The Air Force really doesn't care about providing the Army with close air support during ground combat.
"I can’t predict the future, but I would bet the non-kinetic effects will reign supreme," [the Air Force chief of staff] said during the Dubai International Air Chiefs Conference. "Now we’re somewhere stuck in the thinking that mass needs to be physical. What if we did not have to produce sorties to achieve the same effect? What if a future small diameter bomb looks like ones and zeros?"
It's an Air Force wet dream. We don't need no stinkin' bombs to help the Army!
Just ... wow. The Air Force really is willing to go to any extreme to avoid providing the Army with close air support:
Air Force leadership is showing exactly what it thinks of the ground support mission by deciding to get rid of the A-10:
Oh sure, the Air Force promises that multi-mission aircraft will continue to support the "mission" of ground support even when the asset designed for that mission is gone.
Yeah, I'm sure when the Air Force is prioritizing missions for their scarce multi-mission aircraft that ground support will be high on the list.
But by killing the only aircraft specifically designed just for ground support, the Air Force is very clearly telling us what their priorities are. The Air Force is essentially telling the Army (while denying this to Congress) to have a nice life--but goodbye. To think they were once the Army Air Force.
Yes. Jointness talks. But money walks. And there is no money for the A-10.
The A-10 lives despite the Air Force's best efforts. But the Air Force wants to get rid of the MQ-9 Reaper drone:
Air Force wants to retire the aircraft by 2035, since the slow-moving drone cannot survive in a hot war against Russia or China, the branch argues, and the Air Force wants to spend its shrinking budget on more survivable aircraft.
Never mind that the drone is great for fighting jihadis. Or that F-35s would be a waste. And even the A-10 doesn't have the persistence of the drone.
Warfare has never been only kinetics and that will not change in the future. So sure, I concede that effects don't have to be based on kinetic attacks:
In my ideal world, fire support is a black box where a call to destroy or suppress a target automatically calls in the appropriate weapon capable of taking out the target in a timely manner without the soldier making the support request even knowing what asset provided the support.
It could be a plane or space system out of sight, an attack helicopter, a ship or submarine offshore, a distant ground force missile or artillery asset, or even an 81mm mortar back at the company level.
If cyber weapons can suppress the target or add to the fires mission success--perhaps by negating point defenses against fires missions or information operations highlighting a path of retreat open to the enemy before the rounds hit to get them to retreat, for example--it is automatically plugged in to the mission.
Indeed, if the target is close to civilians, perhaps the call for fire support triggers automatic telephone warnings to civilian numbers near the target if there is time before the rounds need to hit.
And if there is automatic deconfliction between aerial assets and artillery to avoid the former being hit by the latter by being in the same air space, that would be great, too.
But if the Air Force--which ended World War II as the Army Air Force--won't drop bombs on enemies in contact with Army troops, the Air Force shouldn't be shocked that the Army wants longer and longer range weapons to provide that kind of support.
The Army is forging ahead on these weapons:
Currently the army has three new long-range missiles in development and all three are to be ready by 2023. The new missiles include the Precision Strike Missile, with a range of 500 kilometers, a Mid-Range Strike Missile with a range of 1,600 kilometers and a Long Range Hypersonic missile with a range of 2,700 kilometers.
The Air Force lost space--which I wasn't in favor of because a Space Force should be reserved for when we leave the Earth-Moon system.
But the Air Force lost that battle and now wants to get out of the main reason for its existence--directly supporting the Army. Huh?
Does the Air Force want to limit its missions to refueling itself in the air? Nice work if they can get it, I suppose.
If it makes the Air Force feel better, think of the Army as the most outer layer of their base defenses that prevent an enemy from occupying their airfields.
UPDATE: Air Force priorities. None involve close air support for ground forces.
