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Author:
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ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 71
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Book Description
This paper seeks to answer the question of whether or not the modern threat environment should drive U.S. Army Attack Aviation to shift its focus from the deep fight to the close battle. The paper concludes that the modern threat of asymmetric warfare in urban environments should drive training, doctrine, and aircraft and weapons development to optimize readiness for close air support of ground forces in Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT). This conclusion is based an historic review of the evolution of U.S. attack helicopters and their employment, an analysis of the modern threat environment which indicates a strong likelihood of fighting in urban environments, a review of existing aviation doctrine for MOUT, and a review of two recent MOUT case studies, Chechnya and Somalia. These two case studies demonstrate that the most effective method of employing attack helicopters in MOUT is as a fire support element in the close fight. This paper argues in closing that U.S. Army Aviation must move quickly to develop clear and effective doctrine and training methods for employing attack helicopters in the close fight. Furthermore, the U.S. Army must develop future aircraft, weapons systems, and munitions to optimize close air support effectiveness and aircraft survivability.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 71
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Book Description
This paper seeks to answer the question of whether or not the modern threat environment should drive U.S. Army Attack Aviation to shift its focus from the deep fight to the close battle. The paper concludes that the modern threat of asymmetric warfare in urban environments should drive training, doctrine, and aircraft and weapons development to optimize readiness for close air support of ground forces in Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT). This conclusion is based an historic review of the evolution of U.S. attack helicopters and their employment, an analysis of the modern threat environment which indicates a strong likelihood of fighting in urban environments, a review of existing aviation doctrine for MOUT, and a review of two recent MOUT case studies, Chechnya and Somalia. These two case studies demonstrate that the most effective method of employing attack helicopters in MOUT is as a fire support element in the close fight. This paper argues in closing that U.S. Army Aviation must move quickly to develop clear and effective doctrine and training methods for employing attack helicopters in the close fight. Furthermore, the U.S. Army must develop future aircraft, weapons systems, and munitions to optimize close air support effectiveness and aircraft survivability.
Author: Frank W. Tate
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Street fighting (Military science)
Languages : en
Pages : 68
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Book Description
Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781699462836
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86
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Book Description
The U.S. Army is experiencing a cultural shift away from years of low intensity, counter-insurgency operations toward large scale combat operations with a near-peer or peer threat. The shift includes a major change from brigade-centric operations to divisions and corps serving as the primary warfighting headquarters. Headquarters must now not only provide resources, but simultaneously direct the conflict in multiple domains, including space and cyber-space. U.S. Army Aviation can be a significant force multiplier, but only when used effectively. Army Aviation continues to gain ground through lessons learned from the readiness training centers on how best to reach deep in multi-domain operations. Army Aviation faces many obstacles to continue to be a force multiplier. The 2015 Field Manual 3-04, Army Aviation, set new expectations for large scale combat operations, but improvements in training, equipment, and doctrine are necessary to achieve what FM 3-04 demands conceptually. The complex battlefield set by near-peer and peer threats restricts Army Aviation's freedom of maneuver with anti-access and area-denial systems. To respond to such threats, Army Aviation currently fields upgrades to its legacy fleet of helicopters, but this approach consumes resources that could go towards the future vertical lift fleet. For Army Aviation to be ready to fight today, they must continue to improve the legacy fleet. However, the more Army Aviation spends on updating the legacy fleet, the less it is investing in the future airframes. Additionally, the current fleet has limited potential for further modifications. The key question is whether such modifications to the legacy fleet will be enough to combat the challenges faced in the complex and lethal battlefield of large scale combat operations against a near-peer or peer threat. This monograph addresses those questions surrounding the shift from counter-insurgency to large scale combat operations for Army Aviation.This compilation also includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.Since the American Civil War, Army Aviation has played a role in U.S. warfare. Army Aviation has continually adapted and strived to provide the ground force commander additional options, from deep attacks to reconnaissance, air assaults, medical evacuations, and more. In the most recent war on terrorism, Army Aviation provided these capabilities to the ground force commander which enabled numerous options, saving thousands of lives. While Army Aviation has proven itself as a combat multiplier in the current fight, past results may not be indicative of future success. Former combat aviation brigade (CAB) commander Colonel Jimmy Blackmon observed that "pilots are the products of their experiences." Currently, there is a pressing challenge to create realistic training opportunities to prepare leadership for the rising threat of conflict with a peer or near-peer adversary. Army Aviation's primary focus over the past decade focused on meeting the requirement for training and completing missions during specific rotational deployments to stable theaters, with a focus on environmental conditions. In the Gulf War, close air support was not the primary goal for the air component. However, in the mountains of the Regional Command East, Afghanistan, it was essential to the mission. The primary objective for the limited contingency was close air support, but as the U.S. Army gravitates back to the pressing challenge of Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), Army Aviation must be prepared to increase their deep attack and interdiction capabilities. LSCO, unlike counter-insurgency (COIN), will challenge the Army in all domains. In recent history, the Army has assumed air superiority.
