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Will the US Air Force be Annihilated in the Next War?
17th February, 2009 Air Power Australia
A question that needs to be asked is: why have so many US Air Force senior officers risked their careers so often in recent years, to publicly argue for more F-22 Raptors, given the Bush Administration's concerted effort to terminate this program?
Could it be that the U.S. Air Force has “crunched the numbers”, and that the numbers crunch the F-35A JSF, and therefore more F-22’s are required? Could it be that the dedicated U.S. Air Force senior officers and executives, knowing the truth, felt duty bound to give sage advice to their political masters? Could it be that such ‘inconvenient truths’ resulted in some of these officers and executives having their careers terminated? We know for a fact that providing exactly such advice resulted in the RAND Corporation effectively terminating one of its most brilliant and lauded air combat analysts – Dr John Stillion.
Let us open the discussion with the term ‘annihilation’. Let us not perpetuate the misuse of the word ‘decimate’ which means ‘kill one in ten’, but set the criteria for ‘annihilate’ to such warfare ‘that kills more than ninety percent of a deployed force’.
Annihilation in air combat is nothing new. During my RAAF career I was proud to be a member of RAAF No 76 Squadron – a unit with a distinguished war record. Its first battle was at Milne Bay in New Guinea during World War II, where a Japanese landing was repulsed. It was Japan’s first defeat of the war. Fighting alongside the Australian Imperial Forces, and RAAF No 75 Squadron, only 17 of the 40 P-40 Kittyhawks survived. Not quite annihilation, but close.
The Falklands war in April 1982 took a heavy toll of the Argentine Air Force. Of the 129 air combat aircraft available, up to 47 were destroyed. Again, not quite annihilation, but much deadlier than a decimation. It took the Argentine Air Force over a decade to recover [ii].
The Israel Air Force annihilated the Syrian Air Force in the Bekaa Valley in June 1982. The loss rate was 82 Syrian Air Force aircraft for no Israeli losses. The Syrian Air Force has never recovered. In addition, 87 the Syrian SAM sites in the Bekaa Valley were destroyed with no Israeli losses [iii].
There are a great many good case studies in which air forces or air arms suffered near annihilation, and more than often the combatants qualified as “peer competitors”, entering the conflict with similar technology aircraft and similar numbers. Contrary to the popular idea, where there is a large technological and/or numerical disparity, the weaker side often will not contest its opponent at all.
Please continue here: APA NOTAM
Please READ before posting replies. Neither this is MY wishful thinking nor is this MY question. The link will take you to a research article written by WGCDR Chris Mills, AM, BSc, MSc(AFIT), RAAF (Retd) that appeared in thr Air Power Australia NOTAM on 17th February, 2009. At the end of the article, there is also a link to Milo's Air Combat Number Cruncher (.xls file).
17th February, 2009 Air Power Australia
A question that needs to be asked is: why have so many US Air Force senior officers risked their careers so often in recent years, to publicly argue for more F-22 Raptors, given the Bush Administration's concerted effort to terminate this program?
Could it be that the U.S. Air Force has “crunched the numbers”, and that the numbers crunch the F-35A JSF, and therefore more F-22’s are required? Could it be that the dedicated U.S. Air Force senior officers and executives, knowing the truth, felt duty bound to give sage advice to their political masters? Could it be that such ‘inconvenient truths’ resulted in some of these officers and executives having their careers terminated? We know for a fact that providing exactly such advice resulted in the RAND Corporation effectively terminating one of its most brilliant and lauded air combat analysts – Dr John Stillion.
Let us open the discussion with the term ‘annihilation’. Let us not perpetuate the misuse of the word ‘decimate’ which means ‘kill one in ten’, but set the criteria for ‘annihilate’ to such warfare ‘that kills more than ninety percent of a deployed force’.
Annihilation in air combat is nothing new. During my RAAF career I was proud to be a member of RAAF No 76 Squadron – a unit with a distinguished war record. Its first battle was at Milne Bay in New Guinea during World War II, where a Japanese landing was repulsed. It was Japan’s first defeat of the war. Fighting alongside the Australian Imperial Forces, and RAAF No 75 Squadron, only 17 of the 40 P-40 Kittyhawks survived. Not quite annihilation, but close.
The Falklands war in April 1982 took a heavy toll of the Argentine Air Force. Of the 129 air combat aircraft available, up to 47 were destroyed. Again, not quite annihilation, but much deadlier than a decimation. It took the Argentine Air Force over a decade to recover [ii].
The Israel Air Force annihilated the Syrian Air Force in the Bekaa Valley in June 1982. The loss rate was 82 Syrian Air Force aircraft for no Israeli losses. The Syrian Air Force has never recovered. In addition, 87 the Syrian SAM sites in the Bekaa Valley were destroyed with no Israeli losses [iii].
There are a great many good case studies in which air forces or air arms suffered near annihilation, and more than often the combatants qualified as “peer competitors”, entering the conflict with similar technology aircraft and similar numbers. Contrary to the popular idea, where there is a large technological and/or numerical disparity, the weaker side often will not contest its opponent at all.
Please continue here: APA NOTAM
Please READ before posting replies. Neither this is MY wishful thinking nor is this MY question. The link will take you to a research article written by WGCDR Chris Mills, AM, BSc, MSc(AFIT), RAAF (Retd) that appeared in thr Air Power Australia NOTAM on 17th February, 2009. At the end of the article, there is also a link to Milo's Air Combat Number Cruncher (.xls file).
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