Low Intensity vs High Intensity Warfare - Channelling Zombie Bob MacNamara

[mongers]

Channelling zombie Bob MacNamara:

Looking back at the Iraq war and at the current fighting in Afghanistan, is surprising how individual aircraft loses were reported and at times, some news sources represented each loss as a serious blow to the US military.

So I happened to come across some figures for fixed wing and helicopter losses during the Vietnam war, they're quite staggering:

226 bombers including 31 B52
175 fighters incl 138 F8 Crusaders
1777 fighter bombers inclu 671 F4 phantoms, 397 Thunderchiefs 362 Skyhawks, 242 F100 Super Sabres
681 coin aircraft incl 266 Skyraiders
187 reconnaissance infl 87 RF-4 Phantoms
30 Gunships
168 transports incl 60 Hercules and 54 C123
67 electronic warfare,tankers and miscellaneous aircraft
and
over 5,000 helicopters lost, the majority Hueys, indeed nearly half of all Hueys deployed to Vietnam were eventually lost.


Admittedly this was over more than 10 years, and the way modern US air operations are conducted and against whom, will mask the intensity of operations conducted, but in a crude way comparing figures for losses suggests an intensity of warfare (airborne) significantly higher than current conflicts. 

Anyone like to suggest some scale for rating the intensity of warfare, from low to high, perhaps something a bit like the Richter or Beaufort scale ?

Maybe a 0 - 10 scale, not logarithmic, and were would you place various wars, operations, battles ?
I'd suggest 0 is peace and 10 strategic nuclear warfare.

So were would Kursk, Normandy, Korea, Gulf War, Afghanistan and the likes of Northern Ireland rate on such as scale ?

[CountDeMoney]

That was a different time;  Vietnam changed the paradigm for both the military--which became casualty-averse for decades to the point of cowardice; and the media--which broadcast it all back home and refused to buy into the government's PR when it came to conflict any longer.

We'd never suffer losses like that ever again.  This isn't the country that won World War II anymore.

397 Thunderchiefs

Depressing.

[Ideologue]

Another factor is that the aircraft we currently use are retarded expensive  I've never understood, given the shift in focus to fighting wars in shitholes, why we have not developed cheaper, less technology-intensive aircraft, and weapons systems in general.  Probably goes to what Money said, all that added expense increases survivability (it also increases lethality and effectiveness, but at increasingly diminishing returns).  Can't put a price tag on a life, etc.  Which of course, you can, and should, because money isn't magic fairy dust, it represents the fraction of people's lives spent working to earn that money.

I wish there were a Zombie McNamara, we need someone rational to reevaluate our nuclear weapons use policy.

[Razgovory]

The Air Force deeply underestimated Vietnamese anti-air capabilities.  There were also a shit ton of air missions during the war, many over hostile territory.  You would expect a fairly large number of down aircraft.

It would be interesting to see what the ratio of air losses to total missions compared to say WWII, Korea, Kosovo and the Iraq wars.

[Razgovory]

If Wikipedia can be trusted  Vietnam the loss rate was .4 per 1000, compared to 2.0 per 1000 in Korea and 9.7 per 1000 in WWII.  I think the the sheer volume of air missions is the reason for the large numbers.  Though I do remember reading that the air force found the Soviet made SA-2 a rather nasty surprise in North Vietnam.

[The Brain]

Why not a logarithmic scale?

[CountDeMoney]

I wish there were a Zombie McNamara, we need someone rational to reevaluate our nuclear weapons use policy.

Uh, no.

[CountDeMoney]

Another factor is that the aircraft we currently use are retarded expensive  I've never understood, given the shift in focus to fighting wars in shitholes, why we have not developed cheaper, less technology-intensive aircraft, and weapons systems in general.

So many more factors are involved on the back endto: the civilian defense industry, their lobbyists, and the elected officials that represent their employees.  It's a big fucking mess.

I've recommended it before, but if anyone wants to read a fascinating book on the politics involved in mission-specific aircraft and the sword-fighting between service branches involved, read Warthog and The Close Air Support Debate.

