Eisenhower Strike Group vs ISIS--cannibalized parts

[dragon53]

Link: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016 ... _160527.nl

[PanzerArm]

Controled exchanges are nothing new, and although not always necessary in aN environment lush with funding, now that we start to ramp down from 15 years of conflict, it will become a more common thing. Picking good parts from a vehicle/ship/plane that is undergoing long-term maintenance (and will be non mission capable for some time) and then putting those parts on something that needs it to accomplish its mission should not upset anyone. I canot keep track of the time my Production Control shop has pulled avionics from and NMCM aircraft and slapped them into an aircraft that had an issue. As long as they aren't taking the whole engine out of one ship to use in another, or large expensive (in DoD budget terms) pieces, then it is just a way of meeting mission requirements in a timely fashion. The example they used was a cable harness or something. I worked in the ISR biz for a while, and some of those cables take a long time to manufacture, so pulling a ready one off a ship already undergoing maintenance while a replacement is put on order is the common sense answer. Not sure why this is such a big story, we aren't funded like we were but we'll still do the best we can. Just be thankful we aren't the Russian Federation and trying to keep equipment going that hasn't had replacement parts on order for it since the early 90s...

-Kevin

[Axis Nightmare]

Someone is trying to make a claim that our military equipment is a bunch of worn out used spare parts slapped together. I for one am glad we are making good and SMART use of our expensive equipment rather than just pushing a plane overboard and telling the taxpayers to send a new one. Or worse, not having enough operational equipment on hand for the necessary missions in a war zone. This kind of ingenuity has dated back to the days of the Flying Tigers out of necessity and is nothing new. We had the luxury near the end of WWII of pushing old equipment into the scrap heap when we had a glut of equipment. Those days are long gone. When you look at photos of the aircraft storage in Arizona and see a plane with engines, control surfaces, etc. missing it's because they have been put to use on another plane. That's why they are out there. It's not a junk yard, or a boneyard or a graveyard, it's storage for potential future use. Once the type becomes completely out of service they can be scrapped.