You wrote: “And you aren’t a puppet? You sound like the rest of the folks in here slamming the Osprey, but I’m the one that is following the herd.”

Watching the Osprey “in action” is like watching somebody stumbling down 24 times the stairs: I’m surprised you even reached a different conclusion!

But please don’t try to hover to land a load of Marines at 8,000′. I understand the Marines gave up one such base in Helmand province at that altitude. Could it be because MV-22 could not support it?

You wrote: “Did you know the UH-1s didn’t have an escort until they created the Gunship version and then finally the AH-1? Did you know the B-17, B-24, and every other bomber we had in the European theater had no escort that could go the distance with them until the P-51 was given a new engine and drop tanks? See how flawed your argument is?”

MY point is moot? You just said yourself that in all these cases the U.S. Airforce was hard pressed to develop escorts for their new, fast bombers and troop-carrying helicopters (at least they turned the bombers into flying fortresses until escorts were at hand), something that’s obviously NOT happening now, not even 26 ( 2 6 ! ) years after the Osprey was first developed, and not expected in the foreseeable future either, and “I’m” the one with the flawed argument? I know what’s your problem: You had something interesting to say, for a change, but you think that in order to shine better you have to make it look as if I was wrong. Basically, you’re a herd animal, a vegetarian, anyone’s puppet. Keep grazing.

Did you know the UH-1s didn’t have an escort until they created the Gunship version and then finally the AH-1?
Did you know the B-17, B-24, and every other bomber we had in the European theater had no escort that could go the distance with them until the P-51 was given a new engine and drop tanks? See how flawed your argument is?

I swear you love to cherry pick your best arguments and throw them into some incoherent rant.

But you don’t even have a fast COIN plane to escort / keep pace with the Ospreys at their natural speed! That’s not true progress, that’s mental chaos, or worse. Thanks to the Osprey, you don’t have a strong chain with a weak link now: You have a weak chain with one strong link. Smile!

By buying expensive, dysfunctional and perfectly incompatible eccentricities at the behest of fat, greasy, panting, squint-eyed lobbyists, one can clearly perceive the absence of any technically-minded, coherent, integral, long-term weapons acquisition plan for the continuous and synchronous modernization of your Armed Forces, a wrong priority like putting carts in front of oxen!