Critical Thinking. A skill set that is little used in today's world. Unfortunately we live in a time when "group think" is praised and contrary opinions are ostracized. It takes courage to go against the flow and state the obvious. Amy..... Ms. Butler if you're nasty, (sorry I was once a Janet Jackson fan) has done just that in her latest. Read it here but check out some tidbits...
The air campaign that began this week over Syria was carried out in what Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director of operations for the Joint Staff described as “passive” air defenses.Yeah, that's right.
Syria, however, is purported to possess decent air defenses –- some possibly integrated. And, we’ve not heard anything about Syrian air countering coalition assets. Arguably, this is a unique diplomatic backdrop for the debut of an asset designed at great cost to sneak in and out of air defenses and defeat any fighter that takes it on in the skies.
Just as I said earlier. The Syrians weren't about to launch on our forces. There was no need for the F-22 and any thinking person knows that. Additionally while the USAF has all but abandoned electronic warfare (tossing a few crew to serve in USN EW squadrons isn't impressive), the thought that the stealth abilities of the F-22 were needed in a benign environment lacks credibility. But wait there's more!
“What we were looking at was the effects we wanted to see on the target areas and what platforms in the region would be best suited to do that,” he said during a Sept. 23 briefing. “We had a large menu of targets to strike from, and then we chose from there. So, it's less the platform than it is the effects we seek, and then it's what platform can deliver those effects. That's really the job of the [combined air operations center].”Effects we seek?
Seriously?
Really?
A 1000 lb bomb is a 1000 lb bomb. The results will be the same whether dropped from a F-16, F-18, B-2, B-52....or F-22.
This guy was plain lying.
The next question we need to ask is why.
Didja read about the one where the Pentagon tried to use "war authorization funds" to buy F-35's and Apaches?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-22/lawmakers-reject-pentagon-bid-to-spend-war-funds-on-f-35s.html
DeleteThere ya go
Sol, are you sure you're reading that second quote right? When I read it, it sounds like he agrees with you.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is pretty clear. What better way to justify the funds for the F-35 than by saying or showing that stealth is a needed and useful asset, even if you have to fabricate the situation that it comes into play. I think is all related to finding more money for the F-35.
ReplyDeleteOr USAF want to show that F-22 can fly, not only shine on air fests and video games.
DeleteSomething wierd is going on this site for some time, I click "publish" and my posts are deleted. Sometimes I need to put them couple of times before they load on page. Anyone have this problem too?
I have the same issue too.
DeleteI seriously don't understand the issue. The F-22 is an asset in theater that's been there for awhile, there is no reason not to use it, especially when you consider how few other Squadrons are there and already committed to Iraq. They've got the B-1 Squadron, the F-15E Squadron, the F-16 detachment, the A-10 Squadron, and the F-22 Squadron. Plus the four Hornet Squadrons off the Bush (1x A++, 1x C, 1x E, 1x F model). The decision to use the F-22 Squadron was probably a combination of that Squadron Commander begging for a strike ATO, and AFCENT lacking a good reason not to give it to them. Remember, 47 targets were given to Tomahawks, so they probably ran out of other strike assets, hence the Tomahawks.
ReplyDeleteyou want some facts? one detachment of B-52's could have leveled every target in the area. the USN would be cleaning up. want another fact? the USN could have leveled every target on the list with Tomahawk cruise missiles....maybe they would have needed another destroyer but they didn't come close to expending all their munitions.
Deletethe F-22 strike was sheer stupidity. you risked a high dollar asset for a cheap target. to think otherwise is to not look at things as they are but to give the USAF more credit than it deserves.
I add to solomon statements that it's quite stupid to use a stealth fighter to drop the bomb if you need a non stealth fighter to scout and target the enemy...
DeletePlus could you imagine how these 400 millions birds could be high Value target for Russia China ?
Killing a F 22 by S300 or HQ9 could have amazing results : collecting F22 artefact plus negating forever the US Air superiority ? F35 program dead immediatly...
If i was putin i would be waiting any Otan bomb killing russian or syrian regular to send S400 with good operators.. Same for china ( despite they don't need spying anymore thanks to us internet security )
you're spot on with that. i wouldn't be surprised if an ambush isn't being devised with the sole purpose of killing a stealth jet. if nothing else they get a chance to analyse emissions. but even more annoying is the excuse of "that's what we had in theater!"
