Posted on 02/11/2005 4:07:50 AM PST by Truth29
Hey dunce. My example was meant to be illustrative, i.e. that all items on a particular order are charged equally. All items on an order are cost averaged. Comprende?
A big part of that comm tail is a function of the way the AF uses UAVs. And the Army does have and use UAV's at the MI battalion level. And it certainly could at much lower levels. The idea that UAV's have to rely on fixed sites is inherently limiting. It may be true for what the AF wants to use UAVs for, but it absolutely not true of the Army.
For instance, UAV's can be launched with a catapult and recovered with a net. No airfield type facility necessary. The AF (and current Army) use fairly large broad capability long range long loiter UAVs...that require those big comm tails. But that is far from all they can be used for.
As a for instance, there is a small prototype UAV that is built on a helicopter rather than plane model for use INSIDE buildings to support squad level MOUT. There are small 'backpack' UAVs designed for scout use...they don't need long loiter and full spectrum sensors, they need a peek over the next hill...or maybe the hill past that.
Different people at different levels have different intel needs. While requests can all be channeled up, only some of it will be granted and the intel channeled down. That is just the nature of the system. Give the people the tools they need and they will use them much more.
But in all sincerity, almost all of the problems you bring up are no longer problems.
I'm not sure that I agree. Even if all of the past concerns have been addressed, that doesn't address all of the concerns. As a reminder, I see problems on the Army side as well...I don't think we're asking the AF to get good at all the right things. More later.
. For example, as of 1 December 1995, there is only one definition of CAS.
Having the same language is important, and all the forces have done a pretty good job of synchronizing the words they use. But there is a difference between words and the concepts they represent. Without looking it up, CAS could be defined as any aircraft ordinance delivered under the control of ground forces on the ground forces side of the FSCL. It is all good that the word means the same thing, but we have lost the concept difference between the planned targets and the 'standby until we know what we'll need' type of missions. Now, I am a little out of date, but I think the problem is that the Army isn't even asking the AF for this enough.
Now it gets really philosophical as I explain my take on why the Army is not doing the right things to prepare for all the CAS support they need. We may be doing all the things we do very well, but are we doing all the right things?
This is another example of words and concepts not quite matching. The words I use are that there is a difference between 'warrior' and 'soldier' armies. Let me try to explain the difference I see. 'Warrior' armies may be well equipped, and very brave in combat, but they don't necessarily work together well and fight smart. 'Soldier' armies are disciplined, trained, smart, well coordinated and well led. The most obvious examples come from the ancient world, but the conceptual difference is still valid today. Numerically inferior (as well as physically smaller) Roman legions hacked apart what they called barbarians with near immunity. The Romans were soldiers, the barbarians were warriors. The same could be said of the Athenians vs. Persians on the plain of Marathon. Or Xenophon. In the later years of the empire, the Romans lost that professional edge. They had bigger armies..but were overwhelmed by forces smaller than what they previously swept aside with ease.
Skipping a lot of time, we see the same thing in the modern age. In WWI the Tsar's professional large standing army was squashed with ease by the Kaisers smaller forces. Same front a couple of decades later and Hitler's numerically inferior army in four months devastated Stalin's forces. But at the end of that four months the Germans had a significant numerical superiority but their best troops were spent. The few Russians that survived were hard and good. The attack stalled and stayed stalled. The Russian army (up until the end) that pushed the Germans out of Russia was smaller than the one that the Germans swept aside on the way in. The American Army at Kasserine Pass was fundamentally different than the one in Operation Cobra and the race across France. Technological differences do not come close to explaining the Arab-Israeli wars...that was a 'soldier' army fighting 'warrior' armies.
Now that I've rambled on a bit, let me explain why. The US military has become very proficient at slicing through warm butter. And we are very confident. We have fought 'warrior' enemies for several decades now. The Iraqis were revealed as unworthy opponents in conventional battle. Grenada and Panama weren't any better. But there is a serious risk that somewhere along the line, we're going to face a 'soldier' army. And I don't want to bring a butter knife to that knife fight.
