I think we're there already...
Quote:
"Before we get too involved in who can pee the farthest"
said 120mm. He also said
Quote:
"I put it down in the "even if it was forced upon those services, it was the natural result of ignoring/neglecting the future of conflict since 1989" category at the very least."
causing me to wonder if he was talking about DoD, the Army, the USAF or anyone else other than C. Krulak... :confused:
He also added
Quote:
"...And the Army is not blameless, here. In fact, you won't finding me defending The Army as an institution."
I can agree with that...
Selil said:
Quote:
"Oh, you don't have to believe me because the Air Force said it all first."
I think that's a dated document and the AF has fixed most of that. Last time the kid was in Afghanistan, he had a JTAC with his Platoon frequently and said the CAS was way better than his previous two tours in both theaters. I believe they're flooding the zone with JTACs and that many of the RAND recommendations have been or are being implemented
Umar Al-Mokhtar said:
Quote:
"...more like better focus on the Nation's task at hand rather than advocating for future capabilities that have no application to the present situation."
Sounds good but I'm not sure the Marines are ready to dump the EAV, the Army to dump NLOS or the Navy ready to stop building Submarines. I suspect the respective Bosses realize that there's more going on in the world right now than the two big theaters; that it takes an excessively long time to develop and field new stuff and that there's no certainty in predicting war. We have the luxury to focus on the here and now; they do not.
He also said:
Quote:
"USAF CAS is really good but Marine CAS is better (just as USAF air superiority has the edge over the Marines), so part of staying relevant to the fight is to learn from those who do it for a living."
True, good point. It also makes the point -- correctly -- that CAS is the primary mission of Marine Tac Air while it is a secondary mission for the USAF. AS, IMO, it should be and stay...
I agree with Umar on the C17s but realize that Congress is a part of the problem with that. As is Lockheed Martin.
I tend to agree with Hacksaw.
ODB, it's not "bashing" per se...
yet as the old adage goes "squeeky wheel gets the grease" and it also may attract more than it's fair share of unwanted attention. ;)
And since the thread specifically targeted Air Power in the New COIN Era and given the recent SecDef speech at Maxwell it was pile on time.
Sandbox can get rough like that. :D
Plus almost everyone had good things to say about what the AF does bring to the fight.
So what about those sneaky Sailors and all this talk about new submarines? :)
That's a function of the type of and location of the war
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Laxman
...please find one RCO/BCO that fully understands what a JFO actually brings to the table. More often than not, a JFO is usually ends up a cook or is staring at maps in the 2 shop, not out forward where they should be.
The JFO should be out forward if there were a forward direction and the Bn/Bde was oriented that way. When subordinate units are in dispersed static locations with only sporadic (or even heavy but distributed geographically) contact, where is forward? When units are spread out as in Afghanistan on distributed patrols, which units should the JFO (as opposed to the JTACs. Do we have enough of those yet?) accompany? The JFO is going to be where he and the Cdr agree he can do the most good and have the most flexibility.
Given a war of movement or one of frequent, heavy contact instead of a static low key COIN operation I suspect your complaint would not be a problem.
You might also consider that the Army's lack of smarts about CAS is due to a failure for many years to develop doctrine and to train for it. Both the Army and the AF bear about equal responsibility for that. Consider also that in the current wars, the use of CAS is spotty -- it is not a constant thing for all units in all places, so it is a sometime thing for many in both suits. The important thing is that it's getting better...
Quote:
The only service that truly has integration with land and air components is the Marines.
Well, yeah. Uh, do you really want to go there? :D
Picking this thread back up from another perspective
From Danger Room: How the Afghan Air War Got Stuck in the Sky (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/1..._air_war/all/1). This short article offers an account of how the current gudiance on employing airpower is affecting ground operations. As noted in many other forums, the immediate result is that less ordnace is getting dropped and, in certain tactical situations, that's not good.
However, I'm not going to argue the for/against ICO the current theater guidance on utilizing air support. I'll just point out that one issue this article raises is that we conduct our tactical operations with a certain expectation of having that air support available. While in this case, the lack of immediate air support is consciously self-inflicted, there are many reasons on current and future battlefields where we may be denied the air support we have come to expect. In the "level playing field" of ground versus ground forces, how are we doing (and how will we do)?
In a recent Nightwatch report from AFCEA (to big to attach), one of the stats revealed was that since the new rules have been in effect, curtailing our air support operations, our friendly to enemy kill ratio has moved from about 6to1 to 1to1--an even trade during engagements. Now this is based on open sources and is inexact, but probably exposes a trend (of course this isn't a stat to support COIN success necessarily, but does indicate something with regard to tactical engagements).
In looking at MCDP 1 Warfighting and MCDP 1-3 Tactics, the Marine Corps espouses a concept of combined arms to use fire and maneuver to create a dilemma. In fact, we touted that fires weren't necessarily to destroy, but to enable maneuver. However, this requires enough maneuver elements at the point of engagement. My impression is that the small size of units we are employing has degraded our capability to execute our stated doctrine. We are maneuvering to bring destructive fires to bear, not having enough organic maneuver strength to merely use fires for suppression or temporary neutralization. Based on the fact that over the timeframe of the engagement, there was no discussion of other maneuver units reinforcing this squad, that there were none within supporting distance, given relevant terrain and mobility factors. I was also surprised at the stated ineffectiveness of the mortars and artillery fire.
I'm not in any way disparaging our ground unit's performance and capability. However, I think our dispersed operating methods may really depend upon a concept of air support that has changed. I'm sure our commanders on the ground are wrestling with this. It should also cause us to think about our planned future concepts. As I said, I think there are different ways that we could be denied air support.
Phil Ridderhof USMC
It's The Taliban Causing All The Deaths
USAF General Deptula responds. Link from SWJ Blog article.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009...vilian-deaths/