This is an interesting piece on air power in-general and some mentions of strategic bombing in WWII.
The author doesn't mention a few important points.
WWII strategic bombing of Germany:
1.It was in effect yet another front (just like the Soviet Union, Italy and France). The German people and logistics tied up in various facilities, flak batteries and fighters tasked for home defense helped even more, to bleed them white.
2.Bombing Germany was instructive to the German populace of what happens when you put a murder in charge of your country. Retaliation. And, a good object lesson for future generations. You want war? Fine. Here it is. Eat it.
3.These were still early days of combat aviation. Man was still learning technology that was appearing faster than their ability to know how to use it.
3. In 1944, with all that bombing, Germany had a high production year for fighter aircraft. The huge problem (which was the same for Japan) was Germany's lack of understanding of the pilot pipeline. By 1944 Germany had low hour rookies and a small number of highly excperience aces. Where the ace said, "we flew until we got the iron cross or the wooden cross."
The U.S. for example, by this time, could get a huge number of low-to-average pilots to the front who may have had a few hundred flight hours before they even saw combat. A big difference from a German 20-hour (or less) wonder. Pilots with experience--in large quantity--went home to teach rookies. The mismatch by 44 was large.
Air power is not everything in war. Not having it in a peer-to-peer fight means you risk losing.
Badly.
20 comments:
IMO, WWII strategic bombing was not effective, but neither were early firearms. The PGM revolution has changed that. Sure, hitting mobile assets is still a crapshoot. But what can the enemy do with busted bridges, railways and substations?
The bombing campaign of Germany came at a terrible cost. I still can't quite see that it was worth that.
1. So did the British Commando operations in Norway. The effects of the bombings were mostly psychological. A staggering amount of ordnance never hit anywhere near their targets, and in most cases the Germans could rebuild at remarkable speed.
2. I see your point, but even the British population turned against Harris after Dresden. And considering they'd suffered badly through the Blitz, and in particular with the destruction of Coventry, that's saying something. Harris was unrepentant, and was an ardent supporter of the theories of Douhet for the rest of his life. I can't say I agree with him.
3. Indeed. This was especially a problem in the Luftwaffe, where the majority of pilots had a classical educational background. Most of the bright engineers had been recruited into the Kriegsmarine, so the service suffered from officers with a severe lack of technical understanding.
4. Absolutely. This wasn't helped by the fact that the best pilots were always placed on the bomber-line. Even later in the war, Hitler and Goering insisted that the bomber arm, being the primary offensive weapon of the Luftwaffe, was more important than fighters.
Air power is vital, but it isn't the panacea people like Douhet, Harris or Warden liked to claim it is. You need all the other arms to do the job well, and to adapt.
The whole RMA concept isn't one that I agree with. Too much reliance on technological superiority.
@So?
The PGM revolution isn't really a revolution, IMO. It's fine in the wars we've been fighting lately, where our aircraft are largely uncontested. In a fight against a competent enemy, you'll have to get low and manouvre to avoid getting shot down. It'll take superhuman multitasking skills to put a laser on a target while manouvering to avoid AAA. And then there's cost.
By Ely,
I am probably going to regret buying into this but it is a fascinating subject area. Re Nic Stuart's piece, I do not understand why he has interpreted Chief of Army's presentation as an airpower versus armypower debate or even order of funding priority (although it might end up being that)I believe Chief of Army is in the main arguing Army's case which is a fair enough thing for him to be doing.
And I think Nic has misinterpreted the US Strategic Bombing Survey (I am referring to the 1945 summary). The report itself states in its introduction that its aim was to determine how air supremacy was achieved (in WW2) and the results which followed from its exploitation.The second para of the report's conclusion is worth repeating as follows"Allied air power was decisive in the war in Western Europe. Hindsight inevitably suggests that it might have been employed differently or better in some respects. Nevertheless, it was decisive. In the air its victory was complete. At sea, its contribution, combined with naval power, brought an end to the enemy's greatest threat-the U boat; on land, it helped turn the tide overwhelmingly in favor of Allied ground forces.Its power and superiority made possible the success of the invasion etc etc."
I dont think the survey is suggesting that air power has primacy but it does conclude it was a vital element. I dont get the political agenda Nic sees in the Survey's motive.
