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Posted by: 弓弩 at September 14, 2008 06:48 AM

RE Speech location: “READ THE SPEECH at the bottom of the page in the "analyst/journalist/military" link that Christian provided. “
If you weren’t so late to the party, or if DT had noted the correction, you would have seen that the post originally had the speech in Texas. It was corrected pretty fast, so I’ll allow a ‘do over’ on this one.
___________________
RE: Gates as an AF Officer:
He wasn’t active long enough to give him a ‘blue tint’ much less a Blue POV. It is one of the sad aspects to AF leadership development that there are very few opportunities for ‘command’ below the squadron level (typically LtCol). It’s gotten better in the last decade, but IMHO most AF officers don’t really grasp how things work until they are much farther along in their careers than in the Army. This opinion has been reinforced by my frequent contact with company-grade zeros.
___________________
RE: Why would you expect his boss to get fired for speaking the truth about his subordinates[.]

I wrote I would ask for clarification, and if I didn’t like what I heard I would fire him. (and nice insertion of the F-22 angle on a non F-22 thread)
___________________
Re: Whining? During the 2003 OIF ground offensive, V Corps had 1 Hunter UAV providing support. ONE. UNO. All the Predators were looking for SCUDs.

Oh, so no one had enough UAVs for what they wanted to do. I don’t remember that much whining IN 2003.
___________________
RE:. The USAF wouldn't/couldn't take care of the Army so they will take care of their own.

No, the Army wanted to use air vehicles to perform what was traditionally a ground scout function. Good on ‘em! Think now how that capability cold be leveraged if tied into a higher level ISR network- which is what the AF could do far better than the ground-centric USA.
___________________
RE: Also just read that Predator officer pilots tend to fall asleep at the wheel, while their enlisted counterparts monitoring the sensors do not. [service-envy portion deleted]

First rule of GIs everywhere: Sleep when you can. Are you sure you’re Army? Actually, it sounds like a human factors problem related to mission length and low controller workload. Look up on the flight deck on your next transport accross the Pacific....if you dare.
___________________
RE: Funny how that decentralize control, decentralized employment principle seems to work for the Army in terms of both UAVs and Rotary Wing.

Again, “flying” does not equal ”Airpower”. When I went through the Azores once, the AF owned the real estate, the Navy flew the planes, and the Army operated the ocean-going tugs that kept the place going. So what? The Navy and AF own APCs for their own purposes. Does that mean they can exploit them fully in an armored or mech infantry assault? Answer for the ‘slow’ among us: NO.
___________________
RE: "Wait. F-22 originates in Cold War and that is an example of fighting the next one?

Ahhhhh. Back to the F-22 insertion again. Man! You got target fixation! To answer as if the question is a serious one, the idea of the F-22 originates in the belief that the logical extension of 'Air Superiority is good' is 'Air Dominance is best', and without that Air Dominance, ALL of our military endeavors in every medium are at serious risk. the AF is equally proud that our troops have not been bombed by an enemy since WWII. Seems a fair tradeoff.
___________________
RE: Won't the same happen in the "next war" facing an invisible threat?

No “Kreskin”, you cannot afford to make that assumption: no responsible leadership can. And I note the oversimplification of the threat that F-22s would operate against. I still blame the AF for their poor marketing for that common mistake: so common it seems to have afflicted the SecDef.
___________________
RE: Technology that could make a fighter UAV is fine by the USN, but technology to enable and enlisted pilot is too hard?
STRAWMAN ALERT! The N-UCAS is a ‘strike weapon’ NOT a ‘fighter’. The tech that can deliver an autonomous fighter is years, decades or the ‘twelfth of never’ away from today. What makes s strike UCAV more practical for the Navy is that it spends almost all of its time either flying over empty ocean or enemy heads: no lawsuits from losing one in a schoolhouse or hospital. And to be clear: there isn't anything wrong with enlisted UAV operators OR rated meat-servos IMAO.

Posted by: SMSgt Mac at April 25, 2008 10:36 AM

to Cenobyte:

Humans have looked up at the sky for millenia and dreamed of flight; now it's all the rage to replace them with computers, mostly for political reasons. Yeah, flyboys may be a little outdated, but I (a nonflyer) can't really blame 'em for dragging their feet on the way to the chopping block.

