I had an exchange of emails with the retired general running the Air Force Association on the F-22. I told him the Air Force would have a stronger case for funding more F-22s if they were actually used in combat in SWA instead of for demonstration flights like I had seen at DM AFB in Tucson. Didn’t get a very convincing reply.

As far as I know they still haven’t been used in combat.

OK, I am no F-22 fan, but you do realize that the vast, vast majority of our CAS is dropped not from drones but from combat aircraft? And that those airframes are sometimes older than you are?

Air superiority is one of those things that seems so nonessential until you don’t have it. It’s the main reason we have such an overwhelming conventional superiority in the first place. Seems like one of the things we should at least try to keep.

Totally not saying we shouldn’t have it. Saying that the balance is way out of wack.

We wouldn’t want to make Lockheed Martin or Boeing unhappy now, would we?

We wouldn’t need all that CAS if the U.S. weren’t involved in military adventures it shouldn’t be involved in.

Keep up the parasitical drive to take more and more of the budget, and “defense” will find there’s no country left defending anymore.

I know a little about military aircraft, so I’ll address the alleged defense requirements behind the kind of spending we do. If we looked squarely at whatever threats we think we face and set honest requirements to match, we’d see more than just fat in the defense budget: we’d see that defense-spending as we have known it is a threat to the security it claims to defend, even if we ignore economic collapse as a security threat.

While we do not actually need to use many high-performance combat aircraft to fight the kinds of wars we are in now, we do, in fact, use them. And use them up. A much less costly A-10 jet or even an AT-6 turboprop could do much of the work required of the F-16s and F-18s that do the bulk of the close-support and interdiction work in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we have hardly any of them in the defense budgets and they are always first to be cut when more complex programs are threatened. So we use vastly more expensive and complex F-18s, F-16s, F-15Es, and B-1Bs designed for much more complex missions. Complex military aircraft and their components have a limited service life that combat conditions rapidly consume. Heavy weapon and fuel loads, combat maneuvres, and engine cycling cause metal fatiguein airframes and engines. Dust wears away engine parts, canopies, radomes, and non-metallic airframe parts. Hot weather, high altitudes, and heavy loads require more power, so engines work longer at full power. Electronic systems are exposed to temperature extremes that shorten component life. Accidents also happen. Over-stressed engines fail on take-off, wrecking a plane. Pilots hit ridges while trying to spot small targets while operating at high speeds.

So, in Iraq and Iran, the Air Force, Navy, and Marines are, in effect, using Lamborghinis to pull stumps in a field. It can be made to work. But only with enormous wastage, with considerable risk, and at huge cost.

The pattern seen with combat aircraft holds for most non-aircraft weapon systems, such as the Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles that the army uses. All were designed for big wars, high-technology conflicts that demand expensive offensive and defensive qualities. All are wasted in little wars, where they wear out rapidly and remain as vulnerable to low-tech weapons as cheaper, simpler alternatives.

This wastage is part of the hidden costs of these “safe”, “easy”, “little” wars that seem to have such attractions for our politicians. It gives the lie to claims that being for the defense budget is the same as being for national security. If we believe that these “big-war” weapons systems are necessary, then we are endangering the national defense by wasting them in small wars. If we believe that the small wars have to be fought, then forcing our troops to fight with unsuitable weapons likewise endangers the national defense. If the budget actually reflected the dangers facing the country, whatever those may actually be, it would look very different from the way it looks now.

National security is, in short, ultimately about the threat that you expect to face. You estimate the risks and budget accordingly–except in America. In America, we buy what the dealer wants to sell–the top of the line with all of the options.

robspierre – I agree with you 100% on the aircraft issue. F-16s and F/A-18s were not meant to be cruising the skies of Afghanistan, dropping one or two 500-lb. bombs every once in awhile when the grunts get in trouble. However, there is zero constituency in the AF for a dedicated low-level CAS platform.

I’ll dissent on the Abrams platform, though. I have several good friends who were in Phantom Fury who are alive today because of timely support from Abrams tank fire. Armor support is critical to infantry assaulting in the urban environment.

sent to Rachel Maddow.

please don’t mention that name. it leads to leen hard times.

Pardon my ignorance, Jeff, but does CAS mean “close air support” (most logical definition I got from googling)? Also, it has long been my fear that stuff like drones, helicopters, crowd control stuff, etc., will be very handy domestically if/when things hit rock-bottom.

My main point was that constituencies within the services, vendors, or Congressional delegations have little or nothing to do with actual security. Defense procurement has become so compromised by revolving-door lobbyist jobs and outright bribes that service needs often have little to do with what service constituencies say they need. The “need” is determined by the top of the chain of command (where the contractor gravy is served) and lower ranks either parrot their superiors or say goodbye to their careers.

Again, I don’t think that the fact that the Abrams has been USED for fire support invalidates my point. Quite the contrary.

