Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

144 • Reversing the Decay of American Air PowerIn 1945, the Army Air Force planned and approved a force that would consistof 112 heavy bomber groups (about 10,000 bombers) and 95 light bomber/fightergroups. 53 The bomber planners believed that a bomber carrying atomic bombs was theequivalent of 1,000 World War II B-17s; the absurdity of an approved force structurethe equivalent of 10 million B-17s is astonishing.In 1947, the U.S. Air Force reduced these numbers to 75 heavy bomber groups and25 light bomber/fighter groups, a bomber force the equivalent of “just” eight millionB-17s. Note also that they grouped the light bombers (i.e. two-engine bombers) withthe fighters, thereby burying the tremendous cut in fighters. Assuming an even split oflight bombers and fighters in those units, the approved force had 88 percent bombersand only 12 percent fighters. 54 In terms of dollars, this amounted to 96 percent forbombers versus 4 percent for fighters.The worst was yet to come. In 1948, the Tactical Air Command (i.e. fighters) underthe war’s most successful air power leader and close support innovator, GeneralQuesada, was downgraded to a planning-only command, stripped of its fighters. Itwas the last ignominy for Quesada. Convinced that continuing as TAC Commanderwould make him a “conspirator in an ugly mistake,” he resigned his command andretired – a huge loss for the country, as the U.S. Air Force’s failures in Korea wouldsoon prove. 55Korean WarNorth Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950. Elements of the U.S. 24th InfantryDivision showed up in early July, and the Air Force sent a few obsolete fighters and90 B-29 bombers. There was no close support capability of any kind to help those fewbeleaguered Army battalions as they were being mauled and pushed to the southerntip of Korea. Instead, the Air Force strategic planners came up with a preposterousplan to fire bomb five North Korean cities. Still mesmerized by Douhet’s dream, theywere convinced that the North Koreans would quickly capitulate. 56 The commanderof the United Nations’ forces, Gen. Douglas MacArthur vetoed the plan, but onlytemporarily.The B-29 strategic bomber crews were, unsurprisingly, a horrible fit in a limitedconventional war. They had the wrong equipment, the wrong training and the wrongmotivation. Out of an eventual force of 150 B-29s they lost 107 while accomplishingvirtually nothing. The entire fleet of B-29s flew less than 1,000 sorties in threeyears, averaging about one ineffective sortie per day. Their loss rate was more than10 percent per sortie. 57If the Air Force had not expunged most of their fighter aircraft and fighter experts,they could have rounded up at least 700 P-47s that would have been a real combatclose support capability and the cost equivalent of the 90 B-29s that were originallysent, and a lot of American lives would have been saved.