Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

[don]

Creveld's conclusions:

• [*=1] Airpower's height of effectiveness was 1944-67.
  [*=1]
  In much of that time, airpower was restrained by MAD
  
  [*=1]
  Airpower never replaced naval or boots on the ground for ultimate war-making
  
  [*=1]
  Since 1939 no conventional ground or naval campaign has been won without air superiority
  
  [*=1]
  Airpower has proven itself indecisive in asymmetrical or 'peoples' war'
  
  [*=1]
  Ever rising costs across the board are shrinking air forces globally
  
  [*=1]
  For the same reason drones are moving to replace piloted aircraft in combat
  
  [*=1]
  The era of an independent air force may be ending as the other services develop there own air assets, especially drones

(note - underwater drones are both available and being further developed. They are seen as a 'low risk' means of penetrating China's coastal waters and beyond.)

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

Yom Kippur War 1973?

Once the IAF re-established aerial dominance from the latest generation of integrated Soviet air defense systems the war war over in favor of Israel.

Rhodesia 1970's?

A global pariah managed to hold back a tidal wave of external insurgents supported heavily by both the Soviet Union and China as well as under considerable pressure from the UK/US. With a handful of aircraft and helicopters it managed to survive far longer than anyone could have reasonably expected.

If it wasn't for airpower Rhodesia would have probably fallen a decade earlier with a nearly 360 degree hostile border and external infiltration crisis.

Bekaa Valley 1982?

The IAF destroyed dozens of Syrian SAM batteries and close to 100 Syrian combat aircraft for nearly zero losses enabling the IDF to drive a combined arms ground operation towards removing the PLO from Lebanon unimpeded by Syria.

The IAF used drones quite effectively in it's air defense suppression mission.

Vietnam Total War?

If the USAF and Navy were given unrestrained ability to stop North Vietnam's insurgency as well as it's conventional invasion of South Vietnam, instead of a restrictive micromanaged rules based system it would have been a different story.

Desert Storm 1991?

Air operations ran for weeks destroying the Iraqi air force and air defense network and finally hammering the Iraqi Army to the point it required a mere 100 hours to mop them up on the ground.

Major drone systems are being run by Air Force.....short duration, lower order capability drones are being run like helicopters, by Army in the chain of command.

I'm not buying this author's cooking(main points).

I'd agree that airpower alone cannot win an asymmetric/unconventional conflict, for two reasons:

1.) F16's(like on the cover), while a multi mission aircraft....and while useful to a certain degree for certain purposes in an asymmetric/unconventional conflict.....it's the wrong tool for the wrong job as it's designed to perform mult-faceted missions against a peer or near peer in a conventional conflict.

An aircraft like a Cessna 208, armed with appropriate precision guided weapons and sensor package offers far more usability in an asymmetric/unconventional conflict.....it can achieve more, with lower collateral damage, at far lower procurement and operating costs than an F16 designed to kill Soviet built MIGs and tanks.

So different military tools for different military jobs...in the case of asymmetric/unconventional conflicts...use off the shelf commercial airframes matched with the expensive fancy sensors, and existing or modified small precision weapon systems.

It doesn't have to cost much(except for the sensors) and it can't cost much....because asymmetric/unconventional conflicts take TIME...which equates to many flight hours.

So do you spend $500-1000 an hour running a Cessna 208 with a pilot, sensor suite operator, and electronic intercept operator with a couple of Hellfire missiles capable of loitering for all day over an area of interest that can destroy small precision targets(people even) with limited innocent loss of property and life OR do you spent $5000-10000 an hour running an F16 that can't loiter for long and if required to drop ordinance possesses a higher risk of innocent life and property loss?


2.) The current wars....asymmetric/unconventional wars require a lot of tools, not all of which are military...especially asymmetric/unconventional wars..tools to fight the Soviet Union are the wrong tools for fighting an insurgency.

Everyone is always prepared to fight the last wars.....the US entered this latest series of wars with tools designed to fight the Soviet Union or another peer or near peer.

Arguing to configure the Air Force/Military to fight the last wars(unconventional/asymmetric) risks the same problem we last faced.....which is facing the next war prepared to fight the last war.

Sadly, there will be other conventional nation state on nation state wars......the US and others require a balanced multifaceted force in order to defend themselves against threats from peers, near peers, and asymmetric/unconventional threats.

Tools designed to fight the Soviet Union possess considerable deterrent value against peer or near peer nations such as China.

