Anniversary: The Start of Gulf War I

Today marks the anniversary of the start of the air campaign known as Operation Instant Thunder.

The Gulf War air campaign was broadcast across the world on CNN.

At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against assaults on airfields in Western Iraq. Minutes later, one of the EF-111 crews – Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon – destroyed an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1, when their low altitude maneuvering led the F-1 to crash to the ground. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15E that was also involved in the manuevering.[6]

At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers, under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s, bombed Baghdad, the capital. The striking force came under fire from 3,000 Anti-Aircraft guns firing from rooftops in Baghdad.

Within hours of the start of the coalition air campaign, a P-3 Orion called Outlaw Hunter developed by the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which was testing a highly specialised over-the-horizon radar, detected a large number of Iraqi patrol boats and naval vessels attempting to make a run from Basra and Umm Qasr to Iranian waters. Outlaw Hunter vectored in strike elements, which attacked the Iraqi naval flotilla near Bubiyan Island destroying 11 vessels and damaging scores more.

Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. Government buildings, TV stations, airfields, presidential palaces, military installations, communication lines, supply bases, oil refineries, a Baghdad airport, electric powerplants and factories making Iraqi war machine equipment were all destroyed due to extensive massive aerial and missile attacks by the coalition forces.

Here's the broadcast most people remember


What's the biggest technological jump in aerial weaponry since then? Tell us below.

By: Brant

Anniversary: The Start of Gulf War I

Today marks the anniversary of the start of the air campaign known as Operation Instant Thunder.

The Gulf War air campaign was broadcast across the world on CNN.

At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against assaults on airfields in Western Iraq. Minutes later, one of the EF-111 crews – Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon – destroyed an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1, when their low altitude maneuvering led the F-1 to crash to the ground. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15E that was also involved in the manuevering.[6]

At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers, under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s, bombed Baghdad, the capital. The striking force came under fire from 3,000 Anti-Aircraft guns firing from rooftops in Baghdad.

Within hours of the start of the coalition air campaign, a P-3 Orion called Outlaw Hunter developed by the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which was testing a highly specialised over-the-horizon radar, detected a large number of Iraqi patrol boats and naval vessels attempting to make a run from Basra and Umm Qasr to Iranian waters. Outlaw Hunter vectored in strike elements, which attacked the Iraqi naval flotilla near Bubiyan Island destroying 11 vessels and damaging scores more.

Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. Government buildings, TV stations, airfields, presidential palaces, military installations, communication lines, supply bases, oil refineries, a Baghdad airport, electric powerplants and factories making Iraqi war machine equipment were all destroyed due to extensive massive aerial and missile attacks by the coalition forces.

Here's the broadcast most people remember


Did you know anyone who fought in Gulf I? Tell us the story below.

By: Brant

Anniversary: The Start of Gulf War I

Today marks the anniversary of the start of the air campaign known as Operation Instant Thunder.

The Gulf War air campaign was broadcast across the world on CNN.

At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against assaults on airfields in Western Iraq. Minutes later, one of the EF-111 crews – Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon – destroyed an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1, when their low altitude maneuvering led the F-1 to crash to the ground. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15E that was also involved in the manuevering.[6]

At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers, under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s, bombed Baghdad, the capital. The striking force came under fire from 3,000 Anti-Aircraft guns firing from rooftops in Baghdad.

Within hours of the start of the coalition air campaign, a P-3 Orion called Outlaw Hunter developed by the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which was testing a highly specialised over-the-horizon radar, detected a large number of Iraqi patrol boats and naval vessels attempting to make a run from Basra and Umm Qasr to Iranian waters. Outlaw Hunter vectored in strike elements, which attacked the Iraqi naval flotilla near Bubiyan Island destroying 11 vessels and damaging scores more.

Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. Government buildings, TV stations, airfields, presidential palaces, military installations, communication lines, supply bases, oil refineries, a Baghdad airport, electric powerplants and factories making Iraqi war machine equipment were all destroyed due to extensive massive aerial and missile attacks by the coalition forces.

Here's the broadcast most people remember


What do you most remember about that night?

By: Brant

USAF Appoint Female Commander to Training Unit Rocked by Scandals

The USAF is trying to clean up Randolph by putting a woman in charge of Air Force basic training after the sex scandal there.