Posted by: El Basurero at April 24, 2008 11:25 AM

Thanks for linking the actual speech. Yes I was reading too much into the MSM cut-up. The text of his speech seemed less accusatory than "we're trying to change thinking patterns." In context with the rest of his speech, they seemed like fair comments to make.

Posted by: TB at April 23, 2008 09:31 AM

While I may be reading a bit much into this, it seems that Sec. Gates is chastising the Air Force when the buck stops with him as their boss. If he has to pull teeth to get the AF to do what he wants to fight the war, why isn't a general or two getting the axe? While I like Gates leaps and bounds more than I do Rumsfeld, I don't go to the local town-hall meeting and complain that my troops won't show up to work on time or disobey my orders.

Posted by: TB at April 23, 2008 08:24 AM

The Airforce has been pretty nimble but the huge programs to by aircraft like the f-35 and f-22 that will not hold a candle in just a few years to AI controled drones that cost 1/1000th the price, has to pilot to kill, and attacks cordinated with hundreds of other drone and weapon systems on the battlefield.

Next: Why is it that the army warrior guys are more likley to run into a c-130 than the pilots that got a civilian air licence will? The Warrior guys never had to learn how to fly a plane they sit in but they never have to fly a plane they sit in. The airforce just can't get the idea that machines run by 19 year old kids can fly a plane better than a guy in the seat without all the computers. The flyboys in the airforce command hate the idea that they would not be needed in tomorrows airforce and flight the end of that everyday.

Posted by: The Cenobyte at April 23, 2008 08:20 AM

First of all we need to consider the source. Sorry but the Associated Press is misrepresenting what Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. This is what I mean when I say that if you want to know the truth you need to do your own research rather than simply getting your information for the "main stream news".

Here is a link to the text of the speech.

http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1231

I am sure SOME of you still won't get it but HOPEFULLY many of you will. Keep in mind that this speech was addressed to STUDENTS at the Air War College.

Posted by: pfcem at April 23, 2008 12:32 AM

These are service UAV hour numbers from strategypage.com

------------------
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20080104.aspx

Eyes On The Battlefield

January 4, 2008: In the course of 2007, the U.S. Air Force doubled its use of UAVs in Iraq, especially the Predator and Reaper. At the start of the year, these UAVs averaged half a dozen sorties a day. But the end of the year, that was up to 18. The army used its Raven micro-UAVs twice as much. During the peak months of the surge battles, the Ravens, and the less numerous (and much larger) Shadow 200s, averaged over a thousand hours in the air each day. Thus while the number of combat troops increased by a third, the use of UAVs doubled.

Ground commanders, down to the company level, have come to depend on having a UAV overhead, showing them a birds eye view of the battlefield. This has changed warfare in a fundamental way, because never before have so many combat commanders had this capability on a regular basis.
----------------

The USAF went from six Predator sorties a day in Iraq to 18 fron Jan 2007 to Dec 2007. That works out to going from 144 hours a day (24 hrs X 6 sorties) to 432 hours a day (24 X 18). Hour wise it was likely half that 432 number due to operational factors.

At the peak of the surge the US Army Raven and shadow fleet was logging 1,000 hours a day. A Raven sortie lasts 30-60 minutes and Shadows can have 4-8 hour sorties.

The bottom line is every company, battalion and brigade operation has a US Army UAV orbiting over head. Often they have several UAV's racked and stacked from 10 feet to 20,000 feet supporting various ground units.

There are not enough certified pilots in the US military force structure to make UAV's 100% manned with pilots the way the USAF brass wants. Nor are there enough satellite communication transponders to support them from the USA.

In addition, the key for close air support in the COIN environment is timeliness. The fastest way to react to a fleeting target is to arm US Army UAV's watching those fleeting targets with weapons to engage them. That is what is happening now with the Army's Sky Warrior purchase and the arming of the Shadows with the 44 pound, four pound warhead, Viper Strike laser guided glide bombs.

In a world where seconds count, USAF CAS is minutes away. This is why technology has humbugged the USAF in the CAS/Tactical Reconnisance roles.

