NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Type 08

[Questers]

Air forces are the most utility-exaggerated and least useful branch of combined arms for a number of reasons:

1 - they operate from stationary, extremely obvious and vulnerable bases,
2 - these bases, and the aircraft operated from them, are extremely reliant on trained manpower, which is extremely vulnerable to attack,
3 - their response time is the highest of all combat arms,
4 - their granularity is the lowest, being composed of a small number of extremely expensive platforms,
5 - they are the easiest form of weapon to detect and attack,
6 - they are the most vulnerable form of weapon to electronic jamming and attack,
7 - they are reliant on intelligence gathered by other sources and themselves can only usefully gather Elint, and even then only on modern and expensive platforms,
8 - they can not hold ground,
9 - in addition to their bases being stationary, combat stores cannot easily be moved from base to base. A flight of F-15s will use as much fuel for one combat sortie as a company of tanks for a whole days consistent fighting, or 500 kilometres of march. A 500kg bomb weighs the same as 10 155-mm shells, and so on.

that is only the list of military, and not economic or strategic problems with aircraft. Over the years, air forces around the world, including the USAF and the RAF, have lobbied intensively for undeserved funding claiming some mystical ability to decide the fate of entire conflicts. They have guaranteed results that have fallen completely short, have lied to government authorities about their capabilities, destroying entire national aircraft carrier programmes in the process. They have performed expensive and pointless missions to prove their existence. And when faced with actual opponents who did not fold over and die at the first moment, completely and utterly failed to accomplish either their objectives or achieve a decisive victory.

But of course you can bomb Iraqi tanks on a retreating road march. Of course they will die. Or you can attack Egyptian army operating in desert out of SAM and fighter range. Of course they will die. But if your opponent decides to fight back...

What happens then?

Allied air forces were unable to decisively effect the outcome in Korea - Communists fought back in the air and prevented allied aerial victory. US bombing failed to stop North Vietnam - Vietnamese just kept doing whatever they were doing. US bombing failed to dismantle the Serbian ground forces in 1999 - Serbian ground forces emerged essentially unscathed. US and Coalition air forces failed in dismantling the Iraqi ground defences in 2003. Good job the Navy was there with their cruise missiles or the air forces may have fucked up even more. British RAF did huge cross-global bombing mission on Falklands and achieved precisely nothing. In previous decade they tried and succeeded in destroying the Navy's carrier plans but the Navy kept some carriers. If they hadn't, Argentines would have had total instead of partial air supremacy. Game over. Israeli aircraft tried to stop Syrian tank advance and were cut to shreds because Syrians brought anti-aircraft weapons this time.

The main utility of air forces is to attack strategic positions which are out of the range of artillery. Wars are won either at sea by naval forces or on the ground by ground forces. Examination of all conflicts where neither side was able to attain obvious air superiority will show this to be true (four quick examples: North Africa, Korea, Iran-Iraq, and Yom Kippur opening stages), and it becomes more true as technology advances. Modern militaries are phasing out CAS for a reason. You will even notice that the attack component of JSTARS was not aircraft, but ground forces.



He can hide. He can run. He requires a minimal amount of mobile fuel stores to be moved and can reload and fire again within a space of minutes. He can scatter bomblets or chemical weapons over an entire airfield or attack and destroy with precision fuel or takeoff/landing/communications facilities from 300km.



This guy can do the same, from a longer range (with a correspondingly longer reload time, though).

edit: this all applies to land warfare only.

[Axis Nova]

Orion drives are mostly useful for when you want to move truely massive objects around, like asteroids or entire O'Neill colony cylinders.

[Connori Pilgrims]

Air forces are the most utility-exaggerated and least useful branch of combined arms for a number of reasons:

1 - they operate from stationary, extremely obvious and vulnerable bases,
2 - these bases, and the aircraft operated from them, are extremely reliant on trained manpower, which is extremely vulnerable to attack,
3 - their response time is the highest of all combat arms,
4 - their granularity is the lowest, being composed of a small number of extremely expensive platforms,
5 - they are the easiest form of weapon to detect and attack,
6 - they are the most vulnerable form of weapon to electronic jamming and attack,
7 - they are reliant on intelligence gathered by other sources and themselves can only usefully gather Elint, and even then only on modern and expensive platforms,
8 - they can not hold ground,
9 - in addition to their bases being stationary, combat stores cannot easily be moved from base to base. A flight of F-15s will use as much fuel for one combat sortie as a company of tanks for a whole days consistent fighting, or 500 kilometres of march. A 500kg bomb weighs the same as 10 155-mm shells, and so on.

