aircraft such as the Phantom and Grumman's veteran A-6 Intruder which could carry significant payloads long distances. The Navy was especially hurt by the first Bush administration's mismanaged A-12 Avenger II, intended to replace the A-6 in carrier air wings. The Intruder could carry up to twenty-eight 500-pound bombs with an unrefueled tactical radius of 200 miles. However, with one-fifth the external drag, the same Intruder could take four half ton Mk-84s some 450 miles from the carrier. But that wasn't all. Because KA-6Ds had provided most of the carriers' tankers, Navy battle groups became dependent upon the Air Force for tanking, and radius was limited to the Hornet's 300 miles. The capability tail was wagging the mission dog.
Therefore, nearly everybody in the TacAir business was interested in a next-generation bomb truck.
The problem with merely counting bomb racks is that it ignores the technological revolution of the 1990s. During Desert Storm, precision-guided munitions received a hugely disproportionate share of the ink, as PGMs accounted for barely 10 % of the tonnage dropped in Kuwait and Iraq. A decade later the numbers had nearly reversed: reportedly PGMs accounted for as much as 70 % of the ordnance used against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan during 2001-02, and the trend continued during the invasion of Iraq.
As one Air Force officer explained, 'We used to talk about the number of aircraft needed to destroy a target. Now we talk about the number of targets per aircraft.' One 'fighter jet' with four PGMs aboard could strike four targets with an awesome probability of a hit, and an excellent chance of destruction. Restrikes remained important, but the ordnance millennium had arrived.
Meanwhile, the number of F-35s available to conduct those missions remained negotiable. In 2002 the Air Force's JSF buy was reduced from 2,036 to 1,763 at a flyaway price of $37 million to $48 million. Meanwhile, another 1,239 JSFs are on order for U.S. and British naval models. Further changes undoubtedly will occur in the Byzantine labyrinth of the American weapons acquisition process.
Says one consultant, 'Three years of working in the Pentagon showed me some really squirrelly things in the area of procurement. The system is hosed and nobody wants to fix it because they may lose something.'
IN SEARCH OF AIR SUPREMACY
To return to our question: What price air supremacy? Especially when superiority is likely good enough? The plain fact is, in the thirty years since the Vietnam air war, Americans have rarely been engaged in aerial combat. Through Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, U.S. aircrews shot down 53 hostile aircraft; 46 of those by Air Force Eagles and Vipers. In that same period the Air Force lost no planes to enemy aircraft; the Navy lost one and maybe two. Meanwhile, the U.S. lost nearly 60 combat aircraft to SAMs and AAA.
Therefore, how do we justify gold-plated fighters such as the FA-22? The Air Force is 48-zip against Libya, Iraq, and Yugoslavia. We have not engaged a major air power since Korea, though we certainly had problems with the Vietnamese. But occasional heavy losses to Hanoi's MiGs was in no way due to inferior technology; quite the opposite. Some MiG killers insist that part of our problem was overreliance on gadgets at the expense of tactical stick and rudder skills. Top Gun, Red Flag, and other programs obviously solved those problems.
JSF is likely to live a double life in tactical squadrons. It can be employed early in an air campaign, relying on its stealthiness to attack targets within the air defense envelope while other birds (presumably B-2s) attack the hard targets at the core. When the SEAD phase has largely been completed, F-35s can then become bomb trucks, packing larger (nonstealthy) loadouts to other targets.
Close air support also is a JSF mission, though the Air Force remains institutionally indifferent. A-10s have been related heavily to the Guard and Reserve, which deploys frequently, as joint operators constantly laud the Warthog as the most valuable bird in the barn. The type is long out of production but the CAS mission just won't go away. Therefore, the F-35 will likely have a 25mm cannon for tank busting, though a 27mm was considered.
SUPER SAMS
With no comparable enemy fighter on the horizon, the FA-22 is likely to remain semi-inviolate in the air-to-air arena. Not so from the ground. We may be entering an era in which the initiative is swinging toward the defense for a change, with the major opposition to FA-22 and F-35 coming from ground-based air defenses, primarily new or upgraded surface-to-air missiles.
In recent years, Russian SAMs have progressed from the 'single digit' types (SA-2 through 9) into the next- generation 'double digit' variety. The SA-10 Grumble, with a range of nearly 50 miles, is optimized for use against tactical aircraft, and, with a Mach 6 sprint speed, very quick off the mark.
The SA-12 Gladiator already is available in A and B models. Similar to the Patriot concept, it's intended to knock down tactical ballistic missiles within 60 miles but is probably adaptable to aircraft.
The SA-20 Triumph represents a major leap: with a published range of nearly 250 miles, it has three times the reach of the still formidable SA-6, and is automatically operated with digital programming.
Furthermore, all three double-digit SAMs can be integrated into a combined missile and radar network affording low to high altitude coverage of a considerable area. The Russians, perennially cash-poor, have exported the missiles individually but also collectively as the S-300 system. A follow-on S-400 option is likely.
For clients farther down the scale, improved SA-2s through -9s have been upgraded with digital avionics, more sensors, and improved guidance packages. That translates into greater range and reliability, which means more lethality.
New-generation SAMs will constitute a far greater threat than enemy aircraft. SA-20 in the S-300 air defense system has the potential to destroy tankers, AWACSs, and even J-STARSs, or at least push them farther from the combat arena. The latter would result in a denigration of the almost unlimited aerial refueling and battle control that we have taken for granted for so long. The actual loss of a tanker, let alone an AWACS, probably would produce the same result.
HOW MUCH AIR-AIR?
Over North Vietnam, U.S. aircrews faced a paradox. Well, all right, a lot of paradoxes, including running orders which, distilled to their essence, said, 'Don't lose but don't win.' From the tactical perspective, we found ourselves frequently opposed by motivated young men who may never have driven an automobile but could do a creditable job in a MiG-21. The Air Force's premier combat leader in that theater, Colonel Robin Olds, was an ace in two airplanes during World War II but he envied his Vietnamese counterparts. 'Hell,' he insisted, 'if I'd have been one of them I'd have got fifty of us!'
The Vietnamese quickly mastered the canned intercept: following GCI vectors to the point of a six o'clock low pop-up from the weeds, hosing a couple of Atolls at a formation of Yankee Air Pirates, and ducking back to paddy level to escape. One such loss per mission was enough to discomfit many Americans. Vietnamese hit-and-run tactics could not affect the outcome of the air war — and in fact did not — but they inflicted frequent losses on the strike package. Besides, it was humiliating to lose a $2 million aircraft flown by a professional with a master's degree to a former peasant.
The next enemy could plan to emulate the NVAF, though the God's-eye view provided by AWACSs and J- STARSs reduces the possibility. Nevertheless, it happened in Desert Storm when concern about blue on blue incidents allowed a red bandit to mix with the friendlies and bag a Navy F/A-18.
A lingering concern is adequate air-to-air training, as adversary units have been substantially reduced from the pinnacle of 1990. Things went so well in Desert Storm (34-0) that the Air Force did away with its aggressor squadrons entirely. The Navy and Marines retain dedicated 'red bandits' but there are so few that civilian contractors now help to fill the gap. Meanwhile, other gaps remain…
