A-10 Thunderbolt II and the USAF

Yes, great post. It's appalling that one service can just decide they're not going to do something and have that be the end of it - all the more so in our current era of jointness elevated to a fetish. This is the military, folks, if they have a case to make, make it, but when the boss decides, everybody needs to get on board.

In my Navy days, we had a saying we used when the captain wanted to do something we disagreed with - "Aye aye, captain"

 

Agreed, you can learn new things from even questions.

 

I think the USAF should just hand over the A-10 to the Army, they have offered to take them in the past, and I could see less friendly fire incidents happening since the Army will most certainly give CAS training a higher priority for the pilots.

 

The AF at one point was willing to hand over the A-10's to the army and the army was willing to take them provided they got the slots that went with them. The AF wasn't willilng to give up the slots/funding (pilots and ground crews). From what I've heard they aren't even discussing that now as they know that Congress won't let them give up the planes and keep the slots and the army is a bit afraid that they might get the planes and the slots just dissapear.

 

That's it, it's all about budget and manning and turf, combat effectiveness be ****ed.

 

Well to be fair both sides are considering combat effectiveness to some extent but IMO one of the problems is that they are looking at it from the view point of their services. The AF sees opposing fighters and air defences as their biggest problem and thus the one they want to address first. Sometimes I've seen this sort of thing refered to as "sub optimizing" i.e. optimizing sub components at the cost of optimizing the overall solution. Since we don't even have a well accepted defintion of what the overall problem is that's likely unavoidable.

 

Well, whatever type war we'll be fighting in the future, or the opponent we'll be facing, we will require CAS if ground forces are committed. Even if not and we are using anti-personnel/material strikes such as we are against ISIS right now, ground attack is a critical skill. I know it's not as glamorous as air-to-air combat, but it has to be a capability. The Airforce seems to be focusing on what type of war it wants to fight and not the wars we are fighting or most likely to fight. They need a more balanced force, strategic, air defense/air supremecy AND ground attack.

 

I think they would say that it's difficult to do a good job CAS wise if you don't have at least air superioirity and they would like air supremacy. CAS isn't as neccessary now either or if you prefer the nature of it has changed. When the ground controler can designate a target and a plane at 30K+ feet can hit it with a single missile/bomb not to mention the impacts of attck helicopters and drones. However I do think the AF has a tendency to have a bit more tunnel vision than the other services.

 

This is true, but the wars we've fought in recent years gaining air supremacy hasn't been much of a problem. I understand that this could change with potential enemies and they need the air superiority capability, but not by totally neglecting the CAS/ground attack role/capability.
That's why I wrote: They need a more balanced force, strategic, air defense/air supremecy AND ground attack.

It's not always possible for the ground controller to illuminate the target. Attack helicopters are great if on station, they don't have really long legs though, and can't get there as quickly as fixed wing aircraft. The attack helicopters are operated by the ground force end users, the Army and Marine Corps and not by the Airforce. Drones are great, hard to detect and long loiter times, but not much payload. They can make precision strikes, but when a ground unit is in close contact the pilot, far, far away may not have adequate situational awareness to hit the target and not the friendlys. The Marine Corps has it's own CAS, but the US Army has the largest ground combat contingent and no in house fixed wing CAS, they depend upon the Airforce for that.

 

I haven't really thought much about it before but I'm beginning to think that seperating the airforce from the army was a mistake. Might have been a good idea if the Air Force had been relegated to strategic weapons only (heavy bombers and ICBMs).

 

Yes and No, It's good to have a separate force to concentrate only on aerial threat's, That said CAS is not so much of an aerial threat but a ground threat that requires singular training between the pilot's and the men calling it in. In hind sight would have been smart to have left the Army allowed to operate CAS dedicated aircraft from the start.

 

But in the 30's and 40's fighters did a lot of the CAS and light and medium bombers did as well. I guess I could see leaving some fighters with the SAC forces and others with the CAS. Likely they would evolve in different directions as well. High altitude escorts and perhaps interceptors with SAC and lower altitiude tougher fighters for the CAS role (I.e. they might still be primairly fighters but could function as fighter bombers and high altitude capabiilty wouldn't be as important).

 

I think there are some type or rules or restrictions on the Army operating armed fixed wing aircraft that date from the late forties when the USAF was formed. I don't know any other details but maybe someone else here does?

Edit:

Found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement

 

There are memorandums of understanding dating back to the Key West Agreement of 1948 defining what types of aircraft the Army can operate, but they could be updated if the service chiefs and DoD agreed. The Army has operated small fixed-wing aircraft, but attack jets like the A-10 would be a big step.

 

Well I guess we can all agree that the Army deserves its own fix-winged CAS contingent.

 

I think they tried many times during the sixties and seventies but the Air Force and pork barrel politicians always nixed it.