that is only the list of military, and not economic or strategic problems with aircraft. Over the years, air forces around the world, including the USAF and the RAF, have lobbied intensively for undeserved funding claiming some mystical ability to decide the fate of entire conflicts. They have guaranteed results that have fallen completely short, have lied to government authorities about their capabilities, destroying entire national aircraft carrier programmes in the process. They have performed expensive and pointless missions to prove their existence. And when faced with actual opponents who did not fold over and die at the first moment, completely and utterly failed to accomplish either their objectives or achieve a decisive victory.

But of course you can bomb Iraqi tanks on a retreating road march. Of course they will die. Or you can attack Egyptian army operating in desert out of SAM and fighter range. Of course they will die. But if your opponent decides to fight back...

What happens then?

Allied air forces were unable to decisively effect the outcome in Korea - Communists fought back in the air and prevented allied aerial victory. US bombing failed to stop North Vietnam - Vietnamese just kept doing whatever they were doing. US bombing failed to dismantle the Serbian ground forces in 1999 - Serbian ground forces emerged essentially unscathed. US and Coalition air forces failed in dismantling the Iraqi ground defences in 2003. Good job the Navy was there with their cruise missiles or the air forces may have fucked up even more. British RAF did huge cross-global bombing mission on Falklands and achieved precisely nothing. In previous decade they tried and succeeded in destroying the Navy's carrier plans but the Navy kept some carriers. If they hadn't, Argentines would have had total instead of partial air supremacy. Game over. Israeli aircraft tried to stop Syrian tank advance and were cut to shreds because Syrians brought anti-aircraft weapons this time.

The main utility of air forces is to attack strategic positions which are out of the range of artillery. Wars are won either at sea by naval forces or on the ground by ground forces. Examination of all conflicts where neither side was able to attain obvious air superiority will show this to be true (four quick examples: North Africa, Korea, Iran-Iraq, and Yom Kippur opening stages), and it becomes more true as technology advances. Modern militaries are phasing out CAS for a reason. You will even notice that the attack component of JSTARS was not aircraft, but ground forces.

So... never establish a separate air force then?

On a related question, if one were not to have establish a separate air force, should strategic nuclear arms such as bombers and intercontinental ballistics be with the Army? or its own branch specifically dedicated to Armageddon (ala the Strategic Rocket Forces or Second Artillery Corps)?

[Imperializt Russia]

You could always just make ICBM groups their own branch, or have a separate air force that - as Mat said - focuses on the bombing of strategic objectives. Which strategic nuclear bombers, launching conventional or otherwise cruise missiles, certainly come under (and integrate the ICBM groups into this air force anyway, since it's a fully strategic arm).

What is important here is that Mat is not saying that it is not worth having an air force, or even fixed wing aviation in the army. He's merely pointing out that in western countries the air force really has way too much political power for some reason and no shyness in executing it - literally at the behest of other branches because fuck you stare at my skybox.
Sounds like modern triple-A gaming tbh.
Just that fixed-wing aviation is the slowest-responding, most expensive and most vulnerable form of support for combined arms operations. Obviously when you're running SEAD/DEAD whatever to make way for your strategic bombers and cruise missile strikes, you're not really supporting CAO so it doesn't matter they're not flexible there. They're doing something else entirely.

[Questers]

That's right. Aircraft are still useful, for;
- Strategic operations: they can fly a long way very quickly, and can carry a lot of ordnance
- Interdiction, because artillery and rockets sometimes haven't the range
- Specialist missions, like electronic recon, SEAD, so on and so forth.
- Air superiority, to stop the enemy from doing all of that.

And they are the primary attack weapon, and anti submarine weapon, of a good navy, too.

But for breaking up the advance of ground forces, they are just a small part of the cog, and the least effective part, too: relying on them for CAS rather than interdiction is a mistake. Basing your doctrine around CAS being able to do whatever it wants to break up attacks is fatal. That has literally never been true in any historical battle. Aircraft have never stopped a ground offensive, and never will. They cannot react fast enough and are too vulnerable. They are an offensive weapon because an attacking army has the initiative and can plan/prepare to use aircraft effectively and distribute the resources effectively. You can't just call in hordes of bombers to break up an advance, it isn't going to happen (and more to the point, it never has -- and modern technology is making aircraft less useful because their command centres and airfields are now highly vulnerable, unlike the past). Even the IDF's aerial comeback in the Sinai in 1973 was as part of a planned, operational counter-offensive.