Deletethey could get whatever asset they needed to the ME and it wouldn't have been a big deal or difficult. they wanted a splash and everyone knows it but few are saying it.
All of those alternatives you listed require moving additional assets into theater, whether they be aircraft or destroyers. That kind of request requires SecDef approval, and he, or the JCS, would have asked AFCENT: "do you not have the assets in theater to complete the ATO?" AFCENT did. Tomahawks cost $1.5 million apiece plus the cost of moving ships into position. Not wanting to risk the Air Force's lamborghini isn't a good enough reason to move assets in, and reeks of service bias, especially when the majority of the risk has been taken already by the Navy over Iraq. You could make the same argument about the ~12 F/A-18Fs, it is the best manned strike squadron in the 5th Fleet, so why risk those planes? I would also bet money that this long into their deployment, with this kind of tempo, that Carrier Air Wing 8 is falling apart due to maintenance.
DeleteYou're trying to have it both ways, if you're uncomfortable using the F-22 on cheap and undefended target, would you risk using it on a high risk target? Wouldn't it be better to use a high dollar asset on a low risk target? The reality is any high risk target is going to hit with an unmanned asset, especially given the TRAP issues you've pointed out.
still a silly argument. are you trying to say that the SecDef wouldn't have approved anything that the guy needed or wanted? additionally you want to talk price tag? that 1.5 mill is a one time cost. the F-22 is recurring. i'm willing to bet once you tabulate maintenance, refueling, fixing the stealth coating and etc...the cost of one F-22 dropping two 1000lb bombs far exceeds the cost of a tomahawk cruise missile.
Deleteadditionally i don't want it both ways. it was stupid to send such a low density asset against poorly defended targets. either they're high valuable assets that should only be used against worthy targets or they're just another fighter. if you're saying that they're just another fighter then you have to justify the tremendous expense of the system.
you can twist and turn all you want but the results are the same. the F-22 and stealth is a fools errand. you can't defend it, the only thing you can do is try and spin it...more commonly called LIE about it.
The main risk that the USAF will be trying to minimise is the capture of aircrew, US jets have been shot down or otherwise crashed over almost every conflict zone that they have operated in and there's no reason to believe that Iraq and Syria will be different. That rules the B-52 out because it's got a big crew, one aviator held hostage or beheaded is bad enough but four or five constitutes a hostage crisis, so obviously that must be avoided at all costs.
DeleteSo really you're down to your one and two seat jets, all of them but the dual role F-18 are converted air superiority fighters and all of them can carry the munitions required so there's not much in it. However the F-22 is the newest, the most survivable and it's pilots have the best training. It's the least likely to crash because of a technical failure and the least likely to be shot down, even if a missile did get a lock on it the pilot should in theory have a decent chance of evading it. And if one was downed I don't think the wreckage would survive for long before being destroyed by a followup raid, not that ISIS would hand over the wreckage to Russia anyway.
I agree it's overkill for the situation but why settle for less? Instead of criticizing the use of the F-22 you should be asking why you don't have a dedicated and purpose built strike aircraft like the Tornado for this sort of thing. If you are going to use an air superiority aircraft anyway then why not use your best?
you're shitting me right? B-1's were used in this attack! also we do have dedicated strike aircraft. the F-15E Strike Eagle is just that. a fabulous strike airplane that outpaces the F-22 AND the Tornado in that role.....additionally the F/A-18E/F is really a striker that swings INTO the fighter role. so in one small paragraph your arguments have been rendered moot.
Deleteoh and saying that the F-22 has the best trained crew is pure nonsense! there is no way they're better at strike than the other airplanes for the simple reason that they don't train for it as extensively as other planes.
so...dude!...really?....seriously?
Hmm, didn't consider the B-1,
DeleteThe F-15E is a converted fighter, while it has all the shiny trimmings of a strike aircraft it still has the air-frame of a fighter and it flies like one. Personally I'm not particularly impressed by it but this isn't the place to debate that, if you're right and it is as excellent as you say it is then it would be the plane for the job.
F-22 pilots have lower hours but I was led to believe that only the best air force pilots were selected to fly them. Some of the pilots joining F-16 squadrons might only have a few hundred hours but your F-22 pilots probably have several thousand, even with less yearly hours I'd still put my money on them.