If the book focuses on those highlights, I'm already not a fan.

Sorry

Hybrid.....a bit of both I reckon!

And it's worth noting there was a period in the 1960's where missiles and robots would fight all of our wars.....then performance didn't live up to expectations.....and the guns abandoned by fighter plane designers were reintroduced....and plans for Mach 3 interceptors were largely scrapped....and lower cost multi-mission "pilot's planes" were developed and introduced.

Drones were used in Vietnam and over Lebanon....they're nothing new.....but the technology and communications capabilities are accelerating for them to approach their potential.

I reckon it's like the internet 1997.....and everyone thinks it's going to be Star Trek by 1999....but it didn't turn out that way.....evolutionary.....not revolutionary.......I'm still waiting for my rocket boots and flying car.

US aerial dominance is likely to continue for the indefinite future....bar the potential for small but growing pockets of non-permissive airspace as new capabilities and new opponents emerge.

[don]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

Just reporting his conclusions - no reason to apologize! Among his conclusions is no conventional war (your examples) has been won without air superiority. I thought his reasons for increasing drone use - fiscal, not stars in our eyes technology - was a more grounded argument.

[GRG55]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

Just reporting his conclusions - no reason to apologize! Among his conclusions is no conventional war (your examples) has been won without air superiority. I thought his reasons for increasing drone use - fiscal, not stars in our eyes technology - was a more grounded argument.

Which seems consistent with the observation that the first step in any direct intervention (as opposed to the indirect intervention represented by arms supply) in these so-called "people's wars" is the enforcement by foreign powers of a "no fly" zone...

[cobben]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

The best Swedish financial blogger is a former military, he recently noted that one or perhaps two of the most modern Russian Federation planes would be sufficient to knock out the entire Swedish air force on the ground. This while operating entirely from within RF airspace, and that Sweden had no effective defense against such an surprise missile attack.

He also mentioned jokingly that with the current parabolic rise in the cost of fighter planes, the US air force would in about 50(?) years consist of only one plane.

[GRG55]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

The best Swedish financial blogger is a former military, he recently noted that one or perhaps two of the most modern Russian Federation planes would be sufficient to knock out the entire Swedish air force on the ground. This while operating entirely from within RF airspace, and that Sweden had no effective defense against such an surprise missile attack.

He also mentioned jokingly that with the current parabolic rise in the cost of fighter planes, the US air force would in about 50(?) years consist of only one plane.

Could be in 50 years the US armed forces have a million airplanes. And no airborne pilots at all.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

The best Swedish financial blogger is a former military, he recently noted that one or perhaps two of the most modern Russian Federation planes would be sufficient to knock out the entire Swedish air force on the ground. This while operating entirely from within RF airspace, and that Sweden had no effective defense against such an surprise missile attack.

He also mentioned jokingly that with the current parabolic rise in the cost of fighter planes, the US air force would in about 50(?) years consist of only one plane.

Sounds quite alarmist.

Sweden possesses an outstanding array of domestic/indigenous defense systems, particularly aircraft like the JAS39 Gripen.

The predecessor to the JAS39 Gripen was the JA37 Viggen......which possessed an operational data mesh/network capability between peer aircraft while the US/Soviets still had it on the drawing boards.

The JA37 was the only known aircraft to achieve lock on against the SR71 as the Swedes used to practice against the USAF when Blackbirds were on their ingress/egress routes over the Soviet Union.

The Gripen is amongst the best multi-mission fighter planes in the world, and arguably THE best when it comes to bang for the buck. It is a VERY capable aircraft designed to be operated from a short 800m stretch of road dispersed throughout the country supported by 1 trained technician, a couple of conscripts, and a fuel/ordinance truck. 10 minutes on the ground in some predesignated corner of roading throughout Sweden and it's back in the air and back in the fight.

The Russian military is in quite poor shape at the moment across the board......it is currently suffering from a Russian version of the changeover from a conscript based to a professional career based recruiting system.

It is also suffering from significant under investment in new technology development and particularly procurement.

Russia's air force is old, getting older at the moment, and it's aircrews are not flying sufficient hours to maintain their skillsets.

One interesting development though is that the proposed follow on to the Gripen, called the Gripen NG(next generation) is estimated to be far, far higher in cost to the order of $150 million or so each......a multiple of the existing version of the Gripen.