I would also point out that no military has relied on CAS as part of its doctrine. Not even the Germans. If you read memoirs of top blitzkriegers they don't even care about planes. A lot of them had disdain for the luftwaffe. When Rommel was calling for backup he wanted tanks and mobile artillery and fuel, he didn't want some dumb plane that can carry 1 bomb and then return to base and come back 3 hours later. A plane can't keep up with a tank or a truck, paradoxically. It can only sprint. The most famous combination of air and ground forces doctrinally, AirLand Battle, was about interdiction, not CAS. Interdiction is still useful and important, I agree. It isn't a tactical tool, though.

The US Air Force is right to get rid of the A-10s. Here's some reasons why:
1 - They're horribly vulnerable. To literally anything.
2 - They crowd out airspace and airfield space for aircraft that are more useful, like low-observable aircraft for interdiction.
3 - They're a waste to train pilots on because they're dumb.

Like sure if you had infinite space, money, and resources then you could have A-10s as part of a specific programme of tank-busting when you really needed it. Nobody has infinite space though. Not even on NS.

CAS is dead. It was only alive for a short period, anyway.

You could have a separate air force. The problem is mainly with the USAF/RAF I think. I don't know the French or Russian airforces have a similar mindset, mainly because they've never fought a battle on their own. They were always working closely with ground forces.

quadedit: the luftwaffe often made political promises it was magically unable to keep. We'll break the British air force! We'll bomb Malta into submission! We'll resupply the Sixth Army! We'll make 1000 planes and launch them suicidally at Russian tank columns approaching Berlin! Whatever. Nobody who is in charge of an air force should ever be taken seriously. They should just be told what to do by generals and admirals and shut up.

[Elan Valleys]

FWIW I was reading about a JTAC in Afghanistan and he said he was sending the French Mirage pilots away because their definition of danger close meant that he was better off shooting personally at the enemy than having them do airstrikes.

The Dutch and USAF were in his opinion the best of the lot.

[Imperializt Russia]

Is this implying that French Danger Close is "you're wearing a helmet, right?" or "yeah, but, they're in the same country as you"?

[Arthurista]

I imagine if NATO air forces have to fight a proper war in, say, the Baltics or Ukraine, its modus operandus will be completely different from what they're currently doing in Afghanistan. Fighting angry motor rifle brigades backed by S-300 and Iskander are a whole different game from chasing goat-herding tribesmen around some hillocks. Out with the A-10 and CAS, in with SEAD, tacjammers and interdiction.

Unrelated question - is it true that smaller nuclear devices are actually relatively dirty compared to large-yield strategic warhead? Did anyone ever build a clean-ish tactical nuclear weapon, or at least one that's less persistent?

[Elan Valleys]

Is this implying that French Danger Close is "you're wearing a helmet, right?" or "yeah, but, they're in the same country as you"?

The latter.

He got some F15s on a later patrol to drop 500lb bombs on Taliban 25m from the lead section. when they had a badly wounded soldier and a Sky crew with them.

[Questers]

I imagine if NATO air forces have to fight a proper war in, say, the Baltics or Ukraine, its modus operandus will be completely different from what they're currently doing in Afghanistan. Fighting angry motor rifle brigades backed by S-300 and Iskander are a whole different game from chasing goat-herding tribesmen around some hillocks. Out with the A-10 and CAS, in with SEAD, tacjammers and interdiction.

Unrelated question - is it true that smaller nuclear devices are actually relatively dirty compared to large-yield strategic warhead? Did anyone ever build a clean-ish tactical nuclear weapon, or at least one that's less persistent?

I am really not knowledgeable about nukes.

But it is my impression that low yield devices detonate on the ground, whereas large yield devices usually airburst. Fallout comes from dirt and dust thrown up from the ground upon impact, so a device detonated in airburst produces very little fallout.

