U.S. air power in perspective

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Certain bloggers and pundits are frequently quite alarmist about a decline of U.S. air power.

It's true that the inventory of aircraft is shrinking, in part (not only) because of rising costs of combat aircraft. The F-22 didn't even come close to early expectations for 750 fighters (187 for real). The F-35 is unlikely to exceed a 2,000 production run unless a major conventional war pushes unexpected funds into the program. The annual planned production of 80 F-35 for the USAF seems to be fiscally out of reach by at least a third (more like a half), for example.

An absolute decline / downsizing / shrinking / reduction isn't necessarily a reason for complaints, though. The waste of taxpayer money in an inefficient program - well, that's a good reason for critique. The anticipated production figures in themselves? Not necessarily.

Let's compare the expected U.S. air power of the late 2010's:

187 F-22

552 F/A-18 E/F

88 F/A-18G

??? F-35

(20 B-2)

(??? F-15 and F-16 multi-role models)

(all of them minus a few losses from accidents)

The overall sum of modern combat aircraft would be about 900-1,200 in the late 2010's (it depends on the F-35 program).

For comparison (again ignoring accidents):

Germany:

140-180 Typhoon

dozens of old Tornado (mostly a SEAD version, 70's airframe)

United Kingdom:

160-232 Typhoon

150 F-35B

(serious cuts & foreign sales of in-service aircraft are possible)

France:

180-224 Rafale

20 or more Mirage 2000-5F (70's airframe upgraded with 90's avionics)

Italy:

96 Typhoon

few Tornado (SEAD version) or F-35 instead

Spain:

87 Typhoon
(+possibly dozens early-model F/A-18 near their end of life)

Japan:

130 F-2

(+ old F-15J/DJ)

South Korea:

(132 KF-16C/D Block 52)

(60 F-15K)

(90's technology in 70's airframes)

PR China (plans are not really known):

200 or more J-10A/B

96 Su-30 (90's technology in a 70's airframe)

120 or more J-11 (A: obsolete copy of Su-27, B: same airframe, indigenous components)

??? J-15 (copy of a Su-27, -30 or -33 model ?)

India:

270 Su-30 (90's technology in a 70's airframe)

hoping for a few dozen of a total of 250 PAK-FA (Suchoi T-50)

45 MiG-29K

126 "MRCA" (gen 4.5 strike fighter competition)

(+ 46 Mirage 2000-5; 90's technology in 70's airframe)

Russia:

hoping for a few dozen of a total of 250 PAK-FA (Suchoi T-50)

28 Su-30 (90's technology in a 70's airframe)

36 Su-33

48 Su-34

48 Su-35S/BM

24 MiG-29K (90's technology in 70's airframe)

(up to 445 70's technology Su-27's)

(possibly still up to 245 Su-25 ground attack aircraft)

(286-386 MiG-31 strategic interceptors; no true front fighters)

(Russian air power in general; it's mostly a paper tiger air power

because of 12+ years of minimal training and funds)

It seems as if the U.S. air power was quite oversized - unless you compare it with Sweden, Israel, Bahrein, Katar or the UAE, small nations with disproportionately strong air forces based on either clever procurement, subsidies or crude oil wealth.

- - - - -

Keep in mind that the U.S. would in no reasonable scenario need to go to (air) war against a well-equipped air power without allies; the reasonable combinations are:

Conflicts in East Asia:

+ South Korea or

+ Japan or

+ both

Defensive wars in Europe and its periphery:

+ Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy & smaller allies

The PAK-FA, J-10B and J-11B are the most interesting unknown variables for they could incorporate hidden innovations to counter the concepts of the F-22 and Super Hornet (both known since the 90's). Even such innovations wouldn't de-value their adversaries completely, though. It would more likely lead to a more even playing field or restrictions on mission profiles.

It's unlikely that the Russian and Chinese air forces will to be brothers in arms soon; the "Western" air superiority seems to be ensured (in the conventional understanding of air power).

The F-35 program can be allowed to shrink without classic air superiority (and even air supremacy) at risk, it seems.

