bfng3569

Question concerning the US army and air defense (mainly mobile are defense systems) and i would say Marines as well.

purely a hypothetical question, but if the Raptor had either been cancled liked many people wanted, or the procurement numbers reduced dramaticly, would the army ever be forced to develop and field more effective mobile surface to air missile systems?

Or maybe a better way to look at it, if the army were pressed into a conflict without total control of the air by US forcres, how would it restrict offensive manuvers? (as well as defensive?)

I havent looked or reaserched, nor do i know much about them, but beyond stinger's being mounted on humvee's, how effectively would the army be able to protect itself from air threats?

i ask only because of the past and current controversies sorrounding the Raptor, money wise, and the constant question of wether or not its really needed? (cold war relic, over kill, current fighters are effective enough etc etc etc...)

Doesnt the Army rely on the Air Force for protection from airborne threats?

Bluesman

I don't know if 'rely' is the right word. Our doctrine simply stresses air dominance as the entire basis for just about every single aspect of any military operation. The F-22 is a natural to ensure (as much as anything can ensure anything else during battle) that dominance.

The Army does not stress air defense, for the very simple reason that no soldier has been killed by enemy air attack since 1952. That's 55 YEARS ago. . Hard to see spending those scarce funds on something that doesn't seem to be a major threat to Army ops, ya know?

Army units DO have organic air defense assets, but the entire Branch (Air Defense Artillery) is about as dead-end a career as you can imagine. The systems tend to be short-range tactical (Chapparal, Vulcan or Stinger) or long-range strategic (Patriot), and each combat use is VERY rare. (Enemy ground attack sorties are even more rare than ballistic missile shots.)

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bfng3569

but thats exactly my point i think, or question, air domminance has been assured for so long. What if it wasnt?

take the raptor out, or reduce the numbers to the point, that if (hypotheticaly) a threat or conflict occured (china for example, and no, that wasnt brought up to list off the chinese aircraft and how they wouldnt be a threat to a piper cub or something), were air dominance couild not be assured or guaranteed, then what?

Chaperal and stingers are short range, patriot essentially fixed.

maybe this would d have gone better in the a different section covering air craft and maybe as a 'why we need' the raptor.

liked i said, just wondering about the repercussions if something like the raptor were canceled or not enough procured, how would it effect other things.

Bluesman

This thread is in the right place, and I follow your line of questioning.

Like I said, ALL of our doctrine simply assumes air dominance. If it were NOT so, frankly, I think almost nothing we're so used to doing so effortlessly is even possible. Airlift? NEVER, if there were a credible threat to the airbridge. SpecOps? NEVER, if we couldn't adequately cover the infil/exfil. Strategic bombing? Fuhgeddaboutit. CAS? Well, if our enemies can't do it to us right now, we wouldn't be able to do it to THEM, if THEY were the ones that had air dominance.

ALL of our doctrine and basic military tasks are all made possible or at least are all supported by airpower. We simply cannot afford to lose it. If we do, then all this high-tech, smaller, better, more agile force that we've got will lose its edge, and will turn into VERY expensive heavy infantry and masses of vehicles that will be easy for an enemy with air supremacy to spot and kill, and each friendly loss will be out of proportion to an equivalent loss on the enemy's side (should we even be that lucky as to get parity).

The single most expensive defense expenditure in the world is having the second-best Air Force in a war.

But if we did NOT maintain that edge, I would not think we'd be any better off with a massive investment in ground-based air defense. After all, these are the guys we regularly BEAT, and usually with airpower.

For now, with the current technical base, the only real defense against an airplane is another airplane.

Firral

However ground air defence is cheaper and simple means of defense, rather than the plane. (at cost you can get some systems of air defence, for one warplane.) plus to it easier in service, demands material means (i.e. it is more independent) less, and it is more difficult to destroy sudden impact (it some the purposes instead of one).
Actually, it seems to me is a mistake to build the armed forces on a principle of the superiority in something. It only my opinion.

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Maximus

Some very good points there Bluesman.

Except for the Airpower factor being in the favour of the US in all the wars, another factor for high success rates is bringing the war to enemy's own territory. I mean the US has never fought a war on its homeland, which again has been facilitated by mobility gained through better assets that can get airborne quickly than the enemy can imagine, whether they be land based, or carrier based.

Without the Air-force supporting the land based troops,, it would without dispute result in high losses on the land forces, which is very evident in current scenario in Iraq, where Air Force or airborne assets have been left with a very limited role to play.

It actually is a very complex 2 step approach:

1. Gain air-superiority and take control of enemy airspace through CAP/SEAD missions and taking out enemy's C3 capabilities;
2. After the enemy AF and Radar network is wiped out, take out the Land based forces through CAS missions, with minimal losses faced by your own land based forces.

