The Air Force Has Some Thinking to Do: Airpower and the Future Urban Battlefield

[rangerrebew]

The Air Force Has Some Thinking to Do: Airpower and the Future Urban Battlefield

Heather Venable | February 14, 2020

    The targets . . . just keep getting smaller: individuals, extremists, terrorists, the architects of chaos who disappear in the urban vomit that is the modern city . . . and even with precision, all our options start to look like needles in haystacks.

    — Williamson Murray, “Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003” in A History of Air Warfare (ed. John Andreas Olsen)

 

Anyone following Army outlets such as the Modern War Institute cannot fail to miss the numerous timely pieces being published on urban warfare. Doctrine, study groups, and training exercises supplement this discussion. Although Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein called for the service to prepare for urban battlefields back in 2017, little appears to have been done since then. As such, the Air Force has no similar public discussion to the Army’s, and that is a real problem because, as a range of scholars and military thinkers have argued, war is moving to the cities.

Most of the Air Force’s limited discussion of urban warfare centers on precision weapons as well as the advantages of multi-domain command and control. Goldfein, conceding in 2017 that the Air Force was more prepared for conflict in “open space,” still insisted that the solution for airpower rested primarily in “nodes and networks,” an approach that characterizes Gen. Goldfein’s vision for airpower in general. A more recent article, by contrast,  takes the more traditional approach of some airpower advocates, calling for yet another airpower revolution in technology, this time in the realm of munitions effects. What is missing, though, is a larger operational picture that incorporates ideas and doctrine as much as it does technology.

https://mwi.usma.edu/air-force-thinking-airpower-future-urban-battlefield/

[sneakypete]

The USAF is addicted to high-speed aircraft carrying bombs. High speed and bombs is NOT a good combination in an urban area filled with non-combatants living in high-rise buildings.

Helicopters come a lot closer to filling that role,and the AF gave up on them decades ago. Not swoopy enough and not fast enough.

[EdinVA]

So, we are not supposed to fight to win, just don't knock down the buildings?
A terribly convoluted word salad.  Not sure what this academic is supposed to be advocating or what the authors qualifications are to make an assessment.

Certainly making many assertions that may not necessarily be valid, for example her assumption that the Air Force is not Thinking about this stuff.

[sneakypete]

So, we are not supposed to fight to win, just don't knock down the buildings?
A terribly convoluted word salad.  Not sure what this academic is supposed to be advocating or what the authors qualifications are to make an assessment.

 

@EdinVA

You can fight to win these days without leveling a whole neighborhood to get 6 guys firing a mortar from a rooftop. This ain't WW-2.  We don't need B-52 strikes to take care of things like that. We have armed drones that can do it.

<I>Certainly making many assertions that may not necessarily be valid, for example her assumption that the Air Force is not Thinking about this stuff.</I>


 They did think about this stuff decades ago,and decided things like slow-moving prop aircraft and helicopters weren't sexy enough,so they gave them up. The Army and the USMC got the helicopter jobs,and drones seem to have take over much of the targets that prop planes used to get.

The details of what I heard are fuzzy now,and may not have even been true when I heard them,but what I DID hear was that the USA was stepping on USAF toes by flying aircraft like the Caribou,using army pilots were where usually Warrant Officers because the army didn't really have a commissioned branch for pilots. What I HEARD was that the USAF agreed to quit whining about helicopters being flying machines that should be in the USAF,in exchange for the army giving up most of their fixed wing aircraft. I THINK this was supposed to include the  light observation aircraft so dearly beloved by artillery units,but that gets a little cloudy because I saw both USA warrant officers as well as USAF commissioned officers flying them at various times. I am GUESSING the USA WO's were holdovers being allowed to fly until retirement because they would have been out of a job otherwise.

BTW,the USAF DID have a helicopter unit (I hesitate to use the word "wing") based in Thailand that worked with SOG to infiltrate recon teams into Laos during the VN war. Damn things were even painted a flat blue. IIRC,their unit designation was something with  couple of letters followed by the number 20. The ones I saw were all Modified versions of Huey slicks,with 2 door gunners and rocket pods attached to the skids. I understand they also had some of the older Syskorsky (spelling) helicopters like the Navy used. BIG things with pilot in co-pilot sitting up high in the front,and only one door on the right side for a MG mount and to allow loading and unloading. The big advantage these things had over the Huey's was they didn't need forward momentum to rise up into the air. The pilot could open the throttle,hit the pitch,and you would go straight up into the air like riding an express elevator,but MUCH faster. These were really handy for rescuing shot down pilots in the jungles of Laos,Cambodia,and North VN. We had a VNAF helicopter unit assigned to our camp that flew very similar helos,but theirs were painted in camo and had no numbers. There are a lot of old former SF guys alive today because of the courage and dedication of those SVN helicopter pilots. I'm one of them. They VOLUNTEERED to come get my team out when the US Army aviation unit assigned to do that refused because they considered it to be too dangerous. There had no role at all in that operation. They were just out flying around on a training mission and listening to the radio when they heard what was going on and volunteered to come get us.

[EdinVA]

@EdinVA

You can fight to win these days without leveling a whole neighborhood to get 6 guys firing a mortar from a rooftop. This ain't WW-2.  We don't need B-52 strikes to take care of things like that. We have armed drones that can do it.

@sneakypete
So, we are not going to use an A-10 within striking distance but we will wait an hour or more for a drone to come in from who knows where to save the buildings?
Glad I am not in your army...

[sneakypete]

@sneakypete
So, we are not going to use an A-10 within striking distance but we will wait an hour or more for a drone to come in from who knows where to save the buildings?
Glad I am not in your army...

@EdinVA

I did not say that,but the truth is that it is probably more likely to be armed drones flying around over small unit missions these days than there is to be Warthogs on standby.  The A-10 is by ALL accounts one HELL of a fine close combat support aircraft,but sending in Warthogs to take out a mortar crew,for example,is like using napalm to kill a mosquito. They do their best work with large conventional units,and truthfully,if there is anything in the US military inventory that can replace them and do a better job,I have no idea what it is. Sure,if you need some fire support in a hurry and one happens to be flying by that still has ordinance,give him a shout,but the truth is an armed drone would be as useful,and is MUCH more likely to be circling around on-station when you need that help.

[rangerrebew]

So, we are not going to use an A-10 within striking distance but we will wait an hour or more for a drone to come in from who knows where to save the buildings?
 

The "get rid of the A-10" crowd seems to be revitalized so that may not be an option before long.

[EdinVA]

The "get rid of the A-10" crowd seems to be revitalized so that may not be an option before long.

@rangerrebew@sneakypete
The problem with the AF is they believe that technology will solve everything, that taking a dump truck and putting a lamborgini emblem on it will make it carry unlimited weapons and fly at mach 4....
I would have thought that after the AF adopted the F-15 for air superiority, A-10 for close air support and the F-16 for tactical weapons delivery and the 3 have, without question, have been excellent at their respective tasks.  The AF should have gotten the message that a general purpose machine, no matter the technology we cram into it, will not perform any task well.  We don't seem to take force protection as seriously as we should.  These are our kids and grand kids fighting this crap for us and ANY consideration other than making sure they are successful and come home safe is contrary to the mission, especially worrying about a building.
My 2 cents... keep the change.. lol

[sneakypete]

@rangerrebew@sneakypete
The problem with the AF is they believe that technology will solve everything, that taking a dump truck and putting a lamborgini emblem on it will make it carry unlimited weapons and fly at mach 4....
I would have thought that after the AF adopted the F-15 for air superiority, A-10 for close air support and the F-16 for tactical weapons delivery and the 3 have, without question, have been excellent at their respective tasks.  The AF should have gotten the message that a general purpose machine, no matter the technology we cram into it, will not perform any task well.  We don't seem to take force protection as seriously as we should.  These are our kids and grand kids fighting this crap for us and ANY consideration other than making sure they are successful and come home safe is contrary to the mission, especially worrying about a building.
My 2 cents... keep the change.. lol

@EdinVA

Maybe it is my own infantry grunt bias,but the USAF has always struck me as thinking they are smarter than everyone else,and gentlemen to boot. Probably because they have so many officers and they all seem to take the "fighter pilot mystique" thing too seriously.

I think if the infantry has anything to say about it,the A-10 is going to be around for a long,long time. If the USAF decides to give up the ground support role and focus on being the Space Force they are likely to find themselves a MUCH smaller force as the Army takes over it's own ground support using attack helicopters. After all,it's not like the army will have any choice.