- - - - -

I think that the political problem here isn't so much the comparison with potential adversaries, especially not with inclusion of possible allies.

The problem is the comparison of the future, present and past air force. The problem is that humans get used to things/conditions and bureaucracies resist against reductions.

The problem is that people are irrational and think of "air power! air power! air power!" instead of "air power as part of the efficient answer to actual national needs".

Costs are not seen as the counterpart to value in US. air power debates, but as a mere limiting factor for overall might.

Today's U.S. Navy is a greater air power than all foreign air forces. The same holds true for the USAF. Most other powerful air forces are either allied, friendly or neutral.

What exactly is so scary about a "smaller" air force? The lesser annual costs and the smaller urge to attack foreign countries?

One line of thought asserts that a certain mass advantage discourages potential challengers. A huge, huge USN or a huge, huge USAF would prevent that a another power would challenge them, ever.

Well, the proponents of this idea should probably have a look at the naval army race of 1898-1916 and the Dreadnought revolution. I also fail to see how NATO was prohibited from accepting an arms race with the militarised Soviet Union of the early Cold War with tis sick artillery and tank inventories.

In any case, it's difficult to make the point that the USAF needs to keep its numerical strength of the 90's with "5th generation" aircraft for strategic defence. Such a reasoning is even questionable if the purpose is strategic offence.

I as a German have greater confidence in allies if they focus on curing economic and fiscal woes to stabilise their pillars than it they continue a military procurement orgy on brittle pillars (and in part on foreign loans).

It's also quite important that the U.S. sticks to its obligation of the North Atlantic Treaty and doesn't launch wars of aggression, for these pin down military power and endanger allies. A "shrinking" USAF on the other hand is of no concern to me.

Sven Ortmann

edit 2010-08-20: I excluded deliberately many 1980's or low performance aircraft such as most Tornado IDS; non-upgraded Mirage 2000, the AMX, Japanese F-4s and obsolete Chinese models. These will either be cut till the end of the decade or be simply without relevance in regard to relative air power.

The old Su-27's could be ignored as well, for many of them are simply outdated (lacking competitive missiles and avionics for mdoern air combat, yet being useless for air/ground missions).

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Another voice for ground/ground air force missiles

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Israeli army Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland

(context was a possible F-35 purchase):

If we continue to use the very advanced [versions of the] F-16 and F-15 and upgrade some of the systems, we could save so much money that we could buy other important systems like ground-based missiles. And you can use more [air-launched] standoff weapons because they have extreme precision and a very long effective range. You don't have to put all your effort into the aircraft.

(my emphasis)

2010/07/18 Defence and Freedom:

The first week of a peer vs. peer air war; a dilemma

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Protection against air power (army)

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(I have absolutely zero motivation to search and include some nice pictures for a more pleasant reading today. This is a long, not exactly easy text. Brace yourself. ;-) )

Maybe it's a good time for a general article about protection against air power on the battlefield. The topic is quite encompassing, and the approaches vary a lot even among NATO allies.

First, let's have a look at the priorities as I see them. Some readers might disagree with this prioritisation, having the assumption of NATO or U.S. air supremacy in mind. Well, that's not cast in stone and even if it was; this article is a bit more encompassing than about classic aircraft (manned or unmanned).

- - - - -

Protection against air threats is first and foremost about measures that reduce the vulnerability to attempts of detection and attack.

This is mostly about passive measures - the basics of camouflage, concealment, deception and radio discipline as practised by all competent ground forces. There's nevertheless also the possibility that active jammers could be employed. Such equipment tends to be rather centralized and ranges from radar jammers (the Russians have a model to counter the E-8 J-STARS, for example) to satellite-blinding lasers.

Next comes the necessity to reduce the air threat's repertoire.

Force the hostiles to fly high, to fly in less efficient strike packages, to fly with partially defensive payload, to minimize the number of attack runs and to attack from a long distance. The desired effect is a reduction of the hostile air power's effect on our remaining vulnerabilities.

