Which is funny, when you think about the primary means for at least one near peer adversary to hold our staging areas at risk is via exo-atmospheric missiles.

Or, we're playing a suckers game.

Exactly. If you can hit the a bouncing small boat, other targets are comparatively easy.



 

So did it happen or not?  I'm not sure what the point you think you are making is.  

 

Much cheaper to use a JDAM bomb on ships than Harpoon or Tomahawk.

But you don't need a B1 bomber to thump pirate ships.

of course.
but do we need 180 Long Range Bombers and 2400 F35s for proxy wars?

ROBOSKI!

I love shooting at them.

you squids get all the fun.

We controlled them from our ship (Minesweeper).

But hey, whatever dude, sorry if we offended your sensibilities here on ARFCOM by not writing up a 15 page technical manual detailing how the bomb should be constructed.  You must be a blast at parties......

 

The question is if we need any ground forces at all, the beautiful part about proxy wars is that we are fighting in places we don't live in, where people who can genuinely hurt us don't live in and that we don't care about while people who can genuinely hurt us do but not to the point of initiating a strategic conflict over...

We should kill every living thing in the area, and tell the other proxy-controlling power "Fuck you, your allies are dead". Caring about collateral damage is only a concern if you plan on living in the area. If you don't it's actually preferable.

In that regard, sending people we do care about (ground forces) to get shot at by people we don't care about, in area we neither intend or desire to take or hold, is masturbation.

Kill everyone, go home.. Airpower gets you that, ground power as it is comprised in the US can not, has not, will not, and never will.

Historically Great societies have been divided into land and sea powers, it is only in the 20th century have we seen the emergence of the first great Air Power in the United States. Air Power is the only power which enables one to protect your interests without perpetual foriegn entanglements... Air Power is what we excel at, the great tragedy of American military decline is how Air Power was constrained by other services which have lost sight of thier station. The Army needs to be moved to the Kiddy table while Adults are talking. Taking ground is no longer significant, we have enough ground, the objective of our (ideally limited) ground forces is to defend the ground we have. Not go stomping around looking to acquire more that we don't actually intend to keep.

They consistantly fail to think strategically.

bombing tanks isn't airpower.
the soviet union/russia has the same airpower as the united states.

China will be there in a decade.

Airpower is the ability to threaten your enemies to such a degree they won't fuck with you and no amount of armies or navies can stop it.

so lets say we decide to nuke syria.
to the ground.  everybody.
what if russia doesn't like it and responds by destroying england?  what are we going to do?  nuke russia?  they nuke us?

we aren't the only country with airpower.  we are the only country that doesn't have the first clue what the fuck it is.  thats because the yahoos in charge of it are too busy buying toys.

.  “To say there is not a deeply ingrained prejudice in favor of aircraft among flyers would be a stupid statement” General White, USAF Chief of Staff
“This favoritism [of pursuit planes] produced a rapid growth of this flying specialty, but at the same time it obscured the problem of national defense and prevented a correct understanding of what the command of the air consists of.”  Douhet.

Twice in one thread, but it fucking deserves it.

You are correct sir



Thats incorrect, while they have the ultimate capability to provide existential threat, they can not do so without diminishing thier second strike capability. They can not pose an existential threat, as broadly, to as many participants and with as much endurance as we do. While ICBM forces are a hell of a punch, traditional air frame delivered payloads also allow us to kick as well. So they may be able to punch as hard, they can't punch as long, and they have little or no ability to kick as hard as we do while punching.

A crude metaphor but I think it gets the point across. We did the majority of our Strategic work in the Second World War with conventional payloads, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo etc. Atomic weapons were mere punctuation.



Ok thats the AS-100 level understanding of it. Still theres more then one way to skin a cat, and destroying infrastructure with traditional munitions, damaging the ability of a region to support Human life by targeting water and food distribution, transportation, medical facilities etc gets you there all the same as blowing everything up outright. Slower but, hey the timetable is flexible.



England is responsible for it's own strategic interests. Fortunately it has its own strategic deterrent. We Nuke Syria, Syria won't nuke us back because they lack strategic resources, and the mass to survive a strike to ensure a second strike. Russia could attack an ally in reprisal, but again they get to deal with England's Strategic punch, furthermore they deplete thier strategic deterrent and very likely fall under the threshold required for Mutually Assurred Destruction.

Win-win for America there, sucks for England but they are responsible for thier own strategic acquisitions. If Russia can annihilate them without repercussion, thats on the British voter and Taxpayer, not the US Foriegn Policy maker.



You are also sadly correct, we are too circumspect to properly utilize it. Airpower has the potential to reshape the world, and we have only used it sparingly.

Give Ceaser b2's and ICBM's, even if you gave the same to Carthage its a sure bet that the Goths, the Vandals etc never sack Rome, nor the sultan Byzantum Without those distractions everything comes up Roses for them militarily.

