via Breaking Defense.
There’s also the grim calculus of risk. Welsh — a former Warthog pilot and guy who studied ground tactics at the Army’s Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth – said destroying the mass of an enemy’s air force (the second echelon, known to most as the reserve) saves the most lives on the ground and at sea, although he also said that close air support (the A-10′s speciality) is very important.Read the entire article, but be advised.
THIS IS WHAT I HATE ABOUT AIR POWER CENTRIC THINKERS.
Its as if the rules of air warfare trump everything. What idiot thinks that air power is supreme? Does the Taliban have an Air Force? Did the Viet Cong and the N. Vietnamese ever have control of the skies?
Quite honestly the air power mafia is constantly reliving WW2. They have images of fighter sweeps clearing the skies and then taking credit for winning the war instead of realizing that ground combat is a different, nasty and much more vicious type of warfare than the fly boys experience.
The ARROGANCE of this statement...."destroying the mass of an enemy's air force saves the most lives on the ground"... is breathtaking.
Oh calm down Nancy.
ReplyDeleteAir Power airheads. We had this problem in Israel during our last war in Lebanon, when a Chief of Staff from the air force decided he could win the war with Hizbullah with smart bombs.
ReplyDelete"Air Power airheads"
DeleteAs opposed to what Army pukes that think Armor is the be all end all?
Marines who see assault from the sea as the lynchpin of all lynchpins?
Or Navy squids who think submarines rule the seas?
We're dealing with flawed human nature and speaking from the specific to the general. A logical fallacy that affects ALL men.
No big deal.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough for you. Any intelligent military person understands that wars are won with combined forces. You need both air and ground, and naval as well if it's wet enough. What I was talking about are the people that think you can win a war with only one branch. It's what the Army Air Corps bomber barons thought before and during WWII and were proved so wrong.
DeleteBut no big deal, as you said.
Air power cannot win wars or defeat insurgents. However the US ground forces has not faced even contested airspace since early WW2. In that small period we learned in blood how/why you must invest and have air superiority minimum to air dominance. In GW1 & 2 our ground forces ran over the Iraqi's like speed bumps because our air power destroyed 60% of their mech and crippled their mobility forcing them to disperse into hide. A immobile force with their heavy stuff destroyed reduced to infantry is lambs to slaughter for modern ground forces.
ReplyDeleteAir Power is why the last few decades the US main challenge has been irregular insurgent type forces. This kind of force is very limited and the only real reason it can challenge for our forces is US politicians who think war should be a powerpuff queens rules match that only we abide by.
We don't want to ever put troops on the ground were our air power can not hold cap and still push into enemy area and pound their troops before and during our arrival. We destroyed the best armor land forces the Nazis had with 2nd rate tanks because of our air power. The ability of air power to effect ground targets has only expanded by magnitudes since WW2.
You can look at all the history without air power you lose.
utter bullshit and revisionist history. first, the Iraqi deception campaign proved much more successful than any of the fly boys will ever admit publicly. the initial air campaign focused only on destroying the Iraqi air force and did little against their ground forces. additionally what effort wasn't focused on airpower, command and control went after classic air force targets of power plants and the like.
Deleteat the start of the ground war the only time airpower actually came into play (without killing our own forces) was on the highway of death and thats because the Iraqis were fleeing from allied ground forces, not allied airpower.
the M1 and Bradley proved superior to Russian armor and killed their tanks where ever they found them. even the M-60 had a grand going away party.
the air force is bailing on a mission it never wanted, to get a plane it doesn't need, and the AF Chief will say anything to make it sound like sunshine and lollipops
Outstanding post C-Low.
DeleteNo airpower = no American century.
Airpower in war over kosovo lasted something like 72' days and a the end of the hostility Serb forces drew out and flew out Migs that were supposedly destroyed in first days of the way. In terms of destroyed vehicles that were left most were decoys and wwII relics used as decoys .Serbs lost very few vehicles on the ground . What in the end compeled serbs to negotiate a truce was distruction of civilian infrastructure(powerplants,bridges etc). And incompetent arabs are not the force you measure against as a future reference.
DeleteC-Low that wasn't the airforce, that was the Army
DeleteI would qualify that with the following point: When in service and direct support of ground forces, air power can be extremely effective in destroying enemy ground forces in Close-Air Support and interdiction. In this case, airpower functions more as airborne artillery and the studies bear this out. 9th Air Force in WWII, Desert Storm, etc.
DeleteAnd to do these missions, there needs to be air superiority to deter or destroy enemy airpower from interfering. In that sense, air power is critical and against peer threats, necessary in order to prosecute the war on a strategic and operational level.
But the elusive promise of airpower being decisive or omnipotent to the exclusion or minimization of ground forces is something that will forever be beyond our grasp. War requires ground forces to identify and destroy the enemy's forces and when needed, occupy his territory to prevent him from being a threat.
Once air power moves into the area of interdiction or strategic bombing, it becomes less effective. In fact, the farther away from supporting ground troops airpower is, the less impact and relevance it has. Some have said Yugoslavia caved not just because we targeted infrastructure, but also because we started hacking Milosovic's overseas bank accounts. I don't know if that is true but it is something to consider. Another reason we targeted Serb infrastructure was because our targeting of tanks, vehicles, formations was so ineffective as the Bomb Damage Assessment survey indicated after hostilities ceased.
OUr enemies, not being stupid (with exception to Saddam Hussein), realize that we have air superiority/dominance and understand the massive destruction that can be brought down from above by our forces. Which is precisely why our enemies since 1945 have sought to fight against us using tactics that minimize our air power advantage. Our enemies have engaged us as light infantry in unconventional or guerrilla war because air power cannot be easily brought to bear against them. this is both a blessing and curse for us. We're so good at air power our enemies no better than to take us on conventionally.
the question I'd pose this general is this: after you've destroyed the enemy's air forces, what do you plan on doing with that shiny Air Force of yours if the enemy doesn't surrender and continues to engage our forces on the ground?
Taliban has an advantage -- no generals.
ReplyDeleteFuckin worthless chairforce is at least half made up posers and cravens. Then you gotta add in a LOT more of stupid officer arrogance and politics than the other branches suffer from since they're so heavy with brass. Except for the twenty guys or so who are PJs or air liaisons, even the best of the rest are pogs. We'd all be better off with just more Artillery and ADA. Even better if we'd give the bombers and fast jets to the Navy and the CAS and transports to the Army.
ReplyDelete