I never liked hex & counter games that were not strategic level and someone...

[Settembrini]

I surely missed something, but is there proof the Soviets were actually so impressed with the A-10? And Elliot, war is not about tanks [it´s about networks, hah!], yet the A-10 provides hugely needed serviices even in anti-guerilla operations. Yet, only after much clamouring where they utilized. Too dangerous they said.
Why not build 5 000? Instead you got F-14 back in the day. Fewer, more expensive, more "advanced" every time. Keep the R&D circle going...Boston Miracle indeed. Europe is even more prone to pay high prices for a few number of ultra-overteched superiority fighters nobody needs and everybody is too scared to risk...becasue you know, they are expensive.

And that´s what´s wrong with AirLandBattle: a promise that $tech$ can make fighting an actual war unneccessary. It´s not actually said as such, but the seeds are all there: fast & nimble myth, military-industrial causal nexus, indirect approach myth.

[Settembrini]

I get a nagging feeling that...many Titanic philosophers couldn´t live with the openness of Kant and had to introduce swinish stuff to compensate.

Currently, that wouldn´t surprise me, if it turned out everyone after Kant was a crypto-fascist and sub-complex moron. I´ve seen several disciplines that worked like that (military history & military theory, frex), why not philosophy?

Hah! When I read such stuff:

http://hegel-system.de/popper/W.Kaufmann-Hegel_%20Legend_und_Wirklichkeit.pdf

I feel philosophy can sometimes be like a playground brawl. Seems it pays if you actually read things youi talk about, Mr. Popper. And seems theres some Hegel fanboiz left, after all.

I´m a bit confused, though. Fine academia isn´t doing it´s job for me right now: I read at two places that said Delbrück was basically a Hegelian, which puzzled me a bit. One of the sources was full of big words and big in missing the point, re: mil hist in general; also Spiegel Online/ Zeit style mainstream sensibility, enough to be disregarded?

So now I wondered how truthful such uttereances ("was a Kantian, was influenced by") are in general. And I find out, Mr. Popper himself could be low on sound methodology before making such claims.

Is it that academia? I am not supposed to trust anything that I´ve not read myself? I don´t want to read Hegel to find out whether Delbrück was a Hegelian!

Can´t trust anyone these days...sapere aude my ass, I don´t have time for questioning everything someone with a titanic name writes, all the time! Get your facts straight, titans.

[ewilen]

I surely missed something, but is there proof the Soviets were actually so impressed with the A-10?

That is a good question. They did build the SU-25 after the A-10.

And Elliot, war is not about tanks [it´s about networks, hah!], yet the A-10 provides hugely needed serviices even in anti-guerilla operations.

I am not following. I think there's a leap of logic there. The war the US (and even moreso, NATO) prepared for over the first 40+ years of its existence was a confrontation starting in Central Europe. There were basically two models of how that would go: rapid escalation to tactical nuclear, then AirLand Battle. The former was an open secret--it was pretty much expected that the only way to stop the Russian hordes was with nukes. Why: because the hordes were mechanized and northwestern Europe is relatively flat (and crisscrossed with highways I might add). The US even dabbled with neutron weapons because of this; France deployed them. AirLand Battle was part of a movement that realized a way to credibly present a defense of NATO without obviously expecting to be the first side to go nuclear.

Yet, only after much clamouring where they utilized. Too dangerous they said.
Why not build 5 000? Instead you got F-14 back in the day. Fewer, more expensive, more "advanced" every time.

I am confused again. I think in the first sentences you're referring to A-10s in Afghanistan and Iraq, and frankly I don't know anything about that. The rest...I think you're referring to F-15...and actually the Air Force deployed far more F-16s. The explanation is partly tactical, partly political. The tactical part is: A-10s can't operate if enemy fighters are around to shoot them down. So you do need air superiority. The political part is: a three way disagreeement between the Army and two factions of the air force. The Army of course wanted the A-10. The old guard in the Air Force wanted a big, world-beating air-superiority fighter, the F-15. The Fighter Mafia believed instead in quantity and dogfighting ability: the F-16. The F-15 also was originally conceived as "not a pound for air to ground" while the F-16 was made from the start as a fighter-bomber, to complement (and I'm sure in AF eyes, replace so far as possible) the A-10.

In any case, even if you think you need so-and-so many A-10s to deal with Warsaw Pact ground forces, that has very little bearing on the number of air superiority fighters you need to deal with the WP aircraft that (among other things) are trying to keep the A-10s from doing their job.

Keep the R&D circle going...Boston Miracle indeed. Europe is even more prone to pay high prices for a few number of ultra-overteched superiority fighters nobody needs and everybody is too scared to risk...becasue you know, they are expensive.

And that´s what´s wrong with AirLandBattle: a promise that $tech$ can make fighting an actual war unneccessary. It´s not actually said as such, but the seeds are all there: fast & nimble myth, military-industrial causal nexus, indirect approach myth.