Since the Gripen NG possesses mostly the same, but modified, airframe, it must be all the silicon bits that are resulting in such dramatic price increases for the next generation.

As far as foreign military sales go, the Gripen has managed to achieve sales in Thailand, Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, and Switzerland.

And that's going up against the very aggressive geopolitical pressure of far more expensive but not necessarily far more capable product pushed hard by the US and EU member states.

I'd almost go so far as to say the Swedes are THE model on how to build a credible, capable, and affordable military aircraft.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

Which seems consistent with the observation that the first step in any direct intervention (as opposed to the indirect intervention represented by arms supply) in these so-called "people's wars" is the enforcement by foreign powers of a "no fly" zone...

Which one would assume is to negate any military advantage the "no longer wanted regime" has over internal insurrection via it's organic air support and air lift capability.

Helping to shape the battlefield in a low(er) risk, politically correct way.

One thing worth pointing out is the difference between Libya and Syria.

While they both possess former Yugoslavia sized weapons arsenals providing the fuel for a potentially very long civil war catastrophe without the need for external rearmament, there are some very key differences.

Libya's largely flat and open terrain with limited built up urban layout and woefully inept military made a no fly zone and covert foreign assistance on the ground an easier objective to seize.

Syria's diverse and rugged terrain combined with a more capable(than Libya's) military with far more modern anti aircraft systems(purchased late model after the Israeli Op Orchard which destroyed the Syrian reactor project) make the prospect of a no fly zone over Syria definitely doable.....but potentially far harder from an anti-aircraft threat and aircraft basing perspective(depending on Turkey's direct involvement and cooperation).

Syria's air space I would categorize as non permissive, far more so than Libya's.

Shooting down a Turkish F4 at high speed and low altitude would be far harder than trying to hit a Reaper which typically orbits at far higher altitude and far lower airspeed, and which possesses no anti aircraft countermeasures to the best of my knowledge.

In order for non-stealth UAVs to operate safely over Syria, it would require manned aircraft to sanitize the airspace and effectively suppress Syrian anti aircraft capabilities first.

I think some balance in the argument of the future of air power as well as the manned/unmanned argument could be made by having a good look at the Pacific Ocean, which is where the majority of US military resources are shifting towards. While UAVs are going to play an increasingly important role, such as long-distance long duration maritime surveillance, the need for manned conventional combat aircraft is likely to linger for a long time to come.

[cobben]

Re: Creveld's Age of Airpower, Played to the Strains of Drone Fever

Sounds quite alarmist.

The JA37 was

. . .

Bingo!

"Was" is the key word. You are 100% correct as far as I know (and I've actually been inside the Saab factory in Linköping, the Torpedverkstaden i Motala, and a few other classified places in my time as a consultant.)

But after the fall of the USSR, about 10 years after it seems, the politicians decided that Sweden did not need a high class defense, as the only credible threat was gone.
The JAS planes are nearly the only part remaining nearly intact, but as the forest road emergency war-time airbases have been decommissioned, and the antiquated anti-aircraft defense capabilities are effectively near blind these days, the JAS planes are sitting ducks on the ground, housed above ground in sheet-metal hangars at only a few air bases in case of a surprise attack.

Now this is a rough summary of the discussion going on in the defense blogs, I have not spent much time on this. No serious discussion has yet begun in the ordinary media or the Riksdagen, though attempts to start one are finally appearing. The RF has officially declared that not only Finland but most of Sweden is within their "sphere of interest"

Uncorrected Google translate:

"A single Backfire carries enough cruise missiles to today (or Boxing Day), beating out all the Swedish Air Force where our fighter planes are placed in unprotected sheet metal sheds everyday. Four planes can knock out most of the total Swedish air defense, including fixed radars and above ground installations transmitter annexe etc to our command centers. This can be done without even having to leave Russian airspace and without appearing over the Baltic Sea."

Original Swedish:

Den ryska björnen ryter till


En enda Backfire bär tillräckligt med kryssningsrobotar för att idag (eller på annandag jul) slå ut hela det svenska flygvapnet där våra JAS-plan står uppställda i oskyddade plåthangarer till vardags. Fyra plan kan slå ut större delen av det totala svenska luftförsvaret, inklusive fasta radaranläggningar och ovanmarkinstallationer som sändarannex etc till våra stridsledningscentraler. Detta kan ske utan att man ens behöver lämna ryskt luftrum och utan att visa sig över Östersjön.