W.H.BECKETT ୆ K.P.RICE ୆ M.E.KING

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Conclusion

The original concept of the early '60s was first stopped, and then highly modified by the "System," losing the capability to operate with the troops in the process. In spite of opposition by both the Air Force hierarchy and the Navy's SUSCOM, the OV-10A still uniquely covered the low end of the performance envelope and served with distinction in Vietnam with the Marines, Air Force and Navy. It was sold to eight foreign air forces, continued in US service through "Desert Storm" and is still (2003) in use in Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Venezuela and Columbia. In addition, the OV-10 has seen service with NASA, BATF the Bureau of Land Management and as spotters for fire bombers. Not bad for an airplane that was opposed by both the Air Force hierarchy and the Navy SYSCOM.

There is no doubt that, if the needs and desires of the "customer" of CAS, the infantry, were heeded - and the biases and politics of the Air Force HQ and the Navy's SYSCOM could somehow be bypasses, our overall military capabilities could be greatly improved. Today, more than ever, we need to be able to provide timely, decisive support to the troops on the ground. Granted, "air superiority" and "strike" capabilities are very important. However, in the long run, it is usually the guy on the ground who finishes the job and we also need to support him accordingly.

The Air Force, while always giving lip-service to such support, has always opposed it as much as they could in both procurement and practice. All their "CAS" is centrally controlled and the ground commander, except for plans approved days in advance all the way up to three or four star level, can never really rely on it. As a result, CAS is seldom, as the official definition indicates it should be, "integrated with the ground scheme of maneuver." In addition, the operating concept of the aircraft currently doing "close support" has them flying more than two miles high and totally dependent on long range electronic sensors for target acquisition and guided weapons for accuracy. This is fine when it works, but even when it works, this "CAS" fails to exploit the capabilities that historically made CAS so effective. Today, bombers, fighters, artillery and naval gunfire are all effective, but they are all stand-off systems. I am not against this technology, but I have to ask the question, "What happens when it doesn't work?" The recent success in Iraq will undoubtedly mute this question, but it will still be there.

In WWII, CAS integrated with the ground scheme of maneuver (especially Guderian's Panzers, supported by von Richtofen's Stukas) showed how decisive such combined action could be. Our original "home-built" was designed to demonstrate the possibility of improving even on this by operating directly with the supported troops. We never got to demonstrate these advantages, but the OV-10 did demonstrate that, even operating from bases at a distance from the supported unit, visual target acquisition, the ability to discriminate between friend and foe and close-in accurate firepower are still not only desirable, but sometimes decisive.

The other lesson from this exercise is that our engineering community has no shortage of good ideas and if properly directed, can build almost anything. The problem is direction. The system has to be set up so that the user, not the bureaucrats and lawyers provide more essential direction.

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