Part 4

Current and Future Doctrine

Some indications of the current RAAF approach to Close Air Support may be gained from its procurement of equipment. This process has led to the absence of any specialist ground attack aircraft currently in the RAAF inventory, nor current plans to acquire them. In the selection process to replace the Mirage, the FA-18 won primarily on its merits as an air control weapon, a choice reinforcing the preferred strategic centralist model. It had more to do with the RAAF ensuring it got the equipment that allowed it to perform its preferred role than any judicious examination of what it should procure to meet the needs of the ADF across a broader spectrum of operations. Once acquired, the FA-18 is now assessed as too costly and hard to replace to be risked in the high attrition environment of Close Air Support of the land battle. Not surprisingly, a corollary arises which states that the Control of the Air requirement will be so exacting of this asset that it is unlikely ever to be available for Close Air Support. Thus, uniquely for the ADF, a Close Air Support gap was created between the FA-18 and the field howitzer. This gap, filled by aircraft such as the A-10 in the USAF and the Jaguar in the RAF, emerged as the poor cousin in RAAF operational policy and became enshrined in doctrine.

Performance of the RAAF in major ADF exercises provides actual examples of the measure of support the land commander can expect. A good case is the first test of the small scale incursion, Exercise 'Kangaroo 83' (K83). Examination of the after exercise reports, where they concern air matters, encapsulate key issues and are best summarised in the major concern that 'the circumstances of the ultimate user (the rifleman) should be borne in mind' but were not well served as 'RAAF Tactical support tasking agencies did not provide a timely response'. Other concerns expressed were:

a. Command of Air Assets. Always contentious and still characterised by the inability of the land commander to gain adequate control over the air assets needed in time to meet his mission. 'Tactical air ... should be controlled by the tactical commander' and 'in the first instance.'

b. Headquarters. Their location and procedures, especially in initial poor response times, manifested the 'parallel wars' syndrome. Separation of vital command elements, particularly the Tactical Air Command Post and the Land HQ, inability of tasking agencies to react quickly, administrative requirements shouldering out tactical requests, lack of direct authority and liaison, remoteness from the user and 'too much bureaucratic processing for air support' are all conditions of rueful familiarity.

c. Large Areas of Operation and Aircraft performance. Air assets either were not based close enough to troops or did not have 'adequate range/payload' for widespread land operations typical of defence activities in Australia's north. The further the range, the poorer the support, particularly as 'multirole aircraft (had) a primary role of air defence' and were not, therefore, available for the land battle. This was hampered further by lack of close airfields capable of handling jet aircraft.

A counterpoint was that the Army's Pilatus Porter aircraft, acting in Close Air Support of infantry, were quicker and more effective in response, and 'filled the gap in support' between friendly gun range (and) FGA support.

The only dissenting opinion to this litany of dysfunction was the RAAF Commander Air West who felt that although 'joint agencies ... have little understanding of the organisation and use of air assets,' he considered, ' very few problems were encountered with doctrines and procedures.' (Ref 43)

Every principle of successful Close Air Support had been broken. Rather than smoothly moving into the unity of operations that conduce effectiveness, it seems RAAF assets and command structures are consistently out of synchronisation with the rest of the ADF, and only come into line with much time and extemporising. Three years would seem sufficient for these lessons to be digested and implemented even without the example of history and experience from Milne Bay to Long Tan, but in Exercise Kangaroo 86:

'It is questionable whether the complete RAAF Tactical Air Support Force (TASF) would ever deploy (as) stated in the Joint Supporting Plan (and) is hard pressed providing tactical air support for one brigade over large AOs. (There is) need for TASF to be placed under operational control (at the very least) of the Brigade, and for the headquarters of both the TASF and Brigade to be colocated and interfaced.' (Ref 44)

Hence, an incontrovertible pattern has now emerged to show where RAAF priorities will be if it takes the field. It is a linear progression of the 'parallel wars' characteristic exemplified in RAAF operations in Malaya and Vietnam, a final assertion of the centralist role conception as the dominant influence in RAAF organisational behaviour. Close Air Support to surface forces had become marginal to how the RAAF conceives its prime contribution to the defence of Australia.