Maybe the AF doesn't think about this as much because it is such a technologically dominated force. The tactics used are controlled to a very great extent by the technology you bring to the fight...a fighter can only do what it can do. I'm not dismissing AF tactics, but that the bounds of its effects are much smaller.
And while the air fight may never have been competitive for numerical and technological reasons, the ground fight could have been. The Iraqi army could have performed much better than it did. I know the Israelis could have done much more with the assets the Iraqis had. I know I and my men could have. And we have to prepare for beating the best. That wasn't the Iraqis.
The Romans had been squashing opponents for quite some time when they got a rude shock...they faced another soldier army in the form of the Carthaginians. And it was ugly. They got too comfortable fighting Aeduii, and were literally shocked when they faced forces as capable as themselves. I'm worried that we as a military are getting too comfortable fighting Iraqis and aren't preparing to fight a military as capable as ours. And that capability goes very far beyond technology.
Both the Army and AF have gotten very good at shaping the battlefield and forcing the enemy to fight our fight. But we have been fighting opponents willing to just get shaped. What happens when fight an opponent that is just as actively shaping us? We as a military fight to get inside and stay inside the enemies OODA loop. Recently we have been successful. Are we next time?
That getting back to our original conversation and the use of CAS. We have gotten good at using it to shape. That is the planned targets both on the AF and Army side of the FSCL. But we aren't practicing how to use it to stop the enemy from shaping us. CAS is, or could be, one of the most versatile and fast forces to respond to that. But we don't practice that much. Indeed, that concept may even have dropped out of our now unified dictionary.
Your perspective is highly colored by our success in Iraq. And a big part of that is the total air dominance of the whole theater and the ability to use huge amounts of AF assets to shape the ground fight. That may not always be the case. That is what I was talking about when I was addressing allocation of aircraft for CAS. In Iraq we may have had CAS coming our of our ears, but that will not always be the case. Huge amounts of those multi-role platforms may be dedicated to trying to maintain air superiority over critical areas, or extending air superiority over additional parts of the battle space. Or dedicated to moving areas from superiority to supremacy to dominance. Aircraft have a lot of good uses against a tough opponent, which ones will it be? Where will CAS be on that list?
I don't mean to sound panic stricken. We are very good. And we will stay very good. We can handle almost anything anyone could through at us. For now.
Think about the difference between 1931 German military potential and 1939 German military potential. Things can change fast. I think an argument could made that PRC is going through something similar. Their military (at least their army) is shrinking rapidly. But becoming much more effective. They are acquiring large numbers of technologically modern fighting systems. They are putting much much more effort on training and developing how they will fight. They recognize the differences between our military and theirs, and are actively trying to figure out how they could beat us. Because if they can beat us, they can beat anyone. They may not be able to beat us now, but they are actively trying to be able to beat us in the near future. That includes not only their military development but also their economic development. There is a reason they are demanding construction facilities in China from both Boeing and Airbus in order to get plane contracts. They want to learn how to build modern planes the best way. And I can guarantee that they have plans bigger than jetliners for that knowledge. They are trying to modernize their forces, but also trying to figure out how to fight from a technological deficit but numerical superiority effectively. Don't think it can't be done...look at the Sherman tanks in France.
And I am not blameless. I know much more about how the Soviets would have fought than I do about how the Chinese will fight. But a big part of that is that we don't know how they will fight. That is a big problem. If you were in the PLAAF, how would you fight the US? I can't answer that, and whatever answer you come up with can probably be improved by the literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese thinking about the problem.
I don't mean to indicate that this is all about China. It is about us being as good as we can be...staying razor sharp and not a butter knife. It might be China in 10 years. It might be India in 20. By 2050 Yemen will have a bigger population than Russia. The world is changing, and we have to keep getting better. Our greatest enemy is complacency. That is what I fear most.
And I am sorry to say that is what I see not only in a lot of the military (I won't say AF, because it is a problem in other branches as well most definitely including the Army). I see it in your posts. I see it in the pressure to cut the F22. I see it in killing the Crusader. I see it in making the FCS lighter and more strategically mobile....and less capable than it could be. I see it in 'Stryker' brigades.