 

That may be...But, what are they willing to give up to pay for it?

 

During the post WWII, "unification" process, the Airforce attempted to gain control of US Navy and Marine Corps aviation assets. The Airforce, should operate all things aviation related. They argued that "the bomb" and long range strategic bombers they wanted to develop would make tactical aircraft obselete. It would also make the Navy except for coastal defense functions, and ground forces irrelevant and unnecessary. They even allowed their own air superiority and tactical bombing capabilities to significantly degrade.

The Airforce has also tried on several occasions to gain control of the US Marine Corps fixed wing aviation assets to include CAS. The afore mentioned "unification" debates. Then again in Korea in 1950, Marine Corps CAS was very effective, (the Airforces capabilities had degraded from their singular focus on the strategic bombing role) the US Army, Marine Corps and other UN ground forces that it flew in support of lauded it's capabilities and effectiveness. Naval and Marine Corps aviation assets deployed from ground bases and carriers went a long way towards halting the North Korean steamroller. Then at the end of 1950, the Airforce claiming they should have control of all aviation assets forced Marine aviation to fall under control of the 5th Airforce. General Vandenberg the 5th Airforce commander soon thereafter stated, that Close Air Support was, "an inefficient use of scarce and expensive weapons." This despite the fact that CAS had been instrumental in saving the Pusan Perimeter and in preventing X Corps from being destroyed by the PRC 2d Phase offensives of late November and December 1950. Once control was centralized, CAS became unsatisfactory, not responsive enough, metered out in inadequate amounts, subject to delays and decisions on which missions were priority made by Airforce officers way back at HQ 5th Airforce instead of by the ground commanders.
They tried again from 1965 to 1968 in Vietnam. The Marine Corps fought them tooth and nail (the Airforce also went after Army aviation assets). In 1968, after Tet and Khe Sahn, the 7th Airforce gained mission control over Marine Corps aviation, which again destroyed it's effectiveness and responsiveness, and deprived Marine Corps ground units of a critical part of it's doctrinal firepower.

The above is not part of interservice turf battles, with the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps wanting to keep the funding for aviation that the Airforce could provide more efficiently and at a lower cost. The above paragraph is my synopsis of information from a symposium put on by the Airforce at the Airforce Academy in 1980!

Aiforce desire for control led to the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966, a further evolution of the Key West Agreement Dave 55 linked to above. The Airforce was concerned with the US Army's development of a strong rotory wing component and an expanding fixed wing capability. The Airforce thought, at the time, that helicopters were of limited utility weren't really worthy of development and that they needed control of all things aviation related. The Army in order not to lose their tactical helicopter transport capability agreed to give up it's STOL light tactical transport fixed wing assets. The Army would give up the CV-2 Caribou and the Airforce agreed to take over providing this capability, the Army also agreed to drop development of the CV-7 Buffalo, an STOL fixed wing aircraft with significantly increased capabilities. For it's part the Airforce agreed to let the Army operate helicopters. Well the Airforce then turns around and does away with the light transport capability, transferring it to the AF Reserve and Air national Guard. The Airforce claimed the CV-2/7 were inefficient cargo transporters compared to the Airforces C-123 and C-130. However, the CV-2 could operate out of smaller, less developed airstrips, twice as many airstips in Vietnam as the C-123 and four times as many as the C-130, aircraft the Airforce preferred. Where does this leave the smaller firebases the Army needed to supply? The Airforce also opposed "on call" requests for material support, stating that it was inefficient and all such missions needed to be part of a regularly scheduled supply system directed by a central authority. What about the combatant commander that expends his ordinance and supplies because his base is heavily attacked? Be more efficient, coordinate with the enemy so they only attack on the day before a scheduled resupply? What if the enemy hits your base with indirect fire and destroys your water or fuel supplies? There were also bases that the Airforce refused to fly into, that Army operated aircraft had supported before they were given up, the Airforce claimed that they were safety hazards. SAFETY HAZARDS IN THE FREAKIN WAR ZONE!!! The Army ended up picking up some of the slack by using more helicopter resupply, (more inefficient than the fixed wing resupply they had been doing) and the Airforce did to a degree bend to Army pressure and eventually flew more of the missions the Army had been trying to get them to fly. The Airforce also opposed the Army's development of dedicated helicopter gun ships. The Army experimented with gunships to support airmobile assaults by hanging weapons on utility helicopters because the Airforce felt any type of air support was infringing on the Airforces domain. The Army experimented with the concept using a unit named the Utility Tactical Transport Company. The need was there and Bell developed the AH-1 as a private venture and the Army had to go to McNamara to be allowed to procure and operate them. After all tactical air support IS the Airforce's domain even if they don't want to fill the need.

 

Now THAT was a pretty darn good post!

 

Sadly....I do not know. :unsure: