by DAVID AXE
In April 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the Air Force wasn’t doing enough to help win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s been like pulling teeth,” Gates said of the Air Force’s reluctance to invest more in the Reaper and Predator aerial drones that have proved so useful for finding and killing insurgents. At the time, the Air Force was still hoping to buy 381 F-22 stealth fighters — 200 more than the Pentagon was willing to fund — plus as many as 100 smaller F-35s, per year.
Just two months later, Gates fired the Air Force’s two top officials. In retrospect, it’s clear Gates was removing the biggest obstacles to revamping the Air Force, to better support “Irregular Warfare” (IW) against insurgents and other “asymmetric” threats. In April this year, Gates promised major budgetary shifts to give IW proponents “a place at the table” when it came to divvying up U.S. defense spending.
In quick succession, Gates ended F-22 production, slowed buys of F-35s, boosted the status and production rates on drones, and plowed $700 million into three new, inexpensive airplane types for IW. The results, for the world’s biggest and most capable Air Force, have been dramatic. “A year ago, USAF had a fully funded modernization program. That program has unraveled,” for-profit aerospace consultant Rebecca Grant lamented in the latest Air Force magazine.
But that does not mean the demise of U.S. air power. Far from it. The “new” U.S. Air Force that Gates is creating will be the most capable the world has ever seen, because it will balance conventional fighter jets for state-on-state war, with lower-end capabilities optimized for battling insurgencies — plus a huge, diverse fleet of flexible aerial drones. These forces will blend into a seamless whole for defeating “hybrid” threats that combine high technology with insurgent tactics.
The three new IW planes Gates is funding include:
* The Project Liberty MC-12W, a civilian King Air turboprop fitted with sophisticated sensors and data-links, meant for soaking up vast amounts of imagery and sharing it with other planes, drones and ground forces. The Air Force is buying at least 37, and potentially many more. The first examples are already in service.
* A new, two-seat light fighter, to enter service in 2012. The exact model is yet to be determined, but it’s worth noting that the Navy is already experimenting with Super Tucanos, outfitted with weapons and sensors that “would make an F-16 pilot blush,” according to one Navy source. The Air Force wants 100 of the light planes.
* Sixty examples, by 2012, of a very light airlifter, smaller than the Air Force’s four-engine C-130s — smaller even than the new twin-engine C-27Js. The Air Force already has a tiny force of PC-12s that fit the bill.
Under current plans, the Air Force in a decade’s time will boast:
* 187 F-22s and several hundred F-35s, plus at least another 1,000 modernized F-15s, F-16s and A-10s — probably around 2,000 Air Force fighters, in all
* The same roughly 150 modernized B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers as today
* A diverse strategic airlift force composed of more than 200 C-17s and around 100 modernized C-5s
* A tactical airlift fleet of around 500 planes, mixing C-130s and C-27Js
* The first of several hundred new KC-45 tankers, in addition to today’s KC-135s and KC-10s
* An IW fleet of at least 200 MC-12s, light fighters and small airlifters
* A Special Operations air force of around 100 V-22s and modified C-130s, including dedicated and “modular” gunships
* The same 100 E-3, E-8, RC-135 and U-2 “big” surveillance planes as today, plus around 50 RQ-4 spy drones
* Fifty orbits (totalling around 400 aircraft) of medium, armed drones, mostly MQ-9 Reapers and (probably) Predator C jet-drones, pictured
You’d have to be nuts, or in the pay of fighter manufacturers, to label this force a “crisis,” as Grant does. In reality, Gates’ new Air Force preserves existing strengths, through heavy investment in F-35s and airlifters, while diversifying the force with the addition of IW assets — and hedging against an uncertain future by rapidly advancing the state-of-the-art in drone technology.
It’s the Air Force we need, and one we can afford. There’s just one big question. The Air Staff identifies helicopters as a key aspect of IW, but Gates killed off the Air Force’s only tactical chopper program — and there’s no indication yet that he intends to launch a new one.
(Photo: General Atomics)
Related:
The Amazing, Post-F-35, Photoshopped, Manned Fighters
How to Turn a Drone into a Dogfighter
Surveillance Orbits for From-Scratch Air Forces
Murtha’s Air Force: More F-22s and Tankers, Delayed F-35
What’s Wrong with the F-22?
Raptor Gets Congressional Reprieve
Offiziere.ch: the Emerging U.S. Counter-Insurgency Air Force
Congressional Budget Office’s Plans to Save the Air Force
Air Force Turns a Corner
Gates Budgetpalooza: Air Force Loses Altitude
The Day U.S. Air Power Was Saved from Itself
Related posts:
- Offiziere.ch: U.S. Air Force’s “Failure of Imagination”
- Defense Review Boosts Small Ships, Small Planes, Drones
- Offiziere.ch: Unmanned Option for Future Air Dominance
- Offiziere.ch: Imagining the “Air Force After Next”
- Afghanistan Osprey Crash Sheds Light on Secret NATO Air Force (Updated)
- F-35 Means More Jobs Compared to F-22
- Navy’s New Southern Fleet: No Carrier Needed
Gates doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about air power.
Fighting Operations: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 provide no real value for the defense of the U.S. Being able to blast a country that is acting badly does. This rules out friendly WX light aircraft and drones. Drones that can be jammed out and network denied and various flying things that would not survive 5 minutes in a real air defense.
The bigger question is how much money can we save by not doing useless dirt wars that bleed us in budget. OUD 1 and 2 are now well past the $888 billion mark. For what?
But yeah lets build a dirt war Air Force.
Two points. Grant derives most of her argument off the assumption that the fighter gap will exist due to the disparity between number of A/Cs in inventory vs required for two major war conflict. As it’s been mentioned ad nauseam, this assumption will go away in the coming months.
Depending on how the QDR shapes future conflict a fighter gap could still exists on the navy side if JSF does not improve as a program (likewise it will exacerbate the problem if it slips to the right).
* A new, two-seat light fighter,
* Sixty examples, by 2012, of a very light airlifter
Updated OV 10 Broncos could in part fill both requirements at once. I’d say they are ideal for Afghanistan. Think about it: You put the mail for a small COP in a OV 10 and have it fly along the road to the FOB. If the pilot sees some Talibs planting bombs, he attacks. Then he delivers the mail, and flies back / on to the next FOB. The OV 10 can also transport passengers if needed, and start from flattops. Twin engines make it less vulnerable. Even aerial spraying of poppies would be possible with it (though I think that’s a bad idea in Afg)
And a good chunk of them can easily be sold to Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia in the future when the US doesn’t need all of them anymore.
“The guys who flew the 802 for my company when I was in Colombia loved it – but there were some significant differences in how we faced our mornings. As an OV-10 guy, I knew that I had two engines and an ejection seat, and if I got shot at, at 200 mph, I was likely to end up with 3 or 4 holes in the airplane max, and a pretty reasonable chance of getting back to the house under my own power. The Bronco had what I considered to be a decent amount of redundancy, and on a bad day, you needed all the redundancy you could get.
The 802 guys took off knowing that with their slow ass airspeed and 58 foot wingspan, if they got shot, they were going to continue to get shot until the guy on the ground got tired or ran out of ammo. If one got through the engine blanket, they were committed to stalling it into the jungle canopy and hoping our SAR guys could get there in time. More than once I met my buds at the airplane to see a hollywood-style row of holes punched through the wing, and one guy I know got shot down twice in the space of a month. Slow single engine airplanes aren’t always the best idea over questionable territory.”
http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t15557.html
[...] Gates Saves the Air Force 2009 August 4 tags: F-22 Raptor, Gates, Military Reform by Mike Burleson It wasn’t long ago some were asking the unthinkable-”Do we still need an Air Force“? The Secretary of Defense has rebuffed such a notion over the past year by restoring relevancy to the aging and shrinking force. Here’s David Axe: In April 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the Air Force wasn’t doing enough to help win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s been like pulling teeth,” Gates said of the Air Force’s reluctance to invest more in the Reaper and Predator aerial drones that have proved so useful for finding and killing insurgents. At the time, the Air Force was still hoping to buy 381 F-22 stealth fighters — 200 more than the Pentagon was willing to fund — plus as many as 100 smaller F-35s, per year. [...]
As if this tedious enumeration by Axe of the Airforce 2020 components makes any sense to a non-professional. I’d much rather listen to Air Force senior officers, active and retired, who almost universally support getting more F-22′s (while referring to multiple supporting studies) than to a political appointee with an agenda.
BTW, those 1000 modernized fighters are going to need another life extension to make it another decade. Many of the F-16s will time out by 2017 if an expensive life extension program is not started now. So how many fighters will the much lauded modern AF actually be able to fly and will the mission get accomplished in the future without destroying the rest of the fleet and making the AF go broke?
I say restart the OV-10 line and lets recreate the IW style mission the AF has neglected for years now
Someone wrote: “Updated OV 10 Broncos could in part fill both requirements at once. I’d say they are ideal for Afghanistan.”
_____________
You’d be wrong. Even if the jigs for the aircraft still existed, the OV-10 is very lightly armed and was already underpowered when we stopped using it. Not good for ops in mountainous terrain.
The chosen aircraft will likely be some trainer variant, though what use it will be after Afghanistan is anyone’s guess.
Most of this stuff Gates wants would be dead meat against anyone except tribesmen or narco-terrorists. That’s who we’re fighting today. It’s almost certain we won’t be fighting them in ten years. Maybe not even five.
“[The OV 10] was already underpowered when we stopped using it.”
I was talking about a moderately modernized OV 10 running from new production lines. This should include modern engines with more power using less fuel, armor made of kevlar instead of steel and modern electronics.
“the OV-10 is very lightly armed”
Hunting Taliban etc from the air doesn’t require heavy weaponry. Hellfires + 20 mm gun pod will do.
In the rare cases heavier stuff is needed, call in the A10, B1 etc. The OV 10 wouldn’t replace them, but rather be a supplement to the Apaches …
“would be dead meat against anyone except tribesmen or narco-terrorists.”
The OV 10 did ok in Vietnam from what I’ve read … Infrared countermeasures equipment should of course be added.
“It’s almost certain we won’t be fighting them in ten years.”
I wouldn’t bet on it. I would bet though that the Afghans, Pakistanis, Philippinos, Thais etc will still need these planes in the future. Introduce them now in numbers, and when we are done in Afg, sell or donate 1/3 to our allies, stockpile 1/3 in the Arizona desert for future wars (Somalia?) and keep 1/3 as trainers etc.
All of these drones would be shot down easily by somewhat modern air defense systems. We need to plan for future conflicts not for more Iraq’s and Afganistan’s
[...] #1 (permalink) August 15th, 2009, 10:39 PM Anti-insurgent Warfare; a new market for light aviationmanufacturers? I know that this is very hardly civvy related, and might stoke a few passions, but please, let’s try and leave the politics out of this sort of discussion. I’m just starting this thread because I’m intrigued after reading this blog post by David Axlerod; War Is Boring where he mentions the Air Force buying many low and slow turboprop aircraft, such as; "a civilian King Air turboprop fitted with sophisticated sensors and data-links" and the Navy experimenting with armament-fitted Tucanos. Perhaps a lucrative market for GA manufacturers, or just another thing to let the big guys take care of? Your thoughts, please. And for the record, this is one thing I’m definitely not asking for my own needs; I have no interest in positioning myself for military manufacturing. [...]
[...] Some day some future historian will look back at the Peace Dividend of the 1990s, and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the next decade as what put the nails in the coffin of manned airpower. Having wasted two decades trying to deploy the perfect fighter, the USAF is belatedly playing catch up, likely too late as ancient planes greatly exceed their reasonable lifespans and the drones displace traditional jets in many roles. [...]
[...] It took the firings of two top officials, the truncation or termination of several major acquisitions programs and a heated, months-long political battle, but in the past year or so, U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has successfully reformed the once-hidebound U.S. Air Force. The “new” U.S. Air Force better balances the needs of today’s small, dirty wars against the potential for future, large-scale warfare against another powerful country. [...]
[...] The next Air Force — the one that should be fully formed by around 2025 — won’t be much different than today’s. There will be slightly fewer aircraft, overall. The fighter fleet will be smaller as stealthy F-35s finally replace most of the F-15C and Es, F-16s and A-10s built in the 1980s. There will be more, and more capable, drone aircraft. [...]
[...] It took the firings of two top officials, the truncation or termination of several major acquisitions programs and a heated, months-long political battle, but in the past year or so, U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has successfully reformed the once-hidebound U.S. Air Force. The “new” U.S. Air Force better balances the needs of today’s small, dirty wars against the potential for future, large-scale warfare against another powerful country. [...]
[...] It took the firings of two top officials, the truncation or termination of several major acquisitions programs and a heated, months-long political battle, but in the past year or so, U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has successfully reformed the once-hidebound U.S. Air Force. The “new” U.S. Air Force better balances the needs of today’s small, dirty wars against the potential for future, large-scale warfare against another powerful country. [...]