The Air Force chose a woman Saturday to lead its basic training unit at a Texas base where dozens of female recruits have alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by male instructors within the past year.
Col. Deborah Liddick is taking command of the 737th Training Group, bringing a distinctly new face of authority to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Six male instructors have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to adultery, and there are others still under investigation.
The Air Force announced Liddick's appointment in a statement that didn't mention the sex scandal or highlight choosing a woman to lead a unit where the number of women identified by military investigators as potential victims is approaching 40.
About one in five recruits at Lackland are women, while most instructors are men.
"I look forward to and have the utmost confidence in having Col. Liddick take the reins of basic military training," Col. Mark Camerer, commander of the 37th Training Wing at Lackland, said in the statement.
Lackland is where every new American airman reports for basic training, graduating about 35,000 each year.
Liddick is already stationed in San Antonio, where she serves as chief of the maintenance division at the former Randolph Air Force Base. She is scheduled to take command Friday.

By: Brant

Leave No Man Behind: Vietnam Edition

The US is returning another Vietnam War pilot to home.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Air Force Capt. Clyde W. Campbell of Longview, Texas, will be buried June 21 at Arlington National Cemetery. On March 1, 1969, Campbell was a pilot aboard an A-1J Skyraider aircraft that crashed while carrying out a close air-support mission in Houaphan Province, Laos. American forward air controllers directing the mission in the area reported hearing an explosion that they believed to be Campbell’s bombs, but later learned Campbell’s aircraft had crashed. No parachutes were seen in the area.

In 1997, a joint United States - Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team investigated a crash site in Houaphan Province, Laos, within 330 feet of the last known location of Campbell. In addition to human remains, the team located aircraft wreckage and military equipment, which correlated with Campbell’s aircraft.

From 2009 to 2010, additional joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. recovery teams investigated and excavated the crash site three times. Teams recovered additional human remains, military equipment -- including an aircraft data plate -- and a .38-caliber pistol matching the serial number issued to Campbell.

Scientists from the JPAC used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools in the identification of Campbell.

By: Brant

BUB: AirSea Battle

The Marines have a nice reasonably-concise, if buzzword-heavy, Air-Sea Battle concept summary

The Air-Sea Battle Concept centers on networked, integrated, attack-in-depth to disrupt, destroy and defeat (NIA-D3) A2/AD threats. This approach exploits and improves upon the advantage U.S. forces have across the air, maritime, land, space and cyberspace domains, and is essential to defeat increasingly capable intelligence gathering systems and sophisticated weapons systems used by adversaries employing A2/AD systems. Offensive and defensive tasks in Air-Sea Battle are tightly coordinated in real time by networks able to command and control air and naval forces in a contested environment. The air and naval forces are organized by mission and networked to conduct integrated operations across all domains.

The concept organizes these integrated tasks into three lines of effort, wherein air and naval forces attack-in-depth to disrupt the adversary's intelligence collection and command and control used to employ A2/AD weapons systems; destroy or neutralize A2/AD weapons systems within effective range of U.S. forces; and defeat an adversary's employed weapons to preserve essential U.S. Joint forces and their enablers. Through NIA-D3, air and naval forces achieve integrated effects across multiple domains, using multiple paths to increase the resilience, agility, speed and effectiveness of the force.

Air-Sea Battle is a limited operational concept designed to address an adversary's A2/AD capabilities. It is not a concept aimed at any particular potential adversary, nor a campaign plan designed to accomplish a specific national objective. Instead, it is a concept that will spark innovation and development of the means to support future operations. The Air-Sea Battle Concept identifies the actions needed to defeat A2/AD threats and the materiel and non-materiel solutions required to execute those actions.

AOLDefense asks the important question: "what do you do once you're in the area where access was denied?"

In the budget wars between the services, "hybrid threats" and "AirSea Battle" have become rallying buzzwords of two opposing camps.

On one side, Army leaders talk of hybrid threats, whose blend of guerrilla tactics and high-tech weapons pose the greatest plausible threat on land, now that Soviet-style tank armies are extinct and the nation has largely sworn off large-scale counterinsurgency. On the other, Air Force and Navy leaders speak of AirSea Battle as a way to coordinate their expensive hardware in a high-tech war with regional powers like China or Iran.

