Rodney, start with Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

If you want it direct from Boyd, here is one of the few recordings of his famous Pentagon briefings, Conceptual Spiral. You will need the slide pack to follow along as he references it: Conceptual Spiral John R. Boyd




Further study would be his 1964 Aerial Attack Study
Finally leading to his only other written work: Destruction & Creation

(Youtube playlist Conceptual Spiral if URL if the youtube insert doesn't work in your browser: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...569CDF59FE54A3 )

R.Rude;

I also, was not imbibing while scribing, I was merely musing on the issues of defence of the realm.

Boyd was an accidental academic warrior intellectual, who was despised by his superiors, and loved by the Marines who get his ideas. His grave is not frequented by blue suiters, they still hate him for making the case against bigger, costlier and more glamorous weapons systems. His acolytes included some remarkable people who were on the top of their game, and comprehended that the rough brash arrogance of Boyd was the outer shell of a person who had a fundamental understanding of conflict.
Christie, Spinney, Wyly and the rest of his followers, the gang in the pentagon made their mark, and almost all were effctively marginalised by the system. They did prove that the 60's and 70's designs of aircraft by the USAF were fundamentally flawed, including the F-14, F-15 (to an extent) and others, like the B-ONE... a plane without a need. The USAF got the F-16 specifically due to Boyd and Co as well as the A-10 as well. The gang highlighted the fundamental flaws of the Bradley AFV. If you have ever watched the Kelsey Grammer comedy about the Pentagon Wars, should be aware that the gang of Boyds exposed the falsification of battle damage assessment in the trials, where water was used to replace fuel when the test of response to hits from ordinance was undertaken. These were guys with integrity and brains, who were trying to defend their realm. Today, we have Trump. we have a SOCUS nominee who has lied to congress in swort testimony, and there is a majority that are refusing to provide records that have been available for the last 240 years.

We in the west are stuck in reliance on long lead systems, whereas rat cunning tends to move fast and stochastically, and can get inside your decision making cycle and mess you up. We don't necessarily have an adversary external to AUS, but the money spent on defence needs to deal with predictable risks, while ensuring that we dont build in own goals as a result of that process. Being agile is important, as most adversaries are smart, and able to assess weaknesses where strengths were assumed.

As a clarification, I'm not averse to systems that provide an edge in potential fights, I am concerned that modern systems are like the effort taken to build 12' walls, which take much longer to employ than it takes to design a 13' ladder. Going back to Boyd, or Sun Tzu, that is in keeping with having a macro as well as a micro view of conflict.

Don't bother shooting me for heresy, I've done my time, the problem is for the later generations to deal with.

cheers

Not true. I was part of the selection team for the New Fighter Aircraft Program (replacing our CF-101s, CF-104s and CF-5s) in the late-70s. The competitors were: F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18A, F-18L, and Tornado. The competition went down to a 'short list' of F-16 vs F-18; and was won by F-18. Which was also my personal choice.

I remember Australia had a similar shortlist with the F-14 and F-15 being too expensive, the F18L not in production even though it was Northrops design. What was it that swung the final desision in favour of the F18A? Was it range/payload or was it the twin engine layout. At the time the Europeans went for the F16 but they also got some big offsets.

Because the New Fighter Aircraft had to replace our existing three types of fighters, it therefore had to be capable in the Air Intercept, Air-to Air, and Air-to-Ground roles. The F-16 at that time did not have a BVR missile so we would have to pay for all the R&D associated with employing the AIM-7 on the aircraft. The F-18 came AIM-9 and AIM-7 ready. That was one (operational) reason. As always, there were many political factors. But the bottom line is that we got the right aircraft.

Only the small fry went for the F-16 in Europe - France, UK, Germany, Spain & Sweden never bought them

The thread started as a discussion about the F-35 and whether it was a wise use of tax payer dollars. France, UK Spain and Sweden and Italy spent many,many,many more tax payer dollars developing their own fighters which ultimately gave them a capability similar to the F-16 but 15 years later. If the Cold War had turned hot then those "small fry" countries with their F-16s would have been taking the fight to the MiG 29 while the Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafaele were sitting on the draughting boards of the European manufacturers. Post Cold War the original small fry have been joined by all the new NATO countries in their purchase of the F-16.

BTW Thanks TLB for your insight and reply.

Thanks fdr.

This is from the top of my head from past material read and am happy to be out-googled by other armchair strategists. We can't go a page without the F111 being mentioned but these snippets a little unfair.

Yes, the trial deployment of F111's saw its withdrawal due wing-box failure and some unexplained crashes- possibly the radar used out of parameters on low level penetration missions into the North ( I trek and cave in the Laos/ Vietnam border region and anything below MSA must be terrifying ). Australia delayed its delivery too.

