Posted on 06/21/2008 4:59:25 PM PDT by The_Republican
WASHINGTON — Ever since the Army lost its warplanes to a newly independent Air Force after World War II, soldiers have depended on the sister service for help from the sky, from bombing and strafing to transport and surveillance.
But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have frayed the relationship, with Army officers making increasingly vocal complaints that the Air Force is not pulling its weight.
In Afghanistan, Army officers have complained about bombing missions gone awry that have killed innocent civilians. In Iraq, Army officers say the Air Force has often been out of touch, fulfilling only half of their requests for the sophisticated surveillance aircraft that ground commanders say are needed to find roadside bombs and track down insurgents.
The Air Force responds that it has only a limited number of those remotely piloted Predators and other advanced surveillance aircraft, so priorities for assigning them must be set by senior commanders at the headquarters in Baghdad working with counterparts at the Air Force’s regional command in Qatar. There are more than 14,000 airmen performing tasks on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Air Force civil engineers replacing Army construction engineers.
But now in Iraq, the Army has quietly decided to try going it alone for the important surveillance mission, organizing an all-Army surveillance unit that represents a new move by the service toward self-sufficiency, and away from joint operations.
Senior aides to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates say that he has shown keen interest in the Army initiative — much to the frustration of embattled Air Force leaders — as a potential way to improve battlefield surveillance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Actually, the USAF has been throwing money at UAVs. Pilots don’t like it, but senior staff do.
Current airframes have significant limitations, and a lot of research is going into building better and more capable ones.
And frankly, the Army wastes UAVs quite regularly. They lock onto the video feed and think they know what is going on when they do not.
Suppose it is possible to fly 20 sorties in area X. There are 4 brigades in area X. Each brigade wants to have all 20 sorties. However, going 20/4=5 isn’t a very good way to divvy things up, if only one brigade has a major operation going on that day.
So the Division Commander, who outranks all the Brigade Commanders, decides Brigade A gets 15 sorties to support a push, and the other 3 get the remaining 5 sorties on-call. Those 5 don’t launch until an action takes place, since 5 sorties cannot cover all 3 brigades when we don’t know where the enemy will strike.
The Air Operations Center (AOC) then schedules 15 sorties tasked to support Brigade A, and 5 sorties are on alert to launch as needed. This is in accordance with what the ARMY Commander wants, but the Brigade Commanders and everyone below them blame the AOC for ‘refusing’ to support them.
This is just more inter-service exchanges due the never ending DOD money game ........ only idiots plan on tomorrows threats based on yesterdays conflicts !
When the Taliban and Al Qaeda start attacking with fighter jets, bombers and rotor-wing operations against ground forces get back too us about how fooked up the USAF is ..........
Navy and USAF aviation have kept this a ground fight. The USMC and door kickers in the Army have done a great job thus far. Hopefully the leadership of all services aka GATES doesn’t let such BS money games leak down too the troops in the streets .
Just my opinion based on a 26 year career..........Stay safe !
My Navy service didn’t expose me to Army terms. That’s why I ask for a breakdown.,
No problem.
The MQ-9 program sez Gates is a bit off base....
thanks, bfl
Thanks neverdem. The Air Force as it exists today has been constituted to dogfight, perform close air support, and strategic bombing suited to really large convention (and nuclear) war. Those are needed capabilities, but given the expense of manned craft, the future of close air support (and counter-insurgency fighting) lies with UAVs.
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