Airman Scholar Sp05-1.indd - United States Air Force Academy

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to fight as well. ( Reese, 115) So the choice faced by Russian soldiers was to kill the Germans or be killed by the Germans; kill the enemy or be killed by Russians. Order 227 was provided for proper “motivation” to accomplish their duty and defend their homeland by overwhelming the enemy. In sum, Russia’s extreme priorities of completing the mission at all costs led to many victories in World War II. However, battles were won at the expense of millions of lives. The Battle of Berlin cast 300,000 Russian soldiers, a sum greater than all American losses during the entire war. Russia by far had the highest fatality and causality rate out of all nations involved in World War II. What is more important, men or accomplishing missions? Although there is no straight answer to this question, it stands to reason that training men and combat readiness has one end in site: battle. And in every battle or war there is a military objective to gain, which makes training men and seeing to their overall readiness vital to the success in obtaining the objective. Leaders should motivate their men, encourage them to excel at their training and promote military awareness. As witnessed with Admiral Sprague and Doolittle in World War II, during the preparation phase, men take initial priority and a commander’s focus. But it should not be forgotten that every military decision a commander makes is foreshadowed by something that is bigger than the lives of his men. A successful mission is the ultimate goal. The United States military forces have striven to avoid massive amounts of casualties. Russian losses during WWII were drastic, though the army did succeed in winning many of its battles. Russian leaders also knew the importance of mission over men but perhaps at too drastic a cost. More men may be more advantageous in battle but as Sprague and Doolittle demonstrated, few highly motivated and exceptionally well trained men can have just as devastating an impact on their enemy, succeeding and sometimes surpassing mission objectives. Either way, large army or small, multiple resources or minimum force, the military is always striving to accomplish something, achieve a goal. Men, technology, and strategies are all just parts working together to obtain and surpass a given task. Victory lies in mission completion. 10 htm > Works Cited Chun, Clayton K.S. War, Military, Theory, and Strategy. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Contrails, Volume 49. United States Air Force Academy, 2003. Reese, Roger R. The Soviet Military Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. Sysa, Andrey. “Tactics in the Winter War.” Winterwar.com. 2003. Sam Korhonen. < http://www.winterwar.com/tactics. Whited, Bert W. “The Bombing of Tokyo.” USS Salt Lake City.com. Sandy Thompson. 13 October 2003. Wukovits, John F. Devotion to Duty. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press,
“THE ANATOMY OF CLOSE AIR SUPPORT” BY C1C BRANDON BURNS INTRODUCTION The birth of the airplane had a revolutionary effect on warfare, adding a much needed third dimension to the battlefield. During the course of World War I, airpower came to be employed in various types of missions to include strategic bombardment, air interdiction, air superiority, and close air support. Since gaining independence from the U.S. Army, the Army has made claims that the Air Force is not committed to close air support. 1 Despite such attitudes, the Air Force has sought to provide close air support systems comprised of trained pilots, well suited aircraft, command and control (C 2 ) capabilities, and a variety of additional components that join to form the close air support (CAS) system or “body” (see “Limitations of the Study” below for further discussion of the analogy to the human body). From the legendary P- 47 Thunderbolt to the respected A/OA-10 Thunderbolt II, the U.S. Air Force has kept its guarantee to provide CAS. 2 However, military aircraft have not been the only systems to evolve with the times. The introduction of new technologies has resulted in significant progress in CAS and the U.S. Air Force has chosen to incorporate technology into all aspects of the CAS mission. Doctrine, capabilities, and technology are interrelated, and there is debate about whether the new technology and the addition of new capabilities will adequately fulfill the prescribed doctrine for CAS. The complete answer to this debate requires an understanding of the CAS body. The latest edition of Air Force Basic Doctrine states that: Close Air Support (CAS) consists of air operations against hostile targets in close proximity to friendly forces; further, these operations require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces. CAS provides direct support to help friendly surface forces carry out their assigned tasks. To be most effective, however, CAS should be used at decisive points in a battle and should normally be massed to apply concentrated combat power and saturate defenses. 