Given the success of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and cruise missiles, we must question the use of manned tactical aircraft for close air support. This may be hard to do, because the U.S. Marine Corps pioneered the use of manned aircraft to deliver ordnance in support of ground maneuver during the 20th Century. Indeed, close air support (CAS) helped create the air-ground team now in combat.
The increasing threat to manned aircraft, however, is affecting U.S. willingness to employ them at low altitude over the front lines. The consequences to the United States from captured aircrews is just one of the reasons; ultimately, it may be the soaring cost of manned aircraft that prices them out of the mission. If we can handle the culture shock, the Marine Corps can continue its role as the trendsetter for air-delivered ordnance by employing organic, vehicle-mounted cruise missiles for close air support.
Any debate involving close air support demands clarity regarding what it is and is not. According to well-established joint doctrine, close air support involves action by fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft against hostile targets so close to friendly forces that each mission requires detailed integration with the fire and movement of those forces.
Thus, throwing a bomb out of the cockpit of a World War I aircraft was not close air; a large-scale B-52 strike with dumb bombs, used so effectively in Vietnam, is not close air; and neither is the simple addition of precision guidance to a dumb bomb that figured so prominently in NATO's unsuccessful attempts to destroy Serbian armor and artillery in Kosovo.1 The destructive power of battlefield close air support stems from several key factors that seem unlikely to change:
- Close air support delivers large or lethal ordnance that destroys targets. Artillery and mortars are suppressive weapons, limited by size from destroying armored and dug-in targets with the consistency needed by ground maneuver units.
- "Close" means close to friendly units. Since its inception, ground controllers have often brought in ordnance so close to their own positions as to feel some of its effects.
- Close air is responsive to the ground commander. It must be available when called for, not at the convenience of the pilot, strike leader, Combined Air Operations Center or Joint Forces Air Component Commander.
- Most important, a forward-air controller (FAC) integrated into the ground unit exercises terminal control. The FAC is the linchpin of success. Only an on-scene controller in contact with the delivery vehicle can ensure on-target delivery—or abort the mission at the last instant should the ordnance endanger friendly units.
The Marine Corps, and just about every other armed force, began dropping ordnance from aircraft soon after the Wright Brothers' first flight, but it took 40 years to develop the real thing. Marines first used all four elements on Bougainville in the autumn of 1943. Under the initiative of General A.A. Vandegrift and his staff, selected Marine pilots in the Solomon Islands attended Forward Air Controllers School, where they learned to bring in ordnance within 100 yards of Marines on the ground using a mix of radio transmissions and colored smoke signals. Subsequently, sorties controlled by Marine FACs during the fighting to secure the airfield at Torokina established the CAS principles that remain in effect today.2
Close air support continued to prove its worth on the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam; over the years, the percentages of fixed-wing assets allocated to this mission remained constant at a fairly high level. Not until 1991's Operation Desert Storm ejected Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces from Kuwait did advancements in precision-guided munitions allow the destruction of specified, fixed targets without risking manned aircraft. The number of sorties dedicated to CAS plunged.3 During the Kosovo Campaign, NATO delivered 70% of its aviation ordnance in the form of precision-guided munitions while flying few close air sorties. Aircraft remained outside threat envelopes, above 15,000 feet in most cases, and only one aircraft was lost, ironically a U.S. Air Force B-2 Stealth bomber.
Initial bomb damage assessments led to the belief that aircraft releasing precision weapons from the safety of high altitude could destroy the enemy. The successful withdrawal of Serbian armored forces, however, showed this conclusion to be premature. With no FACs on the ground and, therefore, no eyes on the targets, the guided weapons actually had failed to destroy most tactical targets. Yet, tactical and operational planners subsequently ignored these results. The perceived precision-weapon effectiveness deluded Air Force and Army planners to such a degree that they simply omitted any planning for its use during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan.4 In its aftermath, Major General Franklin L. "Buster" Hagenback, U.S. Army, Anaconda's commander, severely criticized the planners and blasted the Combined Air Operations Center's procedural mechanisms for air requests, denouncing the Air Force's timeliness in delivering ordnance.5
The U.S. Marine Corps maintains that close air support will continue to be essential for success.6 The same appreciation prevails within the U.S. Army, which considers it critical in the transformation to lighter, more agile forces.7 It is the foundation of the Secretary of Defense's "combined arms force" of the fourth pillar of transformation.8 Hagenback's after-the-fact recognition of the importance of close air is thus only one of many such views.