Posted by: Trent Telenko at April 22, 2008 07:36 PM

"SMSgtMac:"Wasn't he at Maxwell AFB in Alabama where the AU is? If I were a Commander in Chief, I would ask him to clarify his statements and if I didn't like the explanation, I would ask for his resignation."
---------------------------
Response: READ THE SPEECH at the bottom of the page in the "analyst/journalist/military" link that Christian provided.

Very little of the speech was down on the USAF...he was a friggin Air Force officer himself! You could tell by his personal stories that he wrote much of the speech himself and few head honchos do that. He subsequently went on to West Point and made a similar point there about courage of convictions using a LTC's article in Armed Forces Journal that chastized the General Officer Corps.

Did SecDef Gates ask for the resignation of the General who publicly stated the USAF would find a way to buy 381 F-22s? No. Then why would you expect his boss to get fired for speaking the truth about his subordinates.
---------------------------
SMSgtMac:"The AF really P's me off on a lot of things they're doing, but the Army whining about not enough UAV support is just that: whining. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Army sees a problem because they're looking for one. They will never complain up the chain about the unavailability of an organic asset but will always complain about a missing unorganic one."
------------------------------
Response: Whining? During the 2003 OIF ground offensive, V Corps had 1 Hunter UAV providing support. ONE. UNO. All the Predators were looking for SCUDs.

Just since 2003, the Army has fielded multiple systems to take care of itself. More are planned. The future Predator replacement will be common with the Army Sky Warrior. The Navy and Fire Scout will share a common rotary wing UAV at Brigade level to complement current Shadows. Companies/platoons will go beyond Raven to an even more capable ducted fan system. The USAF wouldn't/couldn't take care of the Army so they will take care of their own.

Also just read that Predator officer pilots tend to fall asleep at the wheel, while their enlisted counterparts monitoring the sensors do not. Sounds like the Pilot needs to be in theater worrying about taking some of those mortar rounds into the Green Zone or Balad instead of sitting warm and cozy in Nevada, going to the O'Club afterwards, and then home to mama while GI Joe is sucking down his third 12-month tour.
-------------------------------
SMSgtMac: "I see this as absolute proof, the other services STILL don't get one of the, if not THE basic tenet of Airpower: centralized control, decentralized employment. If Sec'y Gates wants more AF critical thinking, I suggest the AF editors of the Aerospace Power Journal (or whatver the name of it is these days) start publishing some papers on the downside of looking at the 'here and now' instead of 'now and in the future'."
--------------------------
Response: Funny how that decentralize control, decentralized employment principle seems to work for the Army in terms of both UAVs and Rotary Wing.
-----------------------------
SMSgt Mac: "Gee, we always hear about 'fighting the last war', but it seems like it usually comes from the same people who want to 'plan' for the current one. Maybe the former springs from the latter?" Wait. F-22 originates in Cold War and that is an example of fighting the next one?

Read SecDef Gates speech about no lost US planes in dogfights since Viet Nam. That sounds like the last war, too, only many last wars ago....but still using the same old tired excuse that BVR won't work...cuz it didn't in the last war. Seems to me that even in more recent wars, the enemy didn't bother to play and few got off the ground and died in place. Won't the same happen in the "next war" facing an invisible threat?

Cell phones didn't work a few wars back, either. Time and technology march on, yet the high tech USAF only seems to embrace the technology that involves red scarves. Technology that could make a fighter UAV is fine by the USN, but technology to enable and enlisted pilot is too hard?

Posted by: Cole at April 22, 2008 05:47 PM

"Gates has been trying for months to get the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, like the Predator drone that provides real-time surveillance video, to the battlefield."

I don't get this. Gates is SecDef, can't he just order the AF to send more UAVs to the theater? He could tell Gen Moseley to shut down Creech and send the entire Predator fleet to Balad and Kandahar and the AF would have to comply. Instead he goes to Maxwell AFB and kind of whines in front of a bunch of Colonels. WTF? You're the boss, make a decision!

Posted by: maguro at April 22, 2008 05:02 PM

Sintax should be aware that the chain-of-command he is complaining about was developed by his very own ARMY. In Vietnam the "grunts" easily by-passed their own command system by getting on the Fox Mike and contacting the airborne FAC directly, who promptly called in the air--all of this to avoid the very interminable delays in getting approval for their own gun tubes on target.