Third come the actually destructive responses.

This is about the damaging and destruction of both platforms and munitions.

Laymen often overemphasize the third aspect.

Navies emphasize the very last aspect (intercept of munitions) while air forces and armies neglect it. They had few really high value targets (HQs, pivotal bridges) to protect while navies had to protect expensive and difficult to replace warships and had little hope of hiding on the open, flat sea.

- - - - -

Now let's look about topics of importance:

There was the general trend of miniaturization since the invention of transistors. We're now at a point where two pound flying drones might be enabled to seek and kill (with EFP warhead, for example) individual soldiers. Other loitering killer drones can be sent against vehicles (Germany researched this for thirty years and would have fielded such a drone years ago if the Cold War hadn't ended).

Non-lethal drones are still more important, though; reconnaissance and electronic warfare drones are especially interesting.

Such miniaturized, quantity produced drones can be useful and cheap at once. A drone (target) can reach a critical threshold where it costs the same as the munition meant to destroy it. The defence with said munition becomes unaffordable in all but a few extreme situations (even before that threshold was reached).

Modern battlefield air defences are primarily if not exclusively meant to destroy platforms, not munitions. Critical parameters such as sensor capabilities, minimum firing range and cost per kill (both in weight and money) are acceptable for the defence against helicopters and low-flying combat aircraft, but a lightweight aerial drone could slip by many battlefield air defences without being identified as something different than a bird.

The problem begins with their low speed (radars use the Doppler effect to ignore everything that doesn't move quickly enough in order to minimize false alarms) and extends through their small size to their infra-red signature (different temperatures than combat aircraft).

The problem of smallish aerial drones is a problem all-troops air defence; no centralised defence system will be able to handle tiny hostile drones. I repeat myself: Bird-like drones require bird hunting ammunition; shotgun ammunition.

Larger drones can fly and be useful beyond machine gun range and require a form of countermeasure that is affordable and offers enough coverage. Today's battlefield air defences are quite unlikely to succeed in this role, save for a few autocannon designs with timed frag or shrapnel projectiles. Guns of 35-76mm calibre seem to be a promising choice; the anti-air artillery (AAA) may experience a revival on an unexpected scale.

Such a revival might in turn diminish the relevance of the drones, or push them on a path of development towards more sophisticated, expensive and survivable designs.

AAA has proved its multi-role capabilities in WW2 when AA weapons from 20 to 88mm calibre proved their worth in ground combat. We might become enticed to consider this for future AAA as a feature. Heavy (armoured) forces might use medium calibre tank guns and infantry fighting vehicle autocannons as AAA (with the necessary ground/air sensor technology).

"Light" formations with a focus on the dismounted fight such as infantry units might become interested in multi-role guns for both indirect artillery fire and air defence. A quick-firing 76mm gun not much unlike WW2 AAA designs might be worth a look.

Some machine guns had dedicated flip sights for ground/air fires (such as the MG3 "Fliegervisier"). These were known to almost useless against modern combat aircraft and even against attack helicopters. They might become almost self-evident in the future. A possible alternative is the use of tracer cartridges.

- - - - -

OK, that was about the long-since emerged challenge of aerial drones. Drones are borderline between platforms and munitions. Another challenge for modern air defence forces is beyond this border; munitions as targets.

The dedicated, classic battlefield air defences are in need of a reform. We need to look more into the interception of ammunitions instead of primarily the interception of platforms.

The advances in sensors and miniaturization have enabled stand-off precision attack capabilities. The best reason for buying such stand-off equipment is of course the desire to avoid the kill zone of air defences. It's all quite tricky, but the widespread readiness to invest in such stand-off capabilities points strongly towards the conclusion that this stuff is effective. That is bad news for classic battlefield air defences, of course.

Battlefield air defences can hardly be numerous and capable enough at once to defeat platforms beyond their attack range. Well, unless we consider semi-mobile air defence units such as Patriot or Aster batteries as "battlefield" air defences.