I also have a problem with Nic's claim that Andrew Davies graph provides 'unequivoval' proof of the effectiveness of the air offensive. Certainly civil and military production dropped (Dr N Frankland provides an excellent set of tables illustrating this in his Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939 -1945.)An estimated 600k civilians were killed another 500k injured by the allied bombing. But these results were not seen as decisive (humanitarian concerns aside). See for example The Combined Bomber Offensive by Noble Frankland with comment by Allied and German participants and leaders during a USAF Seminar held in 1968. I believe that analysis and comment concludes that German industrial production capacity (including fighter production) was able to largely accomodate the huge damage of the bombing and that the morale of the German population remained remarkably resiliant throughout but that the truly decisive results were achieved against the fuel production and transportation sectors when these became the priority targets (mostly after D day).I believe that German's certainly did understand pilot training Eric-it was prevented by lack of fuel and forgiving airspace which by 1944 was occupied by mostly allied P51 and P47.The analysis is a bit more complicated than I have painted it and it is still the subject of heated debate by those more learned than I. But I do worry that with the ongoing cutbacks in Defence we will once again see reduction by the 'squeaky wheel' method rather than as a result informed analysis of what it is we are trying to achieve-And that is what General Morrison was on about in an Army context I think.
Regards
Ely
Hello Eric,
Only recently back from militarily fascinating Norway. Herewith an extract from a beaut little book '1940 – MYTH AND REALITY'. Just Google the author Clive Ponting or the book title for some background and reviews. This first bit outlines events that led up to the bombing of civilian targets.
'With (British) morale still low in the summer of 1940, the Germans launched what should, according to the military theorists of the 1930s, have been a devastating blow to British willingness to continue the war: the Blitz.
Until August 1940, both sides had done their best to avoid all-out bombing of population centres. In August 1939, Hitler announced that he would bomb only military targets and Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, used a Swedish intermediary, Dahlerus, to obtain similar assurances from the British. Early in September, both sides accepted President Roosevelt's appeal to avoid civilian bombing. The Germans made no attempt during the campaign in France to use the Luftwaffe strategically and restricted its use to tactical support of the Army.
During the German attack on Holland, however, Rotterdam had been bombed to assist Army operations. This, not surprisingly, was misinterpreted by Britain as an end to the German policy of restraint and the RAF was authorised to bomb what it thought was the Ruhr, although given its navigation techniques, it was almost certainly somewhere else.
Despite this widening of operations, neither side was prepared to authorise the bombing of the other's capital. On 24 August, Hitler repeated his instruction that London should not be bombed. The next day, during a raid on oil tanks in Kent, one plane overshot the target and dropped some bombs on an outer suburb of London without causing any casualties. Churchill then authorised a raid on Berlin, which had been in preparation from early August. Few bombers found the target and there were no casualties. Hitler ignored the attack and the Luftwaffe continued to concentrate on RAF airfields.
Churchill refused to agree to the RAF's suggestion of Leipzig as a target and insisted on a repetition of the Berlin raid. This was carried out on 29 August and 10 civilians were killed. At this point, Hitler ordered preparations be made for raids on London in retaliation. These were approved on 4 September and began 3 days later.
The day and night raid on the London docks on 7 September marked the beginning of the Blitz on British cities. London was raided for 57 successive nights and on 14 November, major attacks also began on provincial cities. The large-scale raids ended on 10 May with a massive raid on London, after which the Luftwaffe was deployed to the east for the attack on the Soviet Union.
During this 8 month period, 40,000 (British) civilians were killed and 800,000 houses were damaged beyond repair. Although the scale of destruction was large, it needs to be kept in proportion, compared with the weight of the Allied air attacks on Germany later in the war. In total, 590,000 Germans were killed (nearly 15 times the British figure), 800,000 were seriously injured and 7,500,000 were made homeless. The weight of bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe on Britain was just 3 percent of the amount the Allies dropped on Germany.
Individual raids reflect the same pattern. The attack on Coventry in November 1940 killed about 550 civilians. In August 1943, when the Allies attacked Hamburg, firestorms in the centre of the city, with temperatures of 1,000 degrees C and winds of 150mph, killed about 50,000 people and destroyed 60 percent of the houses. Just before the end of the war, the bombing of Dresden (which received 7 times the weight of bombs dropped on Coventry) resulted in the deaths of about 130,000 people and destroyed all but 10 percent of the houses.'
More to follow re how the Allied strategic bombing effort failed.
