One significant reason why the military has such an unwavering reputation for ‘fighting the last war’ is because we are often buying equipment years behind the need.
Brian Connable used 1) Min platoon strength on both sides and 2) Combined Arms employment on both sides for his case studies in "Puncturing the Myths of Modern War". I think that is pretty good baseline when we evaluate relevance of ground combat for a study of modern war. Scale may matter, but it is not definitive by itself when it comes to tactics. Logistics would be a better metric for analyzing large scale conflict in any case.
-The time duration to get something substantive to percolate out of the acquisition process is terrible. It's as if (faster digital systems + simpler communication between vendor and Government + mature technologies = 4x the dev time). For similar roles in history as the new Skyraider, we have the A-37, the O-2, and the Bronco. The O-2 was about 2 years from Need to Production/Fielding (in combat). The A-37 went from concept to 25 aircraft operationally testing in Vietnam inside of 5 years. The Bronco took about 2-3 years. Per unit adjusted cost was all a lot lower. This was in the '60s. Maybe "Industrial Age Management" isn't quite the problem we think it is and 'good management' never goes out of style. Note that these are birds that got good marks for their effectiveness. Some are still flying in both .mil and .civ roles. Notably, the Bronco was resurrected for work overseas as a stop gap in the 2010's.
-As far as the backpack airforce, Erik, you are spot on point. I think a guiding priciple going forward has to be a clear separation between these near earth, small unit airframes, and the bigger, faster, more capable manned and unmanned airframes. The grey zone in between the High / Low is a waste of resources. I say this as cost / capability either quickly escalates, or the thing just does the same thing the smaller / cheaper assets do, especially at scale.
The it’s not LSCO argument blows me away every time. I think they confuse large scale with great power for some reason.
Russia has lost twice as many tanks as the US military owns. But not 'large scale'? Is LSCO just acronym speak for 'Golf War Cosplay'?
Brian Connable used 1) Min platoon strength on both sides and 2) Combined Arms employment on both sides for his case studies in "Puncturing the Myths of Modern War". I think that is pretty good baseline when we evaluate relevance of ground combat for a study of modern war. Scale may matter, but it is not definitive by itself when it comes to tactics. Logistics would be a better metric for analyzing large scale conflict in any case.
-The time duration to get something substantive to percolate out of the acquisition process is terrible. It's as if (faster digital systems + simpler communication between vendor and Government + mature technologies = 4x the dev time). For similar roles in history as the new Skyraider, we have the A-37, the O-2, and the Bronco. The O-2 was about 2 years from Need to Production/Fielding (in combat). The A-37 went from concept to 25 aircraft operationally testing in Vietnam inside of 5 years. The Bronco took about 2-3 years. Per unit adjusted cost was all a lot lower. This was in the '60s. Maybe "Industrial Age Management" isn't quite the problem we think it is and 'good management' never goes out of style. Note that these are birds that got good marks for their effectiveness. Some are still flying in both .mil and .civ roles. Notably, the Bronco was resurrected for work overseas as a stop gap in the 2010's.
-As far as the backpack airforce, Erik, you are spot on point. I think a guiding priciple going forward has to be a clear separation between these near earth, small unit airframes, and the bigger, faster, more capable manned and unmanned airframes. The grey zone in between the High / Low is a waste of resources. I say this as cost / capability either quickly escalates, or the thing just does the same thing the smaller / cheaper assets do, especially at scale.