USAF News and Discussion

[Tsavo Lion]

what nonsense, USAF doesn't run missions for political statements. They are tactical decisions.

Regretfully, I agree with the 2nd sentence, but disagree with the 1st. B-52s, B-2s, B-1Bs & F-22s were flown since the Cold War over the Indian/Arctic/Pac. Oceans, S.Korea, E.China Sea, S.China Sea & Guam in the show of force missions. So, IMO, this last mission had not been entirely tactical & in fact by large measure was carrying a political statement as well, as the AW article explained.

 

[gf0012-aust]

what nonsense, USAF doesn't run missions for political statements. They are tactical decisions.

I agree with the 2nd sentence, but disagree with the 1st. B-52s, B-2s, B-1Bs & F-22s were flown since the Cold War over the Indian/Arctic/Pac. Oceans, S.Korea, E.China Sea, S.China Sea & Guam in the show of force missions. So, IMO, shared by many, this last mission had not been entirely tactical & in fact by large measure was carrying a political statement as well, as the AW article explained.

US Air Force Global Strike Command; issued Jan 20, 2017
“Our goal was to find the aircraft to do the mission,” said Lt. Col. James Hadley, 18th Air Force operations planner. “The mobility enterprise flexed to put tankers from the U.S., U.S. European and U.S. Central Commands toward this effort. Everybody had a part in making this work, and it was very successful.”

The 305th Air Mobility Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, was one of the units that contributed tankers to the refueling mission. Col. Darren Cole, the 305th AMW commander, said several units had to come together from different locations and commands and function together as a team to make this mission happen.

“It’s a big team that has to execute things on time to make it work right,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive to be able to hit a target globally at a moment’s notice with so many people participating.”

ie it was a global training opportunity between disparate forces across the globe

we're not going to go down the path of arguing back and forth.

Move on - you're on short finals. change your approach real soon as you're running out of options to stay here

 

[t68]

Regretfully, I agree with the 2nd sentence, but disagree with the 1st. B-52s, B-2s, B-1Bs & F-22s were flown since the Cold War over the Indian/Arctic/Pac. Oceans, S.Korea, E.China Sea, S.China Sea & Guam in the show of force missions. So, IMO, this last mission had not been entirely tactical & in fact by large measure was carrying a political statement as well, as the AW article explained.

Those are stratigic missions planned by defence under the CONOPS which were mandated by political decisions of the time. As GF said mission planning is governed by defence issues not political, but in saying that politics governes the mission parameters which defence work within.

 

[Haavarla]

Those are stratigic missions planned by defence under the CONOPS which were mandated by political decisions of the time. As GF said mission planning is governed by defence issues not political, but in saying that politics governes the mission parameters which defence work within.

Eighter way, you need to propper train your strategic AF units.
That boils down to fly them on missions.

And that is what both Russia and US is doing.
I would say the mission where Russia flew two Tu-160 down to Venezuela was indeed a new milestone for them.
Now We can argue about political footprint and force projection, but it comes second.

 

[gf0012-aust]

And that is what both Russia and US is doing.
I would say the mission where Russia flew two Tu-160 down to Venezuela was indeed a new milestone for them.

in real terms the US and Russia are the only countries that can launch intercontintal strike missions with confidence.

in this case AMC were using a real event to apply training to multiple and geo dispersed commands

to apply a cost per dead terrorist is just silly as its about the importance of the target that ultimately determines which forces are employed

to paraphrase a post I made just over 10 years ago elsewhere.....

eg look at the killing of the chechyan terrorist. It was singularly successful. Russia established that no air assets were in a position to respond in time against a time sensitive target - even though some air bases were less than 15 minutes combat aircraft flying time away. They had no capacity to launch air delivered weapons to target, whereas the Tochka could be cued to the SIGINT/COMMINT data. They could volley fire if necessary.

the cost value of the TBM was irrelevant - the sole determinant was about the fastest most effective way to opportunity kill a high value target

Om a HVA target cost is a secondary consideration

 

[Haavarla]

Another side point to the Strategic capability, is the ability to convert some units over towards convential platforms.
I would say US has done this with B-1, B-2 and B-52's with great success, while Russia has somewhat failed.
Looking at those Tu-22M3 flying over Syria with only 12 KAB-500 is just so wrong..

It gives the crew flying hours alright, but still..

 

[gf0012-aust]

Another side point to the Strategic capability, is the ability to convert some units over towards convential platforms.
I would say US has done this with B-1, B-2 and B-52's with great success, while Russia has somewhat failed.
Looking at those Tu-22M3 flying over Syria with only 12 KAB-500 is just so wrong..

It gives the crew flying hours alright, but still..

one thing the russians have a good history of is developing effective guided weapons technology - so despite the fact that they were KAB-500's, its still a demonstration of intent and ability.

what I am surprised about is the lack of new weapons systems used over Syria

 

[vonnoobie]

In some disussion;s on the RAAF thread Trump's plans did come up in passing and a question/statement I had was advised better to be asked here (Thanks).

I have to ask, is there any actual benefit in increasing the size of the USAF considering between active, reserve, air national guard and civilian employees the USAF has 660,000 personnel available...

Get's too a point where your so large it just becomes a nightmare to run it all...

This is in relation's to Trump wanting to increase the USAF to 350,000 personnel (Currently standing at 308,000).

 

[gf0012-aust]

In some disussion;s on the RAAF thread Trump's plans did come up in passing and a question/statement I had was advised better to be asked here (Thanks).



