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That's exactly right although the problem was compounded by the "Transformation" idiocy and then further exaggerated by the Obama years. The end result is the technology advantage we enjoyed once has now been severely eroded and in some areas, we are behind the curve. Keeping obsolete systems...

It's worth noting that the AC-130 gunship is being abandoned in favor of a replacement that is equipped only with precision-guided munitions that can be released from above the low-altitude envelope. That is a direct result of the level of risk to which these aircraft are exposed and their...

Indeed so; a lot of the major AIFV upgrades going on right now are aimed at remedying exactly that problem, Its not just battery charging points though (I remember by the way when installing a two-point battery charger on the Stryker was condemned as "typical gold-plating") its the installation...

True, with the big area of opportunity being surveillance technology. Surveillance technology is a lot more pervasive than people realize now and its only going to become more so. When I was in London not long ago, I started counting official surveillance cameras (that is excluding ones...

The honest answer to the last question is everybody including the opposition. We've already lost one large and expensive drone when its flight control system was hacked in mid-air and the aircraft diverted to a now-friendly airbase. The way to look at this is by need and that is the way things...

This is very true but it was not restricted to the USAF. Basically none of the three services could get the others to cooperate with them. This tended to be more obvious with the Air Force because they had the highest visibility. The only people who weren't affected were the Marines, partly...

Doesn't surprise me; the A-10 always has had a staunch community built around it both inside and outside the Air Force. The problem is though that the defense budget is so stretched and after eight years of Obama, so underfunded that we have to be super-careful where we put our resources...

It comes from the time when a pilot was expected to be able to put a malfunctioning aircraft down in a field, diagnose what was wrong, fix it and take off. Try that with an F-22. Also, back then, all a high-school diploma proved was that the holder could read and write plus do elementary sums...

This is a good argument. The problem with the B-52 is that it was designed to salvo the conventional bombload and releasing single weapons is not that reliable. The B-21 may well fix that, too much is secret for us to know for sure. One proposal for a CAS aircraft was built around the Navy's...

I'm not sure it is the same case; some of the details are a bit different. I got the story from Nick Moran and he is usually regarded as an extremely reliable source. Its possible he got mixed up on locations though. You must admit, its a hell of a tribute to Russian diesels. If one has a...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Firstly, I don't work for the Air Force, I work for the DOD as a whole. And I have seen, in detail, the budget process/technical develop papers of the era and they don't support what you are saying. In fact, I work with budget and program data every day. The...

My guess would be more than one-for-one; that's rare in modern budgeting. I think we'd have the aircraft getting IOC now if we had the funding - ie if it wasn't being squandered on A-10s

Impossible. We can't go back like that. All the sub-systems that were used have been out of production for 60 years and we'd end up designing a completely new aircraft. However, as our Captain-General has been pointing out, functionally the AirLand Scorpion is that completely new aircraft, a...

Exactly! The A-10 belonged to the days when we counted the number of aircraft that we had to fly against a single target. These days we count the number of targets a single aircraft can take out per story. There's an interesting cyclic there by the way that I'll go into a bit later. Airland...

No, not true. See Air War Vietnam by van Staveraan. The A-1 was a great light attack aircraft right up to the time that multiple AA mounts (especially the ZU-23) and the SA-7 missile arrived in numbers. Then, the A-1 was driven off the battlefield. Casualties rose to an unacceptable level...

That's a yes and no. They do get more practice at it and they stay with the units longer. The problem is that they leave earlier and they take the expertise with them. This means their institutional memory is seriously impeded and lessons don't get passed down. So, win some, lose some. This...

That's an interesting take on the situation but I would put a different accent on it. The Army likes having air support, but is very cynical about actually getting any. They see the Air Force as a bunch of zoomies who aren't happy unless they are doing Mach 2 and engaging in knightly jousting...

<deleted content> That's because its where the Buccaneer came from - it was designed primarily as a Sverdlov killer using a tactical nuke. It would come in very low, then loft the device on to the target. The radar problem would allow it to get in and out clear. The Banana was a very good...

That's sure the truth. The A-10 is an albatross around the Air Force's neck right now. It's really questionable if we should ever have built it and it certainly shouldn't have hung around this long. The AirLand Scorpion is a very interesting aircraft. The current word is that if funding was...

The A-10 was certainly exactly the aircraft we needed for the Korean War. The original concept was based on experiences in the early years of the Vietnam War but when that war ended, so did that operational role. By 1968, the A-10 was being recast around that damn big gun and called a...