Tag Multi-Domain Battle

Is The End Of Stealth Neigh?

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor [Creative Commons]

Michael Peck made an interesting catch over at The National Interest. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting input on potentially disruptive technologies for future warfare. With regard to air warfare, the solicitation baldy states, “Platform stealth may be approaching physical limits.” This led Peck to ask “Did the Pentagon just admit that stealth technology may not work anymore?”

A couple of years ago, a media report that the Chinese had claimed a technological breakthrough in stealth-busting quantum radar capabilities led me to muse about the possible repercussions on U.S. military capabilities. This was during the height of the technology-rooted Third Offset Strategy mania. It seemed to me at the time that concentrating on technological solutions to the U.S.’s strategic challenges might not be the wisest course of action.

The notion that stealth might be a wasting asset seemed somewhat far-fetched when I wrote that, but it appears to have become a much more serious concern. As the DARPA solicitation states, “Our acquisition system is finding it difficult to respond on relevant timescales to adversary progress, which has made the search for next generation capabilities at once more urgent and more futile.” (p. 5)

Er, yikes.

SINKEX

U.S.S. Racine, serving as a target ship for a sinking exercise on 12 July 2018. [YouTube Screencap/The Drive]

The U.S. Navy has uploaded video of a recent sinking exercise (SINKEX) conducted during the 2018 Rim Of The Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, hosted bi-annually by the U.S. Pacific Fleet based in Honolulu, Hawaii. As detailed by Tyler Rogoway in The Drive, the target of the SINKEX on 12 July 2018 was the U.S.S. Racine, a Newport class Landing Ship-Tank amphibious ship decommissioned 25 years ago.

As dramatic as the images are, the interesting thing about this demonstration was that it included a variety of land-based weapons firing across domains to strike a naval target. The U.S. Army successfully fired a version of the Naval Strike Missile that it is interested in acquiring, as well as a half-dozen High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System [HIMARS] rounds.Japanese troops fired four Type 12 land-based anti-ship missiles at the Racine as well. For good measure, an Australian P-8 Poseidon also hit the target with an air-launched AGM-84 Harpoon.

The coup de gras was provided by a Mk-48 torpedo launched from the Los Angeles class nuclear fast attack submarine USS Olympia, which broke the Racine‘s back and finally sank it an hour later.

Recent Developments In “Game Changing” Precision Fires Technology

Nammo’s new 155mm Solid Fuel Ramjet projectile [The Drive]

From the “Build A Better Mousetrap” files come a couple of new developments in precision fires technology. The U.S. Army’s current top modernization priority is improving its long-range precision fires capabilities.

Joseph Trevithick reports in The Drive that Nammo, a Norwegian/Finnish aerospace and defense company, recently revealed that it is developing a solid-fueled, ramjet-powered, precision projectile capable of being fired from the ubiquitous 155mm howitzer. The projectile, which is scheduled for live-fire testing in 2019 or 2020, will have a range of more than 60 miles.

The Army’s current self-propelled and towed 155mm howitzers have a range of 12 miles using standard ammunition, and up to 20 miles with rocket-powered munitions. Nammo’s ramjet projectile could effectively double that, but the Army is also looking into developing a new 155mm howitzer with a longer barrel that could fully exploit the capabilities of Nammo’s ramjet shell and other new long-range precision munitions under development.

Anna Ahronheim has a story in The Jerusalem Post about a new weapon developed by the Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. called the FireFly. FireFly is a small, three-kilogram, loitering munition designed for use by light ground maneuver forces to deliver precision fires against enemy forces in cover. Similar to a drone, FireFly can hover for up to 15 minutes before delivery.

In a statement, Rafael claimed that “Firefly will essentially eliminate the value of cover and with it, the necessity of long-drawn-out firefights. It will also make obsolete the old infantry tactic of firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy hiding behind cover.”

Nammo and Rafael have very high hopes for their wares:

“This [155mm Solid Fuel Ramjet] could be a game-changer for artillery,” according to Thomas Danbolt, Vice President of Nammo’s Large Caliber Ammunitions division.

“The impact of FireFly on the infantry is revolutionary, fundamentally changing small infantry tactics,” Rafael has asserted.

Expansive claims for the impact of new technology are not new, of course. Oribtal ATK touted its XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) precision-guided grenade launcher along familiar lines, claiming that “The introduction of the XM25 is akin to other revolutionary systems such as the machine gun, the airplane and the tank, all of which changed battlefield tactics.”