Alright here's my 2 cents for why they used the aircraft they did....
Delete(There are more factors that go into "stealth" than just RCS but for the sake of this discussion/venue RCS will suffice. If you want more info please refer to: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth-aircraft-rcs.htm)
The RCS of the B-52 is about 100 square meters. Add to that its lack of maneuverability and if things when hot they'd be large sitting ducks for most any SAM out there. That, in my opinion, is why they were not used.
The B-1 has an RCS of about 10 square meters or put another way 10% of the RCS of the B-52. It also has more speed and maneuverability than the BUFF. In layman's terms, because of it lower RCS it take longer for radars to "see" the B-1 and when they do see it it's traveling faster than the BUFF so the SAM crews have less time to react to it and so the B-1 is more survivable in a SAM environment.
Fourth Generation fighters like the F-15, F-16, and F-18 have an RCS of anywhere from a 1 (F-18) to a 25 (F-15) square meters. The F-16 falls in the "middle" with an RCS of 5 square meters. While some fighters may not have the smaller RCS than a B-1 they are all more maneuverable than is and can react more quickly to incoming SAMs. Also they can get down in the weeds even lower than the B-1 simply due to their smaller physical size than the B-1.
Stealth aircraft have anywhere from have extremely an small RCS relative to their size. Global Security places the B-2's RCS at 0.75 square meters. For comparison, the average person has an RCS of 1 square meter. They also place the F-22's RCS at 0.0001
So in conlusion, if you think you might have a chance of getting shot at by SAMs you send in your aircraft with the least chance of getting hit which is the B-1, the Teen fighters, and the F-22.
"However the F-22 is the newest, the most survivable and it's pilots have the best training."
DeleteOh horseshit...im so sick of the fucking propaganda you technocratic sycophants constantly peddle.
The US Air Force has the fewest number of annual flight hours within the west/NATO. Switzerland has the most. That is a way to measure training and effectiveness.
And the inconvenient fact that the F22 is not any more survivable than any other modern fighter out there, since it is disproportionately reliant on radar stealth (which can be defeated by IR sensors).
It is a overpriced problem looking for a solution. Just like the F35.
It may be an unimpressive plane flown by pilots with less currency than you might want but it's the best plane with the best pilots that America has at it's disposal for this particular. The F-22 may be overly expensive and not particularly impressive as a fighter (it's weapons make up for that) but to be honest the last good planes that America has developed are old and similarly unsuited to the job. The F-22 is ahead simply because it's newer.
DeleteHaving the Syrian's pinky swear they won't shoot at us in not a good enough reason to disregard their IADS. You also have no idea to what level the U.S and Syrian governments actually coordinated. You do not know where in Syria the strikes occurred. You do not know what SAM coverage the Syrians had over the target. And finally, you do not know what the acceptable level of risk for the mission was. You therefore lack the information necessary to conclussively say that the F-22 was unneeded for this mission.
ReplyDeleteyeah i do. there was no attack on their anti-air sites. there were no strikes on Syrian command and control. so that tells me everything i need to know. add to it the fact that back door channels revealed that Syria wouln't fire on our jets (why would they? we were acting as their air force!) from Turkey, Qatar, and even IRAN!~!!!!!!
Deleteyour argument lacks substance and you know it.
" there was no attack on their anti-air sites. there were no strikes on Syrian command and control."
DeleteSol-
Just because there was no attack on any Syrian SAM or C&C sites does not mean that there were not alternate strike plans ready to be executed in case they did.
Days prior to the strikes, in public forums the US warn Syria not to interfere with any strikes conducted in Syria on ISIS (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/16/white-house-officials-warn-syria-over-isis-mission/), and that we were going in there to specifically target ISIS not Syria. To quote the Fox News article:
"The United States would retaliate against Syrian President Bashar Assad's air defenses if he were to go after American planes launching airstrikes in his country, a senior Obama administration official said Monday.
Officials also told Fox News that the U.S. has a good sense of where the Syrian air defenses, along with their command and control centers, are located. If Assad were to use those capabilities to threaten U.S. forces, it would put his air defenses at risk, a senior official told Fox News."
