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“The reason we need an independent Air Force is that the Army is clueless about airpower.”

Wow, where do I start with this statement? Ignoring the blatant insult to the Army, you’re using circular logic here. Airpower first flourished under the Army, becoming the most powerful air power of its time. Its kind of hard to say that the Army was “clueless” about airpower when strategic bombing, transport of airborne infantry, and ground support ops were all nurtured during the time when the Air Force was the Army Air Corps.

“Ground pounders are not qualified to think on how to employ fast moving aircraft.”

That’s because fast moving aircraft absolutely suck at close air support. The very reason the A-10 was created was born from our experiences in Vietnam where F-4’s couldn’t hit the side of a barn when it came to troop support, and the Army demanded (and got) slow movers like Sandys and Puff that could actually hit their targets. Interdiction is not the same as close air support, and some people in the Air Force still don’t see the difference. The very fact that USAF brass tried to replace A-10’s with F-16’s painted lizard green (and rebadged “A-16”) shows this mentality is still alive in USAF. Bomb trucks for grunts don’t look good on recruiting posters. Lets get some more sports cars, boys!

“The main job of the USAF has NEVER been to strafe the enemy, nor should it be. CAS is not the main job of the USAF, nor should it be - that is a TERRIBLE way to employ airpower.”

And the ghost of Billy Mitchell lives. You just admitted what critics of the Air Force have been trying to deny for years...that airpower has been corrupted, from a tool to support our larger force objectives, to a a branch of the military that exists simply for the sake of having warplanes. We live here on the surface of planet earth. We sometimes have to fight for it. If an air force doesn’t exist to support the forces that are fighting for that ground, then why the hell does the Air Force exist at all? Simply for the sake of existing, like some government agency that has no purpose other than to perpetuate itself? Or does the Air Force live in floating cities high up in the clouds, far above the rest of us mortals?

Airpower originally consisted of planes spotting enemy positions to help our ground troops. Then those planes starting dropping bombs to help those ground troops. Then those planes starting shooting down other planes to protect those ground troops. At what point did airpower become a law unto itself, ignoring the very reason for its existence in the first place? Are you one of those people that honestly thinks airpower can win all wars by itself?

“Ground pounders are not qualified to think on how to employ fast moving aircraft.”

They’re damn sure qualified to tell you WHERE they need those strikes put. You said you wouldn’t want an air force officer in charge of armor battles. Why would you want an air force officer in charge of deciding where ground forces need support? Aren’t they the ones on the ground?

“Marines can get away with it only because the USAF is doing the job for them past the FEBA.”

Marines “get away with it” because the have the right idea in the first place; airpower is for supporting the total force objectives, and that first duty is to protect our own forces, not act independantly of them while they’re being shot up on the ground.

1 - Yes, the USAF started as part of the Army. My Dad flew P-47s and P-51s for the Army Air Corps. Notice that even then they had started to pull airpower out of control of the local commander. Indeed, it was one of the lessons of WW2 that the USAF needed to be created.

2 - I say they are clueless because I’ve done a lot of coordinating with them. Very few Army officers comprehend the flexibility and maneuverability of airpower. I’ve had BN/CCs insist that aircraft need to stay directly overhead their BN for 8 hours - which is not only impossible, but would prevent the aircraft from responding to TICs in the TF 40 miles away. That is at the tactical level. Don’t even start on higher level uses, such as JSTARS, RJ, bombers, etc.

3 - Fast moving aircraft USED to suck at CAS. That was true when I was at NTC in the early 90s. However, since then the USAF has spent a ton of money on “targeting pods”, and weapons that can be dropped with great precision from 30,000 feet. The Litening and Sniper pods, and systems such as ROVER, make it possible in many cases to attack MORE accurately from 30K than from 500 feet.

Also, that speed allows a single aircraft to support 4 units at one time. How? Well, at least in Afghanistan, the enemy doesn’t have coordinated attacks across several hundred miles of space. Heck, OUR Army doesn’t seem to do much coordinated movement between adjacent battalions. Speed is what allows an aircraft that just supported a TIC west of Jalalabad to move and support a new TIC near Naray.

And again - there are many valuable roles filled by aircraft NOT tasked to supporting specific ground units.

I also spent about a year working on the A-10 PE program, which has successfully competed for USAF money to upgrade the A-10. But if you think an F-16 can’t do an awesome job of CAS, you are wrong. I’ve watched them (and F-15Es) do it.

4 - Yes, I said CAS was a terrible way to employ airpower. When you employ aircraft in CAS, it is a force additive...killing what is in range of the Army units to kill. That is fine when the Army is on the defensive. On offense, airpower becomes a force MULTIPLIER when you attack the NEXT echelon or beyond. You confuse direct support at the lowest tactical level for the ONLY way to support national objectives. Most of USAF efforts support the Army, but out of sight of the Army units. The 6 weeks of bombing prior to the GW1 invasion of Iraq were extremely valuable to the Army, as was the bombing that took place during GW2’s so called lull.

5 - Army officers can say where they want strikes. However, they often don’t get it - not because the USAF doesn’t care, but because there is greater need for a limited resource elsewhere. In many cases, such as the lull, the USAF is working strikes that will be more useful to the USA than what the local ground commander knows about. That is why putting the USAF under the thumb of a BN or BDE/CC is stupid. The USFK/CC got to approve the USAFK plan - but the experts of the Air Force built the plan (to the USFK/CC’s intent) and then explained it in exhaustive detail to him. There isn’t time to do that to every ground CC out there.

6 - The Marines rely on the USAF for strategic air, for RJs, AWACS, etc. They rely on the interdiction efforts of the USAF, and the deep bombing to interrupt the enemy’s C2. Those are valuable roles, which the Marines can not and do not fill.

7 - Apart from my own role planning and coordinating air, I have a vested interest in ground troops getting support - I’ve got a son in the Army and a daughter who used to be in the Marines. But there is no way that would happen properly if the USAF was moved back under the Army. We had this discussion in WW2 - lets not unlearn the lessons of the last 100 years!