Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Gorrell and other airpower theorists generally agreed that strategicbombardment was the airpower solution to avoid the trench warfaretragedies of World War I. The manned bomber, envisioned as the onlymeans capable of reaching and striking deep targets, came to symbolizethe principal weapon of strategic warfare. The theorists gave fighter developmenta much lower priority as they believed that pursuit aircraftwould rarely intercept the superior bombers. While they all viewed strategicbombardment as the means to shorten and win wars, they variedslightly in their reasoning. Douhet theorized air forces should bomb people;this would destroy their will and lead to the collapse of the enemy. TheBritish RAF theorized air forces should bomb industry; this would destroythe will of the people and lead to the collapse of the enemy. The ACTS alsotheorized air forces should bomb industry; however, its reasoning wasthat this would destroy their capability, which would destroy the will ofthe people and lead to the collapse of the enemy. 4During World War II, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, andJapan all resorted to the practice called “morale bombing” or “terrorbombing.” 5 Regardless of whether selected targets were entire cities orspecific industries, the intent of their bombing campaigns was to destroynational morale. Supplemental expectations were the destruction of anenemy’s war-making capability and the diversion of its military resources.Strategic attacks did inflict destruction and cause diversion to varying degrees;however, attrition and retaliation also ensued. The result was a prolongedwar where adversaries exchanged strategic bombardment blows.From World War II through the Persian Gulf War, the USAF has maintainedbombing as a key element of major air campaigns. Until the GulfWar, however, its planners did not always adhere to a precision-bombingdoctrine. In conflicts like Southeast Asia, the bombers seldom performedsurgical strikes on strategic targets. Airpower advocates see the Gulf Waras the definitive moment when technology caught up with theory, andstrategic offensive airpower accomplished exactly what the early airpowertheorists had predicted. Unlike in previous wars, Desert Storm’s air campaignplanners logically identified strategic targets; and coalition air forcessuccessfully attacked them with precision. Donald B. Rice, former secretaryof the Air Force, emphasized these points in a paper on American airpowerin the Gulf War:This new age [new era in warfare] also realized the concept of a strategic aircampaign. Air power did exactly what air power visionaries said it could. Withroughly 1 percent of the bombs dropped in 11 years in Vietnam, allied air assetsshut down Iraq’s gasoline production, electricity, transportation, communications,offensive-weapons production, and air defenses. 6One can easily get the wrong impression from Rice’s statement (andothers like it) that airpower alone can defeat an adversary with significantlyfewer but more technologically capable strategic airpower assets.While US airpower in the Gulf War did paralyze the enemy in a short anddecisive air campaign, it required a considerable expenditure rate of26
ombs, as well as a high sortie rate of airpower assets to deliver them. Despitebeing a short war, Desert Storm required high levels of airpower assetsand supporting resources. Had they not been available (or not existed)within the war’s narrow time frame, the air campaign could havelasted much longer; and the results could have been very different. Inorder to make a comparison between the last four major wars, the followingsections illustrate US bomb tonnage and combat sortie statistics.In analyzing bomb tonnage statistics, the USAF’s expenditure in theGulf War was less than 1 percent of the tonnage expended in SoutheastAsia (as previously referenced by Secretary Rice), 13 percent of the tonnageexpended in Korea, and less than 3 percent of the tonnage expendedby the USAAF in World War II (against both Japan and Nazi Germany).However, if one views these measures in terms of tonnage per month, thestatistics reveal a more stable rate of expenditure across the wars. GulfWar tonnage per month was nearly 92 percent of the tonnage per monthexpended in Southeast Asia, 329 percent of the tonnage per month expendedin Korea, and nearly 85 percent of the tonnage per month expendedin World War II. Table 3 provides a summary of the data used tocompute bomb tonnage percentages. 7Table 3US Army Air Forces/US Air Force Bomb Tonnage Statistics for Four ConflictsWAR TONNAGE LENGTH TONNAGE/MONTHWorld War II 2,150,000 45.0 months 47,777.78Korea 454,000 37.0 months 12,270.27Vietnam/SE Asia 6,162,000 140.0 months 44,014.29Gulf War 60,624 1.5 months 40,416.00Source: Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian InstitutionPress, 1992), 190.In analyzing sortie rates, the Gulf War’s combat sorties per month werenearly 138 percent of the sorties per month conducted in Southeast Asia,over 212 percent of the sorties per month conducted in Korea, and over 50percent of the sorties per month conducted in World War II. Table 4 providesa summary of the data used to compute combat sortie percentages. 8Desert Storm was unlike any previous warfare operation, but similaritiesdo exist. Strategic offensive airpower delivered destruction and synergismas never before witnessed by any nation. On the positive side oftechnology, stealth and precision weapons provided the means to avoidattrition. On the negative side, the air campaign did not deter retaliation;and the ensuing Scud-hunting campaign resulted in a futile diversion ofcoalition airpower assets. Like Germany’s V1/V2 weapons, Scuds were27
Page 1 and 2: Expendable Remotely PilotedVehicles
Page 3 and 4: ContentsChapterDISCLAIMER . . . . .
Page 5 and 6: AbstractThe future holds an acceler
Page 7 and 8: AcknowledgmentsI thank all the stud
Page 9 and 10: aircraft. Incorporating the added d
Page 11 and 12: UAVs were more easily defined when
Page 13 and 14: Chapter 4 answers the question: Why
Page 15 and 16: Chapter 2History and BackgroundWe h
Page 17 and 18: The Wright brothers are deservedly
Page 19 and 20: aerial bombs), the British took the
Page 21 and 22: UAVs during World War II to a few g
Page 23 and 24: On 27 October of that year, another
Page 25 and 26: United States to look beyond reconn
Page 27 and 28: ary 1996, Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, A
Page 29 and 30: 29. Shaker and Wise, 28.30. Michael
Page 31: Chapter 3Strategic Offensive Airpow
Page 35 and 36: It thus follows that future air cam
Page 37 and 38: possible for small formations to ac
Page 39 and 40: spite the successes, it is easily p
Page 41 and 42: The transmissions used by a control
Page 43 and 44: 33. Air Force Scientific Advisory B
Page 45 and 46: diverted 75 percent of its B-29s aw
Page 47 and 48: Table 6Remotely Piloted Vehicle Adv
Page 49 and 50: million dollars each. The unit flya
Page 51 and 52: Relative Ranks for Fewer Design Con
Page 53 and 54: mission) the open bomb bay doors si
Page 55 and 56: Relative Ranks for Flight Noise Are
Page 57 and 58: Owens also stated that the military
Page 59 and 60: All forms of manned and unmanned ai
Page 61 and 62: Relative Ranks for Reliability Area
Page 63 and 64: KEY: ● Major Advantage Counterba
Page 65 and 66: 7. “Report: Military Crashes Down
Page 67 and 68: 62. McGonigle, 34.63. Ibid., 33.64.
Page 69 and 70: expendable RPVs, American political
Page 71 and 72: cybornaut activates engine thruster
Page 73 and 74: Chapter 6ConclusionConstant evaluat
Page 75: one role. A countless combination o

Expendable Remotely Piloted Vehicles for Strategic Offensive ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?