I support the development of 'medium' forces (including the necessary airlift) because that is what we are told we need. But it is no where near all that we need. I have to say that perhaps it would be appropriate for the Army to stay focused on being the absolute best at the tactical and operational levels and let the Marines take on the strategic mobility challenge. That may include expanding the Marines at the expense of the Army. But what I am afraid of is that we are so focused on the wars we are fighting that we are not preparing for the wars we may have to fight.
Hey dunce, look in the mirror. You wrote it, I didn't.
However, that is NOT how either the Pentagon or their suppliers develop their costs.
I highly recommend that you spend some time reviewing the issue and understanding how government pricing works.
And I highly recommend that you spend some time reviewing the "equal allocation method" used by DOD for acquisition of spare parts.
"Both the Army and AF have gotten very good at shaping the battlefield and forcing the enemy to fight our fight. But we have been fighting opponents willing to just get shaped."
I would argue that no opponent is "willing to just get shaped". Instead, we are incredibly good and finding and exploiting their weaknesses in order to make them "shapeable". Our most recent opponents do not have a history of being willing to be shaped. The Afghani Mujahideen defeated a Cold War Superpower that shared a common border with Afghanistan. The Iraqi Army fought an 8 year war against the Iranians that resulted in a draw despite the use on both sides of massive human wave assaults, chemical weapons, and modern (for that time period) conventional weapons. The methods with which we executed our operations in Afghanistan were very different from how we executed in Iraq. Our flexibility (and success) indicates we are very much capable of finding a way of working inside the OODA loop of a verity of foes. And I think you underestimate the enemies we've faced since 2001 (and before), and our ability to adapt our traditional strengths to counter an enemy, when you say our success has more to do with the enemy's willingness to be shaped rather than our ability to find a way to shape them.
"Your perspective is highly colored by our success in Iraq."
Let me offer you a little better insight into my perspective. In the last month and a half I have flown almost nothing but air to air training sorties against a quantitatively superior air threat simulating SU-27 fighters armed with their latest beyond visual range weapons. They are allowed to use Western tactics to counter our weapons and tactics. On some sorties we have been outnumbered by as much as 3 to 1. When I'm not flying those sorties, I am in the midst planning an exercise with the Canadian Navy in which we will fight against numerically superior forces in a littoral environment with full electronic jamming and an Aegis quality surface to air missile threat. Between now and then we will continue our training with tactical air control parties and special forces units spinning up to deploy to places that are both in and not in the news. Those scenarios range in scope from taking out a single vehicle or command post, to attacking an armored convoy maneuvering to engage within 1km of the men controlling us. Finally, we are already developing a training plan to ensure we are ready for our next deployment to OIF which will happen in less than a year. The idea that the Air Force is sitting around stroking itself over the success of its most recent operations is just as flawed as the suggestion that the Air Force is somehow stuck in a Cold War mindset. We have written, absorbed and filed the lessons learned from OIF, and are in the midst of prepping for the next fight. Our assumption is that fight will be somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Beyond that, our assumptions are wide open.
"If you were in the PLAAF, how would you fight the US?"
Economically. China has nothing to gain from a military conflict with the West, and it knows it. But lets say we end up at war anyway. Let me ask you this...do you see any way we could defeat the Chinese military in a conventional conflict? Do you think our best course of action would be to go toe to toe with the PLA and duke it out like two traditional armies? Or would we be better served by finding an alternative course to defeat them before we meet them on the battlefield. I am getting the impression that the Army is envisioning massive troop movements as we engage the Chinese. I think that would be suicide. We are no longer an agrarian or an industrial society. We cannot fight like we are. We are a technology driven society, and that is our greatest strength. We need to use that strength to defeat an enemy with Chinese strengths.
"Our greatest enemy is complacency."
I can't vouch for the Army, but the assumption of the Air Force is that the enemy is good and getting better.
"I see it in your posts."
