Posted on 04/28/2005 3:23:19 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
WASHINGTON — Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, had the task of covering that huge country with just 18,000 troops.
It was possible to do so, he observed, because "airpower from all the services ... have given ground forces ... the ability to operate in smaller units and respond quicker, with more accurate weaponry, than at any other point in history."
Over the last 15 years, many have come to regard airpower as the key to victory, in war zones ranging from the gulf to the Balkans, from Afghanistan to Iraq. Fighter forces, in particular, have proved to be effective, destroying defended targets, supporting fast-moving land forces and dominating the sky.
Yet serious questions keep cropping up. Is the size of the tactical fighter fleet about right or is it "excessive"? The USAF fighter force has fallen from 37 to 20 wings. Navy and Marine Corps aviation arms have shrunk, too.
Top Pentagon leaders claim the armed services invest too much in fighters. They see air dominance as one area in which the U.S. has "excessive overmatch." The new National Defense Strategy, released March 1, suggests cutting some of the overmatch so as to better fund new capabilities and expand ground forces.
According to "Inside the Navy," a newsletter, Deputy Defense Secretary-designate Gordon England recently told reporters he sees great potential in "integrating" Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Army aviation. England left no doubt about the basic objective: "If you can gain efficiencies in tactical forces," he said, "what else can you do with the money?"
Any such move now could pit the Air Force, the Navy/Marine team, and, to a degree, the Army against each other, conceivably igniting a dustup over roles.
The last such tussle came in the mid-1990s. It was sparked by Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who lamented, among other things, that America's was "the only military in the world with four air forces." A blue-ribbon Commission on Roles and Missions, or CORM, spent more than a year pondering the subject.
The commission found the supposed "problem" proved to be largely illusory. CORM in 1995 reported, "Inefficiencies attributed to the so-called 'four air forces' were mostly in the infrastructure, not on the battlefield."
Second, CORM concluded that a little redundancy isn't a bad thing. A recent case in point: the pivotal role played by naval air in the first weeks of war in Afghanistan — a remote, landlocked nation far outside the Navy's usual mission focus.
Third, overlap fosters interservice competition, often resulting in better systems or concepts of operations, whether they concern close air support, long-range strike or something else.
The Air Force doesn't now nor has it ever claimed a right to monopolize military aviation.
Even so, there are sound reasons to make the Air Force the "keeper" of the tactical aviation art. The air arms of the other services are limited; their primary purpose is to perform missions tied directly to their basic land power, sea power or amphibious roles.
Yet, Pentagon officials should be cautious before tampering too much with the current size and structure of the services' tactical air forces.
They would do well to heed the admonition of Gen. Gregory Martin, who has commanded U.S. Air Forces in Europe and the Air Force Materiel Command and who recently warned:
"Nothing works without air and space dominance. Nothing. We don't want to assume that we will always have it. We want to always understand what it takes to get it, and we want to make sure we are building the systems that will give it to us."
I agree!
All are slightly different. A F16 is great, but did we really want a single engine fighter in 1979 flying over open water all the time in the Navy?
Doctrine, training, weapons, intel, platforms are all different between services. This is for a reason. A purple Air Force would end in disaster.
Red6
The Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force all have rifles tooThis was my first thought, exactly. Planes are weapons, weapons that each branch of the service needs at its immediate disposal.
Look, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't see anything broken about the current system of distributed air power.
The F35 is not: "one size fits all"
It comes in THREE versions for a reason. The plane is just built to share a lot of common components, training for tech personnel etc.
I know what you're saying and I agree. Planes like the Tornado are such examples of "Jack of all trades, master of none", but the JSF/Raptor combo is exactly what we did with the F15/16 combo. One high end, one more mass produced yet still capable. You also need volume in planes and not all missions require a F22. The F16 is also versatile yet has been a great plane.
The A/B/C versions of the JSF allow the plane to be "Mission tailored" yet allow lower costs. It allows us to build a true GEN 5 plane with real stealth and still have it be affordable (Economy of scale, technology transfers from the Raptor program, massive foreign investment in R&D-test and evaluation, a single engine design that incorporates many cost saving attributes).
http://www.jsf.mil/
You see it different?
Red6
I don't see how they could be, because of spares/maintenance problems. I read somewhere that well over half of the U.S. Navy F8s had been returned to the factory at some point for crash damage repairs. It was not exactly a forgiving aircraft at best, and carrier deck operations created a tough environment. And the Vought F8 line has been down for many years. BTW, the last of the Vought F4U/AU line were built for the French too, around 1953 as I recall, giving it, at the time, the longest continuous production life of any fighter (1940-53). And if the tooling had not been scrapped, I suspect it might have come back to life during the Viet Nam war days to fly alongside the A-1 Spad.
Good points, but then French Aircraft Carriers are noted for not leaving port (LOL) Couldn't help myself.
Pretty close to agreement.
The crucial part is the ability to command and control. . .and I'd say that is more important than who has the most stuff.
Just me talking.
With the smart munitions, it's not nearly as tricky as it used to be. We even used B-52s at 40k feet to do "close" air support in Afghanistan.
And "still trucking" only in Australia.
Could, but I would just be re-typing Posts 35, 36, 42, 49.
Enjoy.
Ahhhh. . .cute.
Air mobile helos in a dogfight with a MiG?
How many folks want a plumber doing the wiring in their homes?
And thus my comment on the B-2 and F-16 as not being built for that purpose. They never were...ever.
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