The whole theory for the USAF control of air
assets sprang from the 1944 Casablanca conference in which the fact was recognized that when each ground commander is given a set number of air assets(which are always in limited supply) he would refuse to loan them out to commands in adj. sectors even if the the action was hot there and it was a slow day in his--for fear of not getting them back. Ceding the CAS mission to the AF was an attempt to rationalize what was otherwise a highly
inefficient system given limited resources. Thus
the Air commander could move assets around beyond jurisdictional lines to put the air assets where most needed. This rationale was also basis of the "single-manager" take-over of USMC assets in I-Corps after Tet offensive. I personnaly know something of both the nuts-and-bolts and the doctrinal aspects as I was at I-DASC(later HORN DASC) oct 67-oct68.

Currently the dependence on The AF ground FACs is a result of several things all conviently explained as it being "too dangerous" for either slow or fast mover FACs. The AF is only too glad
to see the airborne FACs go away because this system allowed the Lt/Capt FACs to short-circuit
the "big-kids" at the DASC/TACC level by diverting
air on their own hook. The Army hated it also for the same reason as grunt-FAC direct comm. also short circuited Army system. Now, with ground AF FACs the Army has "captured" part of the AF's command and control system while the AF forces the Army (and thus the AF ground FAC) to eventually end up at the TACC where the greater wisdom of the big-kids can be brought to bear.

If Army reacquires CAS mission we will be back to pre-Tet USMC styles of CAS which is great for small confined geographical AO but not so much for continent-wide shifting of assets. Plus will be
advantage of having FSCC co-located with Army-run TACC like USMC did with their TADC(Tac. Air Dir. Ctr.) so they can order arty to shut down when recce mission wants to fly thru fire mission space. AF used to have plead with Army. Minuses include the usual surge and crash cycle of aircraft maint typical of USMC ops vs more "steady-state" USAF maintenance cycles. Oh well, back to the future.

Posted by: virgil xenophon at April 22, 2008 04:14 PM

> How is a UAV any different than a manned aircraft (short of the organic material)?

they're cheaper, in both men and material

if a plane goes down, you just lost a VERY expensive piece of material plus potentially the VERY expensive crew

if a UAV goes down, oh well

> Why don't we just put enlisted personnel in the hardware we currently have?

level of responsibility

a 99.99% accident free rate may be acceptable for UAVs, it is not acceptable for manned planes

> You see where I'm going with this?

you know that the army currently operates some of the same UAVs as the airforce (Predator) with non-pilots?

it seems to work ok for them . . .

> When a soldier in country calls for help, more often than not, it's a manned fighter providing assistance.

which is a wasteful situation that needs to be fixed

> Forty or fifty years from now I can see a mostly unmanned fleet (6th gen fighters), but that doesn't help us in the present.

don't confuse the issues

we aren't talking about super UCAVs that will replace the F-22

we're talking about what we have NOW (Predators and Reapers) and finding adequate staffing to keep them all operational

Posted by: irtusk at April 22, 2008 02:19 PM

If you can't find the enemy, you can't kill the enemy. Not to mention most bombs are overkill for Urban warfare.

Gates is the most impressive Sec Def in a long time, and Congress kisses his ass, so he can get away with pushing the envelope and trying to steer the Pentagon and other parts of the IA into a relevant force for the most likely scenarios.

It it good to see the Big War (nation state) crowd, mainly the AF and the USN Sub community, getting slapped down publicly. I think this the second time Gates laid some wood on the AF for dragging their feet on CAS, ISR, and COIN. I watch a lot of military briefings and I don't think I have heard any AF Generals recognize their role in Iraq, it is always "we need more money for 300 F22's and Spacewar systems for China/Taiwan, 2030".

Sure the A-10 and B52/B1's are getting it done, but they are not much help in ISR. Predators are killing IED placers and mortar teams left and right in Iraq. No wonder the Army and Marines want their own fleet of UCAV's.

Hundreds more, if not thousands more UCAV's for Iraq/GWOT would bring some massive capability to bear on the the elusive insurgents/terrorists.