Than I am misleading you. When I say I am not a big supporter of the F-22, it is because I recognize that we need to move to the next level of aerial warfare. The assumption of the Navy prior to Pearl Harbor was that the Navy with the most powerful battleships would win. Then the Japanese destroyed our Pacific fleet using aircraft carriers. The assumption during the Cold War was mutually assured destruction was an inevitable stalemate that would end only when one side made a mistake and triggered a global thermonuclear war. And then Reagan defeated the Soviets by outspending them, and they crumbled without firing a shot. The assumption before 2001 was that we needed to be prepared to battle our worst threat with superior military hardware. Then a whackjob in a turban proved that with just 19 men, he could bring the world's only superpower temporarily to its knees and we never even fired a pistol. If a country like the one we live in, with the resources we have and the technology we've mastered, looks at a country like China and envisions fighting a conventional military battle we deserve our inevitable fate. Buy the Air Force 1000 F-22's, but when the Chinese launch an invasion of Taiwan, where are we going to base them. Buy the Air Force 1000 C-17's, but when the North Korean hoard streams into Seoul, and decimates the southern half of the Korean peninsula with biological agents, where are we going to land them? If the Army's game plan is to counter the Chinese, or Koreans, or Indians, or Yemenis with its current force structure (or with its current force structure times 2, or 3), then it is the Army that is mired in a Cold War mentality and is incapable of moving on. Fortunately, I don't believe that is the case.
AMRAAMS don't have GPS. They require radar, either their launching aircraft or their own, to engage a target. But if you assume that a radar's strength (detection range) has a relationship to its size, you can compare the size of the radar that fits inside an AMRAAM to the size of a radar in the nose of a fighter to get some idea of how close an AMRAAM must be to its target before it can guide itself to its target.
Was in falling asleep mode. I should have said it has inertial navigation. GPS has become so prevalent that I must have assumed it.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/aim-120.htm
Been there, done that.
Your turn.
Not quite. We are certainly trying to improve our ability to fight OIF type conflicts...that is the root of the whole Rumsfeld transformation and the development of strategically mobile medium forces. And while we have not completely stopped preparing for bigger fights, I am worried we aren't necessarily doing the right things to prepare for that. I guess you could sum my objections in two ways: One, that we are putting too much emphasis on OIF type fights at the expense of bigger possible fights, and Two, that the things we are doing to prepare for the bigger fights are not necessarily the best things.
"willing to just get shaped"
Fair enough. They don't want to get shaped, but they are not designed equipped and prepared to fight an information age war. They weren't 'willing' to just get shaped, but they were almost completely helpless to stop it or to shape us.
I guess I could make the case that they were 'willing' to get shaped because they weren't willing to do the things at the procurement and developmental levels to stop it. That is not quite fair to the Iraqis because they really never did or could have developed that capability. Future opponents may have that capability, and they may avail themselves of it.
You talked about the Afghans (it is worth noting that the Taliban was not the Mujahadin...they didn't exist until both the Soviets and Afghan Communists fell) and the Iraqis and Iranians. None of those opponents fought an information age war. It is not at all surprising that an information age military can get inside and stay inside the OODA loop of militaries not designed for that fight. The Iran Iraq war more closely resembled WWII, or even WWI, than the way we fought against Iraq. It was more about weight of numbers and material to much greater extent than anything we would do today. We were able to simply manipulate things by giving the Iraqis intel about where the Iranians were massing for human waves attack, and selling Iranians some effective anti-tank missiles. They may have had some modern equipment and other trappings of modernity, but there was nothing truly modern about the way they fought. Either each other, or us.
You are right that we have demonstrated the ability to adapt what we do to very different circumstances. But we have not demonstrated our ability to fight someone else fighting our style of info-war. Nor have we thought long and hard about how we would fight a very different style of info-war.
Let me offer you a little better insight into my perspective.
I don't think I said we were sitting on our laurels doing nothing. I questioned whether we're doing the right things. For instance you talked about training against 3 to 1 Su-27s using western tactics. Are you training three to one because that is the most we can handle, or because that is what we really expect? Are western tactics really the best for the situation? Have the Chinese developed better tactics for numerical superiority?
