Sorry for the delay in posting, folks. Was on a much-needed vacation with the family that recharged my batteries and prepared me for what is certain to be a very newsy fall.
One thing I wanted to make a note of with our readers is a story that ran last week on Military.com from a well-respected journalist whom I’ve known for years, Jonathan Landay. He writes for McClatchy news and was involved in a sudden ambush and firefight that resulted in the loss of two senior enlisted Marines, a young Marine officer and a Navy Corpsman — all on an advisor team for Afghan forces.
Jonathan’s takeaway from the ambush and the hours-long firefight that ensued was that the Marines were begging for some kind of fire support to help get them out of the pinch in Kunar. Because of the new restrictions placed upon forces there to avoid civilian casualties — or the perception of civilian casualties — fire and air support for the Marines (and their Afghan troops) was delayed for hours. Anyone reading this who’s been in combat knows how long an hour is when the bullets are flying — most of the fights I’ve been in have lasted minutes, and that was plenty.
…The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said…
When an Afghan soldier demanded helicopter gunships, U.S. Major Kevin Williams replied through an interpreter: “We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today.”
The Americans were assisting Afghan forces in an operation that called for Afghans searching the hamlet for weapons and then meeting village elders to plan police patrols.
But U.S. officers suspected insurgents were tipped off about the operation beforehand, as the coalition and Afghan forces were ambushed as they approached the outskirts of the hamlet at dawn, the report said.
Aside from the policy aspect of the screwup, there’s something that might be worth considering here that could have made the crucial difference. We’ve been covering the larger issue of COIN air power and the micro issue of a COIN support and recce plane. Would not have something like this made a decisive difference in the ambush?
Let’s look at the key points:
The COIN plane would have 5 hours of loiter, more than enough time to recce the area before the meeting with the elder that was the bait of the ambush. The crew could have alerted the advisors and their Afghan charge well before they entered the village of the ambush setup.
Even had they missed the emplacements, the COIN plane could have provided graduated levels of precise CAS and could have worked as a FAC-A for artillery and mortar support. Helicopters are great for this, but they were too far away and have limited loiter time. A COIN plane can be based at FOBs or even COPs with only a few hundred meters of runway and a skeleton maintenance crew.
Sure there is greater risk to the pilots and there’s plenty of logistical problems to account for. But it seems the solution to this problem is well within our grasp and the Pentagon has been much too slow to send it down range.
This loss of life is a tragic (and preventable?) shame and rest assured that Defense Tech and Military.com will continue to investigate its circumstances and follow its conclusions.
– Christian
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Posted by: NV Smith at September 15, 2009 01:00 PM
>Pedestrian: As an F-5 replacement I liked the F-20
>but a Mach 1+ bird does not a CAS/COIN bird make.
The issue involving F-20 is more about cost per flight. Once again, I also do not beleive F-20 is the best choice for COIN. The reason why F-20 is a COIN candidate is its cheap price tag, and possible low cost per flight. COIN for third world countries is also an issue. Meanwhile these countries also may have conventional war threats. In this case, a fighter that is cheap, ideal cost per flight for COIN, ”AND” a muti-role capabilities to engage coventional war may be the recommendations. In modern days, we should not forget a hybrid generation of assymetric AND conventional warfare mixed together. This is where the F-20 fits, only as part of the US strategy if it wants to share COIN ”PLUS” conventional multi-role cheap fighter with poor allied countries, like Afghanistan. Once again, if it is just for US COIN use, I beleive OV-10 Bronco is the solution. However, if US concludes that it wants to share a multi-role fighter with poor allied countries, F-20 is on the table. F-20 is a COIN candidate only in terms of cost per flight and the price tag, with ”ADDITIONAL” conventional warfare performance, not for its technical performance as COIN.
Forget the ARES Mudfighter. Every time they fired the Gatling it snuffed the flame in the engine. The exhaust gases from the gun were sucked into the jet intake causing a flame-out requiring the pilot to do a emergency restart. Not a good thing anywhere.
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I wonder if we can make the A-1 Skyraider again?
Pedestrian, et al:
We’re getting off track; F-20ish aircraft aren’t COIN birds & the one size fits all multi-role concept hasn’t worked too well. The Royal Malaysian AF may be an example; while they have (had?) a squadron each of Su 30, F/A 18, MiG 29 and F 5, they also have two squadrons of Hawk 108 & 208 and they aren’t trainers.
Besides, the F-20 is dead & ain’t never coming back. Possibly the closest thing around is the ROK T-50 and F/A-50 combination. I know nothing about their actual existence: I’m a grunt, not a zoomie.
IF we have to have a pure jet vice turboprop, and I remain dubious, then I suggest looking at something along the lines of the Hawk 200.
I really think “we” should go back to the LARA concept and take a look at the theory behind those design proposals.
Medik47-
re:”Every time they fired the Gatling it snuffed the flame in the engine.”
Source that, please. The gun and intake were on opposite sides to prevent exactly that. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that the design didn’t work exactly as intended.
We need a carrot-stick approach in Afghanistan. The carrot is the Taliban lay down their arms and join the rest of their countrymen in the closest thing they can come to a democracy. The stick is Fuel-Air-Explosives on their cash crops, i.e., opium poppies, food, etc. Join up or get bombed back into the Stone Age!
A combination of long-loiter AC-47 gunships, OV-10 Broncos, A-1 Skyraiders and attack helicopters would be enough to provide accurate close air support for counter-insurgency.
But Remember this: we’re fighting an enemy that hasn’t an aircraft. Using air power to counter their iniative is one answer, but not the only answer. It is, however, the expensive answer, and that plays right into attrition-the more it costs, the sooner we’ll quit. Seriously, a Folker Triplane might work best, simply because they are low maintainance, need little run way, and are cheap enough to deploy a few with every company of grunts. When we go high-tech, we run the crap out of a few aircraft, especailly as current doctrine is to spread out and hold for a long time, and whatever the F-20 or F-22 or F-33&1/3 capabilites, most won’t be used and it will all have to be maintained in a major facility, for along time. In WW1 adn WW2, the war itself convinced the defeated that it was time to quit. But, with all our high-tech, we haven’t yet convinced a bunch of rag muffions with small arms and pick up trucks to quit, and we’ve been at it twice as long. We have to get close, personal, and hug them all over, all at once, for along, long time, and that takes a lot of cheap, Soviet thinking in regards to hardwear. I wasn’t serious about the Folker, but tell me, what a few crop dusters with 30 cals and a couple rockets, each, could do, if they were always close at hand, and what would they have to contend with from the enemy?
A thought from an ole USAF Wpns viet vet. After someone has been boring holes in the wild blue for 5 hours, are they as sharp as after just a couple, no matter which single seat? Stop pushing the limits. When I make the run to San Antonio, I stop several times and its only 4 hours. True, I’m not 20 something, but then lets use common sense and wisdom. 2 birds per area, and rotate. My God guys, we’re not launching a mars shot!!!
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