[Continued]

However I ascribe more blame to the yahoos promoting foreign campaigns where they get to play cowboy's and taliban shooting back and forth with small arms on as close to a peer footing as we possibly could have with goatherders. It is foolish romanticism, and it needs to stop being profferred as a viable alternative to Aerial depopulation and depletion. Thats why the Army in particular needs to lose all expeditionary aims and capability, they offer it as a response rather then the judicious and appropriatte exercise of airpower.



Douhet is appropriatte only in terms of preference to method, the end goal is the same. Mass casualty, depletion, terror, and existential threat rather then potshotting each other over the fence on as near equal terms as possible.

Land power is inherantly defensive, and defense is NEVER at the core of any viable strategy.

I could have sworn the Title said "Air Force blows up Dignity"

bwahahahaha
you misspelled decisive

or




or




or



airplanes started being about airpower in 1945 and stopped being about airpower in about 1963.

Curse this computer not having in-browser spellcheck!

As far as your comment, it was the linebacker operations that brought the north to the bargaining table. Furthermore it was the withdrawal of the "promise" of aerial support that prompted the north to overrun the south.

As far as Saddam, big whoop. Kill the base of power and you declaw the dictator. If he climbed out of that hole to find the whole country dead, dying and depopulated he wouldn't have been anything other then the meanest of the remaining scavengers, and we would have saved billions of dollars, years of time, and untold credibility in the international arena.

Are you really arguing that "Perpetual war for perpetual peace" is a better "end" state then simply kicking over the sandcastles periodically? Cuz occupation is much more expensive and much less profitable to our nation than the severest of reprisal and depopulation would be.

I would argue that all the wars since 1945 have paled in horror compared to those before.

Lots of little skirmishes are infinitely superior to a WW3 fought conventionally OR with nukes.

You can argue they why of vietnam all day long.

but that tank busting down the gate sure looks offensive to me.

That is a Failure, not a laudable status quo. Outside of strategic conflicts where we explicitly maintained existential threat to our enemies (The Cold War) we have been henpecked in a myriad of wasteful, costly engagements which neither secured American Interests or esteem.

Offense is the side with initiative and agency, ground forces can only possess this in the absence of Airpower. Yeah you can use ground forces offensively; they are just trumped and hard countered by Airpower. Ground forces only cease to be fully countered by Airpower when in a defensive posture. Ergo my point stands.

Airpower is inherently offensive, and Land power is inherently defensive. However I feel we have vastly digressed from the main conversation.

Airpower is essential to our place as a great power, and the Air Force is being wasteful in thier application of it in regards to using B1b's on CAS.

They either should get something much cheaper to run that mission with, or reject the framework which calls for that mission to be done in the first place.

Airpower has nothing to do with airplanes is the point.

How much more airpower do we need in afghanistan?
Or in Iraq?
Vietnam?
Korea?

Airpower, real airpower, not the shiny toys, ensures that we will never fight the kinds of wars that the USAF insists on procuring for.

This was, of course, predicted.
LeMay
, “Flying fighters is fun.  Flying bombers is important.”  
Douhet
“This favoritism [of pursuit planes] produced a rapid growth of this flying specialty, but at the same time it obscured the problem of national defense and prevented a correct understanding of what the command of the air consists of."

katana16j

"airpower would be decisive if only we fought the right kinds of wars"

unarguably the most coherent argument forwarded in favor of bombers thus far.

No way.  Plenty of insurgencies have succeeded despite facing modern air forces.  Especially when they have lmited aims.  Your argument will be that the air force didn't kill enough people, but there is no case in history when air bombardment decided the outcome of a war.



Land power is either, but there is nothing more offensive in nature than an army invading and occupying your territory.  I believe sylvan has already pointed you in the proper direction.

Aside from every war in history, when has land power ever been decisive?

Living proof of what I have often said, the Marine Corps has nothing on the ability to brain wash it people compared to the Air Force

It is almost like a flash back of my Air War College foundations of strategy class

Its impressive.
the difference is the marines do it once.
the air force does it constantly.

so while it wears off with career marines, it just gets worse with zoomies.

As a population of officers, the Marines are usually the most impressive field grade officers.

JMO.

I am forced to agree

About three bucks.  

That's what P-3s and SH-60s are for.

Get back to the golf course zoomies.

No.

Please?

Maybe.

What if I'm terrible at golf?

Not exactly.

Your answer (maybe) is correct.

I 'm speaking purely from an Air ASUW perspective, not touting them as the ideal or preferable means.
Except OTH.

The best method of dispatch for small boats, of course, is to bring back the 16" guns of the BBs.

Fucker.

I hope they found targets for the follow on test they want to do.

Based on today's brief to CNO, I am confident that there will be targets for ILF2.

Now this is how you solve a problem.  

Those are drilling rigs and/or production platforms in the background, not buildings if that's what you are referring to.