Posted by: HumanPestControl at April 22, 2008 02:09 PM

> he was saying the AF should allow people besides officers to fly UAVs so more people are available to fill the slots so we can REDUCE the workload on the current UAV drivers

How is a UAV any different than a manned aircraft (short of the organic material)? Most are as large, if not larger, than many private aircraft. The skills to take-off and land are no different. If anything, flying without sensation makes things even harder...you can't feel the aircraft slipping sideways in a crosswind. Why don't we just put enlisted personnel in the hardware we currently have? You see where I'm going with this?

> maybe you missed the story where he did just that?

I must have missed that. I did however see him publicly chastise the Air Force for not working hard enough to supply UAV's to war zones.

> they are PART of the future of the AF

That's like saying the Eagles, Falcons and Nighthawks were just PART of todays Air Force. If those aircraft weren't present over Iraq and Afghanistan, we'd be short thousands more soldiers. When a soldier in country calls for help, more often than not, it's a manned fighter providing assistance.

> as always, the right tool for the job

A luxury we don't always have. Most of the time, the right tool is the tool you have.

I know we're getting at the same thing here. I'm just taking exception to the way Gates handled the situation. Forty or fifty years from now I can see a mostly unmanned fleet (6th gen fighters), but that doesn't help us in the present.

Posted by: Chris at April 22, 2008 02:06 PM

Christian,

The key passage from the first article you link to is this:

"All this may require rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not," Gates said, referring to so-called unmanned aerial vehicles that are controlled by service members at ground stations.

Sec. Defense Gates just announced the abrogation of the "Key West agreement." The unoffical agreement that restricted US army fixed wing aircraft to the unarmed support role while the Army was free to use armed helicopters.

Gates just told the USAF that UAV roles and missions are up for grabs and the American military service that best supports the troops in contract on the ground will get the the cash to do the mission. UAVs were not imagined then, and Gates just said that they are not covered today.

The Fighter Pilot Generals will try and wait out Sec. Defense Gates, just like they waited out past administrations with the F-22.

The problem is technology in the form of ground troop owned UAV combined with US Army artillery launched precision munitions has "humbugged" the USAF's close air support and tactical reconnisance capabilities.

The USAF is in deep denial over this turn of events. Leadership wise, the result for the USAF is that the Fighter Pilot Generals have been acting like old men in the manufacturing industry unions waiting for thier retirement accounts to vest while younger workers get screwed.

Tough for them.

The US Army is buying its own unmanned airforce that does not use certified college educated pilots from the USAF academy or ROTC. The UAVs will instead use level headed, long term of service NCOs and warrent officers to get the job done.

And Gates also just told the USAF there is nothing that the USAF brass can do, while the US Army is fighting on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, to stop it.

My prediction is that if the US Army is still fighting in Iraq in 2010. The USAF will have lost the CAS/Recce budget wars.

Posted by: Trent Telenko at April 22, 2008 01:57 PM

Good Morning Guys,

It looks like Sec. Gates has seen the light. It looks like any more F-22 is nothing but a wet dream for the fighter jocks. Next up is to let EM's do the flying of the UAV's, it will save a huge amount of money.

Here is the problem the AF is way behind the cureve on UAV's. The Navy is already planning for carriers that will carry UAV's, te Marines are starting to field the Fire Scout as well as an assortment of fixed wing UAV's, the Army is asking budget to bring UAV,s and there control down to the battalion level and the training of Enlisted crews, te CIA has a larger UAV force then the AF and agencies such as the Coast Guard and Customs are fully involved in fielding UAV,s under there control.

In short boys and girls the AF is running out of missions. A reduction from 350K to 250K over the next two years might not be enough. Fighter jocks will make for very expensice truck drivers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Posted by: Byron Skinner at April 22, 2008 01:05 PM

> He might as well have told our over worked and stressed out UAV drivers they suck at their job and they're going to have to work harder.

hogwash

he was saying the AF should allow people besides officers to fly UAVs so more people are available to fill the slots so we can REDUCE the workload on the current UAV drivers

> As the SECDEF he could have just as easily ordered more UAV's into theater

maybe you missed the story where he did just that?

but the limiting factor is becoming not the amount of UAVs but the amount of pilots

> but I think we can all agree that without air superiority, you can't do squat on the ground

i don't think anyone disagrees with you there . . .

