The Air Force ought to turn over Warthogs and any future CAS fixed wing aircraft to the Army. Otherwise the Air Force will continue to try to get rid of them.
Nope. That decision was made many decades ago.
I lived through the days of AirLand Battle that the Army developed and the Air Force signed onto. My experience is based on Desert Shield/Storm, which thankfully had General Horner, Swartzkopf’s AirLand proponent in the Air Force as his Air boss.
Up through the Vietnam war, the Air Force was led by strategic bomber pilots who got their start in WWII. We paid a heavy price in Vietnam because they could not see that infared and Radar SAMS weren’t just like ack-ack.
During my whole career, the Air Force was led by the mighty hairy-chested. scarf-wearing fighter pilots of Vietnam. Guys like Horner were rare.
Finally, those old dudes are gone.
The leaders now are from Desert Storm, and AirLand is part of their doctrine.
I think this decision shows the fighter mafia just might FINALLY be dead.
“The Air Force ought to turn over Warthogs and any future CAS fixed wing aircraft to the Army. Otherwise the Air Force will continue to try to get rid of them.”
The army had fixed wing aircraft (caribou, Mohawk, otter, beaver, L-19, etc) uptill sometime in the early days if the Vietnam war. Then, all fixed wing became under the perview of the AF and the Army was limited to rotary wing. I know the Soecial Forces dudes didn’t like it.
As I recall reading in W.E.B. Griffin's "The Brotherhood of War" series, the only fixed wing aircraft allowed to be Army is a spotter plane that somehow fell under the radar. That's why the Army has a ton of helicopters, but no close support aircraft. Nasty assed generals and their turf wars.