[Since there has to be a middle way, of course, there is also the threat posed to ships by land-based missiles, such as those Hamas used against the Israeli ship Hanit in 2006. A Chinese-built missile is believed to have heavily damaged the ship and killed four sailors.]

While the services tend to use these concepts to justify their budgets, one of the fathers of the hybrid war idea, retired Marine Frank Hoffman, tells AOL Defense they are less contradictory than complementary, especially in a potential conflict with Iran.

AirSea Battle and hybrid war theory address two parts of the same strategic problem, Hoffman said: how to project American power around the globe when potential adversaries from militia groups to the Middle Kingdom are developing new tactics and new weaponry to stop us. (The painfully awkward term of art for such an enemy strategy is "anti-access/area denial"). "AirSea Battle is basically the outer half of the problem: how do you get into a region," he said. "The inner half [is] once you get inside a region, how can you operate" in the face of hybrid threats.

In the meantime, others are wondering if AirSea Battle is already obsolete?

But it’s also clear that the United States should develop its own symmetrical and asymmetric strategies to counter such threats. A joint operational concept of AirSea Battle combined with a strong cyber component could damage, deter, and destroy any Chinese A2/AD capabilities and ensure U.S. maritime access. A newly reconstituted “AirSeaCyber” operational concept would give U.S. forces the best chance to defeat Chinese or any other nations’ A2/AD forces now and in the future.

Of course, the present Joint Operational Access Concept does make strong mention of cyber operations. However, an even stronger emphasis on cyber warfare is needed beyond present day convention. In short, AirSea Battle as an operational concept might already be obsolete.

By: Brant

Leave No Man Behind: Vietnam War Edition

Another pilot from Vietnam is coming home.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Air Force Lt. Col. Charles M. Walling of Phoenix will be buried June 15 at Arlington National Cemetery. There will be a group burial honoring Walling and fellow crew member, Maj. Aado Kommendant of Lakewood, N.J., at Arlington National Cemetery, on Aug. 8 -- the 46th anniversary of the crash that took their lives.

On Aug. 8, 1966, Walling and Kommendant were flying an F-4C aircraft that crashed while on a close air support mission over Song Be Province, Vietnam. Other Americans in the area reported seeing the aircraft crash and no parachutes were deployed. Search and rescue efforts were not successful in the days following the crash.

In 1992, a joint United States-Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) team investigated the crash site and interviewed a local Vietnamese citizen who had recovered aircraft pieces from the site. In 1994, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team excavated the site and recovered a metal identification tag, bearing Wallings name, and other military equipment. In 2010, the site was excavated again. Human remains and additional evidence were recovered.

Scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial and material evidence, along with forensic identification tools including mitochondrial DNA which matched Wallings living sister in the identification of the remains.

By: Brant

Focus on China? Or Just Seeking a Focus?

Is AirSea Battle's focus on China an approach with built-in belligerence? And if not China, what threat out there guides strategic developments of the military?

In spite of this, AirSea Battle and its most recent manifestation, the Joint Operating Access Concept, are controversial. Some critics see it as an attempt by the navy and the air force, after a decade of relative neglect, to grab the lion’s share of a shrinking defence budget—already being trimmed by about $480 billion over the next ten years.

Others fear that although the concept does not mention China by name, it is the only opponent with the range of capabilities the new thinking is designed to counter. (Significantly, the Chinese defence minister did not attend the Shangri-La get-together; see article.) And whereas the 1980s predecessor of AirSea Battle, AirLand Battle, was intended to meet the real threat of a thrust by Soviet forces into Western Europe, the threat from China to America and its regional allies is harder to define. In a speech last month at the Joint Warfighting Conference, General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff until last year, said of AirSea Battle: “To some, it’s becoming the Holy Grail…[but] it’s neither a doctrine nor a scenario.” Worst of all, said General Cartwright, “AirSea Battle is demonising China. That’s not in anybody’s interest.”

