This "Stars and Stripes" article is on the Air Force problem in Afghanistan that made Rumsfeld blow his stack. The AF Brass tried to hang on to final targeting, and had to give it up to the troops on the ground. The C17 use I highlighted is also interesting.
Afghanistan war showing Air Force the importance of 'eyes on the ground'
By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, August 15, 2002
ARLINGTON, Va. Afghanistan has added a "new wrinkle" to the Air Force's basic doctrine, according to the service's top analyst for the war on terrorism: Wars aren't won by air alone.
The rugged and unforgiving mountains of Central Asia have revealed many hard truths to each of the services. But for the Air Force, perhaps no single lesson resonates more clearly, Col. Fred Weiners said Tuesday: "Eyes on the ground" are essential to round out the advanced space- and air-based sensors, weapons and platforms that make up the service's inventory.
"You can have all the high technology you want, but it's these 25-year-old staff sergeants on the ground, making strike decisions" that, according to Weiners, have in the past been made by high-level planning officers located nowhere near the battlefield.
Weiners is acting director of the Air Force's Task Force Enduring Look, and spoke with Stripes in an interview in his office in Arlington, Va.
Air campaigns traditionally have been planned in advance. Coordinates have been known, and target sets could be chosen from data gathered weeks or months in advance.
To hear an Air Force official emphasizing the need for "boots on the ground" is a significant shift in conventional U.S. military thinking.
The Army and Marine Corps both are founded on the principle that war is never won until "boots hit the ground," when military personnel actually occupy the turf. The Air Force has tended to be dominated by officers who believe air operations alone can conquer an enemy.
In Afghanistan, however, forward air controllers and special operations forces, not planners sitting in Washington with maps and satellite photographs, have been responsible for almost all critical targeting calls, Weiners said.
"They are our most versatile and highly sophisticated sensor, and they are proving highly effective," Weiners said. "They dramatically enhance overall air power and bombing effectiveness."
Thanks to ground controllers, "We've enjoyed an accuracy like we've never enjoyed," Weiners said, and not only due to more sophisticated "smart" bombs, such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition.
Sensor-to-shooter loop
But Afghanistan also revealed a critical break in this "sensor-to-shooter" loop: Air Force pilots had not had enough practice working with the ground operators, particularly the special operations forces.
The service has moved with extraordinary speed to remedy that deficiency, Weiners said.
His task force first identified the need for more pilot training with ground forces in January, and by June, pilots at the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., were "engaging special operations forces on the ground, including full mission profiles and simulations, to replicate what we were doing [in Afghanistan]."
Not every lesson coming out of Afghanistan is revolutionary. Much of what the Air Force is gleaning validates tactics and technologies that have worked well in exercises, but never have been proven in combat, Weiners said.
One especially critical validation to come out of the Central Asian campaign is proof that the Air Force's Air and Space Expeditionary Forces, which were designed for peacetime, also work in war, Weiners said.
As the Defense Department continued to pull back from its overseas bases throughout the 1990s, Air Force leaders decided they needed a way to keep the increasingly home-based service ready for action.
C-17 proves itself
One example: Afghanistan is the first major conflict for the Pentagon that has required "everything to come in and out by air," Weiners noted.
The Air Force's newest transport, the C-17, was key, Weiners said.
"The C-17 really proved itself, given the austere nature of our bases in Central Asia," he said.
Creative aircrews also have found ways for the C-17 to perform that its designers never anticipated, Weiners said, citing in particular its function as a "mobile filling station."
Afghanistan has no fuel supply infrastructure, and roads there are so treacherous that trucking large amounts of fuel in is out of the question.
That means every drop of aviation gas and jet fuel needed by the U.S. forces is supplied by the Pentagon's fleet of KC-10 and KC-135 tanker aircraft.
Meanwhile, Army and Marine helicopters and the assorted special operations aircraft stationed at the rough airfields that dot Afghanistan "need a lot of gas," Weiners said.
During Operation Anaconda in March, when fuel was at an absolute premium, an unknown airman came up with a novel idea to get fuel to the fighters quickly: Combine the C-17's ability to land almost anywhere with its large fuel tanks.
"We would park a tanker in an orbit, and the C-17 would go up, tap the tanker, land and off-load the fuel, and now you have avgas [aviation gas], where tankers can't land," Weiners said.
Bombers with eyes
Another much-discussed evolution was the decision to use of Cold-war era strategic bombers in tactical combat.
The Air Force's B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers all were originally designed to deliver nuclear munitions in end-of-the-world scenarios.
In Afghanistan, however, Air Force officials took advantage of the bombers' extensive payloads, range and high-altitude capability to deliver lethal strikes on enemy forces, all while being directed by ground-based forces.
The bombers proved very effective, Weiners said.
"The B-1s and B-52s flew approximately 10 percent of the sorties and delivered close to 60 percent of the weapons," Weiners said.
During the Gulf War, B-52s dropped some 30 percent of all U.S. bombs. Neither the B-1 nor the B-2 was deployed.
One reason for that is the versatility of the bombers: They can carry traditional "dumb" bombs, but thanks to modifications, they also can deliver a range of smart weapons.
Secondly, all this can be done with greater standoff. The bombers fly much higher than fighter craft with no need for a visual, using coordinates from forward air controllers, the eyes on the ground.
Change comes with difficulty for the military; it's a "risk-averse group," Weiners said.
But, he said, "this is a great time to question the old way of doing things."
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