3 To fulfill this mission the aircraft requirements for CAS have changed little since its debut as an Air Force mission. A specialized aircraft, the A/OA-10, has been developed for the CAS mission and is therefore especially well suited for such tactical employment. The Air Force plans to introduce 11 the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a multi-role fighter that will replace the venerable Fairchild Republic A/OA-10 as the primary CAS weapons platform. Other aircraft, such as the Rockwell B-1B, have also recently proven their combat effectiveness while supporting ground operations. With such aircraft readily available to carry out the CAS mission, it is arguable that combinations of A/OA-10s, B-1Bs, and other aircraft may be able to efficiently support CAS operations for the foreseeable future. Possibly having more attention than necessary, the Air Force has concentrated on one component of the CAS body: weapons platforms. Weapons platforms, which unarguably need to be upgraded over time, combine to form just one system, the muscular system, of the CAS body. True fulfillment of the CAS mission lies in the development of the entire CAS organization. Research Question The U.S Air Force must concentrate on acquiring new or upgrading existing tools that can successfully be employed during CAS operations based on application of the desired doctrine. CAS is a specialized and unique mission, and recent U.S. Air Force trends support future CAS capabilities, especially for weapons platforms. Based on recent U.S. combat experiences, adaptations to current U.S. aircraft, and the transformational approach towards the military as a whole, the question remains: Given its cultural disposition to focus on platforms, has the U.S. Air Force neglected other systems of the CAS body, while seeking to produce optimum capabilities for CAS? Recognition of this is crucial to ensure that the U.S. Air Force is heading in the right direction to prepare to meet new and growing challenges involving lowintensity conflicts which may be expected to impose increased requirements for CAS. Limitations of the Study The purpose for this research is to identify and support the best approach for Air Force CAS development through an analysis of capabilities based on needs and requirements. This paper seeks to view CAS as a body consisting of many systems that work together, much like the systems in the human body. This paper approaches CAS broader than most CAS analyses; however, the paper will dissect CAS and examine each system to see how each system is intertwined with another. After examining all these systems, there will be a diagnosis of the CAS body and an explanation of where problems may exist that require treatment. Training is not a focus of this paper. Although training is mentioned in a discussion of the CAS systems, training at any level, is not part
Page 1 and 2: In this issue… This publication i
Page 3 and 4: IS MISSILE DEFENSE A GOOD IDEA? By
Page 5 and 6: Several United States Congressmen a
Page 7 and 8: WHERE DO PRIORITIES LIE, WITH MEN O
Page 9: Sprague had to give the order to ma
Page 13 and 14: consider multiple possible answers
Page 15 and 16: The CAS skeletal system provides ab
Page 17 and 18: Combat Plans division “builds”
Page 19 and 20: Diagnosis All the systems I have di
Page 21 and 22: unwilling to let go of it option to
Page 23 and 24: Command and Staff College, 1998), 2
Page 25 and 26: y government’s myriad postmodern
Page 27 and 28: MORALLY BOUND TO NATIONAL SECURITY
Page 29 and 30: over others through exploitation of
Page 31 and 32: fighting. Sun Tzu stated “that th
Page 33 and 34: changed in nature or psychology sin
Page 35 and 36: esulted in 73 thousand Iraqis reach
Page 37 and 38: mander or Geographic Combatant Comm
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Page 41 and 42: tions, Joint Pub 3-35. Washington,
Page 43 and 44: 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Celin
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Page 47 and 48: that it avoids the heated issue of
Page 49 and 50: satellites as high as 1,000 km exce
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Page 53 and 54: or violating international agreemen
Page 55 and 56: 2 Clayton K. S. Chun, Shooting Down
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Page 59 and 60: was an attack on Islam. 27 Radical
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Asia in general and Afghanistan in
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Brassey’s, 2002). Bodansky, Yosse
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ETHICS IN WARFARE By C3C David Schi
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war perfectly. Besides utterly deva
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The political nature of war is esse
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Why is coercion important, however?
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50,000 regular troops. The army of
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forces. Airpower was a shock to the
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ase to mop up after the airpower ha
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks go
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FALLOUT: THE QUESTION OF NEXT GENER
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cent civilians and noncombatants th
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taining a robust deterrent against
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of the men in the armies which I ha
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onmental hazard and risking the liv
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is not nearly deep enough for the e
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Audit, ed. Stephen I. Schwartz (Was
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may have a fundamental breakdown be
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improved over time. After three yea
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preparation that the enemy cannot m
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man to, “Love each other as I hav
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Airman Scholar Sp05-1.indd - United States Air Force Academy

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