Similar in battlefield effect to the FireFly, the Army cancelled its contract for the XM25 in 2017 after disappointing results in field tests.

UPDATE: For clarity’s sake, let me re-up my contrarian take:

Will This Weapon Change Infantry Warfare Forever? Maybe, But Probably Not

Should The Marines Take Responsibility For Counterinsurgency?

United States Marines in Nacaragua with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino, 1932. [Wikipedia]

Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr recently reported in Breaking Defense that the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), led by chairman Senator John McCain, has asked Defense Secretary James Mattis to report on progress toward preparing the U.S. armed services to carry out the recently published National Defense Strategy oriented toward potential Great Power conflict.

Among a series of questions that challenge existing service roles and missions, Freedberg reported that the SASC wants to know if responsibility for carrying out “low-intensity missions,” such as counterinsurgency, should be the primary responsibility of one service:

Make the Marines a counterinsurgency force? The Senate starts by asking whether the military “would benefit from having one Armed Force dedicated primarily to low-intensity missions, thereby enabling the other Armed Forces to focus more exclusively on advanced peer competitors.” It quickly becomes clear that “one Armed Force” means “the Marines.” The bill questions the Army’s new Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and suggest shifting that role to the Marines. It also questions the survivability of Navy-Marine flotillas in the face of long-range sensors and precision missiles — so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems — and asked whether the Marines’ core mission, “amphibious forced entry operations,” should even “remain an enduring mission for the joint force” given the difficulties. It suggests replacing large-deck amphibious ships, which carry both Marine aircraft and landing forces, with small aircraft carriers that could carry “larger numbers of more diverse strike aircraft” (but not amphibious vehicles or landing craft). Separate provisions of the bill restrict spending on the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle (Sec. 221) and the future Amphibious Combat Vehicle (Sec. 128) until the Pentagon addresses the viability of amphibious landings.

This proposed change would drastically shift the U.S. Marine Corps’ existing role and missions, something that will inevitably generate political and institutional resistance. Deemphasizing the ability to execute amphibious forced entry operations would be both a difficult strategic choice and an unpalatable political decision to fundamentally alter the Marine Corps’ institutional identity. Amphibious warfare has defined the Marines since the 1920s. It would, however, be a concession to the reality that technological change is driving the evolving character of warfare.

Perhaps This Is Not A Crazy Idea After All

The Marine Corps also has a long history with so-called “small wars”: contingency operations and counterinsurgencies. Tasking the Marines as the proponents for low-intensity conflict would help alleviate one of the basic conundrums facing U.S. land power: the U.S. Army’s inability to optimize its force structure due to the strategic need to be prepared to wage both low-intensity conflict and conventional combined arms warfare against peer or near peer adversaries. The capabilities needed for waging each type of conflict are diverging, and continuing to field a general purpose force is running an increasing risk of creating an Army dangerously ill-suited for either. Giving the Marine Corps responsibility for low-intensity conflict would permit the Army to optimize most of its force structure for combined arms warfare, which poses the most significant threat to American national security (even if it less likely than potential future low-intensity conflicts).

Making the Marines the lead for low-intensity conflict would also play to another bulwark of its institutional identity, as the world’s premier light infantry force (“Every Marine is a rifleman”). Even as light infantry becomes increasingly vulnerable on modern battlefields dominated by the lethality of long-range precision firepower, its importance for providing mass in irregular warfare remains undiminished. Technology has yet to solve the need for large numbers of “boots on the ground” in counterinsurgency.

The crucial role of manpower in counterinsurgency makes it somewhat short-sighted to follow through with the SASC’s suggestions to eliminate the Army’s new Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and to reorient Special Operations Forces (SOF) toward support for high-intensity conflict. As recent, so-called “hybrid warfare” conflicts in Lebanon and the Ukraine have demonstrated, future battlefields will likely involve a mix of combined arms and low-intensity warfare. It would be risky to assume that Marine Corps’ light infantry, as capable as they are, could tackle all of these challenges alone.

Giving the Marines responsibility for low-intensity conflict would not likely require a drastic change in force structure. Marines could continue to emphasize sea mobility and littoral warfare in circumstances other than forced entry. Giving up the existing large-deck amphibious landing ships would be a tough concession, admittedly, one that would likely reduce the Marines’ effectiveness in responding to contingencies.

It is not likely that a change as big as this will be possible without a protracted political and institutional fight. But fresh thinking and drastic changes in the U.S.’s approach to warfare are going to be necessary to effectively address both near and long-term strategic challenges.