Nathan Freier, of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, argues in a recent paper that although conflict with China “might be the most lethal set of circumstances from a traditional military standpoint, it is also the least likely and the most speculative.” North Korea, Pakistan and Iran (with their actual or putative nuclear arsenals) and even Syria all represent more realistic A2/AD challenges, which might well require the insertion of the ground forces that AirSea Battle ignores.

Other critics, such as Noel Williams, an adviser on strategy to the marine corps, point to the risk of escalation—because of the dependence on deep strike against Chinese targets on land—and to the absence of ideas about what happens without ground forces once a strike is made.

By: Brant

Random Friday Wargaming: Downtown: The Air War Over Hanoi, 1965-1972

For this Friday's wargame, we're bringing you Lee Brimmicombe-Wood's Downtown: Air War Over Hanoi, 1965-1972. A highly-acclaimed air game, Downtown has no shortage of fans out there.



The ConsimWorld Forum is bloody huge, too.

You can try to order a copy, just not from GMT, where they're sold out.
Anyone out there got some thoughts they'd like to share on this one?

Master links/images from Boardgamegeek.com; message boards linked to Consimworld. Other links to the actual game pages...


By: Brant

Anniversary: The Start of Gulf War I

Today marks the anniversary of the start of the air campaign known as Operation Instant Thunder.

The Gulf War air campaign was broadcast across the world on CNN.

At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against assaults on airfields in Western Iraq. Minutes later, one of the EF-111 crews – Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon – destroyed an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1, when their low altitude maneuvering led the F-1 to crash to the ground. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15E that was also involved in the manuevering.[6]

At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers, under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s, bombed Baghdad, the capital. The striking force came under fire from 3,000 Anti-Aircraft guns firing from rooftops in Baghdad.

Within hours of the start of the coalition air campaign, a P-3 Orion called Outlaw Hunter developed by the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which was testing a highly specialised over-the-horizon radar, detected a large number of Iraqi patrol boats and naval vessels attempting to make a run from Basra and Umm Qasr to Iranian waters. Outlaw Hunter vectored in strike elements, which attacked the Iraqi naval flotilla near Bubiyan Island destroying 11 vessels and damaging scores more.

Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. Government buildings, TV stations, airfields, presidential palaces, military installations, communication lines, supply bases, oil refineries, a Baghdad airport, electric powerplants and factories making Iraqi war machine equipment were all destroyed due to extensive massive aerial and missile attacks by the coalition forces.

Here's the broadcast most people remember


Where were you when it all went down?

By: Brant

Monday Video: Not Ready To Die... Or Are You?

Starting this week with a BANG



By: Brant

USAF Safety Beltitis

Really, USAF? You need safety belts to ride in an airplane?!

As always, click to enlarge

By: Brant

A New Drug Problem

Synthetic marijuana usage is growing in US forces.

U.S. troops are increasingly using an easy-to-get herbal mix called "Spice," which mimics a marijuana high, is hard to detect and can bring on hallucinations that last for days.
The abuse of the substance has so alarmed military officials that they've launched an aggressive testing program that this year has led to the investigation of more than 1,100 suspected users.
So-called "synthetic" pot is readily available on the Internet and has become popular nationwide in recent years, but its use among troops and sailors has raised concerns among the Pentagon brass.
"You can just imagine the work that we do in a military environment," said Mark Ridley, deputy director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, adding, "you need to be in your right mind when you do a job. That's why the Navy has always taken a zero tolerance policy toward drugs."
Two years ago, only 29 Marines and sailors were investigated for Spice. This year, the number topped 700, the investigative service said. Those found guilty of using Spice are kicked out, although the Navy does not track the overall number of dismissals.
The Air Force has punished 497 airmen so far this year, compared to last year's 380, according to figures provided by the Pentagon. The Army does not track Spice investigations but says it has medically treated 119 soldiers for the synthetic drug in total.
Military officials emphasize those caught represent a tiny fraction of all service members and note none was in a leadership position or believed high while on duty.
Spice is made up of exotic plants from Asia like Blue Lotus and Bay Bean. Their leaves are coated with chemicals that mimic the effects of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, but are five to 200 times more potent.

Great - 'cuz there's nothing better than people with heavy weaponry who are hallucinating in a war zone.

