Quick follow up to my first post. Is dedicated CSAR a thing of the past?
Yes....at least as the USAF conducts it.
USAF CSAR is still based on the Vietnam model. They use PJ's operating in pairs (I've heard up to 6 now) to rescue a downed pilot. Even with up to 6 highly trained men, they'll face one unfortunate fact.
They'll be savagely out gunned.
Just as the N. Vietnamese soon learned that they could use injured pilots to draw in vulnerable aircraft for easy kills, so too do our current enemies (this explains the actions taken by AV-8B pilots in dropping bombs upon request of the downed pilots when they saw approaching crowds...think Black Hawk Down).
Loren Thompson said it best in his article today...
In other words, a commitment to doing search and rescue the old way led the service to overlook the much greater performance of the V-22, which might arguably have made it the most cost-effective airframe for the mission.I recommend you read the entire article but Thompson failed to go far enough. The Air Force erred in not keeping CSAR inside the Special Ops umbrella. Unless its properly resourced and staffed (and I'm talking available platoons of gunfighters) then it just won't work in the 22nd Century.