Close air support is here to stay. The only question is: what form will it take? Culture will drive part of this, because the United States places great value on the individual. The Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Pilot (TRAP) mission remains a key capability for any force, although it risks large numbers of personnel and platforms and affects other operations. It was this culture that saved a TBM pilot named George H.W. Bush, a future president, just one of many downed fliers rescued by submarines throughout the Pacific, albeit at considerable expense to the United States submarine campaign against the Japanese. 9 The trend continued throughout the Vietnam War, highlighted by the mission to rescue the surviving crewman of "Bat 21," a U.S. Air Force RB-66 electronic warfare aircraft shot down during the 1972 Easter Offensive. North Vietnamese armored columns streamed south, unimpeded by U.S. airpower, because the only bridge standing over the Dong Ha River was within the No-Fire Zone protecting the downed airman—Major Iceal Hambleton. A book and later a movie captured the popular imagination. Rescuing aircrews is a good thing, but there may be a better way: Don't expose them in the first place.
During the last quarter of the 20th Century, wide reluctance to suffer the consequences of downed aircraft and captured aircrews trumped any desire to maximize close air support effectiveness. The success of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles against Soviet aircraft in Afghanistan in the 1980s helped a weaker force gain victory by employing asymmetrical warfare. Enemy surface-to-air capability drove NATO aircraft above 15,000 feet in the Kosovo Air Campaign. Numerous aircraft fell prey to various forms of ground fire in the twelve months following the fall of Saddam Hussein.10 The threat continues to grow, as evidenced recently by discoveries of large numbers of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles caches in Iraq.
There are other considerations. Weapons of mass destruction may not threaten CAS aircraft directly, but they are ideally suited to destroy the static airfields and infrastructure that manned aircraft require for operations and maintenance-fixed sites that are difficult to hide but easy to target. Destroying them, or rendering them inoperable for even a few days can have a devastating effect on ground operations; then consider that airfields may not even be available. Objections to access raised by allied nations in the recent Iraq War eliminated multiple facilities from consideration. Even when they are available, they come with significant costs attached. It took more than $500 million to make the Kluezewo Airfield near Stargard, Poland, operational; a similar facility in Estonia required nearly $700 million. The vulnerability to WMD, the lack of availability because of political considerations, and the economic cost to refurbish existing airfields all beg the question: why continue to use manned aircraft for CAS?
The greatest threat, however, is economics; manned aircraft costs are spiraling upward. Actual costs for manned aircraft flying close air missions, however, often are disguised. A review of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan disclosed that the ordnance costs of the bombs dropped during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, for example, was lower than those for cruise missiles: It cost $432 million to deliver 210,004 unguided bombs during the air campaign and $298 million to deliver 9,342 precision-guided bombs—a total of $730 million. This was nearly $200 million less than the $913 million that it cost to deliver 332 cruise missiles during the same campaign.11 Not discussed, however, was anything beyond the cost of the ordnance for manned aircraft, which is only the tip of the iceberg.
In a telling 1991 article for Proceedings, author Chuck Myers detailed many of the accumulated costs—procurement, maintenance, and replacement—incurred before manned aircraft drop their first bomb.12 Myers examined a single notional strike wing of approximately 300 aircraft that included only 172 aircraft actually involved in delivering ordnance; he allowed a liberal $50 million unit cost for each aircraft for a total of $15 billion. (The Marine Corps alone maintains approximately three such strike wings, while the aircraft from the Navy's 12 carrier battle groups add up to about four wings.) Over the 30-year operational-platform life of an airplane, he included an additional $11 billion replacement cost for aircraft attrition (a 2.5% attrition rate per year or 8 aircraft per year) and $22 billion for operational and maintenance costs. Myers did not include costs associated with training pilots, building or maintaining airfields, or the cost of munitions and ordnance.
