here is, what's the mission of the
future NAF Brunswick?

For a possible one, see the cite below...

Nobody has defined that mission or the people
that will do it.


Just because you have not read such information does not mean that nobody
has set forth a vision that could be supported by such a "barebones" basing
option. Again, see the cite below.

The base maintenance, administrative, and security
forces don't do any good without some sort of operating forces
present.

assigned...wouldn't surprise me. That you find the concept of performing
sea
or border surveillance with aircraft like P-3's or C-130's not to be much
of
import to the concept of "homeland defense" just further points to your
complete and utter lack of a grasp of the concepts of military operations.

Since neither of those aircraft has that mission, I think you are the
one without much grasp of reality. The P-3s and C-130s from Brunswick
don't spent their lives patrolling the Gulf of Maine looking for
terrorists or invading Canadians (that's the Coast Guard's job), nor
do they protect us against hijacked terrorist aircraft (that's for
fighters, not freighters).

"The Navy is beginning development of a concept of operations for the
persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) of wide
swaths of the world's oceans by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)...The
mission will be accomplished with new hardware. The Navy is developing
high-flying UAVs that can stay aloft for many hours and perform missions
such as scanning the maritime approaches to the nation's coasts and tracking
all ships approaching U.S. points of entry...The objective will be to
provide maritime intelligence to joint forces to pass to homeland security
and homeland defense units and other federal agencies... "We will look to
Global Hawk to be a vital ISR tool that will assist strike group commanders
in achieving maritime domain awareness in support of the joint force and to
support homeland security and homeland defense efforts in the maritime
realm"...The concept of using a persistent UAV for maritime surveillance is
quite simple. It would scan a large area of ocean - making five orbits in a
35-hour period, in one scenario - looking for ships of interest, such as one
suspected of having weapons of mass destruction on board that is possibly
heading for a U.S. port. When such a vessel is located, a Navy ship could be
tasked to intercept it, or a maritime patrol aircraft such as a P-3
dispatched to further investigate the contact with radar, send images to
command authorities and examine the ship up close."
www.navyleague.org/sea_power/may_05_12.php

It appears maybe you are the guy who can't see past his nose in regards to
the USN and the homeland defense mission....


Just what "surveillance" do you think C-130s do?????

You really never knew that C-130's have been employed in the surveillance
role? Everything from COMINT to ELINT and surface surveillance?


Your definition of "active homeland defense" is obviously very deficient.

It means doing something, not just sitting there. Lately it's
fashionable to say ever military facility is "defending the homeland"
just by existing. This is a silly notion.

LOL! Another case of Andrew assumeing that because he has no personal
knowledge of such possibilities, they are by definition "silly".

Brooks


--
Andrew Toppan