Senate Armed Service Committee Proposes Far-Reaching Changes To U.S. Military

Senate Armed Services Committee members (L-R) Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (R-RI) listen to testimony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill July 11, 2017 in Washington, D.C. [CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images]

In an article in Breaking Defense last week, Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr. pointed out that the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has requested that Secretary of Defense James Mattis report back by 1 February 2019 on what amounts to “the most sweeping reevaluation of the military in 30 years, with tough questions for all four armed services but especially the Marine Corps.”

Freedberg identified SASC chairman Senator John McCain as the motivating element behind the report, which is part of the draft 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. It emphasizes the initiative to reorient the U.S. military away from its nearly two-decade long focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism to prioritizing preparation for potential future Great Power conflict, as outlined in Mattis’s recently published National Defense Strategy. McCain sees this shift taking place far too slowly according to Freedberg, who hints that Mattis shares this concern.

While the SASC request addresses some technological issues, its real focus is on redefining the priorities, missions, and force structures of the armed forces (including special operations forces) in the context of the National Defense Strategy.

The changes it seeks are drastic. According to Freedberg, among the difficult questions it poses are:

  • Make the Marines a counterinsurgency force? [This would greatly help alleviate the U.S. Army’s current strategic conundrum]
  • Make the Army heavier, with fewer helicopters?
  • Refocus Special Operations against Russia and China?
  • Rely less on stealth aircraft and more on drones?

Each of these questions relates directly to trends associated with the multi-domain battle and operations concepts the U.S. armed services are currently jointly developing in response to threats posed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian military advances.

It is clear that the SASC believes that difficult choices with far-reaching consequences are needed to adequately prepare to meet these challenges. The armed services have been historically resistant to changes involving trade-offs, however, especially ones that touch on service budgets and roles and missions. It seems likely that more than a report will be needed to push through changes deemed necessary by the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and the Secretary of Defense.

Read more of Freedberg’s article here.

The draft 2019 National Defense Authorization Act can be found here, and the SASC questions can be found in Section 1041 beginning on page 478.

Dupuy’s Verities: The Power Of Defense

Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814. [Wikimedia]

The second of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is:

Defensive strength is greater than offensive strength.

From Understanding War (1987):

[Prussian military theorist, Carl von] Clausewitz expressed this: “Defense is the stronger form of combat.” It is possible to demonstrate by the qualitative comparison of many battles that Clausewitz is right and that posture has a multiplicative effect on the combat power of a military force that takes advantage of terrain and fortifications, whether hasty and rudimentary, or intricate and carefully prepared. There are many well-known examples of the need of an attacker for a preponderance of strength in order to carry the day against a well-placed and fortified defender. One has only to recall Thermopylae, the Alamo, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, and El Alamein to realize the advantage enjoyed by a defender with smaller forces, well placed, and well protected. [p. 2]

The advantages of fighting on the defensive and the benefits of cover and concealment in certain types of terrain have long been basic tenets in military thinking. Dupuy, however, considered defensive combat posture and defensive value of terrain not just to be additive, but combat power multipliers, or circumstantial variables of combat that when skillfully applied and exploited, the effects of which could increase the overall fighting capability of a military force.

The statement [that the defensive is the stronger form of combat] implies a comparison of relative strength. It is essentially scalar and thus ultimately quantitative. Clausewitz did not attempt to define the scale of his comparison. However, by following his conceptual approach it is possible to establish quantities for this comparison. Depending upon the extent to which the defender has had the time and capability to prepare for defensive combat, and depending also upon such considerations as the nature of the terrain which he is able to utilize for defense, my research tells me that the comparative strength of defense to offense can range from a factor with a minimum value of about 1.3 to maximum value of more than 3.0. [p. 26]

The values Dupuy established for posture and terrain based on historical combat experience were as follows:

For example, Dupuy calculated that mounting even a hasty defense in rolling, gentle terrain with some vegetation could increase a force’s combat power by more than 50%. This is a powerful effect, achievable without the addition of any extra combat capability.

It should be noted that these values are both descriptive, in terms of defining Dupuy’s theoretical conception of the circumstantial variables of combat, as well as factors specifically calculated for use in his combat models. Some of these factors have found their way into models and simulations produced by others and some U.S. military doctrinal publications, usually without attribution and shorn of explanatory context. (A good exploration of the relationship between the values Dupuy established for the circumstantial variables of combat and his combat models, and the pitfalls of applying them out of context can be found here.)