I think possibly you're ascribing to ALB what's really been a general characteristic of American warfighting/planning since at least the end of WWII. (Furthermore, the F-16 has been a middle path that fought (was allowed to fight) against the trend you're talking about.) While the Soviets have always seemed to be reacting to American fighter developments (exception: MiG-25, which everyone was scared of publicly but was actually a dud for most purposes), nevertheless I don't think we should have been sitting still with F-4s while the Russians developed the Frogfoot, the SU-27 and MiG-29. (Not to mention, as much as I love the Phantom II, it was far from ideal even against MiG-19 and MiG-21.) In short: technology has its own impetus. AirLand Battle though was finding new application in reaction to technological development.

[ewilen]

In fairness I should add two points:

1. Another reason for the "open secret" of early escalation was that it strongly coupled a war in Europe with the likelihood of a strategic nuclear war. The 1980's saw various attempts on the American side to "decouple", including Reagan's comment about containing a nuclear exchange to Europe (which didn't go over very well), to SDI (which IMO wasn't credible, but was very appealing to the crazies), to AirLand Battle. The reason for the decoupling was at least partly because of fears of self-deterrence: that is, in Kissinger's words, it wasn't credible that we'd sacrifice New York to save Paris. Putting up a credible conventional defense reversed the equation so that now the Americans didn't have that decision thrust starkly on them; instead now it was the Russians who'd have to think about using tactical nukes and risking the sacrifice of Moscow to win a war in Central Europe.

2. Better proof for the Russians being impressed with the A-10 would of course be specific countermeasures as opposed to just copying the concept. Just pointing that out as I don't have information at hand about whether they built more Shilkas in response, developed new missiles, or specifically thought of contesting air superiority in terms of protecting their ground columns from the Warthogs.

[Settembrini]

I think we are not in too much disagreement, we are just discussing different things.

The thing I tried to highlight re: A-10, F-14 (I meant F-14, ridiculously expensive on all accounts) and F-15 (more of the same, AirLandBattle added the E-version, hooray!) is:

While you and I agree on Tactical Strike Aircraft being very good and helpful in specific and general, that is NOT what the major portion of spending went into.

More later, there´s three scantily clad women urging me to play...Ligretto right now.

[ewilen]

Remember, F-14 was the oldest "modern" fighter developed, and it was made for knocking down Russian bomber formations, which is all about sea control. So I'm not quite sure what the connection is to AirLand Battle.

Also, it was another of the few major weapons systems that was killed by a Republican administration--or shall I say, euthanized. It was very good at what it did, tried to find other justifications for existence (Bombcat) but ultimately Dick Cheney as Secretary of Defense for GHW Bush ordered the actual tooling for F-14 destroyed to ensure that no more could be made.

[Settembrini]

If you count the A-10 life elongation, than the elongations of the life of the F-14s do count, too. That is, ressoucres spend to show value and support.

The connection to AirLandBAttle is only conceptual, I give you that. I´m not sure what the dem/republican angle has to do with any of it, though.

Either AirLandBattle is a cold war stratagem, which I do not deny in any way, or it has a sound basis in analysis of warfare. i say it is a far fetched fig leaf, accomplishing all that you said.

But is not a serious school of thought regarding conventional warfare. It was, in a way, just a buzzword. Or a meme, if you will. A political argument.

To bring us back towards the start: AirLandBattle is in not anything that should be modelled in wargames.

[ewilen]

One thing to insert quickly: while reading up, I realized that A-10 is really not a prime example of ALB equipment. It's for close air support, not interdiction.

The Dem/Rep angle on the F-14 is just a footnote to my earlier statement.

What I would like to hear from you is: what were the expenditures that weren't focused on ALB, that should have been? You keep saying "X was only a small part of money spent".

And I am also not seeing recognition of the fact that war isn't advanced in the abstract: ALB was a response to specific conditions of the Cold War politically and technologically.

[Settembrini]

One thing to insert quickly: while reading up, I realized that A-10 is really not a prime example of ALB equipment. It's for close air support, not interdiction.

What I would like to hear from you is: what were the expenditures that weren't focused on ALB, that should have been? You keep saying "X was only a small part of money spent".

And I am also not seeing recognition of the fact that war isn't advanced in the abstract: ALB was a response to specific conditions of the Cold War politically and technologically.

We are closing in on the pudding.

The A-10 was and remains a red-headed stepchild BECAUSE it was not ALB equipment. It was smuggled in by some Clausewitzians, I´m sure ;-)
More money should have been spent on Tanks, CAS and missiles (incl. SAM, there´s still a dearth!), ground forces in general. But instead: more tactical nukes (Pershing II), C2 & C3 systems, more and better aircraft without dedicated strike role. We should get hold of some data, lest we discuss in circles.

War wasn´t advance in the abstract, because it was not adressed in the abstract! See the interdiction myth.

What I can offer, is to show the wrong stuff and bad scholarship the Major´s narratve above includes. Would this be a start?

Now, don´t get me wrong: I´m hugely grateful personally and in the abstract to the US of A in the eighties. And especially its military. And I´m grateful for all the nifty hardware produced, knocking down the Soviets by existing.