By: Brant

Sobering Analysis of an Air War Over Taiwan

Say we commit to defending Taiwan, and the Chinese take a whack at it anyway. There's a pretty detailed analysis about what that fight would look like, and Robert Haddick's synopsis at Foreign Policy is not a pleasant one.

In a Ph.D. dissertation written for the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Eric Stephen Gons provides an exhaustive analysis of a simulated battle between the U.S. and Chinese air forces for the airspace over Taiwan. Gons's analysis takes into account the air bases available to both sides, their aircraft parking capacity, air base vulnerability and hardening, air defense systems, sortie generation rates, aircraft maintenance requirements, crew fatigue, probable weapons effectiveness, time and distance considerations, and other factors.

Even though the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor is far superior to its Chinese opponents, Gons concludes that the "tyranny of distance" will prevent the U.S. Air Force from winning a shootout over Taiwan. The Air Force's base on Guam, a three-hour flight to Taiwan, is the only viable U.S. base for the island's air defense. Although the U.S. has high quality air bases on Okinawa and Japan's home islands, these bases are very close to China and are thus vulnerable to China's massive arsenal of land-attack cruise and ballistic missiles. In addition, Gons asserts the Air Force would not operate its expensive and limited tanker and early warning support aircraft from these Japanese bases since they would be highly vulnerable to Chinese attack. This would preclude F-22 operations to Taiwan from these bases.

That leaves Andersen Air Base on Guam, which even when stuffed to capacity with F-22s and required support aircraft could only provide a continuous combat air patrol over Taiwan of just six fighters. The Chinese attackers, by contrast, operating from at least a dozen hardened and heavily defended air bases in southeast China, could sorties dozens or even hundreds of fighters over Taiwan at will. Six F-22s simply do not carry enough missiles to prevent Chinese fighters from breaking through and shooting down the Air Force tanker and early-warning aircraft supporting the F-22s east of Taiwan. In this case, the F-22s would be lost to fuel exhaustion and the United States would be forced to retreat, at least for the moment. Nor does Gons expect much help from the Navy. He estimates that the relatively short range of the Navy's aircraft carrier-based fighters, combined with the growing Chinese anti-ship missile threat, would dissuade the admirals from risking air operations over Taiwan.

Is it time for Larry Bond and the Persian Incursion crew to put together a Taiwan game?

By: Brant

AirSea Battle Now Institutionalized

The DoD is establishing an AirSea Battle office at the Pentagon.

The Department of Defense announced today the creation of a new office to integrate air and naval combat capabilities in support of emerging national security requirements.

In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directed the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to develop a comprehensive concept to counter emerging anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) challenges. The services collaborated to develop the Air-Sea Battle (ASB) concept. On Aug. 12, 2011, Navy Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, and Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove established the Air-Sea Battle Office (ASBO), creating a framework to implement the ASB concept.

The ASB concept will guide the services as they work together to maintain a continued U.S. advantage against the global proliferation of advanced military technologies and A2/AD capabilities. Air-Sea Battle will leverage military and technological capabilities that reflect unprecedented Navy, Marine and Air Force collaboration, cooperation, integration, and resource investments.

The ASBO will oversee the concept implementation by facilitating coordination among the services, influencing service wargames, fostering development and integration of air and naval capabilities, and collaborating with the joint forces. The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps will each dedicate a minimum of two field grade officers or civil service equivalents to the ASBO.

Implementation of the ASB concept by the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps will foster positive change in the institutional relationships among the services, the integration of acquisition strategies, and the conceptual approach to warfare. The ASB concept is a natural and deliberate evolution of U.S. warfighting to counter emerging A2/AD threats that include conventional ballistic missiles, long-range precision cruise missiles, advanced integrated air and missile defense systems, electronic and cyber warfare capabilities, submarines, surface combatants, and modern combat aircraft. Air-Sea Battle will enable the projection of force in defense of U.S. interests and those of our allies and by sustaining stability and freedom of access throughout the global commons.

So a few random thoughts...

1. Is this an over-reaction by the non-Army services to the Army having the lead over the past two wars? Are the Navy/USAF looking for their moment in the bright light of relevance after being second-banana for a decade?