Before the RAAF took delivery in 1973, USAF F111's were flying with considerable success in the Christmas bombings and earlier Linebacker campaigns in 1972. They had losses but their missions were unescorted into an air defence area as sophisticated as Moscow's and with more anti-aircraft artillery batteries than Berlin 1945. In a murderous bombing campaign, perhaps they bombed a little more discriminantly too, than the carpet bombing by B52's and less specialized platforms.

I'm glad you presented Boyd. I wish more civilians in government knowledgable of his writings. Interestingly your comments about the development loop ring true with F35. In the RAAF's example we had a retiring AVM slamming governments wiring of the F18's for EW, stating it was a waste of money to have expensive jammers with a fleet of stealth aircraft. Now, there may well be evolving counters to the F35 whereby this Growler capability is necessary for its survival in some missions. The retiring AVM seems brash and simple on reflection, though his opinions could have left Australia considerably exposed. He was against the SH interim in total !

But the F111 may be the antithesis to Boyd. It's evolution and roles it played for the RAAF and USAF ( tank killing adaption in GW 1 for example) run counter to his thereoms. Even consider the F111 stand-in for the RAAF, the F4E, it required the RAAF to buy 48 F4E ( doubling the loaned fleet ) and a dozen out of production tankers to commit to the roles of the F111. So fundamental capabilities such as speed, new technology sensors and long range, were adapted quicker than say, the F4E capability of the day, or the F16's evolution toward a all weather multi-role from a simple day fighter.

A welcome drift. Submarines for Australia indeed. Should be nuclear of course but again the bogan debate for submarines over the years fails to use compelling historical evidence of their importance to our unique environment, more a case for them being diesel to placate the Left.

The compelling argument for airpower and submarines, the sea-air gap and Indonesian/ PNG archipelago, goes back 70 years to WW2. Battle of the Bismark sea with RAAF & USAF airpower and USN submarine operations and the sinking of Japanese convoys reinforcing New Guinea. The Take Ichi convoy is used as an example in naval institute press of two US submarines wiping out a Japanese infantry division without Allied loss ( interdicted in the Celebes Sea )- more Japanese losses here than direct combat losses on the Kokoda and Buna from Australian troops!

Nothing has changed- even the rise of China. China's trade and energy requires steaming on the Malacca Straits well before the South China Sea. A Chinese supertanker, following a blockade of this strait, has alternative choke-point routes, via Indonesia's Lombok and Sunda straits . Annex or invasion of Taiwan say, would see battles well beyond the Formosan straits, as China's starved of its trade and oil.

The positioning on the ADF with a push toward cutting-edge maritime and stealth airpower and the American repositioning to "training" bases in our north, suggests we are preparing to fight a war with China on the same seas as WW2. And the decision was made a fair while ago! Though recent published comments by former PM Paul Keating, to USN admirals, of a glug-glug scenario of allied surface combatants ending up at the bottom of the South China Seas, suggest misplaced geography in many quarters. The PLN in its modest blue water capabilities is no match for western stealth airpower and subs a long way from its ports in Hainan.

G'nads;

The F-111 at the time of IOE was a problem child. Don't take this wrong, I happen to love the plane, always have, and having watched a loss of one have a certain soft spot for it and the operators. The survivability of it in the theatre at the time of IOE was the specific cause of its removal from ops downtown. Had the technology we have today been available, quite possibly the outcome would have been quite different, but that was not the case. To survive, EMCON was needed to be absolute, and the F-111 in common with the A-6A/E etc had problems at that time. The "Bone" is more of the same in that respect.

For AU operations in an area where integrated air defence was limited, then the F-111 is able to make a fashion statement, and range is certainly an attribute of the design. A bit of additional tech on some of the wing stations would have been nice, some design tradeoffs get regretted later.

Today, there is a cost related to range, Breguet's formula means combat range comes at a cost, and that is in dollars for the pounds required (size) or the package size needed to get a smaller aircraft with a limited fuel fraction to get places. AU has developed support capability greatly, which was needed, and will be more important over time in the absence of the range of the F-111. Large packages complicate the C3 issues, and bring in new ways to get messed up (or old ways, recall desert 1...)

Boyd had input into G-1.0, with the army taking a crash course in the importance of getting inside the decision loop of the adversary. Stormin' Normans tactics incorporated that as a concept, which was also of course in keeping with Fuller or Guderian, (Rommel was effective in his efforts as well, at our cost in the antibodies, but failed to manage his logistics tail, which was a chronic problem to the concept of blitzkrieg, where the tail was extended excessively by the success of the Schwerhpunkt doctrine, logistics infrastructure having a lower tech development at that time).

To the F-35, my reservations on that aircraft are fairly simple; it is excessively costly and has had too long a development cycle. Multi role capability comes with a high cost, and I suspect that is going to result in a deficit in some areas that have impact on the boots in the field, which at the end of the day, is still the focus of conflict in conventional conflicts. In asymmetric conflicts, these assets have little impact on dealing with threats. The new battle space in asymmetric warfare may well be better prosecuted by MQ-9's, or smaller units with improved ordnance.

