Shortchanging the Joint Doctrine Fight

[Cavguy]

I have the greatest of difficulty with the idea that airpower saves on manpower in terms of numbers. The RAF has done it's best to corrupt the operational and historical record with this argument and it just doesn't hold water. Some air assets can give ground forces greater capability, but you can't make a 650-man battalion a 300 man battalion just because of air support. Air power can never have the persistence, endurance, discrimination, precision and proportionality that land forces have, regardless of the threat, and the environment.

At a conceptual level, I agree, but who is a near-peer competitor that is in any way of comparable competence, that may be a threat framed in a possible geo-political reality? I don't see why China and Iran are going to form up in land manoeuvre formations for the convenience of the USAF.


As Ken White said, few folks do. I agree the COIN agenda has been misused by some, but I can't see how any focus USAF capabilities corrects that. I also have difficulty seeing any "COIN only" equipment. A lot of the COIN equipment requirements are not ones of choice, but necessity.

Wiif. excellent, excellent post. Brilliant use of wit and sarcasm to make a very astute observation.

[William F. Owen]

Wiif. excellent, excellent post. Brilliant use of wit and sarcasm to make a very astute observation.

...and I hope within ROE. As concerns the alleged "Brilliant use of wit and sarcasm to make a very astute observation", it's just the result of a British public school education.

[Fuchs]

Air attack is slightly comparable to artillery support, and artillery support is proved to be a substitute for manpower. That's especially true in the defense and was demonstrated on the Eastern Front well enough.

But to save manpower is a very weird job for airpower in any case. Air power is extremely expensive for the support given and limited in its responsiveness and versatility in comparison to indirect fire weapons.

The great strength of airpower that justifies the CAS mission is the ability to shift the focus by hundreds of kilometres in half an hour. The very general use of CAS by Americans just proves that they loaned too much money to spend on the military. The scarcity of resources is gone, so they afford to use CAS everywhere, at any time.

The true nature of CAS for all other nations (and for the U.S. if they would fight a large competent enemy) is that it's a scarce resource because of its budgetary inefficiency. It's best used to concentrate support in one or few places at once and to shift the influence according to an operation's needs.

The Germans in WW2 substituted artillery for CAS (slightly); they didn't always concentrate artillery for breakthrough, but instead often concentrated CAS (like Sedan/Meuse crossing 1940). CAS also substituted for artillery for units that could not be supported well by artillery - like advanced armour units (that problem was solved later by SPHs).

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I like the OV-10D plane which left service in the early 90's shortly after a thorough modernization. It was much more than a FAC plane - much more versatile than a Predator/Reaper. It was a gunship (20mm gatling under belly), recon plane (gimballed IIR/TV), FAC (sensor plus huge windows), could drop items or even a fire team of paras, was able to use bombs/rockets/missiles/machine guns/autocannon against targets and was able to mark targets by smoke rockets or laser.