Here's your jets, Army. Keep them short of the FSCL/FLOT at all times. Have a nice day.
I know what you're saying, and its truth. I do think that we could train them to integrate; be something new for them, but doable.
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A-10 to be retired.
- Thread starter ozziecat35
- Start date
Here's your jets, Army. Keep them short of the FSCL/FLOT at all times. Have a nice day.
I know what you're saying, and its truth. I do think that we could train them to integrate; be something new for them, but doable.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
"There are two types of people in the military, Infantry those that support the Infantry."
"The only justification for military aviation is it's support of the infantry" A. A. Cunningham, 1st Marine Aviatior
There may be no single aircraft that is critical, but there are missions that are critical. Ultimately, the only mission that matters at all is CAS. All other missions exist only to support CAS and tactical resupply. Air superiority is important, but only to the point that it allows friendly CAS, and stops enemy CAS.
They may have to learn quickly. Helicopter gunships only came about in desperation due to the lack of effective CAS assets in Vietnam. The original Cobras were a crash program to build a better version of the Huey gunship. Air Force pilots did their best to provide CAS with supersonic interceptors, but they did not have the proper tools to accomplish that mission. The only effective CAS aircraft in Vietnam was the A-1 Skyraider, another obsolete aircraft.
"The only justification for military aviation is it's support of the infantry" A. A. Cunningham, 1st Marine Aviatior
There may be no single aircraft that is critical, but there are missions that are critical. Ultimately, the only mission that matters at all is CAS. All other missions exist only to support CAS and tactical resupply. Air superiority is important, but only to the point that it allows friendly CAS, and stops enemy CAS.
They may have to learn quickly. Helicopter gunships only came about in desperation due to the lack of effective CAS assets in Vietnam. The original Cobras were a crash program to build a better version of the Huey gunship. Air Force pilots did their best to provide CAS with supersonic interceptors, but they did not have the proper tools to accomplish that mission. The only effective CAS aircraft in Vietnam was the A-1 Skyraider, another obsolete aircraft.
Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
Given that CAS requires a low-speed, maneuverable, heavily armed aircraft with little risk to a human pilot, I think a drone variant similar to an A-10 is the way to go. A smaller, stealthier drone would also have longer loiter time.
Give the Army a drone that can deploy Hellfires AND a gun and you're in business. Add in sparkle recognition and strobes/transponders for the good guys and that's all you need.
Give the Army a drone that can deploy Hellfires AND a gun and you're in business. Add in sparkle recognition and strobes/transponders for the good guys and that's all you need.
The Fez
Analog Millennial
Here's your jets, Army. Keep them short of the FSCL/FLOT at all times. Have a nice day.
I know what you're saying, and its truth. I do think that we could train them to integrate; be something new for them, but doable.
Just tell the hell-bent Hog drivers that if they want to keep flying it, they'll have to do so wearing Army green. Boy, will the field-graders be surprised when they're shown their new desks in a staff building. But none will be more surprised than the lucky Captain who just became the squadron commander.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's always been about compromises. In the case of the A-10 retirement, we've lost a CAS asset without a strong alternative, near-term or long-term. Maybe we are less enthusiastic about boots on the ground in the wake of failed nation-building efforts.
There is a tendency to preach doom and gloom when an airframe is retired. Compromises are made, some capabilities are improved and some are diminished.
In the case of the Navy over the last 25 years, the strike package got faster and more accurate. The downside is that it lost range (remedied to some extent by the SuperBug) and a heavy-hitter (A-6, A-12 program). It also lost in-service tanking capability. As much as anything, I'm still concerned about our loss of ASW capability. At what point did we stop fearing attack submarines and a dozen cruise missiles headed for a carrier? I guess those questions faded with the Cold War.
Who knows what the next war will look like?
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
The Fez
Analog Millennial
The problem is building a "small" UAV that can carry the amount of munitions to take the place of the Hog. The next best thing, the MQ-9 Reaper, is about the size of an F-16. It has a much smaller payload, and no gun.
Gun employment also means getting much closer to a target than weapon-carrying UAV's currently get. I highly doubt that a fixed-axis gun would be used. Something like the Apache's M230 Chain Gun, that can swivel, is more likely to be fitted to a UAV. Assuming they use that particular gun, the max effective range is around 4500 meters. That's actually pretty close on a battlefield.
UAV's can do CAS. They just can't do it like the A-10 can. That's why I think this debate has gotten as much attention as it has. To the soldiers on the ground, it appears as if Big Blue could give a damn about them, as long as they get their shiny new jet.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Even if you turned the A-10 into a UAV, I'm not sure how effective it would be at CAS. Not sure if @MikeD would agree, but CAS can be a very visual game, especially when you are dealing with the softest of targets. It's tough to beat a human's head on a swivel.
