| What must not be lost in all the oohing and aahing over GPS bombs and the great job that our friends in the AF are doing is that they cannot replace tube FA.
Can a GPS bomb be as accurate or more accurate than a tube fired projectile? Absolutely, unless somebody decides to jam the GPS signal or take out the satelites (neither of which are hard to do, though the second is pretty expensive)
Is the AF doing a great job in Afghanistan/did they do a great job in the Balkans? Again, absolutely. Similarly, they did well in DS. What's the commonality? Air superiority. What happens in a scenario where we don't have air superiority? If we rely too much on air power, maneuver is naked in so far as fire support is concerned.
Consider also all-weather capabilites and responsiveness. Could the North Koreans attack during a blizzard? What happens when nobody can fly? Or, in any situation, what happens when the CAS is bingo fuel, and the maneuver commander just ran into an ambush and needs more covering fire than his organic mortars can provide?
Clearly, the Interim and Legacy forces need something besides Paladin and MLRS. Is it Crusader? IMHO, no. I think we should purchase something off the shelf, like the South African guns cited above, to give maneuver the fire support it deserves, while putting our money into R&D to develop the next generation of gun (rail guns, smart ammo, etc..) |