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The Pentagon has concluded recently that the Army and Air Force are badly prepared aviation wise for Counter-Insurgency (COIN) War Fighting because all of the existing kit of tactical aircraft and attack helicopters are either too vulnerable or provide too much "bang" thereby increasing the problems of "collateral damage" and "fratricide." I n fact, collateral damage alone may bring the downfall of our operations in Afghanistan as it rises in importance around the world. It undermines the true nature of the mission for the US.

Now the services are looking to see what could augment or replace the Apache, Cobra, and A-10 platforms that make up the core of manned assets used to support the troops in what traditionally was know as Close Air Support (CAS). But to deal effectively with insurgents help up in village or urban environments what is needed is lighter caliber, very accurate direct fire weapons with precision sighting, and the ability to get down "into the mud" as they say, at low altitude within the heart of small arms fire and the many families of handheld SAM's.

The only alternative is to stay high, above ground fire and drop precision bombs or shoot precision rockets that have the kind of killing power necessary to drop a house or city block. The "Hellfire" missiles fired from high flying Armed Predators or Reapers, have to deal with dropping houses or a part of a city block.

Because the attack helicopters have become so vulnerable at low altitude - over 26 Apache's dropped by anti-tank rockets alone - we may have experienced the end of the effectiveness of the manned attack helicopter in counter insurgent warfare and that jeopardizes the billions spent. A new Apache can cost more than a new F-16's.

But the ptroblem of fighting in a COIN environment requires a COIN Air Component which is the subject of an article I would like to present. The services have received information from companies working with or producing the new lines of advanced turbo-prop jet trainers like the T-6 and the attack variants made from them as seen with the already successful Tucano, but the utility of such aircraft in the environments presented in Afghanistan may proove very poor as the issues of low altitude survivibility appear to get forgotten. Noise, IR, size, agility, acceleration, sustained G, etc all come into play. What is needed is a mix between the A-10, the Apache, and the OV-10 that ends up being as flexible as a Pitts Special with 2:1 thrust-to-weight and armed with a low calibre "spit-burst" gun providing 6-10 rds per trigger squeeze fired off a laser-dot helmet gunsight by the pilot.

This "Blitz Fighter" is possible as well as the other components of the COIN AIR CONPONENT are and would be outlined in the work as well a drawings.

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