This is indeed a possible answer to the stand-off munitions challenge; set up air defences with a greater range than stand-off missile-equipped aerial attackers can have.

This might indeed work - at least partially. We will not have air defences that can out-range a 250 km air launched missile. Such missiles are still a threat to stationary targets; critical infrastructure such as bridges. Tank crews do not really need to fear such long-range missiles.

Is it feasible to protect every army brigade with a full-blown air defence battery of 20+ km effective radius?

The existing force structures point out that no army has allocated such heavy air defence assets to a brigade or division yet (as far as I know). The classic battlefield air defences fit into the short and very short range air defence bracket (ShorAD, VShorAD) instead. Missiles with ranges such as 5 to 15 km are typical.

Maybe we could pull it off technologically. maybe we could have de facto mobile air defence batteries with protected 8x8 trucks. They might even be dispersed, connected only by radio and power by APUs. A swarm-like cloud of air defence trucks (C4, sensor & launcher models) might maintain a permanent protective umbrella of medium range surface-to-air missiles - even during a brigade march (few 8x8 trucks moving at once).

An optimistic army might expect that such a setup could survive. Less optimistic air forces might be plagued by the idea that a competent opponent usually finds a way to hit such a basket full of eggs.

This leads back to the necessity of killing munitions instead of platforms. Few battlefield air defence systems have an officially claimed and useful capability against missiles. Some types of air defence munitions and fuses are even unsuitable for the intercept of missiles by design. This affects especially the hit-to-kill munitions (both shell and missiles); incoming munitions tend to be too small for a reliable direct hit.

The widespread interest in 35-40mm guns with shrapnel or air burst shells can be explained with this defence problem.

The intercept of munitions also knows a high end; the rise of precision guided artillery projectiles and missiles demands for an effective answer on part of the defence. Radio controlled missiles tend to be among the very cheapest missiles capable of hitting moving targets. Radio control partially fell out of favour for the defence against platforms because those platforms are expensive and often equipped with emitters capable of countering such a guidance. Incoming missiles are not equipped with such emitters, though. The Swedish RBS-23 system is an example for a ShorAD system with a claimed capability to intercept even supersonic anti-radar missiles (one of the most difficult targets).

The ability to intercept Mach 3 missiles is close to the ability to intercept guided artillery munitions. Again, the defender's ammunition should not be more expensive than the attacker's ammunition.

The critical threshold is complicated, though. The whole affair is close to the counter-artillery business of the artillery (again, air defence and artillery meet!). The artillery's radars can detect and track mortar, artillery and rocket munitions in flight. This helps friendly firing units because they get feedback about the drift of their dumb munitions. It does also enable the detection of hostile firing units (by calculating the trajectory of dumb munitions back to their origin - this doesn't work as well for guided ones).

Finally, it enables a quick assessment whether the incoming munitions will hit anything of relevance or miss. This could even lead to GPS/radio-based early warning systems for troops. Many troops and vehicles already carry a lot of electronic gadgets with them - why not give them a software-based acoustic early warning if they're about to be hit by artillery in fifteen seconds?

At this point it should be visible that you do not need to intercept all incoming munitions - you could ignore those which are going to miss. This in turn influences the affordability threshold for defensive vs. offensive munitions.

Counter artillery rocket mortar (C-RAM) systems have so far mostly been based on existing hardware. It began probably with a 114mm cannon shell being hit by a naval Sea Wolf SAM sometime around '80. Today's systems are rather short-ranged; one system is based on a six-barrelled 20mm Gatling gun and another one is based on 35mm autocannons with shrapnel munition. There were also tests with self-propelled howitzers attempting to intercept other howitzer's shells in flight.

The efforts of Israel are quite outstanding. their objective is more political than military in nature and they developed several missile types for the intercept of dumb rockets.

Numerous other projects surely exist without striving for as much publicity.

Very short-range C-RAM systems seem to dominate in NATO today because today's mission profile is about the defence of fortified camps in guerrilla warfare against the weapons of guerrillas (mostly short-ranged mortars and very compact rocket launchers). This hardware won't help us much in a possible great war when we might face pulsing saturation attacks from competent "shoot & scoot" artillery forces.

