Lockheed P-38 Lightning & CAS

[argie]

If a 30mm cannon is overkill, what's a 500 lb bomb?

That's why it was developed a 125 lb bomb filled with concrete instead of HE.

With today's navegation and fire control systems, almost every ordnance can be overkilling.

[Vark]

I think complexity is also driven by States demanding a piece of the precurement pie and the belief that if it's complex it once again demonstrates a technological superiority that will translate into battlefield superiority and success. there is also a social argument that technology means our side is best, and reinforces a nations support for it's armed forces as objects of national pride and achievement.

When I researched the transition of Cold war forces to peacekeeping I found primary sources that stated the military sold the politicians a capability as insurance against massive peace-dividend draw downs, not the other way round. Though the politicians demanded micro-management, using the new communications technologies becoming available, as their part of the bargain. End result, the military get to use supersonic bombers designed to penetrate radar and weapon dense airspaces to bomb tribesmen, who are culturally from the Seventh century and equiped for a seventies slugfest, but the politicians make sure they don't bomb the actual MSR's and bases, all in Pakistan.

We will never loose in Afghanistan, trouble is we will never win and the financial forces, arrayed against the coalitions main partners are far more effective than the military forces they confront. So like Sparta we will decline, faced with demographic and economic realities no amount of GPS whizz bangery, electro-adaptive camo schemes and nanobots we produce, quite depressing really.

[JonS]

... I would argue those Brits and even the "boots on the ground school" are missing a bigger point. The assumption at the base of that thinking is, "If we just get the force mix right we would win."

The counter to that is, of course, maybe sometimes there is no force mix that can win, given other factors, and at the top of that list I would put at the very top the willingness to sacrifice on the part of the people doing the fighting, and of the people supporting the fighters

But that's a political decision, one which the military should - rightly - have little say in.

I'd suggest the military has made an entirely rational decision, that runs something along the lines of:

* Politicians are going to get us involved in wars

* politicians are going to get us involved in wars which, realistically, require very long term engagements, and large numbers of troops and probably lots of casualties (albeit at a low per diem rate) to win

* politicians are not going to let us get many of our own guys killed

* politicians are not going to let us remain engaged indefinately

* that is, politicians are going to get us involved in wars that we probably can't win (for some useful definition of 'win')

* therefore, since we aren't going to win anyway, it makes sense for us (the military) to develop a suite of weapons that minimise our exposure and casualties.

What's that? Cost? Who cares. Not our problem.

Kind of a cynical and defeatist attitude, too.

[winkelried]

IIRC, there wasn't a proper flak trap, but the usual small and medium weapons fire any soviet style division could deliver.

The affected helos came back mostly with 7.62 holes on them.

BTW, I wasn't limiting the discussion only to COIN, thoough it can be even more difficult than many other CAS missions, despite being considered low intensity.

is this more of a doctrine issue? during the cold war we learned, that the soviets would engage with their attack helos just in front or above the armored spearhead. so the helos would be less vulnerable to ground fire since AD could be engaged by the armored spearhead. the Medina Division case was more a kind of solo/relatively deep penetration of an air assault batallion where the attack helos operated independently of ground forces. so this would make them more vulnerable to ground-to-air gunnery.

our anti-helo AD during the cold war was more targeted against air mobile operations (e.g. tactical air assault operations involving infantry for a vertical encirclement).

[Michael Emrys]

Requirement that the airframe be able to carry a high-ROF 30mm cannon was part of the original 1970 RFP that eventually became the A-10, so this was always part of the design. The project's genesis was in 1967, but the work from 1967-1970 was preliminary and did not involve any complete airframe designs. So there was never an A-10 prototype, or even an engineer's sketch, without a 30mm cannon.

Not disputing any of that, but I was referring to the early design concept stage when it was being mooted what kind of new plane was desired.

Michael

[Vark]

I don't know about other nations JonS, but as I have alluded to before, the British Armed forces was very aggressive in its political lobbying, after the Cold War ended, as to the role it could play in the new era of 'peace' keeping operations. That is why twenty years later we still have soldiers not equiped for their new role and dying needlessly, understandable, and definitely cynical, but for once the politicians are not all to blame.

[winkelried]

it wasn't just lobbying i believe. the countries which have a colonial tradition are also used to have troops and equipment useful in such situations. countries with no or a lesser tradition in small wars have more difficulties in changing their mindset.