Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
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No disagreement there. I would go further and suggest the AF is probably the worst, or at least the most defensive. I think this guy gets it about right.
Agreed; that's a good paper and he accurately assesses the Army's problems in integrating CAS. My perception is that is due to a cultural bias and to the fact that it is so expensive to actually train with real birds in peacetime that it gets sluffed. I'd also suggest that the experience of some in the Army with spotty CAS availability causes the Army to often place the integration of air fires in the nice to have category and thus to skimp on the planning. I believe that is changing. My hope is that we will not once again slide into structural decay and non use...
By "own" I'll assume you mean who gets to spend the O&M money and what uniforms the operators wear...
True.
...As I alluded to upthread, that's one form of control, but development and procurement is another form. So while I might be convinced the Army needs it's own fixed-wing CAS aircraft, I also think the AF will need a significant say in the development of said aircraft and should probably be the program manager. Why? Well, first one has to ensure interoperability because no weapons system is an island. Secondly, the Army (and the Marines, for that matter) don't have much experience in FW aircraft development. One would not expect the Air Force, for example, to have much success in managing the development of an armored vehicle or air defense missile and the same is true in reverse with aircraft.
In principle, I agree (other than saying you're wrong on the Marines capability and knowledge). In practice, I distrust the parochialism of all the services to do that fairly and well. People are by nature selfish, prone to biases and defensive. The procurement system needs to be designed to negate those traits and force a fair and reasonable series of designs and purchases.

Add to that the fact that your version will inevitably lead to excessive compromises and my service supreme version will lead to parochial standards that are whimsy and we're confronted with the fact that procurement is tough. Still, on balance, I very strongly believe that cooperation (even if forced -- and it will probably have to be ) is vastly preferable to consolidation. DoD's single manager process for procurement is not an unalloyed success...
So I see no reason why arrangements cannot be made to place certain capabilities directly under the Commander who needs them regardless of which service "owns" the assets.
Again I agree in principle; in practice, my observation has long been that everyone doesn't play fair; simple as that. It has to be forced.
Another example is special operations which is it's own co-equal component next to the CFLCC, CFNCC, and CFACC. While they get priority for their missions on the use of AC-130's for example (which is an AFSOC asset), AC-130's actually spend most of their time supporting the regular forces with CAS.
True but if the bird is supporting the 82d and it gets a call from the 3d SFG it may very well divert. -- that irrelevant of the on the ground reality.
That is certainly the big fear and one that I share.
We can both hope not; surely we're smart enough to not have to bury the wheel so it can be reinvented at great cost later by another generation (he said, tentatively...)
Maybe so, but in my experience the senior purple leadership has done pretty well. Obviously leadership plays an important role here and who is picked as the JFC is critically important.
Yes -- and the system doesn't do that well. It rewards the next in line, not the best qualified. Don't get me started on DOPMA
On priorities, how assets are divided will always be a source of contention since everyone's priority list is different. Your point about people getting priority because of who they are and not what's needed might be a perceptual one. However, it also works both ways. Assets held at upper echelons and prioritized there indeed may not be divided as they should - but pushing the assets down echelon creates problems of its own and can also result in people getting assets because of who they are, not what they need.
It's situation dependent. Yes, pushing them down does create problems but all that just reinforces the fact that people are the problem. If the right people are in charge, there are few problems in allocation; let one biased or incompetent slip in the wrong job and the processes get skewed. Designing a system that mitigates that to the maximum possible extent (it cannot be totally eliminated) is important.
Let's look at a hypothetical. Suppose the theater commander has 20 predators available. He could take everyone's priority list, put them together and divide up the assets. Or he could parcel them out, giving the land component 14, and each of the other components 2 and let them fill their individual priorities. ISTM there are advantage and disadvantages to either method depending on the situation.
True -- METT-T ALWAYS has to be applied. To everything...

That, really is all I'm suggesting. My perception is that is not done as often as it could be and human nature is a significant part of the prob. But then, I'm old and cynical...