[Settembrini]

Here, this guy thinks a lot like me:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/98-086.htm

[ewilen]

Yes, that'd be a start. Although lots of stuff was written pro & con ALB, not all of it by people with a direct relationship to planning and operations.

BTW, glancing at the article you just linked...it's about post-Cold War stuff. No mention of AirLand Battle. What I saw (in a very cursory glance) was a critique of the F-16 as a CAS platform, not a critique of the interdiction concept.

I agree that lack of data is going to hamper this discussion...possibly for the foreseeable future since I'm probably not motivated to do that kind of digging.

I will say, Pershing II can't be compared; at least in Western minds, nuclear is a completely different class militarily and especially politically. Essentially: it was built because parity "had to be" maintained with the Soviets, and it served as a foundation for negotiating down intermediate-range nuclear weapons.

Also, AirLand Battle was the Army's baby. I don't know how much input the Air Force had into it, although  the Air Force took an interest over time. It certainly wasn't developed by Congress or the top levels of the executive branch. In short, the people influencing and making decisions about what to buy weren't the same as the people who developed the doctrine.

There are also two problems here, or two things that I think you are trying to lay out, that will muddle each other unless you're careful: (1) What do you, Sett, think should have been bought? (2) What ought to have been bought (or at least asked for by the Army) if AirLand Battle was taken seriously, as you seem to claim it wasn't?

[Settembrini]

It is indeed muddled, because reality was muddled.

1) stuff as:  5000 A-10s, new Assault rifles, body armor, bigger garrisons in Europe, lots of SAM for all layers of Air Defense incl. Stingers, lots of AT-missiles for Infantry, money for West German Leopard 2 + 3s; re-inclusion and update of French armored forces. Air superiority is important BUT all those Fighter Craft technology was already developed, as I start t remember. The F-15 already was finished, wasn´t it? Same with the F-16?

2) Very difficult question, because the interdiction concept is so crucial in choosing the right plane. If you really mean to actually interdict in the deep battle sense, then I´d argue you ALSO need LOTS of low flying, lower speed planes. But the actual interdiction idea was about stand-off weapons from afar.
So if this was taken seriously, youd have to have lots of Phoenix-like ultra long range Anti Tank Missiles, and especially lots of smart long-range/stand off soft target weapons like bomblet carrying missiles; stuff like FASCAM from 70 miles away, etc. pp. And LOTS of defensive, stand off tank hunting stuff like Jaguar antitanks, MILAN style AT guns etc. pp

Re Pershing II: I´d argue that at least in the sixties, tactical nuclear weapon usage was directly trained down to the battallion commander level.

For AirLandBattle being the armies baby, I´d appreciate a link. I´m not questioning you, I just always assumed it was heavily controlled by the Air Force. If this is a misconception, I´d have to retreat and regroup some of my arguments. It would amaze me to some degree if anyone in the Army actually believed in interdiction, though. (sidenote, the WP entry on air interdiction is as useful or trustworthy as any of our forum posts, but it repeats some criticism I also share)

[ewilen]

Interesting stuff. I'll don't have time to fully review/reply right now, but as far as ALB being an Army concept, look at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1984/may-jun/romjue.html BTW this is an Air Force site, the article is from their academic journal.

Note it was a reaction to the immediately preceding doctrine of "active defense".

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA241774 also looks very interesting/useful. (You need to click a link there to get a PDF scan of the document.) This is by contrast is publised by the Defense Technical Information Center and is by an Army man.

Gamewise, it is interesting to look in parallel at wargame evolution (both in terms of internal design innovation and attempts to model ongoing changes in doctrine/technology/intelligence). There actually is a game called Airland Battle; unfortunately it doesn't enjoy a good reputation generally (although the company that designed it had some military roots I believe). Tac Air is most interesting because if I'm not mistaken it evolved from a design by an Air Force man who used it to train Air  Force and/or Army officers in coordination of air and ground assets. I do own Tac Air and, in fact, I have a local gaming contact who's raring to give it a go.

[Settembrini]

I´ve repeatedly heard only the highest praise for TacAir, supposedly materialistic realism aka simulation instead of doctrine rehash.

[Pierce Inverarity]

ALB seems difficult to gauge as an actual military strategy as opposed to a deterrent. And then there's the A bomb that really does change the ball game forever.

That's why I find deep battle/operational art so much more interesting. Because it was actually fought. One wants to know whether e.g. Bagration was a) happenstance, b) inevitable outcome of genius strategy, c) somewhere in between / something else entirely.

Also, I know a *tiny* bit about Soviet/Russian thought, and based on that I can say operational art is more than just a grand strategy. It's some kind of philosophy, a philosophy of space and more intractable things besides.

Speaking of: Having read the Will to Power like five times I can say: Walter Kaufmann, its editor no less, was an old fool. Popper on philosophy, as opposed to scientific epistemology, is hopeless. I can't pronounce on Delbrueck, but from what I do know there's no doubt in my mind he wasn't a Hegelian.