AirForces Monthly – June 2018

once had a working

breakfast on an exercise

with a British general

(now retired) who was a strong

advocate of light attack aircraft

as a more cost-effective way of

fulfilling the counter-insurgency

role in Afghanistan. I delighted

him by saying that I thought

his idea was brilliant (he wasn’t

getting much traction from

other senior airmen). However,

he was less impressed when

I followed up with “...as a

replacement for your Apaches”.

Over recent years, rather than

being specialist, modern combat

aircraft have increasingly been

designed for and employed in

multiple roles. Some of this has

occurred due to the need to

be flexible in terms of mission

employment, but it has also been

driven by cost – on tight budgets

it’s increasingly difficult to afford

multiple aircraft types, each

optimised for a specific role.

Designing a multi-role capability

into a platform is always a

compromise and trade-offs are

made, based on the most likely

employment and the probable

opposition forces to be faced.

Because of the lead time for

aircraft development and the need

to address the most dangerous

or potent threats rather than the

ones it’s likely to meet most often,

modern air forces tend to set their

requirement specification up to

the highest levels affordable. This

results in aircraft inventories that

are highly capable (and expensive)

but able to deter and, if necessary,

defeat the deadliest opponents

• if you like, the ultimate, gold
  standard insurance policy.

Counter-insurgency

campaigns

That such assets have proven

highly versatile in meeting roles

and scenarios that were not ‘built

in’ from the outset is testament

to their designers and the air

forces and aircrew who operate

these aircraft. The recent

decades of counter-insurgency

warfare in the Middle East and

Afghanistan have seen modern

combat aircraft using only a

fraction of their overall capability

and completely overmatch an

unsophisticated enemy with

no air power or credible air

threat. Understandably, this has

caused some to question the

balance of investment for aircraft

that appear over-complex and

costly for the operations they

are being asked to conduct.

Of course, light attack aircraft

have always been a good

option for those air forces who

can neither afford or need the

capability to defeat a high-tech

adversary, where the purchase of

more advanced capability would

be more for vanity than necessity.

Increasingly, light attack aircraft

can carry both the sensors and

weapons of a more expensive

fighter, and they are well matched

to meet some or all of the

counter-insurgency mission,

especially where control of the

Light attack aircraft

Cost

effective

air power

or a false

economy?

I

http://www.airforcesmonthly.com #363 JUNE 2018 // 87

Light attack aircraft

‘When you are fi ghting

a counter-insurgency

air campaign in

geographical areas

that cover hundreds of

thousands of square miles,

the additional speed of

response of an advanced

combat aircraft

saves lives’

A Textron AirLand Scorpion prototype releases an AGM-114 Hellfi re during initial weapons trials. The Scorpion

participated in the USAF’s same OA-X evaluation as the A-29, AT-6 and AT-802L Longsword. Although rejected for

further USAF tests, it has been demonstrated to Saudi Arabia. Textron AirLand/Jim Haseltine