Now, I am out of my league, but if I were the PLAAF I would not settle for 3-1. I would probably take a cue from the Soviets turning the tide in the air during WWII...some places and times would be denuded of air power, and other places at times would have massive numerical superiority. Fight the fights you can win, and don't fight the ones you can't. My understanding is that the Soviets had a similar plan for the air. Sometimes there wouldn't be much at all and other times they would surge huge numbers. I am not the expert to say that is the best way to do it, but my gut reaction would be that on 9 out of ten sorties I wouldn't give you anything to fight, and on that tenth flight, you'd face 12 or 15 to one. I know in Europe we tankers trained to fight 3 to 1 up to 5 to 1 in tank battles. The problems was that we were outnumbered 10 to 1.
I'm very interested in what happens when our air force faces Aegis quality SAMs. It will be indiciative of which needs the most improvement. But while Aegis is good, is that the way our enemies will fight?
Again, I am not expert, but it seems to me that AWACS play a tremendously important role in how we fight in the air. What are all the different ways they could try to blind us and screw up our coordination, and what do we do about it?
Excerpt to freepmail:
do you see any way we could defeat the Chinese military in a conventional conflict?
Yes. But it depends on how you define conventional. If we fight a material fight against their material fight we would lose. If we fight an info age war against their material fight, I think we would win. If we fight an info age war against their info age war...then it is a huge 'dunno' and that is probably the most likely scenario because we aren't going to fight the first, and they aren't going to fight the second.
I am getting the impression that the Army is envisioning massive troop movements as we engage the Chinese.
Yes. We may very well have to. Take a different scenario, the 'resource' war with PRC attacking north to seize the oil and other resources as well as 'lebensraum' of Siberia. We're helping the Russians (for whatever reason). If you have grand plans of stopping them with air power without large ground forces, I think you'll find an enemy tank on your runway long before you finish killing them all.
"Our greatest enemy is complacency." I can't vouch for the Army, but the assumption of the Air Force is that the enemy is good and getting better.
And I would call that complacency about our improvement. ;-)~
The assumption of the Navy prior to Pearl Harbor was that the Navy with the most powerful battleships would win.
Historical note...that isn't fair to the USN. There were definitely both BB and CX advocates in our navy. Indeed, the same thing in the Japanese Imperial navy. It is worth noting that the Japanese were the ones with the biggest battleships. It was a theoretical question that could really only be finally resolved in battle.
If the Army's game plan is ... with its current force structure (or with its current force structure times 2, or 3)
Well, I think that is the point of info-war. It allows us to punch very much above our material weight...so long as we win the info war. But I think there is a valid point there. I think the Army needs to carefully consider how it would scale itself up quickly and effectively. Again, history offers a model, although not an answer. During the early stages of its rearmament when Germany was still operating under caps of the Versailles treaty, it was both very effective as a small scale force, and ended up being very effective as a cadre for rapid expansion.
I can understand that, but take a look at what an OIF type fight entails. Before we crossed into Iraq, we had no certain idea of how the Iraqis would fight. We assumed they would use chemical or biological warfare, and perhaps even nuclear. We knew they had several divisions of very well trained and equipped Republican Guards, with some dug into defensive positions and others prepped for rapid transportation. We knew they had a well developed integrated air defense that protected their key cities. We knew they possessed an unknown number of long range ballistic missiles that could be fitted with a verity of warheads. And we knew that we had a limited timeline to accomplish our objectives before we lost what little support we were receiving from Arab states. In summary, on the drawing board, OIF was no cakewalk. If we use the same threat we faced in Iraq as the baseline for the threat we will face in future conflicts, we will cover almost every contingency out there with the exception of China or Korea. More on that later....
"they are not designed equipped and prepared to fight an information age war."
I agree completely. And now we are speaking the same language. Information age warfare implies something other than massive movements of industrial age weaponry. In its purest form, an information age war would be waged without firing a single shot. That implies an Army of technonerds sitting at computer consoles. Not vast numbers of armored vehicles or fighter aircraft.
