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VINTAGE AIR SUPPORT

SHOULD IT/CAN IT BE REVIVED?

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Chuck Myers

29 August 2001 [UPDATED 11 December 2002]

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Part I: What have we lost and how did we lose it?

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"Air support puts new zest and determination in our line in a way no amount of artillery fire before our eyes can do. The men see our pilots; they watch them come in low and take terrible chances. It makes them want to go forward again. The effect is as if they were drawn by a magnet."

A Battalion Commander of the 1st Marine Division, made this descriptive statement following their withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir (quoted in the Marine Corps Gazette page 79, November 2000). At the time of his observation, Army and Marine forces were under extremely heavy pressure from 250,000 Chinese troops who had intervened against General MacArthur’s U.N. forces which, in November 1950, had been on the brink of victory in North Korea. The battalion commander’s description of air support reminds one of the old WWII movie "<a href=" Leathernecks</a>" where John Wayne and his Marine <a href=" F-4U Corsair</a> pilots attack Japanese infantry and armor at eyeball level while our GI’s cheer them on.

Such flying was not uncommon by pilots of both allied and enemy air forces during WWII, Korea and some stages of the war against North Vietnam. Unfortunately for our infantry, it has gone out of style for a number of reasons. The popular excuse is that the air defense threat has become so ferocious as to preclude flying above enemy ground forces at altitudes below 10,000 feet. In Korea and Europe, the sky is overcast at two to three thousand feet over forty percent of the time. Knowing that the visible presence of tactical aircraft will be curtailed by an overcast sky above the battlefield is good news to enemy commanders who can be expected to exploit this factor to their advantage. Also, the possibility for overcast skies may constrain plans for offensive action by our ground commanders, knowing that they can not count on a full measure of combat air support should they need it. "Aerial Battlespace Beneath the Overcast" has been important in the past and probably will continue to be so.

Flying low over a battlefield has always been dangerous business because ground troops possess large numbers of guns varying from pistols to high rate of fire machine guns and medium caliber anti-aircraft guns. Remember how WWI ace, Baron von Richtofen ("Red Baron") was killed. A typical division may have as many as 10,000 automatic weapons. Troops are taught to create a hail of bullets above the battlefield for aircraft to fly into and they seem to enjoy the opportunity to shoot at airplanes. Most hits are received from the forward hemisphere and below. And, the faster the airplanes fly, the greater will be the depth of penetration of projectiles into their structure. When they concentrate their fires, Soldiers can make the sky virtually uninhabitable up to at least five thousand feet. If one must make passes over a battlefield, experience has taught that it is best to fly above 10,000 or below 100 feet. Flying very low, especially through rolling terrain or urban areas, minimizes the possibility of an air defense weapon being pointed at and tracking a passing aircraft.

Attacking ground forces beneath an overcast sky was especially hazardous on both the Eastern and Western Fronts in Europe during WWII but tactical pilots managed to be effective in spite of seemingly ever present gunfire. Has the gun density or lethality increased during the past fifty years? The problem lies not with gun density and lethality but rather with the character of our aircraft. Following 1945, the aircraft industry was directed to design for nuclear vice conventional war. For nuclear war, exposure to ground fire is not a problem worthy of consideration. Attack and fighter aircraft for the next two decades were designed primarily to deliver nuclear bombs to key targets deep in enemy territory under all weather conditions. Attacking enemy ground forces was not to be a part of their repertoire. During this period, airforces of the world spawned families of aircraft such as the USAF F-100 series including the <a href=" F-111</a>, Navy F-4, A-3J, A-4, A-7, British Harrier, Lightning, Tornado, French Mirage, Russian Migs, etc. with no design consideration for vulnerability to ground fire. The design emphasis was on maximizing range and speed, and airplanes were especially tailored for high-low-high mission profiles. Nuclear warfare design criteria contributed heavily to the losses of such airplanes as the F-105, F-4, F-8, F-111 and A-6 in Vietnam. Typical deficiencies included a lack of fuel tank self-sealing, lack of redundancy of control arteries, lack of protection for the pilots, use of highly flammable hydraulic fluid and lack of protection for the very tender jet engines to name just a few examples. The yield of such design habits, appropriate for nuclear war, was low tolerance to bullets and shrapnel as demonstrated by the high performance combat aircraft employed against Vietnam.