Author: Major Timothy A. Jones
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 178289523X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 73
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Book Description
Today’s Army faces an environment much different from that which it prepared for in the Cold War. Massed armor battles on the plains of Europe, for which the Army was trained and equipped, have become much less likely while involvement in smaller and more limited conflict has become more probable. Future conflict is more likely to resemble Grenada, Panama, or Somalia than Desert Storm. As world demographics shift from rural to urban areas, the cities will increasingly become areas of potential conflict. They cannot be avoided as a likely battlefield, and have already played a prominent part in Army combat operations in the last decade. If the Army is to keep pace in this changing environment it must look to the cities when developing doctrine, technology, and force structure. The close battlefield of Mogadishu or Panama City is much different from the premier training areas of the National Training Center or Hohenfels. Yet aviators have been presented the dilemma of training for the latter environment and being deployed to the former. For most aviators facing urban combat, it is a matter of learning as they fight. To avoid the high casualties and collateral damage likely in an urban fight against a determined opponent, however. Army aviation must train and prepare before they fight. Attack helicopters are inextricably woven into the fabric of combined arms operations. But for the Army to operate effectively as a combined arms team in an urban environment, both aviators and the ground units they support must understand the capabilities and limitations attack helicopters bring to the battle. This paper presents an historical perspective of how attack helicopters have already been used in this environment. It also discusses the factors that make city fighting unique, and the advantages and disadvantages for attack helicopter employment in an urban environment, as well as implications for future urban conflicts.
Author: U. S. Military
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781731421890
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Close Air Support (CAS) depends on close cooperation between ground and air units, predicated on mutual understanding and close proximity. CAS also depends on aviator training and aircraft characteristics. Despite predictions of air power's dominance, air-ground teams are the most effective employment of military power. This thesis demonstrates that the modern Army Combat Aviation Brigade mimics the WWII Tactical Air Command's effective, close working relationship between air and ground units. However, Army Aviation lacks fixed-wing attack aircraft, forcing the Army to rely on the Air Force for fixed-wing CAS. Utilizing non-organic means for critical functions violates unity of command and results in CAS performed by aircraft primarily designed for other missions. This situation is likely to worsen in the coming years. This thesis summarizes Army-Air Force CAS issues since WWII and argues that the Army requires an organic fixed wing attack aircraft to bridge the capability gap between its helicopters and USAF platforms at the tactical level. Fielding such aircraft would free the Air Force to focus on its broader missions while enhancing the capabilities of Army Aviation.On June 9 2014, a United States Air Force (USAF) B-1B bomber dropped two 500lb GPS-guided bombs on a team of Army Special Forces and Afghan security forces, killing five. Numerous errors on by the aircrew and ground element contributed to deaths on the ground, all of which are historically endemic to Close Air Support (CAS). The terminal controller was unfamiliar with the operating environment and the aircrew could not visually acquire either the friendly or the enemy positions from 12,000 feet above ground level. Because they believed the aircraft's targeting pod could identify friendly strobe lights, the air-ground team "collectively failed to effectively execute the fundamentals, which resulted in poor situation awareness and improper target identification." Sadly, when it comes to CAS, this type of tragic incident is too common.No military cooperation issue creates more acrimony than CAS. CAS has been contentious since the first aircraft teamed with ground forces and remains so today. These friction points are relative priority of CAS and Interdiction; operational control of CAS aircraft and; aircraft characteristics. The history of Army-Air Force CAS largely consists of poor initial efforts followed by the development of workable systems success as effective air-ground teams and aircraft developed on the battlefield. No organizational processes or technology has been able to bridge the Army-Air Force CAS divide. This thesis examines that divide, proposing an Army Fixed-Wing (FW) aircraft as a solution.
