The Army has drones and helicopters for ground support. But it can't have manned fixed-wing aircraft. Is that prohibition really a "unicorn" that does not exist?
With the expectation that the fight against violent extremists will continue for a generation, the United States continues to rely heavily on airpower to provide an asymmetric advantage. With ground forces far more distributed globally than air forces, the Army should clearly provide its own fixed-wing attack aircraft to support far-flung operations. Except that they can’t. Hamstrung by a misinterpretation of agreements dating back to 1948, the Department of Defense believes that the Army agreed not to procure fixed-wing combat aircraft and can’t arm those they do have. It turns out that’s not true — such an agreement was never codified in writing. What they did agree to was to not duplicate a function assigned to the Air Force. It’s long past time to slay this unicorn and erase a completely artificial line that hampers airpower options to the detriment of servicemen and women worldwide. The Army may be the best candidate for a light attack capability that is not an Air Force priority. Let the Army have an airpower capability appropriate to the mission.
Well, everyone acts like the unicorn is real, so it is real for all practical purposes. But the article is an interesting discussion of Army-Air Force divisions on close air support.
I do think it would be useful to transfer the role and funding for fixed-wing close air support from the Air Force to the Army. In a generation (after the sunk costs of the armed helicopters the Army has now age out) we might see whether the rotary wing helicopter is really good for the role or whether it is just good enough given the inability to use fixed-wing aircraft.
The Army would train warrant officers to fly the planes and the Air Force could reassign scarce officer pilots from close air support aircraft to the planes the Air Force wants to fly.
I just don't think the Air Force wants the close air support role. But they'd like to keep the money that goes from having that role on paper.
Drones started the process of restoring an Army air corps with small fixed wing aircraft. And I'd like to expand the drone role to air defense in the "brown skies" over our forward ground units, as I wrote in Army magazine. But maybe the Army needs more and it is time to restore Army control of the aerial assets that support the Army directly. That's how the Marines do it.
Let's start on the manned side with Army light attack craft and see how that goes, eh?