[Imperializt Russia]

It is arguable either way unless you have source material, really. You could argue that a large yield, by virtue of all that pretty energy, may "burn up" more of the material in the detonation while a smaller weapon will be comparatively "dirty" - like the fouling you might get putting a rifle cartridge down a very short barrel - alternatively, the low mass of a low-yield weapon may lend itself to leaving less dirty material, but as a ratio to material consumed, it's probably high.

Burst point is a critical consideration.

After all, Castle Bravo and Tsar Bomba, two of the largest (though obviously not the two largest) detonations were noted as being remarkably clean blasts. However, Tsar Bomba was hefting a lot of dead weight and inert material, and Castle Bravo had a substantially greater yield than anticipated so they're not exactly more than case studies.

[The Soodean Imperium]

After all, Castle Bravo and Tsar Bomba, two of the largest (though obviously not the two largest) detonations were noted as being remarkably clean blasts. However, Tsar Bomba was hefting a lot of dead weight and inert material, and Castle Bravo had a substantially greater yield than anticipated so they're not exactly more than case studies.

If I'm remembering right, Tsar Bomba was considered remarkably "clean" because in relative terms its Fission primer was dwarfed by its huge Fusion secondary.

But I'm even less knowledgeable about nukes so it's possible I misread something.

[Imperializt Russia]

IIRC Tsar Bomba had three stages up to 50MT. It was proposed to have a fourth stage taking it to 100MT.
Prior to the test, the fourth stage was not completed and was replaced with an enormous lead tamper. This seemed to make the blast incredibly clean for reasons I cannot recall.

[Dostanuot Loj]

IIRC Tsar Bomba had three stages up to 50MT. It was proposed to have a fourth stage taking it to 100MT.
Prior to the test, the fourth stage was not completed and was replaced with an enormous lead tamper. This seemed to make the blast incredibly clean for reasons I cannot recall.

This is incorrect, it was a three-stage tamper to begin with.
Secondary and tertiary tampers were supposed to be uranium for the 100mt variant, but were replaced with equal mass of lead. This changed how the reaction underwent and more of the material underwent fusion before everything was blown apart (to put it simply).

Castle Bravo had a similar situation, although the details are different. Fusion ran "wild" past what was expected and therefore was cleaner then expected.

Fallout comes from two primary aspects of the bomb: Dust thrown up and irradiated, and particles from the core. The first is the bulk, the second is the hottest part. Efficiency ratings on bombs represent percentage of material to undergo reaction, therefore the remainder is blown away in the explosion. A bomb made with 10kg of uranium and a 10% efficiency is sending out 9kg of uranium as fallout. If it detonates at ground level it throws up a lot of dust which is irradiated from the blast, and has that 9kg of uranium scattered with it. Uranium, being heavy, tends not to go far from the blast so that fallout stays closer to ground zero then the dust.

This is the key to "clean" bombs in a tactical sense. They leave ground zero less radioactive and cooler quicker so you can move through them easier. The two reasons you didn't see tactical warheads often was because 1: it's hard to make small bombs with less tamper efficient. And 2: if it's clean enough for you to move through quickly it's clean enough for your enemy to do the same.

My understanding is newer models of the B61 are quite clean, as clean as they probably can be.

[Schwere Panzer Abieltung 502]

CAS is dead. It was only alive for a short period, anyway.

Aren't helicopters good CAS tools?

[Imperializt Russia]

Technically yes, but they deliver it differently.
Helicopters are also good at interdiction and SEAD, given favourable circumstances.

[Gallia-]

CAS is dead. It was only alive for a short period, anyway.

Aren't helicopters good CAS tools?

CAS isn't dead.

It's just been offloaded to robots, light attack jets, and helicopter gunships.

e: Though it's really more of a money issue for the USAF. CAS aircraft are a niche role, and rarely especially capable against anything else. They certainly have a place if you ask any ground army, but they're not multirole. In the current world, maintaining specialized airframes is a luxury that the USAF really doesn't want to/can't afford.

CAS aircraft are no more vulnerable to SPAA or Stinger missiles than a helicopter gunship since they both occupy the same altitude range, they just can't do much besides CAS. For helicopters this is unimportant and the argument applies just as well to them, but they are now considered an integral arm of maneuver alongside the tanks and infantry in the largest army in the world.

Naturally, CAS aircraft like the Harrier, A-7, A-6, and Fiat G.91 tended to be quite good in either BAI (battlefield air interdiction) or CAS, as both involve attacking things on the ground.