Herewith another interesting extract from '1940 – MYTH AND REALITY' regarding the strategic bombing offensive.
'For most of the war, there was plenty of spare capacity in the German economy, which made it almost impossible for Britain to apply enough pressure to bring about a collapse of the war effort...British hope about the fragility of the German economy was also one of the factors behind the decision, taken in the summer of 1940, to embark on a strategic air offensive. The main reason though, was that it was the only way in which Germany could be attacked, despite the considerable limitations on the offensive.
In 1940, the RAF did not have suitable aircraft and a new generation of four-engined bombers capable of carrying a substantial load to Germany would not be operational for nearly 2 years...When war came in 1939, Bomber Command was not trained or equipped to penetrate into enemy territory by day or to find its target areas, let alone its targets, by night.
When the air offensive began in 1941, the only feasible policy was therefore to attack German cities, because these were the only targets the RAF had even a remote chance of finding. The best that could be hoped for was that under these attacks, German civilian morale might crack.
The early stages of the offensive were little short of catastrophic for the RAF. During 1940 and 1941, more RAF personnel than German civilians were killed during the attacks. One reason for the low level of German casualties was poor navigation by the RAF. An official survey in August 1941 showed that one-third of the aircraft despatched did not attack any target at all, and that the best third only managed to drop their bombs somewhere within five miles of the target.
As time went on, techniques gradually improved and American entry into the campaign in 1942 increased the weight of the air offensive beyond anything the British could have imagined in 1940, but nevertheless, strategic bombing contributed little to final victory. It cost the RAF 8,000 aircraft and 50,000 dead, yet it failed to damage civilian morale or reduce significantly German industrial output. In fact, German war production reached its peak under the full weight of the bomber offensive. Between 1942 and 1944, German munitions output trebled, with the production of tanks increasing fivefold. Aircraft production also doubled to 40,000 in 1944 (fifty percent higher than the British level).
The official Allied survey after the war estimated that, overall, the Germans lost just under 4 percent of their productive capacity to the bomber offensive; in 1945, German machine tool capacity was actually higher than in 1939. Production collapsed at the end of 1944, only because the Allied armies overran the main sources of German raw materials. The official historians of the air offensive were forced to conclude:
Area attacks against German cities could not have been responsible for more than a very small part of the fall which had occurred in German production by the spring of 1945, and...in terms of bombing effort, they were also a very costly way of achieving the results they did achieve.'
The world at large was understandably sickened by the huge German civilian casualties in the bombing of Hamburg and especially Dresden near the end of the war.
Another bit to follow re aircrew considerations.
@Cormorant,
I should have said the JDAM PGM revolution. No lasing required, and the "smart" bombs are barely more expensive than dumb ones. But even LGBs are incredible force multipliers. Also, ground-based AD is a very specialised allocation of resources. While fighter aircraft are a truly multi-role asset.
So makes a good point.
Consider the failed air strikes against Syrian AD by two aircraft carriers in 1983.
Dumb weapons, poor planning, and a few aircraft lost.
Today, that same strike could do contempt of engagement with 4 Hornets and JDAMs. Also, every jet off of a carrier today is JDAM capable.
I don't know about the price so much SO. The price of the JDAM kit has climbed when it should have gone down. B
@So?
JDAM's are useful, sure, but they're not barely more expensive than unguided Mk.82's. The current cost of one kit is about 27000USD, and that's for US only. International prices are far higher.
"But even LGBs are incredible force multipliers."
Well, they're more accurate than unguided ordnance, but I'd hardly say they're significant force multipliers. Again; they work best when the aircraft carrying them are uncontested, like in Afghanistan.
"Also, ground-based AD is a very specialised allocation of resources. While fighter aircraft are a truly multi-role asset."
Presumably you mean for air defence here, not for airstrikes.
Specialization isn't always bad. Jacks of all trades tend to be masters of none. The swing-role concept for combat aircraft is particularily flawed; not only does the pilot have to be equally good at all missions at the same time (which experience shows is practically impossible), and also to do ACM with various irrelevant stores still on the aircraft. It's like fighting in a kickboxing match with your shoelaces tied together.
@Eric
I'd hardly blame it on the dumb ordnance. The poor planning and execution is to blame. They wanted to go in low and fast, but orders from Washington told them to fly in 20000ft. The aircrew were barely briefed, and it was total chaos.