Our 1960’s air forces were trapped into employing nuclear war aircraft in a fierce conventional engagement for which the DoD had not prepared. In terms of vulnerability, these aircraft were less than ten percent as tolerant to ground fire as aircraft such as the <a href=" Air Corps P-47 Thunderbolt</I</a>, British Hurricane/Typhoon, the German Stuka and FW-190 or the heavily armored <a href=" Stormovik</I</a>.

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The IL-2 Sturmovik: most produced combat plane, EVER!

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The original Il-2 was a single-seater. The forward fuselage around the engine and cockpit was built with 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of steel ranging from 5 to 12 millimeters (a fifth to half inch) thick. The engine radiators were placed behind the engine in the armored body, while the air intakes were placed on top of the nose. K-4 armor glass was used in the cockpit, with thicknesses from 55 to 65 millimeters (2.2 to 2.6 inches).

38,000 IL-2 type aircraft were built in WWII, key to victory on the Russian Eastern Front!

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In these latter aircraft as well as the fifties vintage Navy/AF <a href=" SkyRaider</i</a>, the pilot sat behind a massive piston engine which continued to operate in spite of significant damage and served as frontal armor protection for the pilot during attacks against ground targets. The engine of the P-47 also served as a battering ram making it possible to crashland/belly-in through a forest or a building and walk away from the wreckage ---- there are no such aircraft in any major airforces today. Considering the relative vulnerability of the high-performance jet fighters which populate the worlds airforces, it is understandable that flying about at lower altitudes above a battlefield is deemed foolhardy.

An anomaly occurred during the late sixties due to concern over the attrition of our tactical aircraft in Vietnam and projections of the possible disaster our pilots would face beneath the overcast in a war against the USSR in Europe. Out of this concern came the <a href=" AX program</a> which produced the A-10 Warthog, the first U.S. airplane actually designed for the dirty mission of attacking ground forces and especially for killing tanks. Because the AX aircraft would be used primarily in support of ground troops, the U.S. Army had significant input into the necessary characteristics of the aircraft. The AX needed

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"To perform in close coordination with ground troops, in a high intensity small-arms fire environment, and for extended periods of time with a high payload. The requirement for fast response to Army needs is to be met three ways: 1) the aircraft will have short takeoff and landing (STOL) characteristics and rugged landing gear which will permit it to operate from unimproved landing fields; 2) it will have a long loiter time, giving it the capability to remain over the battlefield where it will be on call at a moment's notice; and 3) the aircraft will have a rather high cruise speed to allow rapid deployment from home field to battle area, or from one battle area to another. The AX should be able to take off and land from 2,000-foot runways."

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The design emphasis was on survivability through reduction of vulnerability to ground fire. Although it turned out to be much larger and less agile than desired, it was a major improvement over the nuclear age combat aircraft and serves as an indicator of what might be accomplished if a follow-on effort was sponsored by the DoD. Touted as a single-purpose aircraft, its loiter performance, ease of maintenance and toughness led to its broad application in Desert Storm. The Russians created the armored <a href=" Frogfoot</i</a> CAS aircraft with an uncanny resemblance to the losing <a href=" A-9 AX candidate</a>. SU-25s have an excellent combat record in <a href=" and <a href=" and been almost impossible to shot down.

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Flying beneath an overcast sky so as to discover and attack the enemy is generally discouraged and sometimes forbidden, even with <a href="a10cactusairforce.htm">the worlds least vulnerable jet airplane, the Warthog</I</U</a>. [1] In addition to the gunfire threat, pilots are led to believe that the enemy has deployed a virtual "death-dot" shoulder fired missile which Soldiers merely have to point and shoot to achieve a kill. In reality, its not that easy for the air defender (who is also interested in his own survival), especially if the near sky overhead is dominated by aggressive pilots who are not only providing air support but concurrently hunting and attacking air defense elements. Of course, in view of the inadvisability to expose our inappropriate aircraft to gunfire, the air defender is unlikely to face such an air threat.

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[1]

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"Leveraging technology can relieve pilots from having to venture below cloud level thus putting them in greater danger from anti-aircraft and small caliber gunfire. The United States is capable of producing the technologies to see through the clouds and there are lots of techniques you can use to do that. Pilots should not have to venture below the clouds unless our troops are in jeopardy --- when our troops are in jeopardy, we will"

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General John Jumper, USAF, Commander ACC as quoted by Defense Week 17 April 2000 following a presentation on Capital Hill regarding the need for the F-22.

