A sad day for the soldier/seaman/airman on the ground.... (A-10/CAS Discussion)

ThunderHorse said:
Thinking historically, the big Air Force doesn't care for the tactical fight, but it doesn't want to let the Army have the tactical airframes. As can be seen by the F-35 can fill the role of the A-10 in the fight. Although I will point out that the A-10 wasn't truly built to just hang around, it was built to be tactical support for an armor-on-armor fight. The big Air Force likes flying fighters and bombers, historically speaking.
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There are a myriad of reasons why it would be a bad idea for the conventional Army to own CAS aircraft, and to train their own JTACs. Yes, big blue likes flying fighters and bombers. Luckily, the red headed step children of the USAF continue to hang around and enjoy their role as outsiders stuck between two services. ;-)
 
ThunderHorse said:
... the A-10 wasn't truly built to just hang around, it was built to be tactical support for an armor-on-armor fight...
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Which is another reason why it's becoming obsolete.

Apaches can rearm and refuel from a FARP, have the ability to hover, and have weapons that are optimized for firing from a hover.
 
Red Flag 1 said:
My son went USCM after VMI. He settled in with Combat Eng, and hated anyone providing CAS but Marine Aviators. His opinion of the A-10 was that they should not be in the air. Reason: The pilots were not Marines, and therefore could not provide CAS. We never have been able to find a middle ground in discussing CAS. :rolleyes:
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Wow, he is a purist.

From a ground-pounder pov, there really is no preference as long as it's effective. True, Marine aviators spend some training time with infantry units and the Air/Ground Team is not an empty expression. But I've seen some pretty ballsy CAS carried out by other-than-Marines, notably the USAF-trained VNAF.

It may surprise some, and I can't speak for any but the guys in my Group, but it was our consensus that Army helo pilots would risk their ships more willingly than our own USMC pilots to fly in to hot LZs, especially for medevacs. It may have been that Marine pilots had stricter regulations--which wouldn't surprise me--but we generally had a higher regard for the Army Huey drivers and crews assigned to support us.
 
This is not directly related to CAS, but the arguments are still valid for the discussion of that mission set, and I didn't feel it warranted starting a new thread. This article provides a history of PGMs, the reason why, and how that reasoning mutated into the risk-averse attitude we currently see.

Political Airpower, Part II: The Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons
 
From the story, my favorite part which sums up why we will never win unless policy is changed: :wall:

Precision weapons were intended to make the combat application of airpower more efficient and safer in the long run, not to make them more palatable as a policy option. An airpower tool became a political one — another aspect of “political airpower.”

By 2014 in Iraq, the handcuffs evolved further into an iron maiden, with Army generals mandating an airborne real-time video feed before personally granting approval for each and every air strike. If one of these generals were away from their desk (i.e. sleeping or at a meeting), the ISIL target lived to fight another day. And, the potential warfighting value of seizing the initiative was lost.
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Something I hope PE Trump and a SECDEF like Mattis can fix...:thumbsup:
 
SpongeBob*24 said:
From the story, my favorite part which sums up why we will never win unless policy is changed: :wall:



Something I hope PE Trump and a SECDEF like Mattis can fix...:thumbsup:
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How? Do you think it likely PE Trump will reduce or change the reliance and usage of such systems?
 
CDG said:
This is not directly related to CAS, but the arguments are still valid for the discussion of that mission set, and I didn't feel it warranted starting a new thread. This article provides a history of PGMs, the reason why, and how that reasoning mutated into the risk-averse attitude we currently see.

Political Airpower, Part II: The Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons
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Good article. These couple comments sum it up and resonated for me:

"Unrealistic expectations surrounding the application of force are making the strategic utility of precision far less than it ought to be — ultimately hindering both strategy and operational utility of the U.S. military. The ubiquitous nature of precision has resulted in the growth of a generation of policymakers who misunderstand the nature of warfare."

"The use of precision weapons had dropped unintended casualties to levels unimagined mere decades before — but they had not dropped to zero — and anything more than zero became politically unpalatable. And so the handcuffs emerged, in the form of increasingly higher levels of approval, often by individuals with no airpower expertise hundreds or thousands of miles from the engagement. Because of the demonstrated ability of a precision weapon to limit unintended damage, particularly against civilian targets, they were wrapped in a semi-impermeable shield of risk aversion that limits their use."

The topic has been discussed in a lot of circles for some time but precision munitions have really played a leading role in exacerbated political and public expectations on war; the law of unintended consequences. The use of UAVs/drones now enter into that same discussion.
 
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You want to make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs. Even with PGMs. Politicians don't get it. PGMs are only precision while they're in the air. Once they impact, the shit goes wherever physics and fate send it.
 
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TLDR20 said:
How? Do you think it likely PE Trump will reduce or change the reliance and usage of such systems?
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That is not what I said. For starters, read this:
Iraq and ISIS Discussion

That is about 15 Generals too many. Idle hands create more bureaucracy and red tape. All I was saying was I hope the duo clean up the clutter, stream line the approval process to drop these guided munitions, and make the guys on the ground more effective. Currently they are hamstrung by extra Generals from 200 Miles away thinking they know best because that has been an OK culture for the last 4-6 yrs, letting politics outweigh common sense.

Sometimes the risk is high for a the greatest reward. These princesses want no risk but great reward...

:D
 
We've taken a lot of power and responsibility out of a local commander's hands and pushed it up to an O-6 hundreds of miles away (or thousands). I don't like playing the "I know something you don't" game on the Net, but a true discussion on the failures and limitations of the "kill chain" is high side material. I think the easiest way to describe it is "unnecessarily long with too many people in a risk adverse culture making decisions based upon lawyers and pixels on a screen."

I'd like to think Trump, Mattis, et. al. will receive briefings on "the one that got away" and start asking themselves how is that possible. Mattis should already know, but a blunt refresher in front of the president's staff is in order.

C'mon, when the GFC and his JTAC don't "own" all of the assets in their ROZ, something's freaking wrong.
 
You need death from above, you've got a pretty small opportunity window, if you miss it your ass might be in a sling, so you pull the chain. Minutes pass as General Fuckstick in North Carolina confers with his legal team; they recommend a teleconference with the Pentagon and send for take-out from China Wok. In the meantime you're either getting roasted on a spit or watching the bad guys unass the AO.

Makes perfect sense.
 
They're bringing these back, too. They did the upgrades out at Nellis. Some required welding and changing to a heavier weight oil. To improve thrust-to-weight ratio, they've upgraded to a 6.7 liter turbo. The new variants will have a polycarbonate bubble canopy to improve pilot visibility.

eb58_001-1.jpg
 
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Viper1 said:
Looks like an old-school platform is coming back

Air Force “Joke” Turns the Tide in Afghan War » Article 107 News
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With some sort of IR aiming device, I bet that would be a pretty slick platform. 2,800 rpm collectively of 20mm vs. 1,250 rpm of 30mm from a DAP, that's a pretty significant difference.

Ocoka One said:
They're bringing these back, too. They did the upgrades out at Nellis. Some required welding and changing to a heavier weight oil. To improve thrust-to-weight ratio, they've upgraded to a 6.7 liter turbo. The new variants will have a polycarbonate bubble canopy to improve pilot visibility.

View attachment 17439
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What is that???
 
Etype said:
What is that???
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:ROFLMAO:That is a Ryan 147B Lightning Bug. They were used as SAM bait...and for photo reconnaissance. They couldn't land, and on mission return they just fell out of the sky, deployed a chute and a HH53 Jolly Green Giant snagged the chute in mid-air. :thumbsup:
 
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