Night Stalkers - US special forces at a crossroads

[Ooh-Rah]

Night Stalkers - US special forces at a crossroads

USSOCOM’s rotary-wing capability is predominantly provided by the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) – nicknamed the Night Stalkers – which operates a range of platforms, including A/MH-6 Little Bird light attack/assault, MH-60 Black Hawk medium attack/assault and MH-47 Chinook heavy assault helicopters.

During the annual SOF Week conference in Tampa, Florida between 7-9 May, USSOCOM officials described how “near peer/greater power competition is driving a need for SOF aviation to evolve and provide value in contested and denied environments over potentially significantly longer distances in an environment of likely highly contested logistics.”

 

[Devildoc]

Help me out here. To quote my good friend Forrest Gump, "I'm not a smart man..." It feels like that article is trying to construct an argument to prepare us on why we can't nice things. But I am reminded that 1) long-range rotary capability was part of the raison de etre of the 160th that was born out of Desert 1, 2) we just rebuilt one austere INDOPAC airfield and word is we're working on some others, and 3) UAV and drone tech is becoming a thing in all the branches. I think for every argument the author made there is a valid counter. Or, like I said, "I'm not a smart man..." and maybe I just don't get it.

 

[DA SWO]

Nothing burger.
MH-47 replaced the MH-53 as the long range rotary- wing platform, and the Osprey w
came in to bridge the gap between long-range fixed-wing and short-legged helicopters.

The article sounds like justification for a clean sheet development, and I don't know if that's what we need.