"Are you training three to one because that is the most we can handle, or because that is what we really expect?"
For now, both.
"I were the PLAAF I would not settle for 3-1. I would probably take a cue from the Soviets turning the tide "
But I think you've shifted out of the mindset of information aged warfare here. You are back to industrial aged warfare. We are the world's leading information aged power. That is the strength we need to exploit. We have to assume the Chinese will always outnumber us, and we need to work around that. Not by trying to blow up all their weapons. That's old school. We need a system that renders them irrelevant. In Iraq, we shattered the communications network of an army that absolutely required a top down flow of communication to function. China has a similar Achilles heal to exploit.
"I'm very interested in what happens when our air force faces Aegis quality SAMs."
Here's a prediction...we die wholesale. And in an actual war we wouldn't be tasked to take out an Aegis quality cruiser. But in training, we need to simulate what the guys on the ships might see.
"If we fight an info age war against their material fight, I think we would win."
I agree completely.
"Take a different scenario, the 'resource' war with PRC attacking north to seize the oil and other resources as well as 'lebensraum' of Siberia."
Isn't there a book similar to that?
"If you have grand plans of stopping them with air power without large ground forces, I think you'll find an enemy tank on your runway long before you finish killing them all."
What if our airpower is hundreds of small, autonomously controlled, robotic aircraft that spread thousands of sensor fused munitions that are programed to seek out and destroy vehicles with a specific acoustic signature? That would certainly be more useful than 500 or 1000 F-22's.
If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend the book "War and Antiwar". It is written by the foremost experts (Alvin and Heidi Toffler) in the whole concept of information age warfare (they call it third wave warfare). It is an incredibly interesting book.
But it did not entail one key thing...an opponent prepared for info-war.
Information age warfare implies something other than massive movements of industrial age weaponry. In its purest form, an information age war would be waged without firing a single shot.
I would say that IAW implies something in addition to rather than other than weaponry. There will be shots. All that information is useless unless you have the combat power to do something with it. Maybe in the very long term it will be wars entirely of nerds, but at least in the near and medium terms, men and equipment will be destroying and killing and occupying ground. What the info age does is dramatically change HOW they go about applying combat power. It is a force multiplier for friendly forces and a debilitator of enemy forces. But anything multiplied by zero is zero...there will be a need for combat power to be multiplied.
But I think you've shifted out of the mindset of information aged warfare here. You are back to industrial aged warfare.
I disagree. What the info age does is determine WHEN and WHERE it is important to surge. Either to support their operations or to stop ours.
China has a similar Achilles heal to exploit.
Partially true. We can destroy their ability to coordinate their operations by decapitation. But that does not mean that they will not carry out what they already know to do. They may not be doing it especially well, but that emphasizes the point that your version of Info war is not sufficient.
I agree completely.
What about the other predictions?
Isn't there a book similar to that?
I'm sure there are many. It isn't my brainchild, but it is a valid scenario.
What if our airpower is hundreds of small, autonomously controlled, robotic aircraft that spread thousands of sensor fused munitions that are programed to seek out and destroy vehicles with a specific acoustic signature? That would certainly be more useful than 500 or 1000 F-22's.
I think that is a very simplistic version of what might happen. It ignores all of the things that the enemy might do to confound it...like make quieter vehicles or mask the acoustic signature, or their SAM efforts, etc etc. But all those robotic UAVs will still need a logistics tail. The question can they stop the enemy before the enemy destroys them and their logistics is still a valid point.
I think you see IAW as a much more radical departure than I do. It is a radical departure, but we disagree about how radical it is. It certainly changes a lot. And it may open up the way to some amazing wonder weapons. But it will be built upon, not replace, the basic functions of military power.
I will seek out that book. But my first impression is that it seems similar to those predicting in the 1930's that the future is all strategic bombing.
