Air Force Leaders Show Lack of Commitment to CAS

[BloodStripe]

Documents Show Air Force Leaders Shirking Their Close Air Support Responsibilities

Currently no F35 pilots are required to go through any type of CAS training. The AF has already said the F35 is the replacement to the F16.

In 2022, the program officer for the A10 program stated that the Service is still actively trying to divest itself from the platform and is resourcing it as such.

On this trajectory, the AF is mimicking their pre 1970 force by not having any trained CAS pilots.

 

[Gunz]

.

 

[AWP]

The same Air Force that had 5th Gen. fighters providing CAS while bomb-laden F-15E's performed DCA over Iraq/Syria? The same AF that has an entire careerfield devoted to providing CAS and the same AF that set the standards for JTAC qualifications?

You expect military leadership to be out of touch with the real world, but damn...

 

[Devildoc]

Dear Army;

We got you, fam.

Lovingly,

USMC

 

[Johca]

It used to be different decade but same story, now its evolved to deferent century same story about Air Force and making investment to provide CAS to the Army.

 

[Marauder06]

Maybe they should just sell the A-10s to the Army and be done with it.

 

[amlove21]

Maybe they should just sell the A-10s to the Army and be done with it.

Aye dios mio!!!!!

 

[Johca]

Maybe they should just sell the A-10s to the Army and be done with it.

That's a solution favored by the Army since the 1980s resulting in another different decade/century but same story circumstance.

 

[Marauder06]

Yep.

Air Force: "A-10s are stupid. We want that money for other fly-y things."

Army: "We'll take them!"

Air Force:

 

[Devildoc]

That's a solution favored by the Army since the 1980s resulting in another different decade/century but same story circumstance.

I think it goes back to the Key West Agreement, the army wanting to have its own CAS. I understand the army did arm some fixed-wing AC in Vietnam which pissed the air force off mightily.

I've no issue with the army having its own fixed-wing CAS.

 

[Gunz]

By the ghost of Curtis LeMay, are we getting all strategikky again?

 

[AWP]

What would be crazy is if Army leadership stood up to the AF on this issue, but that would take moral and ethical courage.

Oooh! What if we had a SECDEF who understood the value of CAS to soldiers?

Absolute clownshoes.

 

[Marauder06]

What would be crazy is if Army leadership stood up to the AF on this issue, but that would take moral and ethical courage.

Oooh! What if we had a SECDEF who understood the value of CAS to soldiers?

Absolute clownshoes.

Nah, in all the wars of the future everything is going to be air-to-air, missiles space and cyber. You'll never need a ground force, so why would you need CAS.

Right?

 

[amlove21]

I've been re-reading The Kill Chain again and boy, has that book held up well. This specific issue (CAS) really highlights how poorly we have used innovation and the private sector to revolutionize our own military capabilities and now those gaps are huge, and protected by the choking bureaucracy we have.

Find a way to layer AI and machine learning with a system of interconnected platforms, easily upgraded and capable of equisite warfighting functions to support next generation warfare? Nah. Let's just divest from CAS and keep decades old platforms with systems that can't talk to one another.

It's not like we aren't gonna have to use those systems in concert with ground troops in order to take and hold terrain (@Marauder06 I was typing this as you posted).

 

[AWP]

I've been re-reading The Kill Chain again and boy, has that book held up well. This specific issue (CAS) really highlights how poorly we have used innovation and the private sector to revolutionize our own military capabilities and now those gaps are huge, and protected by the choking bureaucracy we have.

Find a way to layer AI and machine learning with a system of interconnected platforms, easily upgraded and capable of equisite warfighting functions to support next generation warfare? Nah. Let's just divest from CAS and keep decades old platforms with systems that can't talk to one another.

It's not like we aren't gonna have to use those systems in concert with ground troops in order to take and hold terrain (@Marauder06 I was typing this as you posted).

Sooo...haze myself?

 

[amlove21]

Sooo...haze myself?

No no no- this time you were good War Profiteer. Now we agree. We can now celebrate and find someone else to label "the other" and haze them. Congrats, now you're a winner, and you get to use all the hate you were stocking up when you were the loser.

 

[Gunz]

War planners get fixated with the latest threats and seem to convince themselves that the past will never repeat itself. But the past always seems to repeat itself eventually…so then there’s a rush to retool.

You don’t shitcan fundamentals. And CAS is a fundamental.

 

[AWP]

No no no- this time you were good War Profiteer. Now we agree. We can now celebrate and find someone else to label "the other" and haze them. Congrats, now you're a winner, and you get to use all the hate you were stocking up when you were the loser.

Whew. I can only watch so much MSNBC. Glad that's over!

 

[amlove21]

Whew. I can only watch so much MSNBC. Glad that's over!

Hahahaha! Good news, you're allowed to watch OAN now. Bad news, you're literally Hitler.

 

[AWP]

Hahahaha! Good news, you're allowed to watch OAN now. Bad news, you're literally Hitler.

Fine, but without F-35 CAS my panzers aren't crossing the Vistula. That's...kaserne-ing.