> Like it or not, for the next decade or two the F-22 and F-35's are the future of the Air Force.

they are PART of the future of the AF

as always, the right tool for the job

air superiority? ground attack against fortified positions? F-22 and F-35 all the way

COINops? UAVs and gunships all the way

Posted by: irtusk at April 22, 2008 12:29 PM

OK, let me see if I understand. SECDEF goes to Air University and West Point, challenges current and future officers to do MORE out-of-the-box" thinking and that's supposed to put the youngest and least tradition-bound service in its place? It wasn't that long ago when the AF was pilloried for wasting money on these high-tech unmanned programs as part of the Revolution in Military Affairs, but then that was before the Army thought it was a good idea, I guess. I suspect evern the AF brass would be among the first to acknowledge that unmanned ops could be conducted from other places than Indian Springs and Beale, but somebody's gonna have to put big bucks into building capacity and bandwidth on forward deployed land/sea platforms if that's what the SECDEF wants. In the meantime it's gonna be difficult to squeeze much more efficiency out of the existing system but if wants to send more money...I'm sure they'll take it. Cannabilizing future capabilities may work in the short-run but it always raises cost in the end and we all know it.

Posted by: crazy at April 22, 2008 10:27 AM

I dunno, Gates is one heck of a smart guy, and he's been around Washington enough to know how the political game is played.

I say this is the opening move of a gambit on his part to do two things: 1) Extend his stay in this role beyond the Bush II Presidency; 2) Drop-kick a bunch of the Christian-right Generals that seem to be running things these days in the Air Force through the goal-posts of life.

I mean, really, what else would one expect from a pronouncement such as Gates other than a reaction or two from the Generals of the Air Force? These are men used to thinking of themselves as the Hand of God, or maybe Thor's Lightning Bolt so how is a mere mortal of a Secretary of Defense going to hold them up from their greater mission of defending Israel when Armageddon comes?

Could be interesting to watch this play out.

Posted by: Dave at April 22, 2008 10:15 AM

this idea that the air force wants it should be the gatekeeper of all things CAS is insane. i know as a grunt i dont want to have to radio my toc and then have the toc radio battalion and have the battlation radio regiment and the regiment radio division and division hand over the info to the air force chain of command and work their way down their chain of command all the while im getting shot at just to get some CAS? CAS should be organic to the ground units. over and over we see the air generals obssesed with expensive overprices sky in the pie tech. that i have to rely on some guy that doesnt even have the same culture of serivice and doesnt share our own mission objectives and he is going to rush to help me when i need it the most? the air force handles the air superiority and the new "cyber command" ,bombing, space, nuclear deterent and air lift. CAS is just a small mission that they dont even want give it back to the army where it belongs.

if the army took cas back into it fold im sure there would be less friendly fire incidents like these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YxDzunLGXQ

Posted by: slntax at April 22, 2008 09:59 AM

What happened to my 'rant' tags? You can ignore the second two stanzas below...they are just me ranting.

Posted by: Chris at April 22, 2008 09:52 AM

Hogwash! Gates was out of line in publicly chastising the Air Force. The move lacked the style or grace we should expect from our politicians. He might as well have told our over worked and stressed out UAV drivers they suck at their job and they're going to have to work harder. As the SECDEF he could have just as easily ordered more UAV's into theater (it's good to be king).

I don't want mire this conversation in doctrine, but I think we can all agree that without air superiority, you can't do squat on the ground. Like it or not, for the next decade or two the F-22 and F-35's are the future of the Air Force. With the F-117 fleet retired, the F-15 fleet falling out of the sky and the F-16 fleet getting really tired, what are you going to field? God help us if we ever have to fight a real military in that state.

Christian - with the first squadron of F-22's, just now reaching operational status, I'd hardly call them a legacy platform.

The fact is, the Air Force, and aerospace industry, have done a great job of getting UAV's to this point. The idea of fielding UAV's capable of out-performing our current manned platforms is still decades away (I'd estimate 30 to 40 years).

I don't pretend to know what Gates' is dealing with, but I do know that airing your dirty laundry in public never ends well (at some point someone's going to see your SpongeBob underwear) it's not good for moral and is never diplomatic.