Technically yes, but they deliver it differently.
Helicopters are also good at interdiction and SEAD, given favourable circumstances.

They are far worse at both than any attack jet. Helicopters have very limited warloads, ranges, and altitudes.

[Roski]

Where in the US divisional system should I place 60, 81, and 120mm mortars?

[Tule]

It is arguable either way unless you have source material, really. You could argue that a large yield, by virtue of all that pretty energy, may "burn up" more of the material in the detonation while a smaller weapon will be comparatively "dirty" - like the fouling you might get putting a rifle cartridge down a very short barrel - alternatively, the low mass of a low-yield weapon may lend itself to leaving less dirty material, but as a ratio to material consumed, it's probably high.

Burst point is a critical consideration.

After all, Castle Bravo and Tsar Bomba, two of the largest (though obviously not the two largest) detonations were noted as being remarkably clean blasts. However, Tsar Bomba was hefting a lot of dead weight and inert material, and Castle Bravo had a substantially greater yield than anticipated so they're not exactly more than case studies.

Tsar Bomba was a very clean blast.

Castle Bravo was a radiological disaster.

The former was an air burst with a very high fusion fraction, the latter was a ground burst with a very high fission fraction.

Hydrogen bombs can be made "clean" as far as fission fraction is concerned, how much of the energy of the weapon comes from fission of the tamper in the secondary stage.

But they are by no means clean as a rule, many large H-bombs of the 50's got as much as 80% of their energy from fission.
We're talking about fission products generated by over ten megatons here.

low yield weapons are relatively dirty, because the fallout they generate is deposited over a much smaller area and their energy tends to come solely from fission.

In absolute terms, Hydrogen bombs are much, MUCH more dirty than smaller yield fission bombs.

(I'm sure you know all this Samoz, just putting this out for other readers)

[Schwere Panzer Abieltung 502]

On the CAS debate:

How effective was the usage of high-altitude strategic bombers in the role of conventional bombing on enemy forces in Vietnam, and was it successful enough to warrant more of the same should the need arise? Operations like Arclight and Rolling Thunder seem to have been effective at killing a lot of people, but obviously that wasn't the way to win that war.

[Gallia-]

The only way to win a war is to take ground.

[The Akasha Colony]

Where in the US divisional system should I place 60, 81, and 120mm mortars?

Which divisions?

Stryker brigades have 120 mm mortars at the company level.

[Gallia-]

It's public domain information.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/index.html

[Siegom]

Before I start working on my countries military formations and equipment and all that stuff I'm going to write up a military doctrine and I was wondering if there was any validity to a few of the key ideas I'm planning on building my doctrine around;
(keep in mind my military is a 1990s Peoples Liberation Army styled force with an extremely huge amount of manpower but very little in the way of modern equipment and a bunch of other problems, although in my case they are being addressed as part of a major reform plan)

SPA - Siegomese Peoples Army

• Pressure everywhere - On the strategic level my the SPA is to apply pressure in every area is can with the objective of finding a weakened area in the hostile front
• Mass application of forces in concentrated areas - As soon as a weak area is located as many forces as can possibly be massed against it must be massed against it
• Supply and support abundance - Supply must be proactive and a large reserve must be kept in and around the front at all times, especially so that in the event of a breakthrough being achieved it can be exploited to its fullest without having to wait for large amounts of supplies to be shifted from other areas. Support in the form of artillery, service workshops, anti air equipment, engineering forces etc must always be readily available, especially on the strategic level
• Strategic level maneuver is paramount/ tactical level is minor - The main focus of planners and commanders should be on the strategic level while the tactical level should remain a comparatively minor concern.
• Operational level is to be dictated by the strategic situation - The operational level is only to serve the needs of the strategic level.
• Achieving numerical superiority of forces must always be sought - Given the lack of advanced equipment and the fairly simplistic level of training necessitated by a very large army the SPA must always seek to have an advantage in the number of troops and the amount of equipment in a battle. Also applies to the support of ground forces by artillery and other support arms
• Constant knowledge of the enemy's locations and forces on the strategic and operational levels must be a major priority

[Arthurista]

http://iiwiki.com/wiki/Commonwealth_Arm ... nnaissance

Is this about right? Or should the correct emphasis of Formation Recce be on sneaking and providing the higher-ups with information?

Also, is this large enough for a Pershing-style MARV?