4 ms·

Kind of. For various budgetary reasons and capex vs opex and stuff like that, the US only has two aggressor squadrons now, the 18th and 64th. The 65th shut do

by VLM 7y ago

Kind of. For various budgetary reasons and capex vs opex and stuff like that, the US only has two aggressor squadrons now, the 18th and 64th. The 65th shut down recently. We're kinda getting out of that business. Something quietly muttered about is we don't have the labor force anymore, so better off having our pilots in fighting squadrons instead of training squadrons. Another topic not mentioned much is the whole concept of aggressor squadrons and Top Gun etc came from fighting similar tier adversaries in the 60s and, while not losing, not winning at a high enough ratio, and cold war REFORGER war plan against the Soviets was to use our higher tech to hold back their larger numbers. We needed each of our F-14 to shoot down at least 7 of their Mig-21 to win WWIII in 1985, or at least to not lose too quickly. None of this has really been relevant since 1990 and drone and cruise missile tech and so forth make the whole concept pointless. So political bureaucracy rules of warfare are such that if you can't shut down an obsolete program directly, you can outsource it all on a contract that coincidentally will not be renewed in 2025 or whatever year. We're just never going to see future air combat where its a war of attrition between our small number of high tech F-14 tomcats vs a larger number of mig-21s. Put the money where it'll actually be used in the future, such as drones, cruise missiles, smart bombs, fancy AA and AG missiles, etc. The idea of training F-14 pilots to do air combat maneuvering using guns and 70s performance missiles against a number of Mig-21 is VERY 1980s. Or future adversary isn't going to send 8 Mig-21's against each of our F-14, they're going to launch 240 anti-personnel quadcopter drones toward the airfield per day to shut down operations. Sure at a thousand bucks per drone plus COTS grenade, thats a quarter mil per day to deny air operations... now is that quarter mil cheap or expensive? Compared to the damage a functioning air force base can do to an opponent, that's cheap. Or they'll build $100 cloud steerable laser pointers and deploy them randomly across the land by the thousands to lase the eyes and sensors of every vehicle in the air that's not one of theirs. They'll win that war of attrition if they deploy 10K semi-autonomous weapons that each cost $1000 and we only have 1K ATG missiles in theater which cost $100K each, either way they win. Well, generals always like to train to win the last war, not the next one, thats been true for a couple thousand years now.

ardy42 7y ago
> Another topic not mentioned much is the whole concept of aggressor squadrons and Top Gun etc came from fighting similar tier adversaries in the 60s and, while not losing, not winning at a high enough ratio > Well, generals always like to train to win the last war, not the next one, thats been true for a couple thousand years now. I disagree. Wasn't part of the problem in the 60s that the generals were training to win the next war, which they though would be fought at stand-off distances with guided missiles (i.e. suicide drones) carried by planes with little need to maneuver [1] [2]? It turned out they were wrong, and had to subsequently rethink their tactics and procurement requirements, which led to stuff like Top Gun and the F-14. > [Our] future adversary isn't going to send 8 Mig-21's against each of our F-14, they're going to launch 240 anti-personnel quadcopter drones toward the airfield per day to shut down operations... [more speculation about drone swarm warfare]... Betting that some new, hot technology will obsolete old techniques can be a bad bet that puts you in a bad situation. I don't think quadcopter drones are going to be anything near the game changer you think they'll be. For instance: if you're close enough to launch a swarm attack like you describe, you're several times closer than you need to be to launch an artillery bombardment: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/16/new-army-artillery-doubles-attack-range-outguns-russian-equivalent.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/16/new-army-arti... (quickest google result): > Existing 155mm artillery rounds, fired with precision from mobile and self-propelled howitzer platforms, have a maximum range of about 30 kilometers; the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70 kilometers, Army developers said. https://www.dronesglobe.com/guide/long-range-drones/#sec3 https://www.dronesglobe.com/guide/long-range-drones/#sec3 (another quicky google result). The longest-range drone listed is: > 2.DJI Mavic 2 Pro 4K [battery:] 30min [range:] 8km I wouldn't expect a cheap military quadcopter swarm-member to have much better performance than a civilian one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Flight_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer
- lmm 7y ago
  > Wasn't part of the problem in the 60s that the generals were training to win the next war, which they though would be fought at stand-off distances with guided missiles (i.e. suicide drones) carried by planes with little need to maneuver [1] [2]? It turned out they were wrong, and had to subsequently rethink their tactics and procurement requirements, which led to stuff like Top Gun and the F-14. Yes but not really. They were preparing to use the technology of the time to fight a total war against a peer adversary, a la WWII, and in that kind of war those tactics would have been effective. As it happened, Korea and Vietnam were a very different type of war: the RoE were such that BVR engagements were rarely permitted, and it became necessary to develop tactics that would work in a counter-insurgency situation where distinguishing hostile targets from civilians or friendlies was more important than winning the engagement. It so happened that WWII-style dog-fighting with cannons was one of those tactics, but that feels like more of a coincidence than a generally applicable observation.