For now. But again, in its purest form it should allow us to achieve our military objectives without firing a shot. For example, if we can completely isolate soldiers in the field from all levels of their leadership, will they be able to conduct an organized campaign? We did just that in many cases in Iraq. In one particular instance, we essentially isolated an entire Iraqi division along the southern end of the Iraq-Iran border. We cut them off, and drove around them. They slowly withered on the vine. After a couple weeks, the Brits sent a recon patrol to check their status. All of their equipment was in place, in perfect condition, and completely abandoned. There was never a shot fired. Instead, we collected all the equipment for later use. There is an interesting article in the newest Aviation Week and Space Technology Mag. It discusses recently revealed black programs, and gives a vague description of some of our more aggresive info warfare programs. We aren't just talking about the ability to know where the enemy is, or to cut him off from his command and control. We are talking about the ability to turn his own equipment against him. To literally take control of his command and control network and create such an atmosphere of chaos that he is no longer able to function. Imagine creating an environment which infuses such a sense of panic among the enemy's population, that you shut down his infrastructure with a flood of refugees. Or you manipulate his power grid in such a way that it destroys any piece of electrical equipment that gets plugged into it. With the exception of our special forces, and to a large extent the USMC, there are very few military organizations that can function effectively in an information vaccuum. And even the Marine Corps will eventually run out of thrust. How can you provide logistical support to a unit you don't even know the location of?
"We can destroy their ability to coordinate their operations by decapitation. But that does not mean that they will not carry out what they already know to do."
That assumes what they know to do is kill the enemy. But what if the nearest enemy is 4000 miles away sitting at a computer terminal. What do you do as a PLA general sitting in a Russian oil field (to use your scenario) with no communication outside of runners in vehicles that must travel hundreds of miles to relay messages. What do you do when 80% of your vehicles won't start because their electrical systems have melted. When the command authorities you rely on for instruction are absolutely convinced you've been destroyed on the battlefield, or worse yet that you've turned against them because all of their command and control resources tell them that is what has happened. You see where I'm going.
"The question can they stop the enemy before the enemy destroys them and their logistics is still a valid point."
Except the enemy must stop a threat that may be coming at them from 6000 miles away. If a single B-2 can take off from the middle of Missouri, release 80 small UAVs that each contain 100 sensor fused munitions that can render several miles of navigable terrain unpassable, how can the enemy disrupt the logistics train? And while a sensor fused munition can be reprogramed with a simple change to its computer code, changing the acquistic signature of a vehicle requires some real physical modifications. Reprograming a computer chip takes seconds. Modifying a vehicle takes hours or even days.
"I think you see IAW as a much more radical departure than I do."
That is definitely true. But again, I am the one whose service is being accused of being locked in a Cold War mindset. Elements of the Army are demanding they be given control of the A-10, while the leading edges of the Air Force are designing techniques that will cause Lil Kim in North Korea to be convinced MacArthur has been re-incarnated and is doing donuts in a Humvee on Kim Sr's tomb. If you don't think that is possible, try to get ahold of the latest Av Week. We are a lot farther along than just tracking enemy movements. If you sometimes wonder whether the T.V. is actually watching you...it just might be.
Bump
A nickle here, a dime here, who cares who cheats at that level, when Congress is fire-hosing money so thickly that they don't know where a goodly portion even went. /some sarcasm
sounds like a MSM attack by proxy on Rumsfeld.
I also think that the United States nuclear forces needs modernization.
For example, here in Afghanistan, the most valuable aviation resources are transport aircraft, helicopters, satellites and UAVs. And we could use more of all of them. Ditto for Iraq. Yet availability is constrained by the $ available. And the dollars available are constrained by spending on unnecessary or limited use air warfare weapons.
Our Air Force & Navy could defeat the rest of the world's Air Forces and Navies combined. Meanwhile, our ground forces are significantly smaller than those of several other countries and have called up the reserves while fighting in sustained combat in two wars. And the "Long War" promises even more of the on-the-ground close-in engagments that only infantry can conduct. Yet we are still spending roughly the same proportion of our defense budgets on air, land, and sea power as we did ten years ago. That's way out of whack. Peters is calling out our defense leadership on that--and he's right to do so.
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