Author: U S Army Command and General Staff Coll
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781500974299
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 76
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Book Description
United States Army corps and division commanders pursued varied approaches to integrate Army attack aviation into their schemes of maneuver over the past thirty years. Two predominant schools of thought emerged: close combat attack or deep attacks. After focusing on deep attacks during the 1980s and 1990s, the attack aviation community drastically "about faced" towards supporting ground maneuver units in the close fight in mid-2003.This book analyzes the development and employment of attack aviation over the past three decades through the analogy of chaotic coupled pendulums to explore the influence of corps, divisions, ground maneuver brigades, and the Army Aviation branch upon aviation brigades. As the Army transitions out of sustained stability and counterinsurgency operations, the Army Aviation community should embrace the opportunity to explore methods for attack aviation to execute deep operations in support of corps and division operations while retaining the proficiency in integrated air-ground close combat.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
Author: James W. Bradin
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Attack helicopters were created in order to protect the heliborne troops as they airlifted into hostile terrain.
Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781520592701
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 63
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Book Description
The attack helicopter airframe and role evolved slowly, over time, to fulfill the missions of observation and reconnaissance, air escort, direct fire support, anti-tank, and deep attack, in support of ground elements from the platoon to the corps. This evolution was heavily influenced by technology and the Air Force's institutional territorialism. However, today's attack helicopter doctrine, heavily influenced by the Global War on Terror and the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment's disastrous deep attack during Operation Iraqi Freedom, provides little description for attack aviation support to the division or corps. As a result, both ground and aviation commanders and planners have less doctrinal tools for employing attack helicopters at those levels. This is especially evident in the case of attack aviation support to a friendly unit in direct contact with an enemy force. Through an analysis of current doctrine and history from World War I to the present, this monograph will argue that rotary wing attack aviation can perform a variety of missions, but that attack aviation doctrine needs to be refined in two areas. First, attack aviation doctrine needs to address operations in support of the corps and division. Second, the aviation branch needs to further develop the attack mission in order to describe how commanders can better integrate attack helicopters with the ground scheme of maneuver. Introduction * Section 1. Historical Analysis * The Rise of Airpower Theory and the Loss of the Air Corps * Rise of Army Aviation as Observers, Short-Range Transport, and MEDEVAC * Rise of the Sky Cavalry * The Vietnam Experience and the Rise of the Modern Attack Helicopter * The Effect of Technology, the Deep Attack Mission, and Operation Desert Storm * End of the Deep Attack and the 11th AHR Attack on the Medina Division * Section 2. Doctrinal Analysis * Section 3. Conclusion and Recommendations In terms of manpower, by December 2011 the Army had contributed more than 1.5 million troop-years to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At that same time, more than 73% of all active component soldiers had deployed at least once to one of those operations with 34% of those soldiers having dedicated 25 months or more. Organizationally, the Army transformed its entire operating concept, switching from combined arms divisions to a modular brigade force. The new design divided the force into combined arms brigade combat teams (BCTs), modular support brigades, and functional brigades that could be rapidly trained, deployed, and attached to higher echelon headquarters to support overseas operations. In terms of thought, the Army developed a series of new doctrinal manuals and concepts to address the unique challenges brought on by more than a decade of sustained overseas operations. Some of the most significant doctrinal publications included: Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, an effort to fill a doctrinal gap and address the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Afghanistan; Army Regulation (AR) 525-29, Army Force Generation, a regulation that institutionalized force generation concepts necessary to support the overseas operations; and FM 3-04.111, Aviation Brigades, a doctrinal manual addressing the organizational and operational concepts unique to the new modular combat aviation brigades.
Author: Daniel R. Mortensen
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160019630
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 108
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Book Description
CMH Pub. 93-7. This study in the Historial Analysis Series discusses the the origin and development of American close air support doctrine and practice in World War II. It explains how the Tunisian campaign demonstrated the need for tactical changes and close cooperation between the staffs and forces in joint and combined forces. The struggle of ground and air leaders to define and construct a command and control system, and ultimately to allocate and commit precious air resources to requisite ground missions, has as many lessons today as it did more than forty years ago. L.C. card 87-19335.