Two major documents illuminate RAAF doctrine and regard for Close Air Support. They are the Air Power Manual, the official expression, and 'The Leading Edge', an approved exposition of corporate dispositions within the RAAF. Both are the refined and major enunciation of RAAF thought over the last twenty years or more, on how it will transact its assignment as part of the ADF and in the defence of Australia. Both are especially authorised by the office of the CAS. Therefore, examination of how they approach close Air Support in the land battle must be taken as a true projection of performance by the RAAF in any operation against incursion onto Australian territory.

Both documents, as has been stated, are in the mould of the classic treatises on Air Power, particularly Douhet. The two are sprinkled with statements that are virtual rephrasing of Douhet's terms; surprisingly they reflect virtually none of the emerging theory of the Air-Land Battle, which was the philosophical underpinning of coalition success in the Gulf War. ( Note iv) The two works project the well ventilated airman's conceit that 'understanding air power is difficult' and requires 'years of training'. Why it is more so than the different but equally demanding training and knowledge required for an understanding of land and maritime power is not explained. Both contain complacent and self-serving interpretation of military history, markedly on the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe and, curiously, on the thoughts of Field Marshal Montgomery. The victor of El Alamein, an unrepentant infantryman and superlative virtuoso of the grande melee, is presented in both works as a kind of latter day apostle of Air Power. This wishful construction seems to rely on an over precise selection of his early tracts taken in isolated context. Later examination of his mature thoughts on War are justified in this paper as a consequence.

Both these official RAAF publications finally state, in the clearest terms, the centralist concept of air asset command, preferring isolation of RAAF assets to conserve them for concentration in the Control of the Air campaign. This, in unequivocal terms, is the raison detre of the RAAF. Control of the Air will be focused on the ocean approaches to the north; the 'critical air-sea gap'. If the air maritime battle of the northern air-sea gap is lost, only then does the land battle on Australian territory have any relevance, and only to the Australian Army for 'land oriented combat air support roles would not be the primary strategic emphasis in allocating RAAF effort in the defence of sovereign Australia.'

In other words, the Land Commander and his forces must fend for themselves. In the 'Air Power Manual' words are not minced in this regard, nor is there room for misunderstanding on this vital point.

'If and when Control of the Air is achieved, then other priorities can be considered. The next priority is Air Bombardment ... The next priority is the Navy and the Army ... the first preference is to support maritime air operations ... Close Air Support ... may have low priority in future operations.' The Army's main role in this postulation is to provide security for RAAF ground bases under, not surprisingly, 'at least operational control (of) the RAAF Base Commander.' In case the point may be missed on 'Control of the Air - the prime campaign', it is mentioned at least four times throughout the publication.

This tactic of reversed concentration, where air power is ' withheld completely' and 'space ... traded for time,' is unofficially titled the ' Cunctator ' method.( Note v ) As Air Power assets are the most valuable in Australia's defence, other services of the ADF must operate to protect them so they can be withdrawn for deployment by Air Power experts of the RAAF, according to RAAF doctrine. This process, the timing of activity and where those assets will be directed, is so crucial to Australia's defence, and so hard to perceive by any other than Air Power experts, that it becomes the sole province of the Air Power advisors to the CDF, the only person sufficiently senior to authorise their precious utilisation. Certainly not by lower level surface commanders unable, and not trained, to discern the subtleties of Air Power application. These 'Cunctated air assets' remain available for the surgical strike which will, at the carefully chosen moment, render an aggressor innocuous.(Ref 45) The ultimate efficacy of this doctrine can only be tested in war but the words of Sun Tze may be germane.

'Thus while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged.'

It has been shown that the doctrinal debate and its resolution, have strong similarities with similar debate with northern hemisphere Air Power theories and practitioners before World War II. This resulted in only the Luftwaffe developing techniques that, from the outset, were effective in the decisive land battles that commenced that war. Such divergence of doctrinal viewpoints between air and surface power theorists, is a trait of interservice dynamics since aircraft were used as weapons. It characterises the air arm attempt to assert independence from those more traditional services, whose procedures and methods are a distillation of centuries of hard won experience and gives rise, not unnaturally, to a 'chronic impatience with history'.

