USAF – Back to the 1950s!

General Mike Hostage, commander of Air Combat Command, made this presentation at Air Force Association’s 2013 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition Sept. 17, 2013, in Washington, D.C. :

http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123363664

An interesting comment was:

Our need to restructure does not eschew the significance of our contributions in the mission areas of ISR and CAS developed in Afghanistan

Rather, it acknowledges the historical parallels between where we are today, with the periods following World War II and Vietnam. Now, as then, it is time for us to restructure…to prioritize programs that allow the CAF to execute full-spectrum operations in highly contested environments. Our Nation’s security demands the CAF maintain these higher-end capabilities and skill sets.

Post WWII

Period post WWII saw massive technical progress but turned out to be incorrect in terms of air warfare doctrine.

The 1950s ended up emphasising Mach 2 (and planned Mach 3) straight line interceptors shooting down nuclear bombers with missiles.

Ground attack function was largely ignored and generally assigned to older aircraft ala F-84s.

When air combat cam into play, it was more maneouvrable fighters using guns and at best WVR missiles.

When TAC went to Nam it found itself in the poo, lacking maneouvrable enough aircraft, gun armed aircraft (F-4C/D), rugged CAS aircraft (they were using F-100s initially and then F-4s and A-7s) and had to relearn the whole CAS C3 system that they learned through hard gains in WWII.

Even tactical interdiction had to be relearned, resulting in massive casualties (e.g. F-105 losses).

USAF was also lacking in COIN tactics, units and equipment as well.

Conflicts engaged in by USAF 1946-1962
Korean War – 1950-53 – not too dissimilar from WWII except with jets!

So period 1946-62 didn’t see USAF engaging in too many shooting wars. It was preparing for WWIII and engaged in deployments to support various Cold War crises (e.g. 1962).

Post Vietnam
These were lessons from actual combat.

The fighters were designed to be super maneouvrable (F-14/-15/-16/-18) while the ground attrack squadrons got the rugged A-10 and focused hard on CAS tactics.

Special Operations/COIN was expanded from relatively ad hoc units to a proper structured force and eventually given an independent Command of it’s own (AFSOC).

Conflicts engaged in by USAF 1962-2013 – excludes special operations, peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions.

Vietnam War – COIN/conventional air warfare.
Grenada – small scale intervention. Next to no actual combat. No IADS/AF.
Panama – small scale intervention. Next to no actual combat. No IADS/AF.
Iraq 1991 – large intervention. IADS/AF present but far lower intensity/duration than Vietnam.
Iraq No Fly Zone – 1991-2003. Limited combat. Heavily degraded IADS/AF.
Bosnia – small intervention – air policing. Limited IADS/AF. No concerted suppression
Iraq 1998 – Limited combat. Heavily degraded IADS/AF.
Kosovo 1999 – large intervention. Degraded/obsolete IADS/AF.
Afghanistan 2001-2013 – COIN intervention. No IADS/AF
Iraq 2003 large intervention. Degraded IADS, no AF
Iraq 2003-2011 – COIN intervention. No IADS/AF
Libya 2011 – Degraded/obsolete IADS/AF.

Post Afghanistan/Iraq

– US reemphasising high tech peer level conventional warfare despite COIN and low tech opponents being most common types of operation and opponent encountered since 1975.

– Forecast Chinese and Russian threat level far lower than Soviet Union (1946-1991).

– Most likely future wars are against low tech opponents (Iran/North Korea/Syria) as well as further COIN/counter terror operations in Pakistan/Yemen/Mali/Somalia etc.

– USAF already looking at scrapping certain COIN/CAS/Army Support fucntions:
a. C-27 fleet scrapped
b. Looking at retiring A-10 (one of the most useful combat aircraft in last 22 years and key component of CAS).
c. Looking at even further reduction of C-130 fleet. C-130’s main utility is supporting Army in ground ops (intra theatre transport)
d. Lowering UAV buys despite their usefulness in recent conflicts and ongoing usage in counter terror ops.

Seems to me the USAF is trying to get out of fighting COIN type ops by restructuring itself into a force dedicated purely to anti-high tech opponent against whom war is unlikely?

And will the USAF be bit in the butt when the next counter insurgency operation has started and they’ve gutted their COIN capability in favour of “full-spectrum operations in highly contested environments.”