Who should own CAS & why it can't be trusted to an Air Force (from A-10 retirement thread)

[Kirkhill]

Not that I've ever been in a position to actually choose but from what I understand about their respective capabilities, I'd think I'd rather be under a comprehensive arty umbrella of M777 and MLRS vs. having to rely almost solely on FGA.

Having both would be nice, but having the former would be essential.

I'm in no position to argue and not so inclined.  I suggest, though, that governments generally, and ours in particular, are happier to offer FGA to support our allies than they are offering M777 and MLRS.  Fewer motorcades along Highways of Heroes.

In the same vein, I think, you are less likely to be getting your boots dusty, unless you are necessary to assist in targeting those high-flying aircraft.

The concept appealed to Churchill in the 20s, to Clinton and Obama and to Harper.

 

[tomahawk6]

Bombing campaigns without ground forces in place havent done well by themselves.That said aircraft can cover a much larger area than can artillery and can take advantage of targets of opportunity.

 

[Kirkhill]

Bombing campaigns without ground forces in place havent done well by themselves.That said aircraft can cover a much larger area than can artillery and can take advantage of targets of opportunity.

Agreed entirely on the effectiveness.  I'm simply arguing that it is an easier sell to politicians who want to be look as if they are doing something without putting large numbers of voters' sons and daughters in harms way.

Conflicts won't be shortened this way.  They will fester just like the Israeli and Cyprus situations have, amongst others (Transdniester, Donbas, South Ossetia).  But they will be removed from the front pages and out of electoral consideration.  How often did you see anything in the newspapers about the Iraqi No-Fly Zones that you Yanks, the Brits and the French maintained from 1992 to 2003?  And remember how happy everyone was with the "successes" of Libya and the initial phase in Afghanistan.

Troops on the ground are necessary actually grip the situation.  But politicians don't actually want to grip Tar Babies.

 

[Loachman]

Given the way we casually discard capabilities in favour of <sarc> important things like pips and crowns</sarc>, I hope we haven't dropped the ball with using our UAV's to target artillery.

As we have no suitable UAVs, currently...

But this is extremely simple.

Provide an accurate GR to the Guns.

Mark the GR of the adjusting round on impact and send to the Guns.

I spent a lot of time doing Air OP in my Kiowa days. There is no comparison. All of the training required is in my two-stage lesson plan above.

 

[a_majoor]

The irony is the British actually developed "Air Policing" in modern Iraq (using light bombers to scatter restive tribes and maintain some semblance of law out in the back 40), but since nomadic tribes generally didn't cause much in the way of problems in the 1920's and 30's, this wasn't much of an issue.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Nor did they have access to Anti-tank rifles, RPG's, MG or Manpads. The Brits were able to dominate large portions of Iraq and Afghanistan with aircraft, light tanks and armoured cars. Even dynamite was a rare commodity for a Parthian tribesman to get their hands onto in the day.

At the end of the day, this is less to do with the A10 and more to do with the USAF lack of interest in down in the weeds CAS. If the USAF was deeply committed to CAS and looking at new and effective ways to hurt the targets, then I think people would not worry so much about the loss of the A10, as they would know that a new aircraft would replace it. But the people on the ground know this is more about a divorce from anything green that the USAF is planning. Once the A10 is gone, the USAF will never again build an aircraft solely dedicated to CAS.   

 

[Loachman]

Once the A10 is gone, the USAF will never again build an aircraft solely dedicated to CAS.

Nor would it need to. There are other ways to do things now.

Technology marches on. The same affection existed for Cavalry (the original horse-mounted variety) long after it had been made obsolete on the battlefield.

The effect counts. The means of delivering that effect is of far less importance.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The means or the will, people on the ground are basically questioning both. You know that a A10 driver has both, how much much "will" the USAF has for CAS is really the question, given the increasing costs and reduction in numbers of aircraft, I can see them placing CAS far down the list of priorities regardless of promises and power points.

 

[Loachman]

That's a command problem, not a technological one.

I saw no shortage of aerial platforms, manned or unmanned, big or small, fast or slow, on either of my two tours. There was generally much more floating around, at all hours, waiting for a target than there were actual targets. Accuracy was not a problem either, that I saw - everything from a full M4 mag out of a front door of a Kiowa about fifty metres from its target to a bomb from a B1 from several thousand feet.

Anybody who has a large supply of air-to-ground weaponry likely has a reasonably keen interest in rotating his stock.

 

[Kirkhill]

And production lines to keep current.

 

[CougarKing]

Seems the debate on this topic is settled on the US side:

It seems the US Army Air Corps officially doesn't want to control of fast CAS and is content to leave the Warthogs in USAF control:

Military.com

Army Not Interested in Taking A-10 Warthogs from Air Force

Feb 25, 2015 | by Brendan McGarry
The U.S. Army has no interest in taking over the Air Force's fleet of A-10 attack planes, even if it would save the venerable Cold War-era aircraft from the bone yard.

The service's top civilian, Army Secretary John McHugh, rejected the idea of accepting hand-me-down A-10 Warthogs from the Air Force.

"No chance," he said during a breakfast meeting with reporters on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. "That's not even been a topic of casual conversation."

"With our own aircraft fleet we're taking some pretty dramatic steps to reconfigure and become more affordable, and the A-10 mission is not something we considered. That's an Air Force mission as it should be and I'm sure the Air Force feels the same way," McHugh said.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[daftandbarmy]

The means or the will, people on the ground are basically questioning both. You know that a A10 driver has both, how much much "will" the USAF has for CAS is really the question, given the increasing costs and reduction in numbers of aircraft, I can see them placing CAS far down the list of priorities regardless of promises and power points.