Estimates for the cost of training a pilot and then maintaining proficiency vary. Similar estimates place the cost for an hour of flight in a modern tactical aircraft between $20,000 and $40,000.13 Based on these figures, pilots flying only 16 hours per month still cost the taxpayer between $4 million and $8 million annually. For the 300-plane wing in the Myers' scenario, the cost for pilot proficiency falls between $1 and $2 billion annually. These figures must be added to the substantial amounts necessary for maintaining the numerous airfields at which the 300 aircraft would be serviced. Over a 30-year service life, a conservative estimate of the pilot training and infrastructure maintenance costs would exceed the $60 billion procurement costs.
When we apply Myers's methods, the CAS bill for Afghanistan comes in at more than $60 billion, or 66 times the cost of the older, more expensive cruise missiles employed to support operations.14
Myers's figures are more than a decade old—and aircraft costs are going up. He calculated research and development costs for a manned aircraft to be $2 billion; similar costs for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet already total $4.8 billion—twice Myers's estimate.15 The procurement program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the newest manned aircraft for Navy and Marine Corps close air support, calls for the purchase of 680 aircraft.16 The research and development estimate for approach $25 billion, or more than ten times the amount used in Myers's estimate.17 The U.S. Army, on the other hand, plans to spend $30 billion over the next six years to replace its entire helicopter force and the Shadow 2000 family of unmanned aerial vehicles.18
The unit cost for the newest manned aircraft is a moving target and, therefore, difficult to compare to Myers's figure of $50 million. In any event, the current stated cost for an F/A-18E/F is $48 million.19 The estimated unit cost for the Air Force's choice for close air in the 21st Century, the F-22 Raptor, is $152 million.20 Current estimates for F-35 units costs are less than $50 million, but are based on a total buy of 3,000; any reduction will drive up unit costs. The Navy-Marine Corps buy of 680 is in fact a reduction from an originally planned 1089, but the impact on unit cost is not calculated.
Indirect costs add additional weight to the case against manned aircraft. More than 75% of the ordnance dropped by the Air Force in Afghanistan came from aircraft that required aerial refueling to reach the target.21
The typical mission required eight to nine hours from brief to arrival at the target.22 Not surprisingly, timeliness was continually an issue. Weather that prevented refueling meant a mission aborted. Finally, the sheer amount of refueling accelerated the deterioration of the Air Force tanker fleet and contributed to the controversial debate over leasing Boeing 767s as tankers.
The imprecision of costs is apparent. That the decade-old Myers' estimate is well below the manned aircraft costs for the next generation, however, is unassailable. The obvious costs of a 300-plane strike group could easily exceed $200 billion; the unintended costs merely drive the numbers higher.
The Marine Corps requirement for close-air support will not diminish in the 21st Century. The first two conflicts fought by the U.S. military in this new century represent the wide spectrum of battle to be anticipated. Whether attacking unconventional Taliban strongholds in the mountains or armored formations in Iraq, close air support will be a key element of success. Escalation will create an even greater demand to destroy enemy formations on the battlefield. Should the threat diminish to hidden pockets of insurgents or terrorist cells (consider Fallujah), the military will still benefit from large ordnance capable of destroying targets, with the safety inherent in the terminal control that only close air support provides.
For all these reasons, manned aircraft are not the best option for the crucial close air support mission.
The Future of Cruise Missiles
Progress in cruise missile effectiveness offers the opportunity to eliminate the manned-aircraft variable from the equation. Technology already available has put missiles into the hands of infantrymen, ensuring timely support, and they are being integrated into the U.S. Navy's Sea Strike and Sea Basing programs. Technology already under development will increase capability while lowering costs. It you find that hard to believe, read on.