This is in relation's to Trump wanting to increase the USAF to 350,000 personnel (Currently standing at 308,000).

as much as the expansion might be useful - its the allocation of those resources which is important - and applies to all their services

IMO the focus is not just about lethal weapons and crewing of them, but there needs to be greater application of development and training into the C5 shops

 

[Ranger25]

F22 Block 3.2 software delayed

The already delayed Increment 3.2B upgrade for the US Air Force's (USAF's) Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor combat aircraft is set to be put back still further due to 'persistent deficiencies' with the software, the Pentagon has reported.


More here

Delayed F-22 upgrade slips again | IHS Jane's 360

 

[John Fedup]

This just confirms how difficult it is to keep up with software development as the JSF program has shown. The private sector can out-source this but the military can't do this easily. Perhaps a hard look at how key allies can help is needed, at least with regards to the JSF program.

 

[gf0012-aust]

This just confirms how difficult it is to keep up with software development as the JSF program has shown. The private sector can out-source this but the military can't do this easily. Perhaps a hard look at how key allies can help is needed, at least with regards to the JSF program.

key prog members are already involved in coding issues

the problem for F-22 is language and architecture and legacy design issues, some improvements are coming from JSF developments, but not all F-22 systems can be managed in the same fashion

 

[Vanshilar]

It does bring up a question I have. My understanding is the cost per flying hour (CPFH) takes into account all the costs associated with the plane, i.e. basing, salaries, training, fuel, etc., and then divides by the total number of hours flown.

The problem is that figure is not the same thing as the cost to execute a mission, nor the cost to maintain a plane type. An A-10 doesn't magically just pop up starting within 250 miles of a CAS site, you need to establish a base, set up security, maintenance facilities, all the logistics (food, fuel, beds, etc.). If it's relying on aerial refueling, IIRC the cost of that tanker (the physical plane, the tanker crew, their training, etc.) isn't included in calculating a plane's CPFH -- but it very much is a cost that they need to consider when planning out a mission. So a big problem with these CPFH infographics is that they mislead people into thinking "well why do we fly B-2's from halfway around the globe for all those hours with a high CPFH when we could have just flown some A-10's from nearby" when it totally ignores the underlying costs of positioning the A-10 close enough to where it can be useful. (I'm just using the A-10 as an example, any other plane could be used.)

IIRC, the Air Force has said that the F-35A will have a somewhat higher CPFH than the F-16, but the cost of maintaining the actual fleet will be close to the same because (rough numbers here) each F-16 flies 300 hours per year while each F-35A will fly 250 hours per year -- the decreased number of hours due to increased use of simulators plus the focus of flight training being different (more tactics, less how to manipulate the cockpit). So for example investing in better flight simulators means more cost to the program (increasing the numerator in the CPFH) while decreasing the number of flight hours (decreasing the denominator) -- so looking from purely a CPFH point of view it's actually a bad thing to do, but they're more concerned about the total program cost.

My feeling is that it's better to look at the total cost needed to successfully execute a mission, rather than to just look at different planes and compare their CPFH.

 

[gf0012-aust]

My feeling is that it's better to look at the total cost needed to successfully execute a mission, rather than to just look at different planes and compare their CPFH.

its a mission system and capability cost - not a platform cost - and the target set importance can make overall prosecution costs less relevant

eg in another thread someone questioned the value and efficacy of using B2's as he arrived at a value per dead terrorist. that kind of accounting died in Vietnam for good reason

again, using the example of the russians, a TBM was used to kill a target based on the fact that killing the target as soon as possible with the nearest precision asset was far more important than traditional targeting and prosecution solutions. 15 minutes from time of phone intercept to termination with a battlefield rocket. despite the nearest airfield strike package being a further 15mins away, the fact that the threat was time sensitive meant that killing sooner was a greater priority than arriving later and finding that the threat had moved on and worse - was no longer traceable

same principle, cost is relative to target value and if the priority is to opportunity kill on the shortest OODA solution available, then that should be the priority.

managing critical kills on an accounting model is based on flawed logic and an incomprehension about the imperatives and focus priorities of a military decision as opposed to a financial/accountancy driven one

 

[colay1]

A pity then that the US had nothing faster than cruise missiles to go after Bin Laden in his Tora Bora camp years back. One scenario that the proposed HSSW should remedy.

 

[ADMk2]

A pity then that the US had nothing faster than cruise missiles to go after Bin Laden in his Tora Bora camp years back. One scenario that the proposed HSSW should remedy.

Yes they did and do. But they chose not to employ it for understandable reasons...

 

[colay1]

Yes they did and do. But they chose not to employ it for understandable reasons...

What were the other options? Not an ICBM I hope?

 

[locutus]

What were the other options? Not an ICBM I hope?

That may be exactly what they were considering. After reading these last several posts, it reminded me of a comment GF made in another thread on the Navy/Maritime board. Below is the comment:

It's an interesting situation. Baer (the CIA agent in Afgahnistan) indicates in his memoirs that there was a very clear intent in the opening stages of 9-11 that the US was discussing the option of nuking the area where Bin Laden was holding out. Ie if they had clear unimpeachble evidence of his location they were contemplating a focused nuclear strike.

 

[ADMk2]

What were the other options? Not an ICBM I hope?

People always talk about how the West have only invested in 'slow' weapons while forgetting (or choosing to deliberately ignore) the fact they have the largest inventory of the fastest weapons on the planet.

Always makes me smile when 'the internet' froths at the mouth about how much danger 'we' are in due to Russian and Chinese ballistic missile capabilities. DF-21 and so on, in particular.

However I wonder how many of them truly contemplate the idea of the US's most likely response to long range ballistic missiles being fired at them in any combat scenario...

 

[gf0012-aust]

every now and then the "save the A-10" catchcry comes up in various forums

https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/01/25/10-vs-f-35-flyoff-may-begin-next-year-general/

there's some key takeaways in this article (which have also been stated in here) which are worth remembering.....