You could argue that the JDAM misdropped on the SF team in Afghanistan in 2001 is a good example of how JDAMs don't work well. The JDAMs dropped from F-117s over Baghdad in 2003 were not all that successful either.
Tactics and employment are more important than the tech. Most people compare combat aircraft, for example, by specs, and overlook the qualitative attributes.
Yes better planning would of helped.
However, with JDAM, you can hit more fixed targets with less airframes in more adverse weather/visibility conditions.
And, not be engaged by trashfire, MANPADs, small battlefield SAMS and most legacy surface-to-air threats.
Sending Hornets against Syrian AD?
Looks like you want the proof of the thesis that legacy aircraft are no longer surviable against modern AD. JDAM or not.
Syria is operating both Pantzir and Buk-M systems, which demostrated the ability to shoot down legacy aircraft in combat. Well, the Pantzir even did it on Syrian soil just this year with a Turkish Phantom.
It would be of course of some interest to see how recent russian ADAs will perform against US type aircraft, ECM and PGMs. How good or bad. But I don't want to be within one of the attacking aircraft to find out...
Herewith more snippets from '1940 - MYTH AND REALITY'. A following bit will elaborate more regarding aircrew.
'On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued a directive to the armed forces on the invasion of Britain codenamed Operation SEALION. It was based on work already started by the military at the end of June, but it reflected Hitler's ambivalence about the operation: it instructed the planners to 'prepare for and if necessary to carry out an invasion'. Five days later, Hitler admitted to his Generals that any invasion would be 'very hazardous' and other ways of trying to bring Britain to ask for peace would have to be tried first.
Like the German Army, the Luftwaffe had been created at breakneck speed after 1933. From a force of 550 pilots and 250 aircraft of little military value, it had expanded to 20,000 pilots and observers with 3,500 aircraft by 1939. It had developed as a private fiefdom under Goering, who was grossly inadequate as a commander and organiser. His immediate deputies were no better at these tasks, and the one strength of the force was its complement of superb pilots.
The Luftwaffe was, from its inception, built to support the Army and not to fight a separate air offensive. It was organised into units linked to Army groups and not into separate forces like Bomber Command and Fighter Command in the RAF. The attack on Britain, however, required the Luftwaffe to carry out exactly the type of operation for which it had not been designed and organised.
Although many theorists between the two world wars had argued that, though bombing, an air force would be able to break the will of an opponent to resist, nobody had ever tried such a strategy. Now the Luftwaffe was being asked to embark on this task with no idea exactly how air power should be used in terms of targets and tactics in order to achieve a highly ambitious aim.
...The British too faced major problems in repelling the German attack. The most fundamental was that, since its creation in 1918, the RAF had been based on the primacy of the bomber...Rearmament in the 1930s had been directed mainly towards increasing the bomber force rather than the defensive fighter force, in the hope that this would act as a deterrent to German aggression. As late as April 1938, the RAF was planning on a strength of 1,360 bombers and only 600 fighters. ...On 11 November 1938, the cabinet agreed to create an 800 fighter force by April 1940, rejected the RAF's request for increased bomber production and only endorsed enough orders to keep the production lines open.'
Just a bit more historical stuff re WW2, then I will join the more contemporary debate. This again from '1940 - MYTH AND REALITY'.
'In the early 1930s, Baldwin (Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister) had told the House of Commons that, 'the bomber will always get through'...The development of radar as an early-warning system completely changed the picture. Its feasibility was demonstrated in 1935 and by 1939 a complete chain of radar warning stations had been built around Britain's east and south coasts. Once these had been integrated with operational control rooms to plot the movements of bombers and fighters and linked to radio direction of fighter squadrons an excellent defence system had been created.
The Luftwaffe had a total front-line strength of 4,500 aircraft compared with the RAF's 2,900...the RAF had a fighter force of about 700 to face 800 German fighters and 1,000 bombers...Factors other than the balance of opposing forces, however, were crucial in determining the outcome of the Battle of Britain. During the summer of 1940 the key tasks facing Britain were to build and repair enough aircraft to keep the RAF in the air, find enough pilots to fly the aircraft and devise effective tactics to counter the Luftwaffe.
