UCAVs (Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles) are the way to go.
Posted on 06/24/2004 10:43:35 AM PDT by Destro
Last Updated: Thursday, 24 June, 2004, 01:20 GMT 02:20 UK
War games in India 'show up US'
By Nick Childs
BBC Pentagon correspondent
The success of India's air force against US fighters in an exercise suggests the US may be losing its air superiority, a US general has said.
Gen Hal Hornburg said an exercise in February, known as Cope India, had been "a wake-up call".
The mock air battles in central India had pitted US F-15s against advanced Russian-designed Sukhoi SU-30s.
General Hornburg said the results show the US may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as it had thought.
Cold War mentality
Of course, it suits the US Air Force at the moment to argue that it needs to invest more in air power, as it tries to get funding for advanced new planes like the next generation of stealth fighters, the F/A-22 and F-35.
Some analysts, and some members of Congress, argue that the air force is stuck in a Cold War mentality, and is pressing for planes that it does not really need.
But establishing air superiority and air dominance is key to US strategy and many in the air force have argued that there are still many more sophisticated potential adversaries out there than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Best way to convince your parents to buy you a sports car is to tinker with the station wagon so that it seems unsafe.
I'm just sayin.
UCAVs (Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicles) are the way to go.
Great. Now we have to worry about India invading us!
INDIA 1, USAF 0
http://www.defensetech.org/
The whole world knows that if you mess with U.S. Air Force pilots, you're going down. Hard.
Except, someone forgot to send the memo to India, apparently. Because, in recent exercises, Indian flyboys in low-tech Russian and French jets defeated American F-15C pilots more than 90 percent of the time.
Now, granted, the Indians had the Americans outnumbered: usually 10 or 12 to 4, during the Cope India air combat exercise held last February around the Gwalior Air Force Station. But American officials also credited Indian pilots with being "very proficient in [their] aircraft[s] and smart on tactics. That combination was tough for us to overcome," USAF Col. Greg Neubeck told Inside the Air Force. (The article is off-limits to those who don't subscribe. But The Times of India is running major excerpts.)
"The adversaries are better than we thought," Col. Mike Snodgrass added. "And in the case of the Indian Air Force both their training and some of their equipment was better than we anticipated."
According to the magazine, "The Indians flew a number of different fighters, including the French-made Mirage 2000 and the Russian-made MIG-27 and MIG-29, but the two most formidable IAF aircraft proved to be the MIG-21 Bison, an upgraded version of the Russian-made baseline MIG-21, and the SU-30K Flanker, also made in Russia."
The ability of these planes to "repeatedly defeat America's best fighter is a troubling development. So troubling, in fact, that it calls into question a core assumption of the Bush Administration's plans for military transformation," says Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute.
That assumption, widely repeated by military reformers since the mid-1990's, is that U.S. military power is so overwhelming the Pentagon can afford to take risks by delaying modernization of Cold War weapons while it pursues development of leap-ahead technologies. Examples cited by policymakers of areas where the U.S. lead is unassailable in the near term include heavy armor (tanks) and air superiority (fighters). We already know from the experience of the Iraq war that heavy tanks have proven far more important to occupation and counter-insurgency operations than anyone expected. Now comes news that third-world countries may be able to challenge U.S. command of the skies.
The Pentagon's initial take on lessons learned from the Iraq war was so dismissive of traditional warfighting competencies that it barely mentioned air superiority. But even a cursory examination of how U.S. strategy for the conflict unfolded reveals a heavy reliance on air power to compensate for numerical deficiencies on the ground. The possibility of having to conquer some future Baghdad without air superiority should make every general in the Army pause and reflect on what victory might require in the way of casualties and resources.
"The actual story is not nearly as bad as it may seem," Chirstopher Coglianese counters on the National Security Roundtable (NSRT) discussion group. "Remember that the Indians have two hostile nations on their border, both with credible air forces. Indian pilots actually fly almost twice as many hours a month as ours and much of it is under operational conditions. Even though equipped with Russian-designed aircraft, as the Air said to me, they ain't the Russians (notorious for being undertrained)."
THERE'S MORE: The Cope India could actually work to promote a much-maligned Air Force project, now in development, one Defense Tech pal in the USAF notes.
Opponents of the F/A-22 stealth fighter plane say the jet is designed only for Cold War-era, mid-air dogfights. That's a waste of billions, the logic goes, because "the USAF has (and would not have) no peer competitor in air superiority."
"But the F-15 is the representative of that "air superiority,'" our pal points out. So "its poor outing against a country with improving technology and good tactics would seem to do damage to the argument that there is no need for a modern air superiority fighter.
But back over on the NSRT list, one poster responds: "At my age I'm entitled to be cynical so let me suggest this whole episode smells like Delhi on a hot day...What better way to keep an aerial boondoggle like the F-22 program healthy and sucking up funds needed to pay for light infantrymen than to let a bunch of INDIANS flying planes bought from the RUSSIANS win some aerial engagements over India."
AND MORE: On the eDodo message board -- often populated by Air Force types -- some are saying that the results of Cope India are not quite what they seem.
USAF pilots were flying "Red Air" -- meaning they were simulating the (presumably worse) tactics and (presumably lower) capabilities of enemy flyers.
That means they walked into the fight with their arms tied behind their backs. It makes for a good media coup in India... But in a full-up fight, I'd put ALL my money on the Alaska F-15C's over the Indian Air Force...
They may have 'lost the war' in the excercise. But it was an excercise. In the real thing, our boys won't be flying as 'Red Air.'
June 24, 2004 12:03 AM
US pilots obviously need more curry in their diets.
"the Indians had the Americans outnumbered: usually 10 or 12 to 4"
Uhhh. How would they fare 1 to 1? THAT is the stat I am looking for.
"US pilots obviously need more curry in their diets."
Yeah, and charcoal-lined Depends.
Realistic odds - We are usually outnumbered as is the Israeli airforce.
Sandbaging-letting your opponents think they have found your weaknesses early in the contest, then in the middle and end games you use that against them.
Well, we'd clean their chronometers. But it doesn't change the fact that in most situations, we're supposed to win even outnumbered 10:1. That's how we do business with tanks. That's how we do business with infantry. That's how we'd do business with our navy if there were any other navies left to challenge us.
OK, so the Indians can give us a run for their money. Good on them. Fortunately, Hindu terrorists are not trying to convert the world....
Along with the doctrine of preemptive war the Bush DoD put forward the policy that American military technology MUST be two generations ahead of that which could be obtained by any potential adversary.
People I respect like Ralph Peters decry the F-22 and F-35 as wastes of dollars, but iI don't think they'd want the ground pounders facing any enemy who had even the limited air support available to the Wehrmacht from the Luftwaffe in Europe in 1944-45. The 22 and 35 will prevent this from happening.
When all you have are whatever USAF wings happen to be available in the theater vs. the entire Goblin Air Force, those are the odds you are going to face (until you are reinforced), and you bloody well better be able to win...
since WWII no air force has taken control of the sky from the USAF. Having a 4 to 1 ration does not mean crap. They won is like a montessori program where going to the bathroom earns a gold star.
I believe it was 4 against 1 against U.S.
Can't believe we didn't win this with those odds. </sarcasm
Q: Who is the highest-scoring Ace since WWII? Bonus: Who eventually shot him down?
We keep handing them our technology and technology jobs and some of us warn of the impact and people here roll their eyes and toss epithets. Here it is in action, any questions?
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