History UsefulNotes / YanksWithTanks

Below the President is the Secretary of Defense, the Cabinet-level official who runs the United States Department of Defense as "the principal assistant to the President on matters relating" to the department. Any war movie that takes place after 1947 probably has him in it, and [[Film/{{Transformers}} it's best not to be underdressed in front of him]]. The position is relatively recent by modern standards, having been formed from the offices of the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Navy[[labelnote:*]]now non-cabinet positions within the Department of Defense[[/labelnote]], themselves preceded by the Secretary of War. One could call the Secretary (abbreviated as [=SecDef=]) the "deputy commander-in-chief", since his powers exceed that of any commissioned officer in the Armed Forces. Prior military experience is not required to be Secretary of Defense[[labelnote:*]]Obama's last [=SecDef=], Ash Carter, was more an expert on public and foreign policy[[/labelnote]], though it comes highly recommended.

The USA pairs this extreme aversion to death and wounding with a fairly bog-standard 'Combined-Arms Warfare' doctrine, under which the various combat and support arms co-operate rather than competing. Think the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' movie: Army calling for help from Air Force; Air Force calling for help from... [[{{Dissimile}} Giant transforming robots]], giant transforming robots calling for help from {{Action Survivor}}s played by Creator/ShiaLaBeouf, and Action Survivors calling for help from the Army. [[note]] In laymen's terms, this means that either you get [[MoreDakka air support/ navy support ]]to bomb the everloving shit out of the enemy while you hunker down, or you strike preemptively and blow up the enemies emplacements before they even know you're going to be there.[[/note]]

After the end of World War II, with no significant naval opposition left, the US Navy reformed its combat doctrine into fast, flexible squadrons of warships: The carrier battle group (carrier ''strike'' group after 2004). Whether their name includes the word battle or strike, they are built around a single aircraft carrier (and typically are referred to by the name of their carrier as much as their ordinal number; for example, Carrier Strike Group 11, composed as of 2021 of the aircraft carrier USS ''Nimitz'' (CVN 68), its embarked Carrier Air Wing Seventeen (CVW-17), and Destroyer Squadron 23 (DESRON 23) would be referred to on radio as "''Nimitz'' Strike Group"). The equivalent in the amphibious fleet is the Amphibious Ready Group, but ARGs differ in that their assigned ships are all designed around the amphibious assault role, and any attached warships are a separate command under their own officers.

* The second generation of US jet fighter designed was ushered in with the North American F-100; because of the F-100's obvious familial resemblance to its slower predecessor it was called the '''Super Sabre''' by its manufacturer (but most frequently referred to as the '''Hun''' by its pilots). The Hun ushered in a rapid succession of increasingly technologically-advanced aircraft by many different manufacturers that straddled the second and third generation: The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, Convair F-102 and F-106 delta-winged fighters (officially "Delta Dart" and "Delta Dagger," unofficially the "Deuce" and the "Six"), Lockheed F-104 Starfighter ("Zipper" or "Zip-104," dubbed by its manufacturer the 'Missile with a Man In It'), Republic F-105 Thunderchief ("Thud"), as well as several planes that were proposed but never built in number: The Republic XF-103; North American XF-107 and XF-108; and the Bell XF-109. The last "Century Series" plane was the F-111 Aardvark, a fighter-bomber that could be considered the first ''fourth''-generation aircraft. The next-to-last? We'll get to it in a moment...

* The [=McDonnell=] Douglas '''F-4 Phantom II''' succeeded the Sabre as the American ruler of the skies. Designed initially as a fighter-bomber, it was reworked as an all-weather long-range interceptor when the A-4 Skyhawk rolled into service. Designed and introduced into the Navy as the F4H-1 (fourth fighter design by McDonnell Aircraft, first variant). A two-person plane, the back seat was intended for a Radar Intercept Officer. It boasted nine hardpoints for the newly-invented guided missiles, and could attack with them from beyond visual range but -- crucially -- the plane had no integrated gun. This proved a problem during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, where the plane was often fielded against second-generation [=MiG=]s, which could typically outmaneuver the Phantom. Nonetheless, the plane was brutally effective, a FlyingBrick relying on engine power and a hastily-added external gun pod to maintain combat superiority. The JackOfAllStats of American aviation, it was deployed by the Air Force, the Navy ''and'' the Marines over the skies of Vietnam in just about every mission imaginable. It was even flown by ''both'' the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels. It entered service with several non-American air forces as well, and was finally retired from American service in 1996; highly specialized F-4G variants replaced the F-105 Thunderchief in the [[UsefulNotes/WildWeasel suppression of enemy air defenses]] role, until improved electronics and stores management allowed the "Wild Weasel" package to fit onto "vanilla" fighters. It remains in service with Iran, Japan, South Korea, Greece, and Turkey. It was introduced briefly into the Air Force in 1961 as the F-110A Spectre (making it the penultimate Century Series fighter), but after the unification of designation systems in 1962 the F-110 disappeared, becoming the F-4C.

