Sunday, June 05, 2011
UK Apache's get the attention...HMS Ocean does the work.
I've watched the deployment of the UK's Apache Attack Helicopter to the Libyan War Zone with a bit of "I told ya so" and more than a bit of amusement.
The news media has been so focused on the Apache's that they've missed what many know but don't want to admit.
Forward based, expeditionary (in fact not name) forces are the key to winning the current and future conflicts that the Western world will face. The Royal Air Force...heck the NATO land air forces have once again demonstrated the limits and weaknesses of land based air power.
Libya.
A third rate military power.
A nation at war with itself.
A nation that is feeling the full weight of an air campaign being conducted by the most powerful military alliance in the world...still stands.
If there was any lab that should demonstrate the 'coming of age' of modern land based air power thinking then this should be it.
But it isn't.
So what has France and Britain been forced to do? They've been forced to have Army Aviation operating off Naval Warships to attempt to win the day.
So tell me again how smart it was to retire those Harriers/Carriers? Imagine if you will this campaign if...
1. The UK still had Harriers operating off its carriers!
2. The US was forward leaning and had MEU(-)(+) Reinforced Composite Air Wing (Sea Control) operating off the coast.
3. Italy was fully committed and had its carrier and Harriers up and flying strikes...
4. Spain was fully in the fight with its carrier...
Do you get the force of connection here? Expeditionary Naval Air power could make all the difference. Air power as exercised by Air Force General's just isn't getting the job done.
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If your point is that the air campaign against Libya would be substantially more powerful with a few VTOL air groups off shore, sure of course it would.
ReplyDeleteBut if the underlying premise is that the problem is the lack of sorties and that sea borne harriers, having the advantage of operating closer to the coast, would fix this I'm not sure it's the case.
If the limitations of the air campaign are primarily related to targeting, not sortie rates, then this wouldn't have much effect.
Also the coalition seems to have been capable of putting together a sustained rate of over a 100 sorties a day and been surging to over 150. This is roughly equivalent to what a Nimitz class carrier could sustain which in turn is probably as much or more than the light carrier force you are postulating could handle.
It's also an interesting question whether that sortie limit is because they can't target more sorties (a huge % of sorties have been recon already) or from some limitation on land basing (seems unlikely) or just from lack of commitment (as you rightly point out). If it's the first or third of those, carrier planes don't make a difference.
So I'm not sure if this is a demonstration of the limits of land based air power as much as it is a demonstration of the on going limits of air power in general when confronted with any situation where 'enemy' forces are not readily identifiable and/or where the political will is only present for 'limited' intervention with no collateral damage.
well BB...you know i disagree.
ReplyDeletefirst you have the problem of fleeting targets. land bases are facing the issue of target identification...reaction time....distance to target....loiter time and then sortie rate.
a Harrier force (even a limited one) would have the benefit of reacting quickly to emerging threats...of having an outstanding loiter time etc....
as a matter of fact the only land based platform that i could see operating more efficiently than naval aviation in this particular conflict would be B-52's out of Italy.
but you really ignore the basic point of this article. if the air campaign was as successful as you seem to be implying that it is then why even employ risking Army Aviation?
its not because they can more easily identify targets! UAV's feed the info...AWACS calls it and the fighters pound it.
No...Army Aviation has been deployed because they're off the coast and can respond more quickly to these targets of opportunity.
simple as that.
I'm not implying the air campaign was successful at all. In fact I agreed with you that the campaign was demonstrating limits to air power, we're just disagreeing about the source of those limits.
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that the root cause of the lack of effectiveness is lack of reaction time from land based air power then you are correct, a carrier task force would make a big difference, as would an air to air refueling fleet operating out of Italy.
I think, however, that the low speed of helicopters works against the idea that they are there for reduced reaction time and helicopters are hardly famous for loiter time, even if they are based closer than fixed wing. Some of the initial Apache targets (a checkpoint and a radar station) are hardly fleeting either.
The US employed Apaches in the Desert Storm air campaign because they brought a different set of capabilities to the table, not because they thought there was some issue with the responsiveness or loiter time of conventional planes and I don't find this explanation implausible for the British now. In fact the UK employment of Apaches against a radar station mirrors the US's use in ODS, where it had nothing to with reaction time and everything to do with nap of the earth flight.
If the root cause of the lack of effectiveness is the problem finding good targets at all, as I think the very large number of recon sorties being flown indicates, then we're back to lack of sea based fixed wing air power is not the problem.
one of the advantages the apache has that the fighters dont (which i dont know if the harrier would do or not) is teh apaches can hit targets like tanks and such in an urban area with smaller munitions and sustain less civilian casualties. i think they are wanting to do more CAS that the figthers flying over 15K feet cant do. again i dont know if harriers would be better in taht role and loiter time would certainly help, but just pointing that out. i do agree having an MEU with the new zulus would kick ass :)
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