The technical problems are certainly formidable; how could we develop a really cheap munition capable of hitting a supersonic manoeuvring munition in flight? It seems that the necessary answer is that we must not in any case launch a development project to meet this challenge. That would be the worst possible move because of the embarrassing inefficiency of NATO members' military hardware procurement agencies. The industry might develop such a system on its own initiative, on order by an export customer or maybe the Israelis, or Swedes end up developing an adequate hardware solution.

- - - - -

This is a great moment to recall the prioritisation:

Protection against air threat is first and foremost about measures that reduce the vulnerability to attempts of detection and attack.

[...]

Next comes the necessity to reduce the air threat's repertoire.

[...]

Third come the actually destructive responses.

It makes sense to keep the active defence priority in regard to rocket, artillery and mortar threats low because this kind of response is likely the least cost-efficient one. A low budget for R&D as well as procurement does not exclude a good effort at tactics and theory about hard kill defences, though. Navies had defend themselves against munitions since the 70's (and should better have done so since the 40's!). Air forces should have a close look at the topic as well. Land forces should at the very least recognize its relevance to the artillery fight and the protection of key infrastructure (the famous 'critical bridge').

Sven Ortmann
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Helicopters & mobilisation

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There's a most important difference between small and great wars, and it's trivial: The scope.

You can pour high-end equipment and well-trained personnel into a small war, but that's not sustainable in a great war.

Great wars have the nasty habit of requiring as much resources as are available, and this includes mediocre and inferior resources. The cream alone doesn't suffice in great wars.

A military institution in Europe should first and foremost prepare for great wars. It doesn't need to be really ready for one, but it should at the very least be prepared to get ready a.s.a.p. once that becomes necessary.

Now there's a Cold War left-over that's quite strange. The Cold War demanded permanent readiness in Europe, and the WW3 scenarios left little to no time mobilisation. We partially ditched the idea of harnessing reserves and civilian assets for warfare based on these scenarios - especially in the former alliance frontier state of Germany (both). We had mobilisation plans, but their scope was laughable in comparison to the mobilisations of 1914/15 and 1939/40.

Today we're in the strange situation that our great war preparations - having lost much of our attention to stupid overseas adventures - don't seem to harness the reserves and civilians better than during the Cold War although we're now in a relative geographical position that would allow for a mobilisation in the event of war. Said mobilisation would probably not be decisive because it would take months, but it has at least become a possibility.

Let's take the recently covered helicopter topic as an example. We have approx. these German military helicopter inventories projected for 2015 (excluding naval helicopters, including orders):

82 CH-53 medium/heavy lift helicopters
122 NH90 TTH transport helicopters (more planned)
80 Tiger attack helicopter
100 Bo 105P1M light helicopter (liaison)
14 EC 135 light helicopter (training)

(Many additional old Bo 105 would probably be left in a cannibalized shape.)

Meanwhile, we have a civilian inventory of

789 helicopters in Germany, among them

119 R44

111 EC 135

52 MBB Bk 117

51 AS 355

43 Bell 206

32 Bo 105

26 EC 120

24 Hughes 369

18 AS 332

18 EC 135

15 A 109

12 Bell 407

10 Bell 212

9 MD-900

7 AB 412 / Bell 412

7 AB 204 / Bell 205

7 SA 330

6 S-76

6 SA 365

This includes few helicopters suitable for troops & material transport. The overwhelming majority of them would be suitable for liaison, MedEvac and observation (such as march route overwatch) purposes. I left away most very light helicopters such as two-seaters, as these would only be suitable for basic pilot training.

I think it would be a good idea to not only think of the common MilSpec helicopters as possible military helicopters. We could and most likely would commandeer civilian helicopters and the related personnel into service in the event of a great war.

These helicopters would most likely provide much of the liaison, medical transport and even some troop & cargo transport capacity.