2. At some point those planes gotta land and the boats gotta dock. Who's going to secure those berths for them?

3. You want to game it?
WPG has Fleets 2025: East China Sea
Also check out Red Dragon Rising from S&T.


By: Brant

100 Years of Overstating Airpower

A counterpoint to the air force's claim that airpower solves everything, this New York Times column points out that they've been making these kinds of claims for 100 years, and have been wrong every time.

Nonetheless, we continue to shape our wars around a utopian idea about bombing. In March of this year, French planes bombed Libyan tanks outside Benghazi, and began a NATO campaign which lasted until the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Oct. 20. That single event is telling: an American Predator drone and a French warplane were in the skies overhead, but it was Libyan foot soldiers on the ground who captured their former leader.

Aerial bombardment is a form of warfare that was designed as an escape from the past. And yet each new conflict is only another episode in bombing’s long history of promises about “cost-free” victory and clean war. For each example of a conflict apparently made easier by air power, there is a counter-example of a war which air power has only served to complicate and intensify. While the conflict in Libya would almost certainly have been far bloodier in the absence of NATO air power, bombing raids by Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a focus for anti-American sentiment. Bombing is an unpredictable weapon, and perhaps its greatest danger is that, in suggesting an easy conflict, it draws us into wars we might otherwise have avoided. In that way, it is both the symbol of our faith in technology, and the sign of our entrapment in the past.

h/t Doctrine Man

By: Brant

Leave No Men Behind: WWII Aircrew Edition

The DPMO is bringing back an aircrew lost in WWII over western Europe.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of 10 servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Robert R. Bishop of Joliet, Ill.; 2nd Lt. Thomas Digman, Jr. of Pittsburgh; 2nd Lt. Donald W. Hess of Sioux City, Iowa; 2nd Lt. Arthur W. Luce, of Fort Bragg, Calif.; Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Karaso, of Philadelphia; Staff Sgt. Ralph L. McDonald of East Point, Ga.; Sgt. John P. Bonnassiolle of Oakland, Calif.; Sgt. James T. Blong of Port Washington, Wis.; Sgt. Michael A. Chiodo of Cleveland; and Sgt. John J. Harringer, Jr. of South Bend, Ind., will be buried as a group, in a single casket representing the entire crew, on Oct. 26, in Arlington National Cemetery. Hess and Karaso will be interred individually in Arlington National Cemetery.

On April 29, 1944, the 10 airmen were ordered to carry out a bombing mission over Berlin, Germany, in their B-24J Liberator aircraft, piloted by Bishop and Luce. German documents captured after the war noted that the aircraft crashed near the town of East Meitze, Germany, and there were no survivors. German forces buried the remains of Digman, Blong, and one unknown airman in a cemetery near Hannover, Germany, around the time of the crash. In 1946, the Army Graves Registration Service exhumed the remains of the three individuals for identification and reburied them in a U.S. Military Cemetery in Condroz, Belgium.

In 2003, a German national located the site of the crash and recovered human remains, which were turned over to U.S. officials. In 2005, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) team excavated the crash site and gathered additional human remains, military equipment, and metal identification tags for Bishop, Blong, Bonnassiolle, and Harringer. The team also recovered a class ring with the initials AWL -- presumably belonging to Luce. In 2007, a JPAC team completed the site excavation and found additional evidence that helped to confirm the identity of the crew.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used dental analysis and mitochondrial DNA -- which matched that of some of the crewmembers’ families -- in the identification of their remains.

At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 73,000 remain unaccounted-for from the conflict.

View Larger Map

By: Brant

AIr Force Generals Drawing Entirely Wrong Conclusions

It's amazing that one can make it to LTG and still be so overwhelmingly wrong about something. I understand parochial service-specific cheerleading, but this is just assed-up.

However, defense analysts also subjected the military character of the campaign to scrutiny, with some now suggesting the fight in Libya indicates that airpower has finally fulfilled its decisive promise, having matured to the extent that it can win wars with only a minimal ground component. According to retired USAF Lt. Gen. David Deptula, “Whether one agrees or not with the intervention, one thing is clear -- and no surprise to objective observers: Modern air power is the key force that led to the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime.” The effect of such a conclusion on austerity-afflicted military budgets in Europe and the United States could be huge and costly, as it is almost certainly premature.

