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What would be reasonable is the Air Force pulling its head out its ass and just giving the CAS role back to the Army, since they hate it so much. Seriously, jus

What would be reasonable is the Air Force pulling its head out its ass and just giving the CAS role back to the Army, since they hate it so much. Seriously, just give the Army the CAS roles, and the Air Force can go zoom around in their shiny supersonic invisible aircraft, and the soldiers and marines on the ground can get the close air support they so need from an organization not doing everything it can to stop giving them that support.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
x2. The marines do this for the most part.
- arca_vorago 10y ago
  In my experience, we got better support from Marine Supercobras in Iraq than any other air entity, and in Afghanistan A-10s. Theyve been talking about getting rid of Warthogs for years, but all the guys I talked to saw right through it and knew it was just to pad the Virginia old boys pockets some more. Of course Im biased, because Ive literally had my life saved by close air support from hogs.
maxerickson 10y ago
Yeah, I think separation of forces should also be done around capabilities rather than modes of transport. CAS should be part of some sort of infantry command.
55acdda48ab5 10y ago
The problem is that the CAS mission the A-10 performs is effectively impossible against any modern enemy with modern missile systems and manpads. The A-10 is for shooting up poor brown people we're messing with for no particular reason, not for fighting a real war. The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. We don't need the A-10 because it's useless for any war worth fighting in today's world.
- cstross 10y ago
  The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. Or not to get into wars in the first place; then you could give up having an Air Force at all, right? Seriously, "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change that goes counter to the entire historical direction of US military involvement since Vietnam. The US very seldom tackles even a second-rate military armed with Russian cast-offs -- the most recent example was Iraq in 2003 -- so the A-10 is still useful for the sort of brushfire wars and missions you get involved with. Even though they'd die like flies in a shooting war with a real front-rank opponent. (Like who?)
  - 55acdda48ab5 10y ago
    > "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change Yeah? That was my whole point. You make it sound like it's crazy. It's the most sensible course.
    - cstross 10y ago
      In the abstract, yes, it's the most sensible course. Unfortunately, from where I'm watching (hint: not an American) it looks like the State Department has an ad-hoc de-facto promotion track whereby you can't make it to the top unless you've got a proven record of running a short, victorious war. Not that this is official policy or anything so formally clear-cut -- it's more like an emergent property of the institution itself, and the priorities that the bureaucracy has evolved to service -- but you don't get to become SecState unless you're a hawk and the best way to acquire hawk credentials is to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business" as Michael Ledeen put it (according to Jonah Goldberg). (Tertiary source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen )
    - gozur88 10y ago
      The military doesn't get to decide when to go to war or against whom.
SEJeff 10y ago
Randomly, nice nick. The Culture reference made me smile. Doing that (Taking CAS responsibilities from the USAF) is actually a wonderful idea. One of the reasons the F35 is such a cluster f is due to the Marines requiring it to more or less be a Harrier replacement. The Marines use the harriers primarily for CAS and I've targeted for them as well in Iraq when I was there ~2003-2004 during the big Fallujah offensive.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  Yeah, that's a big reason the F-35 is fucked. At this point, it definitely would have been more effective to develop at least two entirely separate aircraft.
  - stormcrowsx 10y ago
    Isn't the purpose to reduce the maintenance cost? I would think one type of aircraft is easier to maintain than 2 different specialized aircraft.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

x2. The marines do this for the most part.

arca_vorago 10y ago
In my experience, we got better support from Marine Supercobras in Iraq than any other air entity, and in Afghanistan A-10s. Theyve been talking about getting rid of Warthogs for years, but all the guys I talked to saw right through it and knew it was just to pad the Virginia old boys pockets some more. Of course Im biased, because Ive literally had my life saved by close air support from hogs.

maxerickson 10y ago

Yeah, I think separation of forces should also be done around capabilities rather than modes of transport. CAS should be part of some sort of infantry command.

55acdda48ab5 10y ago

The problem is that the CAS mission the A-10 performs is effectively impossible against any modern enemy with modern missile systems and manpads. The A-10 is for shooting up poor brown people we're messing with for no particular reason, not for fighting a real war. The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. We don't need the A-10 because it's useless for any war worth fighting in today's world.

cstross 10y ago
The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. Or not to get into wars in the first place; then you could give up having an Air Force at all, right? Seriously, "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change that goes counter to the entire historical direction of US military involvement since Vietnam. The US very seldom tackles even a second-rate military armed with Russian cast-offs -- the most recent example was Iraq in 2003 -- so the A-10 is still useful for the sort of brushfire wars and missions you get involved with. Even though they'd die like flies in a shooting war with a real front-rank opponent. (Like who?)
- 55acdda48ab5 10y ago
  > "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change Yeah? That was my whole point. You make it sound like it's crazy. It's the most sensible course.
  - cstross 10y ago
    In the abstract, yes, it's the most sensible course. Unfortunately, from where I'm watching (hint: not an American) it looks like the State Department has an ad-hoc de-facto promotion track whereby you can't make it to the top unless you've got a proven record of running a short, victorious war. Not that this is official policy or anything so formally clear-cut -- it's more like an emergent property of the institution itself, and the priorities that the bureaucracy has evolved to service -- but you don't get to become SecState unless you're a hawk and the best way to acquire hawk credentials is to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business" as Michael Ledeen put it (according to Jonah Goldberg). (Tertiary source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen )
  - gozur88 10y ago
    The military doesn't get to decide when to go to war or against whom.

SEJeff 10y ago

Randomly, nice nick. The Culture reference made me smile. Doing that (Taking CAS responsibilities from the USAF) is actually a wonderful idea. One of the reasons the F35 is such a cluster f is due to the Marines requiring it to more or less be a Harrier replacement. The Marines use the harriers primarily for CAS and I've targeted for them as well in Iraq when I was there ~2003-2004 during the big Fallujah offensive.

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
Yeah, that's a big reason the F-35 is fucked. At this point, it definitely would have been more effective to develop at least two entirely separate aircraft.
- stormcrowsx 10y ago
  Isn't the purpose to reduce the maintenance cost? I would think one type of aircraft is easier to maintain than 2 different specialized aircraft.