AUS will be well served by the F-35, but it isn't cheap, and I am concerned with the CAS mission. Perhaps it will do well, and we will have enough of them to support boots, but I would be happier to see more dedicated CAS capability.

musings.

Maybe the Yanks have finally woken up to the fact that quantity as well as quality is needed to keep pace with the Chinese military when the inevitable conflict breaks out.

The rise of China since the 70's has come about by the opening of trade with the world at large. In more recent times, the long term planning of China is seen globally, with the amount of resource contracted from all parts of the world, showing there is a positioning to ensure supply of resources. The local hot spots are historically sensitive, but the establishment of military bases in contested waters is a new shift, and does come about from having confidence in the growing naval power at least in the South China Sea. The acoustics in that region frustrate both sides of the sub warfare outcome, but a sub remains a serious risk to any maritime trade and control of sea lanes. In the SCS, mining of the sea lanes and approaches to harbours would be a confounding factor to the prosecution of any war plan involving land grabs of EEZ resources based on maritime transport. Modern mines are a P.I.T.A, literally and figuratively.

Would be interesting to see how this plays out at the end of the next 50 year plan, but I doubt that the reality of benefit of international trade will be lost on the Chinese Govt, except of course that most wars occur due to misunderstandings and overly confident and exuberant aspirations of leaders with unfettered power. Then again Round 1 started because it was just time to have a bit of a fight, and it was easier to have it than get the royalty in charge to contemplate the consequences of their actions.

We tend to fight the last war at least in the beginning of the next one. Where there is an unexpected technological or tactical change that occurs, the outcome becomes more uncertain than otherwise would be the case. The F-35 is an impressive system, but whether it is the right tool for low intensity conflicts, CAS or force projection is the concern I have. The latest pricing estimates for the future frigates appears to be in the same category of capital risk. a $35B/9 Frigate [program?] cost would appear to put each keel into the category of a national treasure. Gunk holing around on a dark night inshore in hostile waters would need a pretty good rationale to be authorised.

There are times where high value assets with leading edge capabilities pay dividends, there are other times that a bicycle, pound of rice and a rifle is impossible to beat. Getting inside the opponents decision making tempo, and having some imagination [not limited to your own view of the world, but comprehending the adversaries position with honesty] makes a difference.

fdr

What about upgrading Super Hornets for a hi-lo mix? I'm sure they'd do a good enough job until we get a new generation helicopter / drone mix for the CAS role.

Flying over the South China Sea most working days and the escalation is dramatic. The cussing on 121.5 with the Japanese and Chinese having a particular ferocity; the Koreans don't mind a crack too. What a shame war in Asia and all its horror features in neither's school text books. There's another generation of aggrieved hawks emerging.

Gnads; expect that there is lots of merit in holding onto the Super Hornets, however the CAS task is not the right task for that aircraft. The SBS following round 2 was intended to show how great the contribution of 3.5mT of HE had been in achieving the outcome, however the evidence really never supported that contention. Viet Nam showed that there is no easy long range solution using air power alone to bend the will of a committed adversary, while also showing that the group think of the strategists as to how the other side would respond remains a problem. In the end, conflict involves people vs people on the ground, and CAS is effective where the right tool is used. Neither the F-18E/F or the F-35 is an ideal CAS aircraft without target designation/illumination. Now that is still a conventional view of conflict, one where another identifiable force enters an area and is engaged. Asymmetric warfare will as often as not confound planning efforts and make the discussion on airframe selections moot, however, Von Moltke's observation that No plan of operation reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main force (restated as no plan survives contact with the enemy) led to Ike's addition that however the effort of planning was everything. Ike indicated that the plan (D-Day) fell apart promptly, but the effort of the planning had given insight to the staff and leaders that permitted the maintenance of momentum with the situational awareness that existed from the planning process. Hopefully that puts some value into review of such weighty decisions as how a nation spends its treasure in maintaining sovereign integrity.

The SCS has been a flashpoint for a long time, and is certainly a spot where a mis-step could end up in tears. In the event of even an accidental commencement of hostilities the $64 question is would national pride "trump" national interest/common sense. China appears strong economically, but it has been entirely due to the external demand until recent times. Getting into a tiff with your customers won't help maintain the growth that has supported the rise of the military capacity. China remains a bubble economy, and has been since the 90's, with a growing socio-economic imbalance between the rural and city populations. The latter have developed wealth from arbitrage with their foreign customers. Entering into hostilities that suspend export would give a pretty interesting internal problem for the leaders, while potentially giving the justification for the return to national manufacture in EU, US and other countries. The real concern is that there is still more rationality in Beijing than in the WH, where Woodward indicated today that in early 2017, Trump asked for a plan for pre-emptive strikes on NK.