by VLM 7y ago

ardy42 7y ago

> Another topic not mentioned much is the whole concept of aggressor squadrons and Top Gun etc came from fighting similar tier adversaries in the 60s and, while not losing, not winning at a high enough ratio > Well, generals always like to train to win the last war, not the next one, thats been true for a couple thousand years now. I disagree. Wasn't part of the problem in the 60s that the generals were training to win the next war, which they though would be fought at stand-off distances with guided missiles (i.e. suicide drones) carried by planes with little need to maneuver [1] [2]? It turned out they were wrong, and had to subsequently rethink their tactics and procurement requirements, which led to stuff like Top Gun and the F-14. > [Our] future adversary isn't going to send 8 Mig-21's against each of our F-14, they're going to launch 240 anti-personnel quadcopter drones toward the airfield per day to shut down operations... [more speculation about drone swarm warfare]... Betting that some new, hot technology will obsolete old techniques can be a bad bet that puts you in a bad situation. I don't think quadcopter drones are going to be anything near the game changer you think they'll be. For instance: if you're close enough to launch a swarm attack like you describe, you're several times closer than you need to be to launch an artillery bombardment: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/16/new-army-artillery-doubles-attack-range-outguns-russian-equivalent.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/06/16/new-army-arti... (quickest google result): > Existing 155mm artillery rounds, fired with precision from mobile and self-propelled howitzer platforms, have a maximum range of about 30 kilometers; the new ERCA weapon is designed to hit ranges greater than 70 kilometers, Army developers said. https://www.dronesglobe.com/guide/long-range-drones/#sec3 https://www.dronesglobe.com/guide/long-range-drones/#sec3 (another quicky google result). The longest-range drone listed is: > 2.DJI Mavic 2 Pro 4K [battery:] 30min [range:] 8km I wouldn't expect a cheap military quadcopter swarm-member to have much better performance than a civilian one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II#Flight_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F6D_Missileer

lmm 7y ago
> Wasn't part of the problem in the 60s that the generals were training to win the next war, which they though would be fought at stand-off distances with guided missiles (i.e. suicide drones) carried by planes with little need to maneuver [1] [2]? It turned out they were wrong, and had to subsequently rethink their tactics and procurement requirements, which led to stuff like Top Gun and the F-14. Yes but not really. They were preparing to use the technology of the time to fight a total war against a peer adversary, a la WWII, and in that kind of war those tactics would have been effective. As it happened, Korea and Vietnam were a very different type of war: the RoE were such that BVR engagements were rarely permitted, and it became necessary to develop tactics that would work in a counter-insurgency situation where distinguishing hostile targets from civilians or friendlies was more important than winning the engagement. It so happened that WWII-style dog-fighting with cannons was one of those tactics, but that feels like more of a coincidence than a generally applicable observation.