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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (31986)	6/10/2002 3:06:47 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "I have nothing against CAS.. But that equates to using a wrecking ball when only a sledgehammer might be required." The other problem with CAS is that it requires air supremacy. This may or may not be a feature of our next real war. It doesn't make sense to me to drop development of all weapons systems other than stuff that assumes we can maintain air supremacy. Air supremacy is one of those things that comes and goes. It's easy enough for civilians to assume that the US will have air supremacy for CAS in every future conflict, but even the recent past suggests otherwise. The whole problem in Mogadishu was due to the other side suddenly figuring out how to shoot down our helicopters. As is true to standard military practice, they managed to hit one with an RPG just to see if it worked. When it did (it was a 10th Mountain Division machine, if I recall), the US assumed that it was a one-time event, but the Somalians knew that they had a system. Most people don't realize what kind of a disaster Mogadishu was for the US. *We had 5 Blackhawks in the area, all five were shot down*, with two falling in enemy territory, and the remaining three "nursed back to base by superb pilots", according to the author of "Blackhawk Down": inquirer.philly.com For a rather complete recounting of the battle, complete with military audio and video clips, see: inquirer.philly.com It's sort of traditional for advanced nations to misjudge the military capabilities of backwards ones. But if the Somalians, with no industrial development what so ever, can figure out how to surprise us by putting our aircraft out of commission, what can the developed world do? And why are we thinking about misjudging it so soon after we had a complete flight of US aircraft shot out of the sky by, for God's sake, Somalians, who had zero aircraft, helicopters, or antiaircraft missiles. -- Carl P.S. When we attacked Afghanistan, we had to delay operations in order to assure that we truly had air supremacy, in the sense of being able to fly anywhere. The disaster in Mogadishu probably contributed to the care.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (31986)	6/10/2002 6:02:13 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

calling fire down upon yourselves when in danger of being overrun, you'd rather have artillery performing that mission rather than aircraft dropping Napalm or a ton of HE on your position.. both artillery and tacair now have excellent anti personnel rounds for that mission. I'm sure you can provide an extensive discussion on the firebase strategy and how we were able to orchestrate round the clock fire missions on large stretches of Vietnam. What I wonder is whether we should revisit the "firebase" strategy in some of these Afghani areas. Bagran air base is similar to the large fire bases at Mary Lou, Dak To, and Phu Bai. the rvn strategy of very small bases over extended areas never worked real well due to lack of sufficient artillery units to deploy. most of the small bases were outside the fan most of the time and relied on intermittent air support. afghani is much different...mainly because the guys we are after are from different countries and not so easily hidden in the masses. and because the lack of vegetation coupled with our new era sensing equipment makes any movement for them very difficult.