Hitting a fixed target or a target moving down a road with a missile is one thing, putting canon fire on a target tracking perpendicular to you would be tough with the latency UAV pilots deal with.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
As it get more and more difficult politically to put feet on the ground, I'm not so sure.
ryan1234
Desensitized Member
I think that may be true in some situations... but terrorism and nuclear war; ICBMs, Long-Range bombers, etc ultimately transcended warfare beyond the CAS / FLOT. If warfare was specifically about occupying territory, then yes, it would be the 'core' mission. But, that just isn't the case now.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Eh? The only military aviation mission that "matters at all is CAS"? All other missions only exist to support CAS and tactical resupply? Uuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh, no.
Certainly a lot of airpower that is used during a conflict that involves fielded forces ultimately does exist to support ground troops both directly and indirectly, and in that scenario the CAS assets are the pointiest of the pointy spear....but there are lots of military missions and objectives that can be achieved without boots on the ground or people occupying territory, and those objectives can be achieved with airpower. Those missions do not exist to directly or indirectly support fielded forces.
Sorry, but it is this type of limited worldview that is exactly the reason why the AF exists as a separate service, and combat airpower a separate military discipline than land warfare.
The Fez
Analog Millennial
I think the MQ-10 would be a terrible idea...in fact, any CAS-only UAV would be a terrible idea.
The single biggest obstacle to UAV's being successful in these kinds of ops is the lack of basic visual information. Looking through a camera in a sensor ball is the epitome of "looking through a soda straw". There are several systems that try to work around this limit, but none so easily digestible to the mind as what you can look out the window and see.
Having worked in UAV's, I'll tell you that there were several instances when we realized that friendlies or civilians were MUCH closer to the target than what we were told. But because we were stuck with what we were told instead of what we could look around and see (in what I did, you didn't come off target unless you were cleared to) we blindly went ahead with the strike.
There is simply no replacement for a person with the Mark I eyeball looking down on a fight. You can come close, but you can't replace it.
Also, a UAV is more than capable of hitting every target you listed. It's being able to hit that target and nothing else...if you can see anything else.
You know the reason UAV's get the bad rap for all the collateral damage in Afghanitan and Pakistan? Because they cause it. That doesn't sit well with me in the CAS role.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
Coming from the Jarhead point of view, I disagree.
The USAF's concept that the air war is separate from the ground war is why the USMC has retained it's air wing. This despite the hideous cost of maintaining the worlds 12th largest air force just to support 3 divisions of light infantry. Marine pilots "waste" 6 months of their training pipeline learning to be infantry so that they know why they have a job.
The Marines deploy and operate as an organic unit of infantry, armor, arty, support, and aviation because none of these alone is enough. The AV-8B is a perfect example of this, it's a lousy combat aircraft, but having 6 mediocre fighters here and now is much better than having a wing of 5th gen aircraft in 48 hours.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Given the relative difficulty of strafe in CAS -- especially Danger Close -- and the time delay in the current satellite control methodology, I don't see a time in the near future when anything other than a laser-guided or GPS/inertial-guided standoff weapon is used to support ground commanders.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Precisely my point.
Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
They did it all the time in Iraq. They used to use them to patrol the FOBs when I was there, all the time. After the loiter time burned out the Apache guys in 03/04, they started putting up Predators all the time.
I think you're right about fixed axis, as the entire point of that is that asking a human pilot to shoot anything but straight forward could be a little demanding- not to mention impractical in a fixed wing airplane. As for the MQ-9, I don't know much about it, but you really don't need too large a payload to do CAS. Loiter time would seem to be a much more useful aspect. Come down, rain fire or drop relatively light antipersonnel munitions and return to loiter altitude. Done.
The thing that would really make a drone good at CAS would be that it could designed from the ground up to do that. None of the existing fixed-wing airframes- the A-10 included- were really designed with CAS in mind. Maybe the F-15E was intended- but that's a redesign from an interdiction jet. The mission almost always seemed to be an afterthought. True CAS is about putting something in firing position that can delivery heavy ordinance on demand. A Predator with a Hellfire can do that now. Imagine what they could do with a little innovation.
Firebird2XC
Well-Known Member
Then give the troops sparkle with a fire capability. Relay signal and let the troop commanders put the weapons on target. The OH-58/AH-64 link up lets one aircraft designate and hand off to another to shoot. Why not something similar?
... or better yet- rather than have some dude in a trailer, put FACs into play and let them hand off the CAS drone?
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure I agree. Much of the success the UAV's have had is due to the fact that their mission is almost the opposite of CAS.
CAS is a response to a dynamic battlefield. The targets may be many and priority is based on immediate threat, subject to change.
Most UAV attacks have been against well defined targets (or well described and defined targets of opportunity) that are often soft and stationary. Most UAV attack profiles are soft and benefit from the element of surprise.
Scrub a UAV mission, nothing is lost. Scrub a CAS sortie and folks on the ground die.
Bad rap for collateral damage? Well, we are targeting civilians living among civilians based on dubious intelligence. We are also seeing an expansion of what I think is a disturbing trend. Instead of using UAV's for tactical reasons (stealth, cost, crew survivability), they are being used for political reasons (milder protest, no POW's, etc.).