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SRB

Eh this is tricky one.
Yes AA is cheaper than air fighter but again fighter can done other missions which AA cant. I am very sad because time of AA big guns is dead because this babes could done severe damage against tanks.
Look your country it have excellent AA systems but again air force is more important. It was during Yeltsin we hear about unimportance of air force that S-300 is only logical solution for air defence.
Why?
There was no money for air force. Russia in the nineties had only 20% operational Mig-31 today it is close to 100% I think that total number of Mig-31 is the same so five time more operational interceptors.

Also if I rember Yugoslavia in 1999 need S-300 which prices was around one billion dollars for full defence of country to me it is very expensive. If we had all 12 Mig-29 operational (majority had critical malfunctions before bombing like radar, fcs or controls) we could be more dangerous because we were fighting over our territory and we had excellent airports undergorund or in mountains. And how much Mig-29 B can buy for billion dollars?
So my opinion is that AA need to be backup (and US is undervalue) but Air Force is most important.

MrFirst

It seems like a question what is more important for car - wheel or engine. Both are important, without any of it a car won't drive, despite the fact that one is cheaper or more expensive than another.
The US has its ground-based air defence, advanced systems like Patriot, THAAD etc. I don't think there is any underestimation of such kinds of weapon in armed forces' building up. Actually, the US is on the forward positions in development of ground-based air defence in the World, and they always have been there.
As for Serbia, I suppose 12 MiG-29 couldn't be more dangerous, maybe 120 of them could... Billion dollars for S-300 is a lot of money, but if the Serbs could get it they would do that at that moment. From my point of view such small country, first of all such small country, exactly needs ground-based air defence not less than air forces, because Serbia is not large as the US or Russia that are able to apply different kinds of warplanes and long variety of air means.

SRB

Well 12 working Mig-29 is much better than 12 non working Mig on which our guys fly in combat. No wonder why they fall as apples.

Hm when I said one billion $ I meant for whole country. But again who much mig-29 we could buy for that amount of money and I dont talk about last model but about conservative mig-29 in Russia. Why? Because our country is small and we couldnt use long distance radar and missiles in fact we must wait until aggressors get in our air space to fire. I again said that we have excellent airports which could be killed only by nuke.

When I said underestimation of AA in US I meant on number of batteries in US army.

Stan187

I don't think so. The concept has certainly been shown to work pretty well through experience. As long as you keep insuring that the superiority in this field is kept up, there is no problem with such a doctrine. Plus, ground-based air defenses are one trick ponies, and multi-role planes are not. If the US would stop buying planes in order to leave more room for spending on ground based air defense, not only would this not be cost efficient because planes are better at defending airspace as opposed to a ground-based platform, but we'd also have much less offensive strike capability.

In fact, the doctrine of Air Force development during the Cold War mirrors the Western approach to a lot of weapons design, which is quality over quantity when compared to say the Soviets. The supremacy of the F-22 over Soviet-era fighters is somewhat comparable to the supremacy of the Abrams over Soviet-era tanks. The difference is one of "you get what you pay for", I imagine. Thus, the F-22 is more so superior to counterparts than the Abrams is, but the F-22 is also that much more expensive in comparison to said counterparts. I guess I'm kinda starting to ramble now, so I'll stop

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HistoricalDavid

I still have in my head M21Sniper's analysis of the general ineffectiveness of ground-based AD systems to adequately defend against proper, SEAD-capable aircraft. I do think the US needs to keep up the momentum with developing anti-ballistic technologies, however, be they airborne missiles, the ABL, THAAD, whatever. The potential for even a few nuke-tipped BMs to do so much damage is still there.

SRB

Stan187 in '80 Su-27 wasn inferior to F-15 same can say for T-80 and M1.
It was '90 when Russia well behind because of economical crisis.
Today Russia is different story. Russians are changing, they are also favor quality over quantity.
And one more factor must be taken Russians are making good money selling old stuff. 3 mln $ for indian T-90 to me it is excellent price for upgraded T-72. Similar thing with Mig-29 and Su-30.

Stan187

So wait, the T-80 is a match for an M-1? Do we really need to go down such slippery roads again?

Firral

You compare the things never met in fight. Let's not renew very old dispute based on propagation and lack of the truthful information.
As to ground air defence: MrFirst it is absolutely right. Modern war it not one good fighter or one good tank. It is set of investigation, various auxiliary systems, good command, systems of support and so on. Very good plane is possible without its support by a locator and interaction. In the same way and the tank. It is not necessary to argue that more important in the car - the engine or wheels. Both of them are important.
Badly when you start to establish very powerful engine and forget about wheels. Here my opinion.

SRB

I said in '80 T-80 was a match for M1 because M1 in '80 was different from todays M1. In '80 majorty of Abrams use 105mm gun and armor of M1 was so better in that time. After all T-80 was new tank in soviet army this was of the reason to use 120mm gun for M1 and to upgrade armor on M1.