This leads to the possible conclusion that there's no great need for liaison helicopters in the peacetime military; we would easily have enough of them with civilian registration. The MedEvac and liaison capacities would rest greatly on civilian types and this should influence force structure and especially our expectations. It makes no sense to develop and procure a handful of gold-plated MedEvac helicopters if we would have a 90% civilian medevac fleet in war, for example. Well, unless you are a fan of stupid small wars.

Sven Ortmann

Data on civilian helicopters: Thanks to LBA (Luftfahrtbundesamt).

Photo copyrights "Igge" (NH90) and "Stahlkocher" (EC135); Wikipedia users.
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The first week of a peer vs. peer air war; a dilemma

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It's been a classic dilemma of the Cold War: What should be done early on in an air war?

* Should the air forces focus on the air superiority fight (fighter vs. fighter) at first?

* Should they focus on the destruction of enemy air defences first?

* Maybe attack enemy airfields?

* Maybe blow up some important bridges?

* Attacks on hostile troops on road marches?

* Attacks on hostile troops in contact with friendly troops?

* Should squadrons relocate to more survivable airfields or stay at their home airbases?

* What kind of mix would be optimal?

The Israelis had this kind of dilemma - especially in the surprising Yom Kippur War 1973. They seem to have improvised. The substantial losses of their attack aircraft forced a campaign against hostile battlefield air defences on them in the midst of the conflict. In the end, lots of technological changes and special conditions prevent the Yom Kippur example from giving us reliable guidance about how to answer the dilemma.

The dilemma wasn't nearly as serious in the conflict against Iraq. The Iraq was simply no peer and not capable of immediate decisive action on the ground or air. Fighting against Iraqis was even less than a sparring match in comparison to WW3 expectations. Again, there's little to learn from the campaigns against Iraqi forces in regard to the basic prioritization dilemma.

- - - - -

There might be an answer to the dilemma, though: Surprisingly, this may be a technological answer (and we should be sceptical about it for this reason).

It's obvious that several of the aforementioned options are related to the survivability of combat aircraft. Survivability against hostile fighters, against hostile attack aircraft (when on the ground) and against hostile air defences.

Now what if we were able to take this out of the equation? Let's assume we had a silver bullet that can strike operational level targets (typically 50-500 km depth, for example) while the artillery can strike close targets (and substitute for lacking close air support).

The air forces would then be able to fight for air war superiority, fight air force vs. air force. They would have the best probability of success, could later turn on the hostile ground forces and deliver a strong argument for the politicians who hopefully keep negotiating about an end of the folly.

OK, which weapon or munition could render fighters, air defences and attacks on friendly airfields quite irrelevant? The (quasi-) ballistic missile!

Such missiles are very survivable against most air defence systems, have a useful range for the operational level of war (the longer the range the faster - and thus more survivable!) and nowadays such missiles have the necessary pinpoint accuracy for the destruction of stationary (fixed and reconnoitered semi-mobile) targets: Air fields, long-range air defence batteries, bridges).

NATO air forces (and navies) have understood their potential, their potency as threat - and accordingly spent a great deal of attention and money on hard kill defences against such missiles.

They did not embrace the (quasi-)ballistic missile themselves, though. Missile types with less than 500 km range would fit into the treaties that are in force (except possibly ICOC 3-3).

It may be a prejudice, but maybe it's simply bureaucratic inertia coupled with conservativeness and special interests (fighter pilot generals wanting more fighter wings, not more unsexy missile batteries) that keeps these missiles outside of NATO air forces.

Foreign policy strategy (promotion of ICOC & BM counter-proliferation efforts in general) might play a role as well.

The exposure to Third World ballistic missiles based on Russian 1950's technology has distorted the perception of the (quasi-)ballistic missile threat. Such missiles are at times interpreted as useful only with non-conventional warheads.

It's almost forgotten that NATO had such battlefield missiles with conventional warheads in service during the Cold War!