On a performance-to-cost ratio, the most successful aircraft platform of the last 25 years has been the A-10 Warthog, hands down. And they stopped making it years ago.  Over bullshit.  Stupid Air Force.

And yes, it'll show how your boy McNamara fucked it all up in the beginning.

[Iormlund]

Another factor is that the aircraft we currently use are retarded expensive  I've never understood, given the shift in focus to fighting wars in shitholes, why we have not developed cheaper, less technology-intensive aircraft, and weapons systems in general.

Won't armed drones cover that niche?

[CountDeMoney]

Won't armed drones would cover that niche?

It's starting to look that way, isn't it?  But regardless of the engineering the future has for these things, payload will always be an issue, as will the lack of a human pilot.

[Iormlund]

Increasing payload should be easy enough. Just build them bigger. However, I suspect in asymmetric warfare having more of them to cover more territory would be a better idea. After all you are not expecting to engage a full Guards Tank Army.

As for the lack of pilot, I don't see how that is a problem against enemies that cannot jam or shoot down drones.

[Ideologue]

Another factor is that the aircraft we currently use are retarded expensive  I've never understood, given the shift in focus to fighting wars in shitholes, why we have not developed cheaper, less technology-intensive aircraft, and weapons systems in general.

So many more factors are involved on the back endto: the civilian defense industry, their lobbyists, and the elected officials that represent their employees.  It's a big fucking mess.

I've recommended it before, but if anyone wants to read a fascinating book on the politics involved in mission-specific aircraft and the sword-fighting between service branches involved, read Warthog and The Close Air Support Debate.

On a performance-to-cost ratio, the most successful aircraft platform of the last 25 years has been the A-10 Warthog, hands down. And they stopped making it years ago.  Over bullshit.  Stupid Air Force.

And yes, it'll show how your boy McNamara fucked it all up in the beginning.

I'm not well-learned about McNamara outside the field of nuclear warfare, I'm sure he fucked plenty of stuff up (I assume he had something to do with Vietnam ).

Anyway, I was being a little facetious, but McNamara shook up a stupid nuclear weapons policy and helped guide the crafting of nuclear war plans that, while horrible, didn't have to be apocalyptic.  He got a lot of flak for that, and there's a certain amount of logic to the criticism, but if nuclear war had come, I'd have rather my leaders have constructed methods of limiting or ending the conflict at a level short of "complete exhaustion of nuclear stockpiles or total destruction of all major population centers."

Are you one of those PRChinese sympathizers?

As for the A-10, yes, that's a sad thing.  But look at our shiny F-22s!  Bogus.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm not well-learned about McNamara outside the field of nuclear warfare, I'm sure he fucked plenty of stuff up (I assume he had something to do with Vietnam ).

He fucked up the F-111, too.

Anyway, I was being a little facetious, but McNamara shook up a stupid nuclear weapons policy and helped guide the crafting of nuclear war plans that, while horrible, didn't have to be apocalyptic.  He got a lot of flak for that, and there's a certain amount of logic to the criticism, but if nuclear war had come, I'd have rather my leaders have constructed methods of limiting or ending the conflict at a level short of "complete exhaustion of nuclear stockpiles or total destruction of all major population centers."

Actually, he helped make it worse with his rationalism run amok; and with a staggered, mathematically-ensconced approach of escalatory measures, made it more likely.

Are you one of those PRChinese sympathizers?

Eat me, RAND boi.

As for the A-10, yes, that's a sad thing.  But look at our shiny F-22s!  Bogus.

USAF just has to dogfight;  you know, we've faced so many damned Serbian, Iraqi and Taliban aces the last 20 years.

[mongers]

Actually, he helped make it worse with his rationalism run amok; and with a staggered, mathematically-ensconced approach of escalatory measures, made it more likely.

Yeah, that was what I channelling in the OP; let's have a relatively pointless metric.

By the way have you seen 'Fog Of War' yet ?

[CountDeMoney]

By the way have you seen 'Fog Of War' yet ?

It's somewhere far down the queue for me.  I'm already anti-McNamara, and have read plenty to reinforce the notion;  not really interested in seeing his face.