Want a meaningful deployment capability for the U.S. military?
INTEL DUMP
Maybe it's time to consider buying more aircraft then — ugly, lumbering workhorses like the C-5 and C-17, not sexy, sleek aircraft like the F-22 and JSF.
This article in the Air Force Magazine, the semi-official journal of the Air Force establishment run by the Air Force Association, makes the point that U.S. military airlift capacity is stretched to its absolute limit right now by combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This leaves very little capability with which to airlift anything else — for humanitarian ops in the Sudan, or contingency operations in East Asia, for example. It also hinders our ability to rapidly reinforce and resupply forces we have on the ground now in Afghanistan and Iraq, as we might have to do this winter for elections in both countries. Here's a brief excerpt from the piece:
The airlift operation that has sup-ported US forces in Southwest Asia over the past three years now ranks among the most extensive in history. Taken together, the efforts in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom can be put in the same general class as US airlifts to Berlin (1948-49), Israel (1973), and the Persian Gulf (1990-91). And Air Mobility Command leaders expect no letup for at least another 18 months.
At the same time, the Air Force faces an acute airlift shortfall. The capability of the fleet used in the 2003 Iraq War was well short of requirement; the gap was at least 10 million ton miles per day. Today, AMC leaders say, the gap is wider—at least 15 MTM/D, perhaps 22 MTM/D.
A series of analyses and inspections now being performed will help set the nation's true airlift requirement and possibly pave the way for what may have to be a large new investment in transports.
"Our folks, across the mobility fleet and AMC, have been at an incredibly high, record-setting pace," said Gen. John W. Handy, the commander of both AMC and US Transportation Command. "We've never seen the sorties that we're generating right now."
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... Air Force mobility forces, even as they carry out the resupply of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, continue to support other theater combatant commanders who have their own exercises, redeployments, and contingencies to cope with.
It all adds up to an airlift fleet that is too small to carry the load and personnel who cannot maintain a breakneck pace forever.
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It was in 2000 that the Pentagon carried out its latest major assessment of US airlift capability. Mobility Requirements Study 2005 attempted to look five years out and determine what level of lift the nation would require at that time.
It concluded that the fulfillment of US military needs required a fleet that could generate 54.5 million ton miles per day of airlift. (A ton mile is a basic unit of measurement that equals movement of one cargo ton a distance of one mile.) At the time, the Air Force had only about 44 MTM/D of capability, or about 18 percent short of the need.
The situation has only gotten worse. ... |