While the impact of terrain on combat is certainly an integral part of current U.S. Army thinking at all levels, and is constantly factored into combat planning and assessment, its doctrine does not explicitly acknowledge the classic Clausewitzian notion of a power disparity between the offense and defense. Nor are the effects of posture or terrain thought of as combat multipliers.

However, the Army does implicitly recognize the advantage of the defensive through its stubbornly persistent adherence to the so-called 3-1 rule of combat. Its version of this (which the U.S. Marine Corps also uses) is described in doctrinal publications as “historical minimum planning ratios,” which proscribe that a 3-1 advantage in numerical force ratio is necessary for an attacker to defeat a defender in a prepared or fortified position. Overcoming a defender in a hasty defense posture requires a 2.5-1 force ratio advantage. The force ratio advantages the Army considers necessary for decisive operations are even higher. While the 3-1 rule is a deeply problematic construct, the fact that is the only quantitative planning factor included in current doctrine reveals a healthy respect for the inherent power of the defensive.

Dupuy’s Verities: Offensive Action

Sheridan’s final charge at Winchester by Thune de Thulstrup (ca. 1886) [Library of Congress]

The first of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is:

Offensive action is essential to positive combat results.

As he explained in Understanding War (1987):

This is like saying, “A team can’t score in football unless it has the ball.” Although subsequent verities stress the strength, value, and importance of defense, this should not obscure the essentiality of offensive action to ultimate combat success. Even in instances where a defensive strategy might conceivably assure a favorable war outcome—as was the case of the British against Napoleon, and as the Confederacy attempted in the American Civil War—selective employment of offensive tactics and operations is required if the strategic defender is to have any chance of final victory. [pp. 1-2]

The offensive has long been a staple element of the principles of war. From the 1954 edition of the U.S. Army Field Manual FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations:

71. Offensive

Only offensive action achieves decisive results. Offensive action permits the commander to exploit the initiative and impose his will on the enemy. The defensive may be forced on the commander, but it should be deliberately adopted only as a temporary expedient while awaiting an opportunity for offensive action or for the purpose of economizing forces on a front where a decision is not sought. Even on the defensive the commander seeks every opportunity to seize the initiative and achieve decisive results by offensive action. [Original emphasis]

Interestingly enough, the offensive no longer retains its primary place in current Army doctrinal thought. The Army consigned its list of the principles of war to an appendix in the 2008 edition of FM 3-0 Operations and omitted them entirely from the 2017 revision. As the current edition of FM 3-0 Operations lays it out, the offensive is now placed on the same par as the defensive and stability operations:

Unified land operations are simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities’ tasks to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative to shape the operational environment, prevent conflict, consolidate gains, and win our Nation’s wars as part of unified action (ADRP 3-0)…

At the heart of the Army’s operational concept is decisive action. Decisive action is the continuous, simultaneous combinations of offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks (ADRP 3-0). During large-scale combat operations, commanders describe the combinations of offensive, defensive, and stability tasks in the concept of operations. As a single, unifying idea, decisive action provides direction for an entire operation. [p. I-16; original emphasis]

It is perhaps too easy to read too much into this change in emphasis. On the very next page, FM 3-0 describes offensive “tasks” thusly:

Offensive tasks are conducted to defeat and destroy enemy forces and seize terrain, resources, and population centers. Offensive tasks impose the commander’s will on the enemy. The offense is the most direct and sure means of seizing and exploiting the initiative to gain physical and cognitive advantages over an enemy. In the offense, the decisive operation is a sudden, shattering action that capitalizes on speed, surprise, and shock effect to achieve the operation’s purpose. If that operation does not destroy or defeat the enemy, operations continue until enemy forces disintegrate or retreat so they no longer pose a threat. Executing offensive tasks compels an enemy to react, creating or revealing additional weaknesses that an attacking force can exploit. [p. I-17]

The change in emphasis likely reflects recent U.S. military experience where decisive action has not yielded much in the way of decisive outcomes, as is mentioned in FM 3-0’s introduction. Joint force offensives in 2001 and 2003 “achieved rapid initial military success but no enduring political outcome, resulting in protracted counterinsurgency campaigns.” The Army now anticipates a future operating environment where joint forces can expect to “work together and with unified action partners to successfully prosecute operations short of conflict, prevail in large-scale combat operations, and consolidate gains to win enduring strategic outcomes” that are not necessarily predicated on offensive action alone. We may have to wait for the next edition of FM 3-0 to see if the Army has drawn valid conclusions from the recent past or not.