Well, I suppose you could argue that if our Army was properly equipped with a healthy inventory of organic indirect and direct fire support weapons, we would have less need for CAS in the first place...

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Shock and awe with power point and glittering Pips and Crowns, what else could you possibly need?

In my semi-perfect world besides new howitzers and mortars I would stand up a Reserve Air Squadron with armed Hawks (or similar) that can be used to train air force and army personal on the use of CAS and reduce the demands on what will be a very small fleet of F-35's. I would prefer a more robust secondary aircraft, but trying to keep it semi-real.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Shock and awe with power point and glittering Pips and Crowns, what else could you possibly need?

In my semi-perfect world besides new howitzers and mortars I would stand up a Reserve Air Squadron with armed Hawks (or similar) that can be used to train air force and army personal on the use of CAS and reduce the demands on what will be a very small fleet of F-35's. I would prefer a more robust secondary aircraft, but trying to keep it semi-real.

Lots of countries use it in the ground attack role: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Hawk

We had Hawks in support during exercises in Oman.

 

[a_majoor]

Looking at conflicts post 1991, I see that CAS as traditionally defined has generally fallen out of fashion.

Attacks are now called and directed by off platform means, and attacks themselves are prosecuted by smart bombs, air launched missiles and long range "glide bombs" to stay out of the range of GBAD. Trying to do traditional CAS is pretty damn dangerous; Ukrainian SU-25's (the analogues of the A-10) have been effectively swept from the sky by hand held MANPADS fired by SPETZNAZ operators.

In the future, I can see an increasing amount of that sort of support coming from "smart" artillery rounds and long range guided missiles (a Brazillian company offers a turbojet powered FOG-M with a range of 60km, while various members of the SPIKE family can reach targets from 800 to 25000 m) which do not have issues with weather or being "on station". The only sticking point there is time of flight, which might be a bit trying for a person on the ground in contact.

 

[Old Sweat]

In the future, I can see an increasing amount of that sort of support coming from "smart" artillery rounds and long range guided missiles (a Brazillian company offers a turbojet powered FOG-M with a range of 60km, while various members of the SPIKE family can reach targets from 800 to 25000 m) which do not have issues with weather or being "on station". The only sticking point there is time of flight, which might be a bit trying for a person on the ground in contact.

Unless the aircraft are on station, armed with the appropriate armaments and available, the "time of flight," actually the response time, from a ground indirect fire delivery system will usually be quicker than for a manned aircraft or an armed UAV. Moreover once the shell or missile is fired, it is committed to that target, unlike an aircraft which can be diverted to a higher priority task until the ordnance is actually released.

 

[Loachman]

In my semi-perfect world besides new howitzers and mortars I would stand up a Reserve Air Squadron with armed Hawks (or similar) that can be used to train air force and army personal on the use of CAS and reduce the demands on what will be a very small fleet of F-35's. I would prefer a more robust secondary aircraft, but trying to keep it semi-real.

And how do you propose to train and maintain currency, let alone proficiency, on a part-time basis? Where do you propose to find a suitable, not-too-congested airfield from which to operate that is close enough to both a population large enough to provide a suitable pool of personnel and a suitable air weapons range?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

And how do you propose to train and maintain currency, let alone proficiency, on a part-time basis? Where do you propose to find a suitable, not-too-congested airfield from which to operate that is close enough to both a population large enough to provide a suitable pool of personnel and a suitable air weapons range?

Montreal, actually: We have this wonderful, completely under-utilized airport, a little out of town with two 3.4 Km long landing strip. It's called Mirabel. Tons of air technical types around (it's called Bell textron/Bombardier/Devtek Héroux, etc. and just a bit North (in air terms), you have large swats of unoccupied lands for range.

 

[Kirkhill]

Trying to do traditional CAS is pretty damn dangerous; Ukrainian SU-25's (the analogues of the A-10) have been effectively swept from the sky by hand held MANPADS fired by SPETZNAZ operators.

The Russians lost 3x SU25s, 2x SU24xs and 1x TU22M3 to Georgian MANPADS in 5 days in August 2008. They were dropping dumb bombs by daylight at low level. They are short of PGMs and Night Vision.

They also lost 60x Tactical Helos (Mi-8, Mi-24 and Mi-26) in the N. Caucasus between 1999 and 2003 from all causes, combat and other wise.

Adding night vision to the helo fleet is a high priority.

PGMs (and UAVs and Radars) are not an area in which the Russian government is demonstrating much confidence in its industrial base.  It knows it needs them but isn't buying them and is rejecting tendered solutions.

The Russians have also gone through an exercise of transferring helos from Army Aviation to the Air Force and then subordinating the Air Force Regiments to the Joint Strategic Commands (Regional Districts).  From Army to Air Force for cost efficiency.  From Air Force to Army for combat efficiency.

 

[Loachman]

Montreal, actually: We have this wonderful, completely under-utilized airport, a little out of town with two 3.4 Km long landing strip. It's called Mirabel. Tons of air technical types around (it's called Bell textron/Bombardier/Devtek Héroux, etc. and just a bit North (in air terms), you have large swats of unoccupied lands for range.

Possibly. I'd thought that there was less of it left.

I note that there are no air traffic control services. Are there any empty hangars in decent condition? Bagotville is not too far away, with the facilities necessary for arming and de-arming, neither is Valcartier. I doubt that there would be any public or political support for establishing a new range.

I still see too many obstacles for pursuing this, and too few benefits. I remember the CF5 quite well - very similar to a Hawk in operational terms, and similarly limited in its capabilities.