Thanks. It is refreshing to see a good idea or an informative post that you can learn from so I try to contribute where I think its valid. Yes, lot of points against CAS aircraft in this thread, but besides the budget being limited, I found none of them valid. But that is okay, as I don't mind having people not agreeing with me on something and vice versa. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Even the "budget being limited" is not a logical idea given how much money is spent on attack helicopters. CAS planes are, from an engineering point of view, always going to be cheaper than CAS helicopters, due to the inherent complexities and aerodynamics of a helicopter vs a aeroplane.
Just look at the price lists of attack helicopters...
The real reason that is being left unsaid, is that Pakistan weapons procurement is not innovative but based on following the approach of others. If India gets something, Pakistan must. If the US doesn't like a certain weapon system, Pakistan is unlikely to want it.
Its a mindset issue.
Now, if India gets a horde of Su-25s, rest assured Pakistan will find something to add to its inventory.
The reason the US doesn't use such an aircraft is missed because the nuances were never considered. Viz:
1. Flying CAS in contested airspace is not something the US worries about. It assumes it will establish dominance before flying CAS. Meaning, flying low, popping up, delivering the business and scooting hasn't been considered as a CAS strategy since the Cold War era.
2. The USAF has had a major rivalry with the US Army regarding CAS. The USAF has constantly tried (and suceeded) in making sure that fixed wing CAS is not allowed to the US Army. This forced the US Army to use helicopters instead. This is well documented and a historical truth.
3. The original claim and "invention" of contemporary attack helicopters was the Vietnam war. In this war, the US tried a new kind of maneuver warfare using helicopters instead of tanks and motorized infantry. The idea didn't quite work out in that scale, and was largely abandoned after Vietnam (as seen in the Iraq wars). Best practices were taken and a small unit utilization was conceived, which is what we see today. The original idea of the Cobra was to act as an escort for troop transport helicopters in this heli-blitzkreig scenario. The Cobra survived this blunder of an idea simply because the US army isn't allowed to operate fixed wing CAS, and the US Army was adamant it needed its own CAS platforms. This is not to say that attack helicopters don't have anything to offer - they do - but its a niche offering.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
People like you and me have existed before us proposing the same concept. I've done so for 13 odd years. But before me others have. See James Burton of
Pentagon Wars fame, for instance.
"...the intelligence community was claiming that the Soviets had adopted the German blitzkrieg tactics from World War II and would swiftly and easily "blitz" western Europe if war broke out. (It is no coincidence that the intelligence community began using the term blitzkrieg after Boyd's briefing became popular.) The Soviets, according to intelligence reports, had a tremendous advantage in numbers of tanks and infantrymen at their disposal. When these superior numbers were combined with blitzkrieg tactics, the Soviets were portrayed as being almost unbeatable. Exaggerating a threat to justify new wonder weapons was, and still is, a common practice.
The Air Force's answer to this bloated Soviet threat was a new fighter-bomber called the Enhanced Tactical Fighter, a proposed night all-weather interdiction aircraft. In the view of the Air Force, the word enhanced referred to the new technologies planned for the plane. In my view, it referred to the costs. This plane was being designed to destroy Soviet tanks deep behind enemy lines and destroy them before they could get to the front and exploit any breakthroughs that would occur (night, all-weather interdiction). The price was a mere $50 million per airplane.
As it happened, I was putting together my proposal for a new airplane at that time (March 1978). My proposal was exactly the opposite of the $50 million plane. I prepared an advocacy briefing that called for the development of a small, simple, lethal, and relatively cheap airplane that would be designed solely for close support of the ground troops who would be engaged with Soviet tanks and armor. Because the intelligence community was making such a big deal about how difficult it would be to stop the Soviet blitzkrieg, I named this airplane the "Blitzfighter". Rather catchy, I thought.
Everything about my proposal, including the plane that would be used, was diametrically opposed to the prevailing philosophy relating to the new wonder weapons of the Air Force. I wanted an airplane in the 5,000- to10,000-pound class (one-tenth the weight of the Enhanced Tactical Fighter), one smaller than any combat airplane in the inventory (one-fourth the size of the A-10), and one that cost less than $2 million. At this price, we could flood the battlefield with swarms of airplanes.
In June of 1978, Burton sure as hell did "Make them work for it". He was present during a briefing in which Brig. Gen. Richard "Dick" Phillips (and he IS a dick, as you'll soon see) tried to sell the Enhanced Tactical Fighter to Dr. Jack Martin, the Air Force Assistant Secretary for Research, Development. Brig. Gen. Phillips and his associates presented *deliberately* falsified numbers on the ETF to Dr. Martin, and Col. Burton called him on it. Dr. Martin made a few phone calls on the spot to check the numbers, and verified that Col. Burton's numbers were correct --- and that Brig. Gen. Phillip's numbers were a lie.
Afterwards, Phillips met with Burton in the Pentagon hallway outside Dr. Martin's office, and congratulated him for his good stewardship of the US taxpayer's dollars;
"Needless to say, General Phillips was not happy with me. I was soon braced up against the wall of the "E" ring. With his forefinger pounding my breastbone like a jackhammer, and his nose about one inch from mine, he let me know that I was dog mean and that several other generals would have a feast when I came back into the "blue suit" Air Force.
Then, the paranoia surfaced: "You're not going to ram that F___ing Blitzfighter down our throats like your friends did the F-16!" They were still smarting over that coup."
Read Mr. Burton's own words here:
http://www.combatreform.org/killerbees.htm
And if we look further back, we go back to the brilliant idea-driven warriors of Germany who came up with the Stuka dive bombers, fought for it as a concept, and changed the trajectory of history itself.