The seeds of Britain's ability to (temporarily) produce more fighter aircraft than the Germans lay in the cabinet's decision in 1938 to increase fighter production, thus ensuring the creation of the necessary industrial capability. The immediate cause of success was to break up the Air Ministry in May 1940 and create a new Ministry of Aircraft Production under Lord Beaverbrook, outside the RAF's control...During the summer of 1940, British fighter production was two and a half times the German level, which was deliberately cut back below the levels planned on the outbreak of war. As a result of Beaverbrook's herculean efforts and those of the workers on the production lines, the RAF was never short of aircraft during the Battle of Britain and only for a short period did losses exceed expectations.
Britain rose to the first challenge of supplying enough aircraft, but the second – providing the pilots – brought the RAF to the verge of disaster. The damage was essentially self-inflicted. Although almost 300 aircraft per week were being produced, the RAF could only turn out 200 pilots per week. This was because the training organisation was highly inefficient. In the year before the summer of 1940, it took 4,000 training aircraft to produce 2,500 pilots, whereas the Germans produced one pilot for every aircraft in their training organisation and their pilots were, equally if not more, skilled.
...There were still about 9,000 (RAF) pilots for 5,000 aircraft operational in the summer of 1940, yet throughout the crucial summer months of 1940, the RAF consistently complained of a chronic shortage of pilots, and toward the end of August, the pressure on the operational squadrons was so intense it was doubtful whether they could continue flying for much longer.
The reason for this apparently anomalous situation was the way the RAF allocated its pilots: only 30 percent of the total strength was actually in front-line squadrons. 20 percent were engaged in the vital task of instruction and another 20 percent, though qualified, were still receiving further instruction. The rest were in staff positions. Even at the height of the Battle of Britain, 30 percent of the RAF's qualified pilots were in office jobs...as many qualified pilots were sitting behind desks as were available to both Bomber and Fighter Commands together.
Despite the gravity of the situation facing Britain and Churchill's repeated pressure, the RAF refused to change their policy and only a token 30 pilots were removed from administrative jobs to join the front line. The near fatal shortage of pilots during the Battle of Britain was therefore a situation entirely of the RAF's making.'
Strategic bombing before the atom bomb was pure terror without a lot of effects against prepared or flexible recipients.
Strategic bombing with atom bombs is still pure terror, but at least it's effective. And no-one really thinks he can sit it out.
Comparison of 1983 Kennedy cruise. Kennedy and Independence strike.
By Ely,
Dear Eric,
With respect to BR 71's overview and the lessons of much more recent battles, I caution against a conclusion that the WW2 European Bombing Campaign was inneffective or not decisive overall. These were not the conclusions of the US Bombing Survey and other expert analyses since-(and btw only about half the RAF bombing sorties were classed as "area" bombing)though the US study found that the campaign apparently did not have a serious effect on German Military and/or Civil production.
I am not arguing a case in support the bombing of cities or that the campaign was not terribly costly.
Regards
Ely
BR is bright on many levels and is a combat vet. Based on his analysis, that is what he thinks.
Me? I have already stated my opinions in the original post. To add to that, I love Germany.
However, at that time, in that war, with lots of ruin in the U.K., it is hard to get all weepy about German civilian deaths. Had the Germans built any serious air power they would have continued to do the same. Germany got off light. Had they not given up, they would have been even more destroyed (atomic bomb etc.). In the end, they should be thankful that we allowed them to exist as a country after WWII. So if any German ever asks me if I feel bad about Dresden, the answer is probably "no". And the response continue,"I don't hear a 'thank you' from you for us allowing Germany to exist as a country after WWII considering how many lives they destroyed along with multiple ruined economies/livelihoods/familes/futures.
I thank Eric for allowing me to hog his blog space to convey extracts from '1940 – MYTH AND REALITY'. They were not my opinions, but embrace some invaluable lessons of warfare.
Firstly, had the Luftwaffe been permitted to persist with the destruction of British airfields for another 2 weeks, they would have effectively neutralised RAF opposition. Although the Germans did not have the marine capacity for a full scale invasion of Britain, as feared by Hitler, they could have provided sufficient forces to occupy and subjugate the British population, as they did elsewhere in Europe – they would have only been up against 'Dad's Army' after Dunkirk. The fundamental error was they did not have a strategy, as reflected in a longstanding Principle of War: 'Selection and Maintenance of the Aim'.
Secondly, an outdated British belief that a large bomber force would provide deterrence against German aggression. As was proven later in the war, tactical fighter aircraft (properly utilised) were quite cost-effective at interdicting infrastructure – think other Principles of War: 'Flexibility', 'Economy of Effort', 'Versatility'.