* The U.S. Navy '''Douglas TBD Devastator''' was one of the unluckier planes in the U.S. WWII arsenal. Unlike the Wildcat and the Dauntless which it served alongside (which entered U.S. Navy service in 1940), the Devastator would be introduced in 1935. By the time it was required to go against the Japanese, it would be a slow, vulnerable torpedo bomber that would be asked to fly at a mere 115 mph (despite its maximum speed of 206 mph) and make a "long and slow" attack run at straight-and-level at enemy ships. Unsurprisingly, this made the Devastator an easy target for enemy anti-air guns. In addition to this, the Mark 13 torpedo had numerous faults.[note]A later study would find a fault rate ''greater'' than 100% because torpedoes would often have multiple errors at the same.[/note] At the Battle of Midway, the Devastator's service would come to an ignominious end when a mere six (of the forty-one present) would make it back to their carriers, with no results to show for their sacrifice. The Devastator was immediately withdrawn from active service after Midway.

In January of 1944, the United States Navy created a formation where the centerpiece of its striking power was not battleships but aircraft carriers. While this was not exactly new (Japan had done it from the beginning of the war with the Combined Fleet's ''Kido Butai''), the amount of firepower concentrated was. The Fast Carrier Task Force stood up in January centered around the aircraft carriers ''Enterprise'' (''Yorktown'' class), ''Yorktown'', ''Essex,'' ''Intrepid,'' and ''Bunker Hill'' (''Essex'' class). By the end of 1944 it consisted of 14 American and 4 British aircraft carriers, and it was among the most powerful concentrations of naval firepower in the history of the world. The fast carrier task force brought Japan to its knees in a year and a half.

* Leave us not forget the Lockheed '''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_Lightning P-38 Lightning]]'''. It was originally meant to be a short-range, heavily armed interceptor -- a flying anti-aircraft gun, if you will. Lockheed was initially planning on a limited run of the planes (based on the initial proposal, they expected that they would be constructing a mere 50 Lightnings), but the Air Force was suitably impressed with the performance of the prototype XP- and YP-38s that they saw fit to expand both its role in the war and the number of Lightnings to be constructed. In addition to becoming one of the first truly multi-role fighter planes -- while its primary role was escort and interception, it also took part in dive-bombing, level-bombing, ground-attack, and photo-reconnaissance missions -- it was also the plane used to "get Yamamoto". The Germans referred to it as the "Forked-tailed Devil".

If you're wondering, aircraft designations are: F for Fighter, A for Attack, B for Bomber, C for Cargo, E for Electronic warfare, H for Helicopter, K for tanKer, M for special Missions, V for [=VTOL=], U for Utility, Q for unmanned drone, and in the case of the WWII planes, P for Pursuit. Before 1962, the US Navy had a separate designation system: One to three function letters, a sequence number indicating which design it was, and a manufacturer letter, followed by a dash and a digit to communicate which variant it was. The McDonnell F-4 Phantom II, for example, entered service as the F4H-2 (Fourth fighter design by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, second variant). The first design of each manufacturer omitted the sequence number, and somewhat confusingly, the same aircraft built by different manufacturers had a different designation (the Vought Corsair, for example, was built as F4U (fourth fighter airplane by the Vought company), F3A (third fighter airplane by Brewster Aeronautical Corporation), and FG (First fighter airplane by Goodyear - yes, the rubber company)). Most single-digit numbers under the post-1962 system were taken up by redesignated Naval aircraft, while their Air Force counterparts mostly continued to use the same designations as before, with one significant exception which we will get to.

* Before HIMARS, there was the '''M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS)''', which was much like its successor except tracked and large enough to mount two of HIMARS' rocket pods. While not having the same range of precision rockets as HIMARS due to being older, the M270 was still incredibly devastating, with stories of Iraqi conscripts surrendering so as not to be subjected to the "Iron Rain".

*** They have tried to retire it again recently, but in June 2015 a Senate committee rejected the Air Force's arguments and request chiefly because 1) The USAAF failed to demonstrate that it will result in expense savings 2) The USAAF failed to provide a viable replacement for the tasks accomplished by the A-10 (Neither unmanned drones or the F/A-18 could provide proper Close Air Support (CAS) to ground troops and the F-35 JSF has yet to prove its worth). This was on top of a public campaign to save the A-10, which has earned a solid reputation with both [[MemeticBadass civilians]] and [[DeathFromAbove ground troops]].
*** The reasons for retiring the A-10 have grown steadily more rational over the years. The Warthog's fabled wing payloads are exceeded by newer fighters and planned attack aircraft. The GAU-8, while formidable against light armor and softer targets, has been ineffective against tanks from most angles almost since it was first built; more importantly, flying low to use it exposes the A-10 to short range AA systems, which have gotten much, much more dangerous, as recent conflicts have delivered sophisticated man-portable systems to even relatively small rebel groups. A-10's fabled toughness serves it well, but other candidates for these missions are fully configured to avoid shots instead of withstanding them by striking from safer altitudes and distances; A-10 can do this as well, but has a huge amount of weight on board that is designed for a more primitive form of war. Features like a titanium bathtub and a 30mm cannon with seven barrels have been rendered obsolete by low-weight, high-accuracy smart bombs that can deal with armored and unarmed threats from a safe distance, with a low risk of collateral damage.