Never thought of that!

[Vonz90]

Marines have F-18's because Guadalcanal. More generally, expeditionary forces need air superiority too.

More specifically, so the navy can drop the Marines somewhere and the leave. Otherwise you would have a carrier battlegroup tied down every time you inserted the jar heads.

[tcourtplayer]

Marines have F-18's because Guadalcanal. More generally, expeditionary forces need air superiority too.

More specifically, so the navy can drop the Marines somewhere and the leave. Otherwise you would have a carrier battlegroup tied down every time you inserted the jar heads.

This.

Contrary to popular beliefs navy fixed wing assets are for fighting a blue water war. The navy has only adapted them and trained our pilots for CAS to remain useful between the major wars. If a major war kicked off the marine fixed wing assets would conduct air superiority and CAS missions while the carries went off to fight the other nations navy with their fixed wing assets.