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I'm pretty sure the question of whether or not a state could leave the union was answered in 1865.

I buy the idea of LAAR (and likely C-27J also) on the cost basis argument--in the right context. In the LOBOG (Lots of Boots on the Ground) days of Afghanistan/Iraq, LAAR would have made a whole lot of sense in-country. I'm not so sure LAAR is as much of a panacea today, now that we're going with light footprints in-country. Regardless, directly attaching Air Force aircraft and crews to specific Army units is exactly what we do not want to do. It is more convenient for ground forces to complain about non-support from the Air Force than it is for them to convince Army leaders to buy adequate numbers of aircraft types to provide ground forces with what they theoretically need. - If the Army wants more unmanned ISR, it can buy more Gray Eagles - If it wants more dedicated manned CAS, it can buy more Apaches - If it want more dedicated manned ISR, it can buy more RC-12s Funny, I guess the Army doesn't really want any of those things, since I don't see Army leaders clamoring for the funds to massively expand their Gray Eagle/Apache/RC-12 fleets beyond what they currently have/are projected to buy. Senior Army leaders don't want to buy enough of these assets to provide each ground commander with his own fleet of air assets, because doing so would be prohibitively expensive. Investing in enough airpower to satisfy ground commanders' desires would in turn choke out other vital elements of Army ground power . . . if the Army had to pay for it. What works great for ground commanders is to instead demand the kitchen sink from the Air Force, without (a) taking time to acknowledge that their own service has shortchanged them, or (b) considering the entirety of the problem of providing support throughout the AOR/the world. I'm not saying the guys on the ground are wrong for wanting every asset possible to support them/their mission. If I were in their shoes, I would be doing the same thing. That doesn't make the math any less true--we can't/won't spend the cash to give ground guys everything they want--especially in the era of sequestration. When I consider environments where LAAR makes sense, I think a very strong case could be made for buying a small fleet. It could save significant cash/wear & tear on other airframes. As Sqwatch indicated, there are lots of cases where LAAR makes little sense at all, though. I can imagine a number of cases where a Viper, in a centrally-located CAS orbit with tanker support, would be a better/cheaper option than LAAR for on-call CAS support. Whether LAAR, Vipers or other AF assets, they should never be penny-packeted out to Army units. TT

But it's okay, because you are required to stay on base, so at least you have that going for you.

It's not always about kinetics. Actually having intimate familiarity with your AO and knowing the people who operate there actually counts for something. Despite what the PowerPoint warriors claim to be true on the AF side of the Puzzle Palace, ISR is the vast majority of the mission sets for COIN, not CAS. I can't even begin to fathom the number of times I was ordered to log CAS for all of my air requests, even when it was not warranted. Or breaking up a single air request so that we could have a greater number of requests for the same amount of coverage to make sure, and I wish I were kidding, the PowerPoint slides were greened up. The best way for the AF to advocate its existence with the Army during COIN operations is the LAAR and pushing the crews forward to operate with a specific Army unit. But this kind of operations mean something Big Blue would completely abhor. That being decentralized planning and execution. You would actually have to empower a pilot to go forth and conquer within the set bounds. Crazy talk I know, especially in this day and age of micromanagement. Sure, downed aircrews become a big deal, no one will argue that. There are definitely some inherent risk associated with aviation. So losing an aircraft is going to happen regardless. However, if flown properly, the risks will not be as high as the Army rotorywing assets. So are you going to tell them their risks are too high, and that they should go ahead and park their assets? The AF is doing a great job breaking its own aircraft, burning out its people and spending way too much overall. Why else would there be a push for the transition to the laser rocket? Because it is a lot more cost effective than a GBU-54 dropped by a Strike Eagle with a lot less collateral damage. Hell, just look at the success and cost of the recent OV-10 deployment the Afghanistan. Now there is a time and place for a real kick down the door fighter armed with multiple 500/2000#s of hate, like when thing get bad. Therefore the LAAR would be your armed FAC-A, working in concert with JTACs, and be a local pilot with some real knowledge of what is going on/where people are. Now you have someone that can advocate the service while gaining intimate knowledge of a specific AO to aid the local unit in kinetic and mainly non kinetic operations. Fly-Fight-Win or some such thing. This is COIN, so let's fight it that way.

I don't want to ride one in either but I don't think you or any other pilot of a LAAR aircraft would be facing a significantly higher probability of that in a semi-permissive AOR, like Eastern Syria - Western Iraq or Afghanistan. Manned ISR has been operating in AORs like this for years with only one loss I know of, Iraqi Cessna Caravan shot down by 57mm AAA in open source, and that was / is an unpressurized aircraft not capable of operating out of the WEZ of a 57mm or above AAA. A Super T, AT-6B, Scorpion Jet, etc... would still offer more than enough performance to operate quietly, safely and reliably well above 15k and X miles away to avoid most threats / detection while being surveilled prior to going kinetic and if CAS is required for a TIC, it is built for that also. Is it the same an A-10? Nope but for the fight we are in and the modernization efforts we say we want to do, we have to consider costs. Ultimately it is the TOA of the AF and all the different pots of money that add up to that, that determine whether we can get new toys by not spending all our money in current ops. Bar napkin math for hypothetical B-1 deployment to the Died I came up with for a year with 6 jets, crews, support, and tankers was about 1.1 billion and for a Super T deployment replacing the B-1s with 20 Super Ts and flying 3 sorties for each B-1 sortie was 52 million. You could double my estimate for the Super T deployment and cut my estimate for deploying the B-1's in half and sill save in the neighborhood of 500 million per year, serious money. This aircraft/mission/capability would be a good fit for a Guard/Reserve unit with specialized group like the CAS integration group being stood up at Nellis being the lead unit or FTU for it, Call on it as needed and put it back on the shelf if the world somehow becomes more peaceful, not holding breath... Just my two cents again but the AF has a terrible delusion that it believes it is really only going to fight big Desert Storm or Allied Force style campaigns and that these missions in the Arc of Instability are not going to be the norm or at a minimum a large portion of our likely operations. For the past 15 years they have been the norm and a guess but 15 years from now we will still be doing lots of ISR, kinetic action on dynamic HVTs and targets with a high CDE concern and low destructive effect desired. I don't think we should be completely focused on CAS / Low Intensity conflicts but keeping something like 10 - 20 % of our air assets geared towards that seems a balanced approach to having a capability to eliminate 3 terrorists in a Hilux for about 10k per mission vice having a capability that costs probably 600k to 700k per mission to deliver the same effect at not really any greater risk.

The Super-T/Light CAS combo is one of the few things that would get me to just about instantly volunteer for something. If the O-8s think the troops don't want that kind of thing...there must be more than one USAF, because that's not the one I'm in.

I would say very likely. Just like guys who go to AETC somehow find themselves ping ponging back to it time and time again.

^^^ Saw that once, think the dude strategically performed horribly in IFF and washed out, magically going back to heavies. Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

If you ask 3 AFPC folks what day of the week it is, you'll get 3 different answers. I don't hold any weight to a single word from AFPC. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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