Comments on: Fighter Jets’ New Role: Recon

By: Noah Shachtman

Noah Shachtman — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:00:29 +0000

Reader CA, with the Air Force, says…
I have never heard that term (must be Navy), but in the AF we call it NTISR:
NTISR (Non-Traditional Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance)
NTISR was developed to address the need for additional ISR collection by tasking
aircraft to record weapons system video of selected targets. Aircraft with targeting pods
traditionally used for targeting purposes, were tasked to locate, identify, and assess
potential/emerging targets and Battle Damage Assessment
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_hr/040704sams.pdf Search for it.…
This is in specific reference to the paras talking about Litening and Snipet and AESA.

By: David Axe

David Axe — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 08:04:47 +0000

We should maintain strong conventional forces because they take time to develop and train, and who knows what threats the future holds? Also, conventional forces like tactical jets are long-term investments offering decades of utility and tremendous flexibility, as the recent trend in tacair recce demonstrates. Just because the F/A-22 program has been mismanaged doesn’t mean we should stop fielding fighters. Rather, we should be smarter about developing them. Perhaps evolutionary rather than revolutionary fighter development is in order. Take a look at the new versions of the F-15E and F-16 being fielded by Singapore and the UAE, respectively. They outclass all but our handful of new Raptors. A stateside example is the F/A-18E/F, a fine new fighter evolved from the first-gen Hornet. It came in on budget, on time, with advanced capabilities and at an affordable unit cost. While the Air Force struggles to field any fighters at all, in only five years the Navy has completely replaced its 200 F-14s with the same number of F/A-18E/Fs and achieved major economies in doing so.

By: David Axe

David Axe — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 07:55:40 +0000

Byron,
I hate to be a stickler for details, but details add up to generalizations, so I’ll have to correct you again: the first-generation F/A-18, including A, B, C and D models, does not cost $100 million, even including developmental costs. There have been more than 1,300 built at a total cost (including development) of $30 million per copy in 1993 dollars, according to National Defense University.
So are you proposing we essentially scrap all major hardware in the U.S. military in favor of training more infantry to fight terrorists that are bent on destroying America by bankrupting it? Geez. Where to begin …
First, we can afford not only the war on terror but to sustain large conventional forces in reserve as well. Even with war supplementals and recent budget increases, we’re spending only around 3.5% of our GDP on defense — a far cry from the 1980s and less than half of what we spent in the 1970s. What we lack is the political will to spend money on defense, not the actual money itself. The war on terror is fiscally sustainable. Only political will is lacking.
But don’t think that I’m proposing we actually keep fighting the war on terror. It may be affordable, but it’s still a bad idea. Islamic terrorists are interested in destroying the U.S., not really, nor are they capable of it. Islamic terror is largely a reaction to a century of ill-considered Western (European, mostly) meddling in the Middle East. More recently, America’s long military presence in Saudi Arabia created a backlash manifested in terror attacks. We can score a major win in the war on terror by simply pulling our troops out of the Middle East.
Terrorism is not new. Even Islamic terror is not new. We’ll always have terrorists. But the Western world will survive; America will survive. Even our failures in Iraq do not mean our destruction.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:57:36 +0000

What was he talking about? Yeah this is a great idea, that way they can be more flexiable with planes and the missions there assigned to. I would expect tac recon by high performance jets to be a great asset in Iraq and Afganistan. The insurgents are not ignorant in the ways to take down modern aircraft and they do have some limited means so a fast mover as recon would be indispensible. Doesn’t seem like a waste at all to me.
I have a game I play on x-box Die Hitysu 7 or something like that, well anyway it’s a turn based hex grid simulation and it has a recce version of the F/A-18 on it and it’s the most useful jet that the U.S. forces have on the game. It sees more then a normal jet and can defend itself with it’s air to air missles. Othere countries on the game have recce aircraft but there unarmed making them highly vulnuable.