U.S. Army Invests In Revitalizing Long Range Precision Fires Capabilities

U.S. Marines from the The 11th MEU fire their M777 Lightweight 155mm Howitzer during Exercise Alligator Dagger, Dec. 18, 2016. (U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Zachery C. Laning/Military.com)

In 2016, Michael Jacobson and Robert H. Scales amplified a warning that after years of neglect during the counterinsurgency war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. was falling behind potential adversaries in artillery and long range precision fires capabilities. The U.S. Army had already taken note of the performance of Russian artillery in Ukraine, particularly the strike at Zelenopillya in 2014.

Since then, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have started working on a new Multi-Domain Battle concept aimed at countering the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities of potential foes. In 2017, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley made rapid improvement in long range precision fires capabilities the top priority for the service’s modernization effort. It currently aims to field new field artillery, rocket, and missile weapons capable of striking at distances from 70 to 500 kilometers – double the existing ranges – within five years.

The value of ground-based long-range precision fires has been demonstrated recently by the effectiveness of U.S. artillery support, particularly U.S. Army and Marine Corps 155mm howitzers, for Iraqi security forces in retaking Mosul, Syrian Democratic Forces assaulting Raqaa, and in protection of Syrian Kurds being attacked by Russian mercenaries and Syrian regime forces.

According to Army historian Luke O’Brian, the Fiscal Year 2019 Defense budget includes funds to buy 28,737 XM1156 Precision Guided Kit (PGK) 155mm howitzer munitions, which includes replacements for the 6,269 rounds expended during Operation INHERENT RESOLVE. O’Brian also notes that the Army will also buy 2,162 M982 Excalibur 155mm rounds in 2019 and several hundred each in following years.

In addition, in an effort to reduce the dependence on potentially vulnerable Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite networks for precision fires capabilities, the Army has awarded a contract to BAE Systems to develop Precision Guided Kit-Modernization (PGK-M) rounds with internal navigational capacity.

While the numbers appear large at first glance, data on U.S. artillery expenditures in Operation DESERT STORM and IRAQI FREEDOM (also via Luke O’Brian) shows just how much the volume of long-range fires has changed just since 1991. For the U.S. at least, precision fires have indeed replaced mass fires on the battlefield.

TDI Friday Read: Links You May Have Missed, 30 March 2018

This week’s list of links is an odds-and-ends assortment.

David Vergun has an interview with General Stephen J. Townshend, commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) on the Army website about the need for smaller, lighter, and faster equipment for future warfare.

Defense News’s apparently inexhaustible Jen Judson details the Army’s newest forthcoming organization, “US Army’s Futures Command sets groundwork for battlefield transformation.”

At West Point’s Modern War Institute, Army Lionel Beehner, Liam Collins, Steve Ferenzi, Robert Person and Aaron Brantly have a very interesting analysis of the contemporary Russian approach to warfare, “Analyzing the Russian Way of War: Evidence from the 2008 Conflict with Georgia.”

Also at the Modern War Institute, Ethan Olberding examines ways to improve the planning skills of the U.S. Army’s junior leaders, “You Can Lead, But Can You Plan? Time to Change the Way We Develop Junior Leaders.”

Kyle Mizokami at Popular Mechanics takes a look at the state of the art in drone defenses, “Watch Microwave and Laser Weapons Knock Drones Out of the Sky.”

Jared Keller at Task & Purpose looks into the Army’s interest in upgunning its medium-weight armored vehicles, “The Army Is Eyeing This Beastly 40mm Cannon For Its Ground Combat Vehicles.”

And finally, MeritTalk, a site focused on U.S. government information technology, has posted a piece, “Pentagon Wants An Early Warning System For Hybrid Warfare,” looking at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) ambitious Collection and Monitoring via Planning for Active Situational Scenarios (COMPASS) program, which will incorporate AI, game theory, modeling, and estimation technologies to attempt to decipher the often subtle signs that precede a full-scale attack.

Aerial Combined Arms

In a previous post, I quoted Jules Hurst’s comparison between the medieval knights of old and modern day fighter pilots. His point was that the future of aerial combat will feature more combined arms. This I agree with; the degree of specialization that will be seen in the future will increase, although our ability to predict what this will be is uncertain. Hurst’s second point, that today’s aerial combat is akin to jousting and jovial knights looking to independently take down foes, I do not agree with at all.