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In one sense, the overall threat faced by U.S. pilots at all altitudes has subsided since WWII. The most disruptive and worrisome air defense element hardly even exists in the world today, that threat is enemy fighter interceptors flown by experienced and competent fighter pilots. For perspective, the top ten German Luftwaffe aces shot down a total of 2552 aircraft. The leader among that band of killers was young Eric Hartman with 350 victories. To further remind of our experience: in WWII, the U.S. Army Air Force lost twice as many airmen in three and one half years of combat operations than the total number of men killed (air and ground) during ten years of fighting in Vietnam. And, the losses seldom caused a significant alteration of air campaign plans. Aircraft attrition rates overall for our most prominent military actions were: WWII-9%, Korea-2%, Vietnam-0.5% and Desert Storm less than-0.3%. Additionally, in terms of total losses, aircraft lost due to mishaps, collisions with each other or the ground, fuel exhaustion, etc. in SEA exceeded the number shot down. The personal attrition rate for one who may have been the worlds most aggressive attack pilot to survive WWII, <a href=" Colonel Hans Ulrich Rudel</a>, was slightly over one percent having been shot down 32 times while flying over 2500 sorties on the Eastern Front, primarily against the Russian army.

From the perspective of a war planner, perhaps attrition should be considered within a framework that includes the aircraft, pilots and ground elements as a package. Should the survivability of pilots, because of their perceived value and scarcity, be considered independent of the total engaged force? Imagine what would have happened to the Army ground forces engaged in the desperate battle at Ia Drang in 1965 had there not been experienced and aggressive pilots attacking the enemy at below tree top level [2]. Also, consider that the air tactics and techniques required to be effective under such circumstances require frequent practice with the ground component because the skills of both are perishable. Is it rational to assume that pilots can practice high-altitude stand-off tactics for years and on the spur of the moment, descend and engage in a desperate fight at low altitude beneath an overcast and expect to survive and provide effective air support? Frequent and effective interplay of the air/ground team is a major contributor to survivability of the total force. Experience has shown that in "war", pilot and grunt survivability are intertwined with victory or defeat.

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[2] Battle of Ia Drang, 1965:

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"There were about 250 men of my battalion on the ground and still functioning. Casualties were beginning to pile up. I fleetingly thought of a predecessor of mine in the Seventh Cavalry, LTC George Armstrong Custer and his final stand in the valley of the Little Big Horn, eighty-nine years earlier. I was determined that history would not repeat itself in the valley of the Ia Drang. We had one thing George Custer did not have:--fire support."

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<a href="fries.htm">We Were Soldiers Once and Young</a> by LTC Hal Moore and Joe Galloway. In this situation, external fires, especially from the A-1s, saved the unit from annihilation. The presence of maneuver air support can reduce the probability of having such situations develop to the point where "save the day" actions are necessary.

One of my observations that relates to the proposed MAS with the COP JAAT is that the the Seventh Cav force that was inserted had never worked with/practiced with a "virtually organic" air support element. Under my MAS concept, key members of the Fixed-wing JAAT elements would have attended the mission prep briefing and would have been applying recce fires as the lift force was proceeding to the landing zone. They would have also been performing local recce and been in position when the contact was made. The North Vietnamese would never have been able to organize the attacks that resulted in a near Little Big Horn. And the total operation would probably have killed hundreds more enemy with little loss of 7th Cav. Under our concept, we don't wait until grunts are in trouble to call for support ---- its always there as part of the team. With our presence you would never need "bail me out" CAS or ARTY, even if the sky was overcast. You would not be supported by "strangers".

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The introduction of nuclear weapons in 1945 reinforced a long held view that the best use of air power is <a href=" those critical strategic nodes which a military commander chooses to believe are essential for his enemy to continue fighting</a>. Although the use of nuclear weapons was unlikely, the orientation of air forces toward <a href="fixusafnow.htm">deep strike</a> established a mindset and doctrines which carried over to the employment of air-delivered conventional weapons. <a href=" warfare thinking</a> proved to be an obstacle to maintaining effective conventional air warfare doctrine. Existing and proposed fighter/attack airplanes, for reasons discussed above, are not optimum for <a href=" ground forces</a>, especially in the direct attack mode of WWII. And, generations of pilots, trained to perform deep strike interdiction with these aircraft and lacking combat experience in direct air support are unlikely candidates to recover the lost art described in the opening statement of this paper. Since the Nation lacks appropriate resources for such combat flying, revival of the mission is unlikely to occur without a major effort by the benefactors of such services, the ground forces. Change can only occur if current ground component commanders speak out on behalf of the grunts who will be confronted with classical combat situations in the future.

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