Current cruise-missile capabilities are well documented. The U.S. Navy employed Tomahawk missiles very visibly in Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo, and Afghanistan with stellar results. The Block III missile can deliver a 1,000-pound warhead at a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles. The Global Positioning System (GPS) and inertial navigation system guidance combination provides accuracy to within 5 meters. The missiles have tremendous reliability and are unaffected by bad weather. In 1991's Desert Storm, only 4% of the Tomahawks the Navy attempted to launch did not reach their target area.23 In contrast, nearly 10% of the F-111F "all-weather" aircraft aborted their missions because of bad weather.24 In Kosovo, modified Tomahawk warheads dispensed submunitions.25 The relatively low-unit cost of $1.4 million already makes the Block III Tomahawk attractive as an alternative to manned aircraft.
More important, the next generation of Tomahawk has already been successfully tested. The Tomahawk Block IV, or Tactical Tomahawk, promises true close air capability at a far more economical price, and its proved guidance system is augmented by a satellite link that allows in-flight retargeting. The missile has a loiter capability of several hours once it arrives at the target area. An on-board camera will allow a commander or FAC to redirect the missile to another target.
Newer technology is on the way. Receivers for GPS navigation systems are currently being upgraded with tamper-proof coding to reduce the likelihood of jamming. Also being added is a self-correction capability for time synchronization with satellites. This will substantially increase missile shelf life without additional set-up or maintenance time. Synthetic-aperture radar, millimeter-wave radar, and infrared seekers will soon be available to augment guidance systems, increasing accuracy and redundancy for navigation and targeting.
Wonder of wonders, the price is decreasing dramatically as capabilities improve; the current unit cost of a Tomahawk Block IV is only $569,000.26 This doesn't happen with manned aircraft.
The Tomahawk is designed for launch from the vertical launch systems aboard 137 U.S. Navy warships. These ships offer a very attractive alternate source of close air firepower to Marines currently supported by only 12 carriers (and 12 big-deck amphibious assault ships capable of operating AV-8B Harriers or the new short takeoff-vertical landing F-35B joint strike fighter.
Limited ships and launch cells, however—as well as conflicting missions—inevitably will create situations where the Navy cannot provide close air support. For these reasons, the Marine Corps needs its own capabilities.
Fortunately, systems already exist that integrate cruise missiles with ground units. The U.S. Army's Multiple Launch Rocket System consists of an M270 tracked vehicle that carries two Army Tactical Missile Systems; the High Mobility Rocket System is a 5-ton truck that carries one missile. But the Army's missile has no GPS, loiter, mid-air retargeting, or terminal control capabilities and thus does not qualify for close air support. Its dimensions, however, are similar to the Tomahawk's and there is no reason that Tomahawks could not be adapted to similar vehicles.
In a different approach, Lockheed Martin's already tested Low Cost Autonomous Attack System offers a potent close air weapon. The company's offering is a miniature cruise missile only 31 inches long that weighs 100 pounds and costs $40,000; a turbojet engine drives the missile at 200 knots out to a range of between 75 and 100 nautical miles. The missile relies on laser detection and ranging for terminal guidance and can destroy any target appropriate for its shaped-charge warhead. A single Tomahawk can carry several. Adding an independent booster and mounting the launch system on a small vehicle makes close air support from a ground vehicle practical.
Data is best fed directly into a weapon and then merely confirmed by a human in the loop. Fat-fingering data, particularly in the cockpit, should be avoided whenever possible.—General John Jumper, U.S. Air Force27
Jumper is right. Fortunately, forward air controllers already use a combination of hand-held GPS and laser range-finding binoculars to transmit precise coordinates to aircraft.28 In-flight changes to Tactical Tomahawks are a reality. The link between controller and cruise missile for positioning updates is the logical and simple next step. In parallel fashion, video systems currently connecting plane to missile can be replicated for the FAC to provide terminal guidance to a missile; the controller either flies it into the target; or aborts, if necessary, and brings the missile around for re-attack; or sends it off to loiter until needed for another target.
A Solution for the 21st Century . . . the maturation of the U.S. military's precision strike capabilities threatens to make tactical strike aircraft a victim of their own successes.