Last night, I watched the History Channel documentary “Dogfights of Desert Storm,” a wonderful summary of several selected dogfights from the first Gulf War (1991, US and coalition vs Iraq), which included:

1. A furball between an unarmed EF-111 and a Mirage F1. Eventually, an F-15C came to the rescue, but the EF-111 crew was apparently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for its actions that day. Ultimately, the F1 hit the ground, and the F-15C got the credit.

2. A complex dogfight between a flight of two F-15Cs against 2 Mig-25s and 2 Mig-29s. This was a hairy affair, with lots of maneuver. The MiG-25s were able to decoy many heat-seeking AIM-9’s, so the AIM-7 radar guided missiles needed to be used to shoot them down.

[As previously reported, an F/A-18F had problems trying to down a Syrian Su-22 Fitter with an AIM-9 missile due to the effectiveness of Russian-made flares and had to resort to an AIM-120 radar-guided missile. Also a strategy from Soviet days, the preference to carry more than one type of seeker types seems to be quite good advice. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has traditionally adhered to the concept of a beyond visual range (BVR) medium range, radar guided missile, the AIM-7 and the AIM-120 successor. This coupled with the short range AIM-9 infrared missile. The gap that this leaves is the long range, infrared guided missile.]

3. A well-run dogfight pitting a flight of four F-15Cs vs. a flight of four F-1s. Of the F-1s, one turned back to base, either for fear, prudence, or mechanical difficulty, it is difficult to say. The three other F-1s were all downed by AIM-7 missiles, fired at beyond visual range. What was noted about this engagement was the patience of the USAF flight leader, who did not immediately lock-on to the F-1s, in order to avoid triggering their radar warning receivers (RWR), and giving up the element of surprise by notifying them of the impending attack.

The statistic given was that 60% of the aerial victories in the entire conflict were from BVR.

The coalition’s triumph was an emphatic boost for current air war strategy. Multiple aircraft with specific roles working on concert to achieve victory. Air war in 1990, as it is today, is a team sport.” Multiple weapons disrupted the Iraqi capability to deal with it. It was information overload. They could not deal with the multiple successive strikes, and the fact that their radars went offline, and their command and control was shut down … jamming … deception – it was like having essentially a ‘war nervous breakdown’. (emphasis added).

Larry Pitts, a USAF F-15C Eagle pilot (retired), said

aerial victory against an enemy airplane was a career highlight for me. It’s something that I’ll never be able to beat, but you know in my mind, I did what any fighter pilot would have done if any enemy fighter had been put in front of him. I relied on my training, I engaged the airplane, protected my wingman as he protected me, and came out of it alive.

One key element in all of the combat recounted by the USAF pilots was the presence of airborne early warning aircraft, at the time the E-3C Sentry. Indeed, this form of combined arms—which is effectively an augmentation of a fighter pilot’s sensors—has been around for a surprisingly long time.

  • In February 1944, the United States Navy (USN), under Project Cadillac, equipped a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber with an airborne radar, and the resulting TBM-3W entered service with the Airborne Early Warning (AEW) mission.
  • In June 1949, a joint program with the USN and USAF resulted in the EC-121 Warning Star, a conversion of a Lockheed L1094 Super Constellation airliner. This aircraft entered service to reinforce the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, across the Arctic in Canada and Alaska to detect and defend against Soviet Air Force bombers flying over the pole. This was also the plane that played the “AWACS” role in Vietnam.
  • In January 1964, the E-2 Hawkeye was introduced into service with the USN, which required a carrier-based AWACS platform.
  • In March 1977, the first E-3 Sentry was delivered to the USAF by Boeing.

Indeed, the chart below illustrates the wide variety of roles and platforms flown by the USAF, in their combined arms operations.

[Source: Command: Modern Air & Naval Operations]

In addition, the USAF just released its FY2019 budget, fresh from budget action in Congress. This had a few surprises, including the planned retirement of both the B-1B and the B-2A in favor of the upcoming B-21 Raider, and continuing to enhance and improve the B-52. This is a very old platform, having been introduced in 1955. This does match a shift in thinking by the USAF, from stating that all of the fourth generation aircraft (non-stealthy) are entirely obsolete, to one in which they continue to play a role, as a follow-up force, perhaps in role of a “distant archer” with stand-off weapons. I previously discussed the Talon Hate pod enabling network communications between the F-22 and F-15C systems.

More on this to come!