Air Power theories are invariably predicated on the capabilities of aircraft and their weapon systems, either current or imminently available, usually in a circular loop of logic that shines a spotlight on the major equipment and develops a particular set of operational dictums that fit the equipment capabilities. A consistent outcome of such dialectics is an increasing focus on the strategic offensive. Other considerations become servants of the air offensive. This process is one that has occurred frequently, certainly after World War II in the United States as its newly independent USAF strenuously sought legitimacy in its own right. That the RAAF is proceeding along similar deductive furrows, from experience of other countries' air arms, should not be seen as remarkable but merely a manifestation of air force intolerance for the intricacies of the land battle. The process though, as it has now within the ADF, can lead ultimately to a situation where the ground forces have little effective access to air assets for Close Air Support. Against even a modestly sophisticated enemy, this crucial deficiency may produce a defence force unable to win ground battles. It can be argued that this is the situation now applying to the ADF. (Ref 46)

A useful postscript is a brief perusal of Close Air Support in the Gulf War. Although responding to Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, the tactical imperative, where the Coalition forces were required to dislodge forces in place through incursion into Kuwait, placed the armed forces of Iraq in an analogous position to the ADF, if one puts aside ideology. Coalition forces, where United States tactical thought was predominant, primarily followed the emerging 'Air Land Battle' doctrine of the US Army which is based on dispersed concentration of forces that will 'move ... rapidly on multiple routes to mass quickly.' It recognises total unity of combat elements where 'combined arms teams work together ... to dominate the enemy at the tactical level' and the Clausewitzian precept to 'focus primarily on his forces.' Rather than centralise command,' subordinate commanders (are given) more authority and take more risks in gaining positional advantage over the enemy and fight short, violent battles to force the decision. Such doctrine embraces all the strategic elements of Air Power theory but avoids the 'parallel wars' divergence already discussed. It may be a more fitting basis for ADF doctrinal development, given its proven effectiveness.

The RAAF, given the most probable low level incursion threat, also seems to pointedly ignore the small war theorists, notably Mao Zedong. It is more likely that forces making incursions into Australia will have Mao's tenets, or one of his contemporaries, on what was once described as 'Insurgency Warfare', even if only implicitly as their guiding principles. Considering the success of the People's Liberation Army against the Kuomintang forces, and of the Vietminh-Vietcong, without even vestigal air power, the omissions are perhaps understandable but not empirically rigorous. RAAF writers of doctrine could find little comfort in a general who writes: 'Our army at the time had neither planes nor tanks (yet still) learned a complete set of tactics for taking strong fortifications'.(Ref 47)

Whilst in the Gulf War the air campaign was finally a success for Coalition air forces, the part played by the tactical disposition of the Iraqi Air Force greatly enhanced this result. Coalition air planners, drawing on the lessons learned more than twenty years prior against North Vietnam's air defences, expected stiff opposition and similar attrition, given that Iraq's Soviet designed Air Defence System was an upgraded version of the one used by North Vietnam. Coalition superiority in Air Control and Multi-role fighters was only 2: 1, much less a margin than needed to guarantee superiority, particularly against a combat experienced force such as the Iraq Air Force. However, two weeks after the start of the Coalition air offensive, the Iraqi Air Force had withdrawn most of its assets to Iran after giving only token aerial combat. The bulk of Iraq's air control assets withdrew in this manner, leaving the Coalition free to direct its air forces to interdiction and isolation of the Iraqi Army. The feared losses to ground force anti-aircraft missiles failed to materailise in the scale expected and the Iraqi ground forces — particularly the battle hardened Republican Guard, were helpless against Coalition air.

In RAAF parlance, the Iraq Air Force performed the 'Cunctator' tactic at the first inkling that their assets were in danger.( Ref 48 ) This is, perhaps, the first time that the withdrawal of valuable air assets from the initial 'short, violent battle' in the form of the 'Cunctator' tactic has been tested operationally. It is hoped that the fate of Iraq's ground forces, defeated less than ten days after the start of the land offensive, would not be shared by the Australian Army facing an incursion on the Australian mainland if the RAAF follows similar tactics to the Iraq Air Force.

On the only available recent evidence, it would be prudent to ensure that the ground forces of the ADF have the means to minimise that possibility by having Close Air Support available to them as an organic element.

 

Part Five