Check out this story from Time...
This is the biggest threat to the USAF that no one is talking about.
If the USAF loses its nuclear mission then it can justifiably be downsized...Air Combat Command would take over what few bombers remained and every person associated with the nuke mission could be lost.
This is an issue thats being lost in the ether that I will be watching.
Kehler acknowledged that if the number of deployed U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons and their launchers -- now capped at 1,550 and 700, respectively -- continues to drop, it will becoming increasingly costly to keep all three legs. "You can have a hollow nuclear force, just like you can have a hollow conventional force," he said. "There will be some very tough decisions to make here at certain levels, and whether or not you can then sustain a leg of the triad without it becoming hollow."If the nuclear triad goes away then you can bet money that it won't be subs...and probably will be bombers (although you can't rule out the possibility of both bombers AND land based missiles getting axed).
This is the biggest threat to the USAF that no one is talking about.
If the USAF loses its nuclear mission then it can justifiably be downsized...Air Combat Command would take over what few bombers remained and every person associated with the nuke mission could be lost.
This is an issue thats being lost in the ether that I will be watching.
i am unsure this is a bad thing, the bomber nuke delivery system is the least survivable, and subs and ICBMs can hit targets well before a bomber can, this might lead the USAF to design future bombers on the conventional missions they will be using instead of a nuclear war which is not going to happen because every nation knows with just our ICBMs and subs we can still destroy the world many times over.
ReplyDeleteThe air force can just hand over the a 10's to the Marine corps..maybe then they will not do gun runs on us thinking a aav is a t-64
ReplyDeletewell i would split the A-10s between the MC and the army, give an infantry division a few A-10s, now that would be cool.
ReplyDeletethat's so true and so cold jon!
ReplyDeletejoe, i would have them get out of the close support business all together....if they did along with getting out of the nuke business then you would see a USAF stick to what it does best. deep interdiction
i agree Sol, thats why i said split the 10's between the MC and the army, i wonder how you would split the fighter force though? would you give the 16s and 15s to the army? also deep interdiction is a role but so is air supremacy, i dont want the USAF to think it will always have the benefit of a crappy 1980s level air defense network to destroy.
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered why the corps has never pushed for the A-10, a bird that is everything we could want, heavy ground support, large dwell time, heavy armor. The only down side I could see is its ability to launch from a carrier or amphib.
ReplyDeleteAs for the air force...I believe air supremecey should be its mission, long range delivery of nukes is just not pratical in a bomber. And well close air support is a marine game. They should focus on ruling the skies...and space
Ehh. I wouldn’t get too excited over this one.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, 'Time' is a dinosaur that just doesn't know it is extinct yet. Second, Mark Thompson is a parasite that's lived in the belly of that dinosaur for close to two decades, and he used to haunt DC for the Fort Worth Startlegram before that and before Bob Cox became the head local 'Defense' handwringer. Third, the disarmament wonk hand-selected for the quote by Thompson in the article lives and breathes nuclear disarmament, working in an ‘Institute’ that is part of a private liberal arts college…in California. He is NOT going to say anything positive about keeping a Triad because he is genetically and philosophically incapable of thinking of a reason we should.
The purpose for the Triad is about deterrence cost effectiveness and not force cost effectiveness: no matter what the size of the Triad it is more cost effective to maintain than a Dyad of equal offensive power because the cost for potential opponents in defending against all three force delivery modes with their individual strengths and weaknesses is more expensive than defending against just two modes. I find it hard to believe that the people in positions to make such decisions are not acutely aware of this as the discussion is not new. Yet once again, I must recommend Glenn A. Kent’s “Thinking About America’s Defense” from RAND and free online. In this case the relevant historical event is recounted in Chapter 4 (starts page 153).
Having said all the above – it is still incumbent upon those fluent in deterrence to make sure some brain dead politician doesn’t do anything stupid.
BTW: Bombers are only the ‘most’ vulnerable when they are not on alert and on the ground, whereas our boomer subs MIGHT be 30seconds from oblivion at any time and not know it, They are expected to have an extremely low survival rate after their first missiles leave the tube. Bombers in general might make it back for a reload. Stealth bombers would probably make it back.