Posted by: Chris at April 22, 2008 09:49 AM

A significant amount of his "attack" was an emphasis on Col John Boyd's legacy with the Air Force...

Who shoved the F16, and helped shove the A10, down the generals' throats (and was also strongly involved in what became the F18), nearly killed the B1, tried pretty hard to limit the F15, etc, in the name of doing what was right for the Air Force, not what was politically acceptable to the generals.

Especially invoking Boyd's "Be Somebody or Do Something" speechlet.

Also, "Fighter Mafia" is a term which became corrupted over the years. The original fighter mafia was Boyd, Sprey, Ricconi, etc, who shoved the F16 and A10 down the Air Force's throat. The members of the original fighter mafia look at the F22 and F35 and groan in pain.

Posted by: Nicholas Weaver at April 22, 2008 08:49 AM

Well said, atacms and SMSgt!

Posted by: WR at April 22, 2008 08:33 AM

Gates "attack" was neither undiplomatic nor unjustified.

Let the positive attacks continue if that will grab the military's attention to change from the old, outdated ways! Glad to see that he is tell what is morally correct rather than necessarily politically correct. (PC is for the birds.)

Posted by: WR at April 22, 2008 08:31 AM

Wasn't he at Maxwell AFB in Alabama where the AU is? If I were a Commander in Chief, I would ask him to clarify his statements and if I didn't like the explanation, I would ask for his resignation. By 'didn't like' I mean if made me believe he was looking too much at the here and now and he was not fully considering all sides to the arguments concerning AF and UAVs.

The AF really P's me off on a lot of things they're doing, but the Army whining about not enough UAV support is just that: whining. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Army sees a problem because they're looking for one. They will never complain up the chain about the unavailability of an organic asset but will always complain about a missing unorganic one.

I see this as absolute proof, the other services STILL don't get one of the, if not THE basic tenet of Airpower: centralized control, decentralized employment. If Sec'y Gates wants more AF critical thinking, I suggest the AF editors of the Aerospace Power Journal (or whatver the name of it is these days) start publishing some papers on the downside of looking at the 'here and now' instead of 'now and in the future'.

Gee, we always hear about 'fighting the last war', but it seems like it usually comes from the same people who want to 'plan' for the current one. Maybe the former springs from the latter?

Posted by: SMSgt Mac at April 22, 2008 08:28 AM

I think Sec. Gates' comments to the USAF are an overall mentality that he is trying to have them address. Case in point: F-22's. It appears that seeing that the USAF was getting much traction with their arguments about 5th gen fighters, they resorted to saying the F-22 would be great at IED jamming. Perfect example of not thinking out of the box.

He's essentially telling them that there is a real fight going on now, lives are being lost, it's of STRATEGIC importance and don't rely on the silver plated option that's overly expensive when a more reasonable one will do. To quote him directly: "Unmanned systems cost much less and offer greater loiter times than their manned counterparts, making them ideal for many of today's tasks." Or look at coin aircraft, we use to operate the OV-10 Bronco, but don't have anything similar today. I think this is what Gates is referring to here: "For those missions that still require manned missions, we need to think hard about whether we have the right platforms -- whether, for example, low-cost, low-tech alternatives exist to do basic reconnaissance and close air support in an environment where we have total control of the skies -- aircraft that our partners also can afford."
Look at how the "fighter mafia" culture has long denigrated the A-10 in favor of the "sexier" F-16's or now F-22's. It's akin to driving the Benz as opposed to the Honda. Which is more expensive to maintain? And considering the lengthy battles, can we always expect to use such high gas guzzling aircraft? The loiter times are affected too.

Another example can be seen with the USAF's lukewarm embrace of UCAV's. Remember the Boeing X-45 and when it seemed to be working, boom the Air Force pulled the plug. It's really a mindset and a sense of parochialism that caused that I believe.

I don't want to disparage the air force cause they definitely help to keep us on top, however I think too many times they are TOO WEDDED to the military industrial complex and always seek the most gold plated items when other solutions would work. Granted other services suffer from this to a degree, but I believe the USAF suffers the most from this and that may be part of the message that Gates wants them to hear.

Posted by: atacms at April 22, 2008 08:25 AM