SOCCOM apparently buying 75 Air Tractors for ??? reasons
to be clear, we’re talking about this bad boy:
described as “an American agricultural aircraft that may also be adapted into fire-fighting or armed versions“.
lots of militaries apparently fly them, but mostly in firefighting and other noncombat roles. unless SOCCOM is planning to get into wildfire management, tho, I have got to wonder what exactly they are planning to do here
Short take-off and landing from unpaved fields, built for terrain-following and low-altitude maneuvers, sturdy and can survive low-speed crashes, they’ll be easily adapted as counterinsurgency attack planes for use in Third World theaters where the bad guys don’t have anti-air capabilities.
Of course the American understanding is that the Army has helicopters but attack planes are an Air Force thing (that supports Army operations so the regular brass doesn’t care about), they’ll go to AFSOC at Hurlbut. The Marines, in turn, will understand this as SOCOM muscling in on their expeditionary combined-arms turf.
Oh, repairable in the sticks remote from maintenance centers, too, that’s big