So as I said I'm sure there were strike packages ready to deal with the Syrian Air Defenses if they decided to do something stupid but to preemptively strike them would have been counter productive and probably would alienated some of the partner nations as they signed on the strike at ISIS and not Syria.
My argument is not the one advocating that we should have determined our asset allocation based on trusting the Syrian government. Your argument boils down to "Because we did not bomb the Syrian IADS proves that their air defense system was not a threat." My argument is that the possibility of a Syrian IADS reaction to the U.S strike package necessitated allocating assets that could evade and/or destroy Syrian aircraft and air defenses IF they reacted. While bombing the Syrian IADS would have largely eliminated the tactical threat, this would have resulted in strategic failure as we would have then been at war with Assad (an outcome not desired by the United States).
DeleteThe inclusion of non-stealth assets in the strike package is also not proof that a low-observable platform was unneeded. Syria is HUGE. The targets we hit were geographically separated by significant distances. It is entirely possible that there was absolutely no SAM coverage over certain targets and fairly dense SAM coverage over others.
I don't have a problem with using the F-22 if it is there as a tool to make doubly sure a Syrian asset for whatever reason does't play the game. Again, having the ability of the wonderful AN/ALR-94 to keep tabs on electronic emissions where it would be a bit risky for a EC-130 or RIVET JOINT is OK. Having the F-22 drop munitions where others can do it just the same is probably a waste for non-first-tier first nights of the war REAL IADS stuff. Most other strike aircraft for hunting dirt-insurgents can also do their own BDA because they have an on-board EO pod. The F-22 has no such thing. As for the Syrian air defense system. It is probably degraded. Reason. Manpower needed for land warfare efforts. I suspect to that sustainment funding normally used for the air defense system would be rerouted to fund the on-going ground war.
ReplyDeleteWhat comes to my mind is the old patch I was given long ago by an Army friend, it is round, has a peace sign in the design and around the border it states, "SOUTHEAST ASIAN WAR GAMES PARTICIPANT....SECOND PLACE"
ReplyDeleteThey sent the F-22 apparently to see if their toy would fly and drop a weapon it was not designed to drop, this was just a large war game exercise and the Military threw in the F-22 to see what it could or could not do.
I am surprised they didn't send in a flying example of the F-35 just to loiter around in the sky for shits and giggles.
When you have F-16, F-18 strike platforms and a Strategic bomber you reall do not have to have that F-22 involved, politics rendered the Syrian AAA/SAM network Hors du Combat long before the mission went feet dry.
You know what they're all missing?
DeleteSOME AIRPLANE HAD TO TAKE PICS OF THE BOMBS BEING DROPPED FROM THE F-22!!!! THAT MEANS THAT SOMEONE WAS FLYING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE F-22 THAT WAS NON-STEALTH AND HAD A POD HANGING OFF THEIR AIRPLANE TO GET THOSE IMAGES!!!!!
THAT MEANS IT WAS COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.
which means that i agree with you 100%. this is a game that is being played with people's lives.
"SOME AIRPLANE HAD TO TAKE PICS OF THE BOMBS BEING DROPPED FROM THE F-22!!!! THAT MEANS THAT SOMEONE WAS FLYING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE F-22 THAT WAS NON-STEALTH AND HAD A POD HANGING OFF THEIR AIRPLANE TO GET THOSE IMAGES!!!!!
DeleteTHAT MEANS IT WAS COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT."
Huh? How do you know it was a non-stealth asset? How do you know it wasn't an RQ-170, RQ-180, or some other asset they have tucked away in the NTTR?
Also how do you come to the conclusion that they were flying in close proximity to the F-22? Are you saying they were designating targets for the F-22? If so then that assumption is false as the F-22 does not carry any laser guided bombs. The bombs that it does carry are all GPS guided and do not need any laser designation.
If our national assets can take a picture of a car license plate from orbit (hundreds of miles away/up) don't you think we have the capability to transfer that technology to an air-breathing system, manned or otherwise, that could observe BDA from 50 or more miles away from an altitude of 30k + feet?
What would be the public reaction if the Pentagon announced they just bomb inside Syria with Tomahawks, Drones, Jsows, SH/Growlers, and F-15/16 ? I think they say they used the F-22 to keep the F-35 program alive.
ReplyDelete