Considering the indisputable low impact of the bombing campaign on German industrial capacity, the very high cost involved in terms of aircraft losses and aircrew casualties was arguably misdirection of resources, let alone the morality of the civilian casualties caused (on both sides).
I am of French heritage, lived/worked in Austria and with Germans for a time after leaving the RAAF. Germany was of course allowed to rebuild after WW2 in like fashion to Japan, and so they should have been as sizeable human components of the world and they now contribute somewhat toward multi-national military efforts – Germany was the third largest contributor in Afghanistan.
It is morally repugnant in my view to consider the current German population accountable for the follies of Hitler and his acolytes. When working in Germany and Holland in the mid-1990s, I was appalled to hear the host on US Armed Forces Radio Germany utter the words: 'We the glorious victors' while somewhat denigrating the people. That sort of demeaning crap should never have been tolerated by military leaders and politicians.
By Ely,
Dear Eric,
Thanks. I have made no comment about the humanitarian/cultural or political aspects of the issue. I do not trivialise them. I too am a veteran of some 42 years service though I make no claim to brightness or correctness.
Cheers
Ely
Re earlier posts; I agree with Eric and Cormorant that Air Power is no panacea for war-fighting and combinations of arms are always necessary to achieve a military aim. Debate regarding the merits of Air Power often become too generalised and omit to highlight its very broad scope in nature compared with pure naval and land forces. Some air aspects might be very effective in particular campaigns and others not.
Ely; I believe that General Morrison is wearing the usual Australian Army blinkers. Historically, armies were very large formations with a plethora of units performing diverse functions with differing hardware. This thinking still applies somewhat today concerning so-called 'Expeditionary Forces'. Many land forces shun the notion of light compact air deployable force structures because it would undermine their ambition for larger armies.
Much of my military career involved working with the Army in the field, in their headquarters and in doctrinal development at Air Support Unit, the forerunner of the Australian Joint Warfare Establishment. Post-Vietnam mythology falsely accuses the RAAF of jointery shortcomings, but it primarily parented multiple joint air-related units from WW2 onwards (see this link that mentions only some: http://www.defence.gov.au/adfwc/about.html). But the Australian Army in my time conveyed a disposition that 'Jointery is okay, as long as we are in charge'.
During the Vietnam War, 1ATF had available a vast array of mostly foreign military air resources and used them pretty well; in fact, the success of operations in the TAOR largely resulted from the effective application of diversified Air Power. 14 years after military retirement, I attended the Chief of Army's History Conference 2002 – 'The Australian Army and the Vietnam War – 1962 to 1972'. Despite its huge relevance in that campaign, there was no analysis whatsoever in proceedings regarding Air Power considerations; but a pitch was made for Abrams tanks, which were subsequently acquired.
Australian politicians and senior military, both serving and retired, are ignoring what force structures are affordable within Federal Government revenue considering overall national economic imperatives and what ADF force components can be continually properly manned for adequate and credible military preparedness. Was the DWP2009 wish of 8 infantry battalions feasible within the present ADF complement and could all of the Navy and Air Force platforms contemplated be adequately supported? The answers to the latter questions are indisputably NO. While lobbying for increased defence outlay, the past and present leadership echelon are curiously not making much mention of the ongoing waste of funding within the DoD realm.
My bet is there will have to be some rationalisation of ADF force structuring downstream. Australia is militarily indefensible; but, capabilities to deter interference with trade corridors are affordable within a properly managed defence budget pegged at, say, 7.5 percent of revenue.
As all military hardware becomes more costly to acquire and operate; which of present and envisaged capabilities might have to be forfeited, especially regarding Air Power? Should Australia's strike capability be oriented principally toward the maritime sphere and a modest cost close air support platform (like Super Tucano) eventually replace the F/A-18/Hawk fleet for regional operations, also aging PC-9 training aircraft? Just thought outside the square.
By about 2020, ADF Air Power might shape up quite differently than hitherto or presently envisaged by defence planners.
...Australia is militarily indefensible...
Only if money is misspent on Abrams tanks, Tiger helis, Collins subs, JSF (?). Protect the air sea gap first and foremost. Aircraft and submarines with range. Virginia SSNs, F-15E, F-22 follow-on. Split-buy with Americans whenever possible to keep the costs down. Stop running "unique" acquisition projects. Everything off-the-shelf.
Post a Comment