- - - - -

There are several modern designs of accurate (quasi-)ballistic missiles:

The U.S. ATACMS Block II missile:

supposedly 300 k range

The Russian Iskander missile:

supposedly 400 km range.

The Israeli LORA missile:

Supposedly 300 km range.

The payload is several hundred kilograms each - enough.

The most obvious choice for NATO forces would probably be to introduce (more) ATACMS Block II into Corps- or Division-level army artillery units and to produce in license a longer-range version of LORA (to be honest, its's most likely cheaper to let them develop a LORA 2 and to buy a license than to develop a missile of our own!).

The dilemma could then be solved quite easily; NATO air forces could alternate between defensive (defence with fighters and air defences) and offensive (additional strike packages against battlefield air defences and relatively easily accessible installations) phases until it has a won the air power vs. air power contest in one shape or another.

Strike missions against airfields, fixed and semi-mobile area air defence assets, bridges and the like (ministries?) would be substituted for with the fires from 300-500 km (quasi-)ballistic missile regiments.

Close air support could early on be substituted for with army aviation and artillery fires.

So far, the Western air forces don't seem to believe that this is necessary, though. They prefer air-launched cruise missiles of about 250-300 km range instead. Such cruise missiles require sorties just as the classic strike packages would do.

Maybe we should pay more attention to (quasi-)ballistic missiles as a gap in our air forces instead of paying obedient attention to other big ticket projects (fighters, bombers, air launched cruise missiles) and to the role of ballistic missiles as threats only.

F-35 and Typhoon critics are numerous - how many critical remarks about the lack of SRBMs in Western air forces did you see (except here)?

Sven Ortmann
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The 24/7 air attack paradox

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I could swear I wrote about this a long time ago, but I never find the article whenever I search for the post with my search function.

Well, here's it (again?), in short:

I see a problem in modern air/ground attack technology, and it takes a long look back to the prime time of air power to explain this.

The German army was almost completely unable to move in daylight on the Western Front from June 1944 till the end of WW2. Few exceptions proved the rule, and all of them were tied to poor weather phases.

The Western Allies achieved this with several thousand tactical aircraft that roamed the skies during daylight (very, very few were on non-strategic missions during the night). Every move in daylight even by small units was possible only along certain roads - especially roads that offered concealment (trees) in short intervals. The troops were then able to sprint into concealment once aircrafts were spotted. Even that was pointless if hostile aircraft were overhead all the time, of course.

The result was a huge problem on the tactical level, but it was an unmitigated disaster on the operational level. Reserves moved extremely slow and counter-attacks were much delayed. German operational art died the death of lags and slowness.

The critical component in this historical case was the Allies' inability to achieve a similar effect at night. There would have been no reason to restrict necessary marches to poor visibility phases if that had not offered effective concealment.

- - - - -

This is where I see a problem in today's air/ground attack avionics. We turned the night into day, supposedly because this was an improvement. The avionics and training costs for the night attack ability were quite high - were they worth it?

Our enemies would not be motivated to restrict themselves to night marches. They would be willing to march 24/7. The extremely valuable slowness and lag factors would not be in effect (at least not as much as back then). Instead, we could expend a limited quantity of expensive precision munitions against a much larger quantity of mobile targets.

Maybe that would suffice to compensate for the lack of the slowness & lag factors. I tend to believe that it would not if we really fought against a peer instead of against a 4th rate developing country military equipped with 'monkey model' hardware.

In short; I don't consider air/ground night attack capability as a desirable feature for a large share of NATO air/ground capable combat aircraft. It's also very questionable for attack helicopters, mostly for fratricide concerns.

The night air/ground capability looks like a prime candidate for luxury spending and gold-plating awards to me. It was very fashionable during the 80's and 90's and has become quite self-evident since then, but somehow I doubt that the operational consequences are really understood.

Sven Ortmann

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Aviation - should it be a separate service or not?

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The question whether aviation should be exclusively in an air force, partially in navy/army or all in navy/army is a tricky one.

I reasoned that the supplier-customer relationship in the force structure is the key question for several years.

