OK, since you like reading my posts, here something I consider a good example for 'how to do it'.
In your answer to AP, you mentioned Rhodesians. I find it estranging that it seems everybody, literally all the serious students of 'small wars' and 'modern air power at war' got struck with the RhAF in the 1970s. Even more so because the ascendant from that air force provided a 1st class example for much more serious 'expeditionary deployment' in relatively recent times.
Early August 1998: Zimbabwean Defence Forces were put on alert for deployment to the DR Congo. Nobody expected a 'war': task was to control the withdrawal of Rwandan forces from there.
That is: unless certain General Kabarebe (RPA) - better known as big friend of various 1 or 2-star generals at AFRICOM, a great COIN adviser, 'innovative thinker', even 'revolutionary military mind' (cough!) within the ranks of quite US Army scholars - came to the idea to launch a de-facto 'airborne' invasion of Kinshasa: he led one of RPA's SF-units over the border into Goma (eastern DRC), commandeered at least four, perhaps five airliners are the local airfield, then stuffed these full with his troops (Rwandans), few Ugandan units etc. and then flew all of that to Kitona AB, in western DRC, on the Atlantic coast.
Once there, Kabarebe's force swiftly overpowered the Congolese guards of about 15,000 ex-Mobutu troops held in 're-education camp' and then this mob rushed in direction of Kinshasa, 300+ kilometres away.
With Kaberebe's force approaching Kinshasa, Zims were left without the choice: in order to save Kabila's gov, their ally, they used even civilian C-47s (yup, old transports from WWII) to rush about 800 paras, two of their SAS squads, and then four each of Hawks, FB.337s, AB.412s, and several Alouettes of their Air Force (Air Force of Zimbabwe, AFZ) to N'Djili IAP.
That's about 1,900 kilometres as the crow flies from Harare to Kinshasa.
Again, this is a very, very short version (full story can be read
here) so let me just summarize that a combo of SAS ambushes followed by AFZ strikes has slowed down Kabarebe's advance so much that he reached south-western outskirts of Kinshasa only on 27 August, by when the Zim para battalion has already established a defence perimeter and was reinforced by a squad of Cascavel armoured cars. Early on that morning, Kabarebe then attempted to overrun the Zims at N'Djili with help of a ploy, but that attempt failed. That is: it failed partially. Rwandans, Ugandans, and 'mutineers' found themselves in possession of the southern half of the runway, the Zims in control of the northern part.
The point was (and remains): N'Djili has a runway some 5,000+ metres long. So, the Zims used their half of the runway to fly strikes against enemy entrenched - literally - 'at the other side of the runway'. But foremost: Zim commanders didn't guess about what to do, didn't hesitate nor waste their time with philosophic recourses about strategy and tactics, about target selection or how to hit 'Ring 1, Ring 2....' etc style targets somewhere in Rwanda, 1,500 kilometres away. They hit the enemy that was clearly in front of them: well, that with 'clearly' was relative, then the mass of Kabarebe's force was concentrated on the eastern side of N'Djili slum.
Anyway, the Zims flew so intensively for the next few days, that the engines of their aircraft and helicopters were turned on in the morning and off only late in the evening; even cooks and caterers were trained in preparing bombs and hauling them to planes...
After losing all the heavy weaponry the Congolese mutineers brought with them (including several Type-62 and Type-59 tanks, plus plenty of ZPUs and all of Ugandan artillery), and after enjoying being at the receiving end of this onslaught for some four days, the Rwandans began falling back, and then the Zim paras - supported by Cascavel armoured cars - launched their counterattack. The battle was over about a week after it started, with remnants of Kabarebe's forces fleeing in chaos through the jungle and over the border to northern Angola - from where they were evacuated by Viktor Bout's transports at Christmas 1998 (actually, Kabarebe has left not only all the Congolese but a significant bunch of Ugandans behind; Zim and then Angolans have spent two months mopping up all of these).
While Kabarebe's force suffered several thousands of casualties (KIA and WIA combined, though of course most of these were Congolese that fought on this side), Zims lost some 20 KIA; while most of involved AFZ's planes and helicopters were hit by ground fire not only once, none was shot down. And despite pitched and days-long fighting through kilometres-deep slums of N'Djili, 'collateral' damage was minimal - so much so, the locals were more than happy to greet Zims as liberators (highest number of reported casualties stopped at about 300 civilians - and this despite Hawks levelling several of local churches: these were used by Rwandans with predilection because of their strong construction...BTW, if you ask Rwandans, this battle 'never happened'; they were 'forced to withdraw' because of Angola's entry into the war).
And all of this without any use of sat intel, with no ELINT and minimal SIGINT, next to no HUMINT (most of it was useless, anyway), no LGBs, no GPS-guided PGMs, no stealth planes, no APCs or MBTs developed for 20+ years and at the price of several billions - and none of all other sorts of high-tech wizardry used by the US military.
Now, I can understand that such 'obscure' battles remain unknown in the general public, or that the US military would never come to the idea to do something like the Zims have done and rush a relatively small force into a completely isolated place encircled by 10-fold more numerous enemy, 1,900 kilometres from nearest US base. (And, to make sure: I do not 'demand' anything of that sort). I admit having my problems with understanding that such battles remain unknown within circles of specialists: after all, it would be their job to find out about them, and 'learn lessons'.
But, what I cannot understand the least is that the US military - whether in total or CENTCOM only - can't even do its work in regards of something it should be capable of 'doing in sleep': namely, organizing and running an aerial campaign against the Daesh in Syria.
By side all the problems related with political strategy that is mindlessly nonsensical: but the sheer fact the military can't cope with the task is, ladies and gentlemen, simply a shame.
Originally Posted by CrowBat
OK, since you like reading my posts, here something I consider a good example for 'how to do it'.
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