Absolutely not. Modern airpower was an enabling force that turned the tide on behalf of a proxy ground force. Modern airpower did not cause the Ghaddafi government to fall any more than it caused Saddam to leave Kuwait or the Serbs to leave Kosovo. F22s didn't land in Tripoli and push out government forces, nor did they drag Ghaddafi from a tunnel in Sirte. Ground forces did that. They weren't NATO, US, or a Coalition-of-the-Week, but they were on the ground. Airpower proponents should remember that. Just because they're not drawing a paycheck from the same treasury as your fighter pilots doesn't make them less relevant to the fight.
Modern airpower was an enabling force - perhaps even an overwhelming one - but it was an enabler and it was not the decisive force. That force is still on the ground, and always will be.

By: Brant

The "Army of Jason Bournes" Claims Another Career

The USAF civilian who oversaw a questionably-legal 'spy ring' in the AfPak theater has resigned.

A man accused of running an illegal contractor spy ring in Afghanistan has resigned from the Air Force, still maintaining his innocence, and still facing possible criminal charges.
Two investigations continue in a case that has tested the definition of what contractors are allowed to do in war zones.
Air Force civilian employee Michael Furlong, together with his boss, Mark Johnson, resigned in July after the Air Force inspector general told the men they'd face official censure for how they ran an information gathering network in Afghanistan.
"After 17 months of DOD investigations and an FBI investigation, it was determined that no criminal laws were broken," Furlong wrote in his August 12 resignation letter, obtained by the Associated Press.
But inquiries continue by the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service, a senior defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters still under legal review.
The CIA alleged in late 2009 that Furlong's private military contractors were running an illegal covert spying network in Afghanistan and Pakistan, managed by legendary ex-spymaster Duane R. Clarridge. The then-CIA station chief complained those contractors were helping target terrorists for capture and kill operations, and getting in the way of agency operations on the ground, according to multiple U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. All officials spoke anonymously to discuss intelligence matters.

Now, what's really funny are the comments on the article, by a bunch of people who have -zero- idea how intel/security work. They think the gov't shut it down b/c it was doing too good of a job competing w/ the CIA. Oy.

You can follow the older coverage here:
GrogNews: Pentagon Investigating AfPak News "Intel" Unit
GrogNews: Covert? Or Rogue? StratCom/OSINT website masking hit squad?
GrogNews: Investigating the Rogue Hit Squad
GrogNews: Investigating A Parallel "Intel Agency" and How It Was Buried In Clever Contracting


By: Brant

New Upgrades On The Horizon For USAF F-16s

Defense News reports that the USAF F-16 fleet are expected to receive additional upgrades because of delays in the F-35 program.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal Group, Fairfax, Va., said the Air Force will “look closely at [Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA)] radar upgrades beyond the current (V)9 program, but also ongoing engine power and reliability improvements, [electronic warfare] and cockpit mods, and of course any necessary structural work for aging airframes.”

Lockheed Martin, which builds the aircraft, has some ideas as to what the service needs to do to keep the Fighting Falcon in fighting trim into the 2030s.

The jet has to have its structural life extended from the standard 8,000 hours to between 10,000 and 12,000 hours. Certain parts of the structure will have to be modified, said Bill McHenry, Lockheed’s F-16 business development chief.

Currently, the Air Force is evaluating the structural life left in its newer Block 40 and 50 F-16s, McHenry said. Those aircraft might have life left in them past 8,000 hours because they have been flown in relatively benign configurations, he said.

The older Block 25s and 30s have been flown hard in configurations that are not conducive to extended airframe life; for example, carrying asymmetrical loads.

McHenry said retrofitting structural upgrades should not be a problem. The key to keeping the aircraft relevant is the avionics.

McHenry said that AESA radars from Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are likely to have to compete to win a contract to replace the existing radar.

Further consideration is being given to adding the Multi-function Advanced Data-Link (MADL) from the F-35 on to the F-16, which would allow the aircraft to be interoperable with fifth-generation stealth fighters. Such upgrades should be fairly simple because of the F-16’s hardware architecture, McHenry said. “We’re very proud of the fact that we offer our customers options,” he said.

By: Shelldrake