Aviation supports both naval and ground forces. The most obvious example is CAS (close air support); aircraft providing fire support to ground troops, not completely unlike artillery. Reconnaissance and logistical aviation are in similar support roles.

The USAF has the A-10 aircraft for CAS, and a long history of neglect (in comparison to its great affection with fighters and their pilots) has lead many in the U.S. Army to believe that the USAF prefers to be its own customer (air superiority, long-range attacks far away from battlefields) than to be a mere supplier for its customer, the Army. The USAF did indeed focus on CAS only during wars, while it invested heavily in more 'sexy' (prestigious) fighters (and in the 50's: nuclear bombers) than in CAS assets.

Part of the reaction was that the Army produced and emphasized a new aviation branch (after having lost the (United States Army) Air Force when that one became independent); helicopter army aviation and drone projects.

The relationship between infantry and artillery is similar; the infantry keeps its mortars as a hedge for the unreliable artillery that at times prefers to prepare for counter-artillery fires over hazardous close support fires.

- - - - -

The interpretation of the problem as a supplier-customer optimization problem has its difficulties, though. This point of view would assume that independent air forces neglect CAS and prefer so-called 'strategic' attacks while army-integrated air forces would be expected to focus on supporting the army.

The historical record trashes such a hypothesis. (That's too bad, for it was a really nice hypothesis.)

The independent German air force of 1935-1945 focused on 'operational' air support (supporting the operational plan of the army) and neglected so-called 'strategic' attacks (attacks on industry & cities) as much as was possible under the circumstances. This could be excused with several facts if it was the only exception tot he rule: The Luftwaffe was built by former army officers, influenced by WWI pilots who knew only air war over battlefields, had most enemy industrial centres well in range of medium bombers and resource constraints didn't allow for a 'strategic' bomber fleet anyway.

It wasn't the only exception, though: The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force had both CAS aircraft and long-range bombers (although the latter were also used in for some kind of 'strategic' interdiction and for missions in support of ground forces).

The U.S.A.A.F. (United States Army Air Force) was very much focused on 'strategic' bombing well into WW2 despite being part of the U.S.Army.

The independent WW2 Red Air Force of the Soviet Union (VVS,) did focus almost entirely on air attacks in divisional areas (very close to the front) as an independent air force. The Red Air Force had many long-ranged bombers in WW2 and used them almost entirely with a bomb overload (additional bombs, but minimal fuel) on very short range attacks. Its passing interest in long-range aviation was probably entirely dependent on the general Soviet Union's interest in long-range aircraft for civilian purposes.

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Military history is less paradox in regard to the support of navies by independent air forces. The almost dismal naval performance of the Luftwaffe in WW2, the poor support of the Italian Navy by the Italian Air Force in WW2, the troubles of the late Italian Navy with equipping its Giuseppe Garibaldi aircraft carrier and the discouraging experience of the Royal Fleet Air Arm in the 30's all seem to confirm that navies need their own aviation branch or else there will be no good air-sea warfare capabilities.

(Hint: The German Navy lost its Tornado IDS wing to the Luftwaffe a few years ago. *Sigh*)

The Israel Air Force (IAF) may be a positive example. It did both the tactical/operational air support just fine in 1967 and 1973, was very capable in the rather 'strategic' Entebbe (1976)and Osirak (1981) raids and proved its 'operational' level capability again over the Beqaa valley (1982). Its later employments were rather mixed, in part because of inappropriate expectations.

Well, what's the optimum?

In regard to navies, the historical record seem to confirm that navies should have their own, unrestricted aviation arm.

A possible exception might apply to very maritime countries where an independent air force would not be distracted from air/sea warfare.

In regard to armies, the historical record seems to suggest a "It depends." answer. It depends on the national needs, on the circumstances and on the available technology.

A possible exception would apply to very small militaries. I doubt that it makes sense to separate air force and army in a military of less than about 100,000 total personnel. A separate air force in such a small military would likely be inefficient because of avoidable bureaucratic overhead.

Sven Ortmann

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