The U.S. Marine Corps should replace its manned CAS aircraft and shift to low-cost cruise missiles systems launched from ground vehicles. This will nullify the enemy's conventional surface-to-air threats and eliminate the complications resulting from downed aircrews. A mixture of Tomahawk missiles and Lockheed Martin's autonomous attack missile can provide the full spectrum of organic firepower that will cut response time to a fraction of what it is today. The economics make sense: the appropriations required to field and maintain a 300-plane strike wing over 30 years would buy 400,000 or more cruise missiles. In addition, vehicle mobility will present the enemy with a much greaer problem to solve.
The capabilities and cost of cruise missiles make them the ideal choice for 21st Century close air support.
Col. Fuquea, an infantry officer, is the Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. He served as a platoon leader and company commander, spent two years with the Royal Marines, and commanded the 1st Battalion, Sixth Marines. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Military History from Duke University and is a graduate of the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island.
1. Author's observation while in Kosovo in November 2000. NATO precision bombs rarely hit the revetments used to hide Serbian armored vehicles in the hills around Pristina. Local citizens commented that few vehicles were harmed by bombing. British soldiers on the border observing the withdrawal of Serbian vehicles were shocked by the numbers of Serbian tanks and artillery that escaped the NATO air attacks and made their way home unscathed. back to article
2. For more on this see "Bougainville: The Amphibious Assault enters Maturity," by Major David Fuquea, Naval War College Review, Winter, 1997. back to article
3. Ibid. The Air Force used only 6% of its Desert Storm sorties for close air support. back to article
4. Ibid, p. 57. back to article
5. Ibid, p. 56. The best case experienced by forces on the ground from request to delivery was 26 minutes. The worst spanned several hours. back to article
6. Sandra I Erwin, "Navy's Fire Support Weapons Programs Lag," National Defense, March 2003, p. 24. back to article
7. Ibid, p. 54-55. back to article
8. The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Transformation Planning Guidance, (Washington, DC:Department of Defense), p. 3. back to article
9. Clay Blair, Silent Victory. Blair asserts that the efforts of submarines on pilot rescue duty would have been far better spent on sinking Japanese vessels. back to article
10. In late March/early April 2004, insurgents ambushed and killed several Marines from a Quick Reaction Force near Fallujah as they went to the aid of a downed helicopter. back to article
11. "Cost for Operation Enduring Freedom," National Defense, Vol. 86, December 2001, p. 15. back to article
12. Charles Myers, "Time to Fold' em," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1991, p. 39. back to article
13. Eric H. Biass and Roy Braybrook, "Missiles on Cruise," Armada International, June-July 2001, p. 4. "Cost of Operation Enduring Freedom" assigns a cost of $17,200 per sortie in Operation Enduring Freedom. back to article
14. Myers, "Time to Fold 'em." back to article
15. Lindsay Peacock, "Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet," Jane's All the World's Aircraft, (London: Jane's Information Group, 17 Jun 2003), p. 5. back to article
16. Norman Polmar, The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 18th Ed., (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005), p. 402. back to article
17. Lindsay Peacock, "Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter," Jane's All the World's Aircraft, (London: Jane's Information Group, 10 March 2003), p. 2. back to article
18. Jane's Information Group, Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment-North America, (London, Jane's Information Group, 2003), p. 3. back to article
19. Peacock, "Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet," p. 5. back to article
20. Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment-North America, p. 4. back to article
21. Sandra I. Erwin, "Naval Aviation: Lessons from the War," National Defense, Vol. 86, June 2002, p. 16. back to article
22. Phillip S. Meilinger, "Preparing for the Next Little War," Armed Forces Journal International, (Apr 2002), P. 40. back to article
23. Biass and Braybrook, p. 1-2. back to article
24. Ibid, p. 2. back to article
25. Braybrook, p. 17. back to article
26. Hooten, p. 6. back to article
27. Nick Cook, "Military Priorities and Future Warfare," Jane's Defense Weekly, (Sept 2002), p. 2. back to article
28. Bill Sweetman, "The Falling Price of Precision," Jane's International Defense Review, April 2002, p. 48. back to article
29. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Analysis, 2003), p. 29. back to article