The Abrams is not a fire-support vehicle or assault gun. It is a specialized tank destroyer with massive armor optimized against tank gunfire and heavy antitank missiles striking in the forward quadrant of the vehicle. The main gun is a 120-mm high velocity, high-pressure, low-trajectory, smoothbore antitank weapon optimized for firing APFSDS (finned solid shot) at long range. It has a secondary ability to fire a HEAT round, but, like all shaped charges, this has a relatively small high-explosive content compared to an artillery-type shell. Ammunition capacity is relatively small. Barrel wear per shot is likely to be be very high, given the pressures involved. To absorb the heavy recoil of such a gun and carry the frontal armor, you need a lot of room and weight. Overall weight is very high. So engine, drivetrain and track wear will be proportional. This requires a large and thirsty engine, particularly in a tank destroyer that has to sprint from ambush spot to ambush spot. Abrams thus has a gas turbine that sacrifices dust tolerance, engine life, and fuel economy for acceleration.

Yet for all this sophistication, size, and power, a surprising number of Abrams have apparently been destroyed by improvised mines and RPGs, probably because their armor is concentrated at the front. The weight has to cause problems with the roads, bridges, and fords in many parts of the world, thus limiting mobility. The turbine means rapid wear and heavy parts and maintenance needs in a desert environment. The flat trajectory and modest ammunition loads mean that an Abrams can’t engage many infantry targets, such as an enemy mortar on a reverse slope.

Optimized fire support vehicles generally have high-trajectory weapons so that they can hit targets out of the line of sight when needed. A 120-mm mortar with direct fire capability would thus serve the fire-support role better. It would be a low-pressure weapon that would suffer less from barrel wear and would have less recoil. So it can be more compact and still have room for more ammunition. Mortars and howitzers have a wide range of available ammunition, from high explosive to illuminating and smoke rounds. The mortar would be significantly cheaper and longer lasting.

If we decided that we required an optimized fire-support vehicle, we could design it with all-around protection against the weapons most likely to be met in infantry combat: RPGs and mines, rather than tank main guns. We could give it a diesel engine. It could be lighter and more mobile, cheaper, more numerous, and more available/reliable.

Alternatively, we might find that most fire support needs could be met even more cheaply by simply supplying more 60-mm mortars to the infantry’s own support comapnies.

The bottomline is that you don’t know what the requirment is without doing the analysis–and no one is, as far as I can see. What analysis is done is done to justify procurement decisions after the fact.

Yes, “CAS” is the current acronym of choice for “Close Air Support”. CAS means bombing and strafing close to your own troops, to help them advance or protect them against attack. CAS is thus distinct from indirect air suport/interdiction (attacks on enemy supplies and communications in the rear).

Thank you so much, robspierre.

The “Combat Aircraft” budget might include unmanned aircraft and stealthy unmanned spy planes. The are more complex than the model airplanes we get at the hobby shop but still, they should be cheaper than manned airplanes.

I had to make an account here after having this linked to me, just to respond to some of the gross inaccuracies being pandered.

Preface: I totally agree that defense spending is out of control and that the I-MC needs to be reigned in. Not arguing that.

robspierre – I’m going to be blunt. You come across like you read ‘Jane’s Guide Army Vehicles’ and decided to regurgitate some facts. I’m a former Armor officer and served in OIFII as a tank platoon leader and XO. While you accurately describe some of the basic facts of “what is a tank” you are out in left-field when it comes to the employment of the weapon system and its capabilities. You should probably stick to topics you’re actually familiar with. (For one thing, saying that an M1 has a small ammo capacity is laughable. And the M1 is not a “fire support” vehicle.)

This defense budget is contributing to the hollowing out of America. The only reason we need it is to maintain the g.d. empire in the various far-flung places on this planet.

740 billion dollars, no one bats an eyelash. But just try proposing a safety net for our fellow Americans, and all of a sudden you are destroying this country.

very interesting charts.

Imagine what else could be done with that money domestically improving infrastructure.

I like my technology and toys as much as the next guy. I was inches from joining the air force to become a combat pilot. (religious zealotry made me turn away; real or imagined)

Anyway what is needed is more a-10′s or a10 like airframes. Sturdy, cheap, slow, low, Lethal. The problem is they aren’t sexy. Everyone wants to fund the stealth, mach 4 cruising, uber agile combat fighter. I wonder if the Russian model isn’t such a bad idea. Over built simpler effective aircraft.

the a10 is supposed to be replaced by the f35 as far as i know.

the a10 is 10 mm while the f35 is 90 mm. I can’t imagine the maintence cost differential also.

Why is it america is the only country that takes money from education and gives it to military.

The most effective weapon that we require in these times is education and intelligence. and you can buy a whole mess load of both for the price of one f22.

how many lives are lost within our borders because of inadequate medical care.

How many are lost because of foreign invaders.

A simple chart will show you were to put our money to protect the most americans per dollar spent.

Now do I think we should just halt R&D and put our head in the sand no way.
We should continually develop better systems to protect our military superiority but I challenge you that it could be done for much less money.

We need our money spent on needed systems that represent our current and likly future missions.

A new better Humvee. would be my first thought.

Or how about developing domestic energy sources for national security.

What happens to America the Day that OPEC decides the rest of the oil in their ground is for their use only.

its what I would do if i were them.
their would have an enormous global competitive advantage.

Sorry if I’m way off topic by now just kind of venting