A-10s? Pffft. Yeah. They were marginally awesome once. Now they're only marginally awesome in permissive air environments. Do not doubt me on this one fanboyz.
i don't doubt you on the A-10 issue. to be quite honest (and i'll have to dig it up) someone wrote that in a war against a first tier opponent, stealth will be required just to perform close air support and that the days of have predators zooming around unmolested are over.
ReplyDeletebut back to the nuclear issue...you mixed apples and oranges on me. while on one hand you talk about the sub being dead meat after its launched, you fail to admit that the bomber has the lowest chance of getting to its target...
the idea that you're reloading in nuclear war is something i've never heard anyone seriously discuss. second strikes were always confined to the area of land based and sub based missiles.
to be quite honest if it were ever to come to that i'd love to meet the men ballsy enough to fly into the teeth of a modern IADS drop nukes and then return a few days later to do it again. oh and forget the idea of this being a X-47 or any other uav mission...won't happen with nukes.
I knew you wouldn't doubt the A-10 point, that one was directed at others.
ReplyDeleteAs to the bomber reaching its target, if it is a B-2 today or an upgrade/followon design tomorrow, it has a far higher probability of reaching its target than the B-52 did in its heydey. If it is a hot EMP zone already, all the better for survivability. If it's target is a hardened and deeply buried one in the direct attack mode, it almost certainly has a higher probability of neutralizing the target because of a much smaller precision CEP than an ICBM. You have to be surprisingly close to take out the toughest targets with a nuke and one of the biggest reasons the old Soviet missile force had such high-yield warheads was because their CEP was far worse than ours. While the Triad's bomber leg's better known strong points are the ability to disperse and ability to be recalled, it has always been the only leg that could be reloaded in time to be reused. During the height of the Cold War, I was in two fighter units whose missions in the event of general nuclear war were to assist returning bombers for regeneration. We (military) had to do a lot of the 'thinking the unthinkable' back then.
Just don't see a hollow triad being better than a somewhat funded duo.
ReplyDeleteAs for the A10, sol really, the hog was made to take the punishment from the Russians anti air, as much armor as possible in the worst weather. I don't see it being used in the opening of a fight, but when I'm out ground pounding, my day is just better when I see a pair of those things in the sky.
The A-10 was designed to take 60's-70's Russian Anti-Air. According to the Air Force Center for Systems Engineering Case Study on the A-10:
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Although the intended operating scenarios stressed a permissive environment, the CFP was to consider the feasibility of incorporating a limited air-to-air missile capability as a defensive measure. Survivability from ground fire was an essential characteristic for the A-X. Structural and system design would need to provide inherent survivability, to include self sealing fuel tanks and, if power flight controls were used, a manual backup system would be provided. The pilot and critical flight systems would be protected from 14.5mm projectiles (common Soviet Anti-Aircraft shells). The aircraft was to "incorporate maintainability characteristics which will make it possible for this system to meet its combat operational objectives with a minimum of maintenance effort and expenditure.
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In the Desert Storm air war prior to the 100hr ground war, as the A-10s operated deeper behind the lines threat of heavy AA and MANPADS went up and the A-10 attrition shot up and Chuck Horner had to pull the A-10s back. there is also the very large problem with the A-10 being under-designed and poor structural durability that has existed from day one. It costs big $ even today to keep ahead of the structural wear and tear.
The A-10 is definitely on the downslope of its utility and I believe the sense of security it may provide today doing what it is doing will be a very false sense under almost any other conditions.
jonfrazier and SMSgt Mac.
ReplyDeletejon i get what you're saying but i'm directing my thoughts to the wars after the one we're in.
SMSgt Mac. totally agree but you can expand your critique to cover the way we're using observation/light attack, attack and even assault helicopters in this. we're going to have to go back and rewrite the text book because we've gotten into some very bad habits. to think that you can use a CH-47 in an assault role is almost but not entirely crazy. you can but you better have escorts. to think that an OH-58 can be used in the ground support role is crazy. it has virtually no armor...but we're using it that way.
Agreed. You have to cover the entire history of Army Air Assault concept development through modern times to get to the roots of why we are where we are. Bottom line is light sttack and helos are best if you've got troops on the ground and in contact with the enemy keeping their heads down, or you've got the element of surprise, or the enemy is afraid of giving their presence away. The odds slip down to veddy-bad for these air assets otherwise.
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