We do have an air campaign.
I recall the code name as: “Dilly, Dally, Dailly”...
Or sumpin like that...
It’s logical that Russians should be our allies against this bunch. Orthodox Russian Christianity has more in common with the secular West than with the muslim hordes in Syria.
My son is an AF pilot. He says the “jarheads” he is stationed with and spends time with, are itching to go to Syria and fight against ISIS. They would go if there were only 500 of them. With open rules of engagement, they could make a huge difference. They wouldn’t mind being shoulder to shoulder with the Russians in this fight.
If there were a SERIOUS air campaign, no bomb loads would return.
Even if they had to drop them on the Turks, who are engaged only in suppressing and harassing the Kurds, the most effective anti-ISIS military force operating in the area.
Now, if you wanted to take out M1A1 Abrams tanks, being strafed by A-10 Warthogs armed with a General Dynamics GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm cannon, mounted in the nose of the aircraft, is exceptionally effective.
Using the cannon, the A-10 is capable of disabling a main battle tank from a range of over 6,500m. The cannon can fire a range of ammunition, including armour-piercing incendiary rounds (API) weighing up to 0.75kg, or uranium-depleted 0.43kg API rounds.
The magazine can hold 1,350 rounds of ammunition. The pilot can select a firing rate of 2,100 or 4,200 rounds a minute.
One one- or two-second burst is generally enough to open up even the most heavily armored vehicle.
In addition, the A-10 carries a number of different configurations for missiles, including air-to-surface Mavericks, and air-to-air Sidewinders, capable of Mach-2.
Also a wide range of ordnance: for example, the LDGP mk82 226kg, 500lb general-purpose bombs, BLU-1 and BLU-27/B Rockeye II cluster bombs and the cluster bomb unit CBU-52/71.
Why we do not have some 200 of these deployed to the near area to Syria right now, is a continuing puzzle.