If it’s got to be done, then do away with the Key West Accords that prevent the Army from having fixed-wing aviation, and let the Army build up it’s own fleet of close-support assets on its own. The Air Force mentality is just too damn different for them to ever really be able to integrate well.

I think the Soviets had it right–They had more than one “Air Force”, and their Frontal Aviation was more like what we need for close air support. Only thing is, I think that the Air Force “reason for being” is an artifact of the mid-20th, and is rapidly evaporating as we watch. What’s coming down the line is a near-complete obviation of everything that’s manned and in-atmosphere. In space, there’s still purview for manned equipment, due to the lag in communications, but that’s only in terms of command/control–Combat is going to be remote-operated drones.

The “Army’s Air Force” of the future is likely to be UAV-based, and controlled by some lowly junior enlisted guy with a tablet and an X-Box controller, huddled in with the platoon RTO and the PL. The Air Force is going to be completely irrelevant because ain’t nobody gonna be riskin’ an 80 million-dollar manned aircraft to drop bombs on some ragheads firing a PKM at our guys…

That’s not to say that close air support is not an invaluable tool. It is. But it’s purpose to to spot and destroy a relatively small enemy formation, in defense of a relatively small friendly unit. It is literally flying, self-spotting artillery in this role.

Japan was not able to wait out the A-bomb attacks. But that’s an extreme case, probably never to be repeated.

In the long run, that which does not make us stronger kills us. Wear them down. They can’t wait it out forever.

However, many of the targets for strategic bombing are better tasked to ballistic and cruise missiles, which can be launched from submarines. Even our existing heavy bombers are really missile trucks.

There are still uses for carpet bombing, and heavy bombers are ideal for that. But the day of fleets of heavy bombers is over.

Even in WW II, our strategic bomber crews suffered percentage losses higher than our infantry. Only submariners deaded at a higher rate.

I thought the evidence in recent times was that no matter how much overwhelming air superiority one has and no matter how many tons of napalm one drops, the nature of war in the last fifty years has changed. The enemy merely waits out the bombing raid and emerges to still control the ground, where in the end success comes in military terms.