Axe wrote a very interesting story on the A-10 at Green Flag that recently occurred at JRTC, FT. Polk, La.
He buried the lead though. Read the entire thing but check this part out...
The March 9 to 26 exercise pitted Army units and the supporting Air Force squadrons against JRTC’s highly-trained Opfor. Firing lasers instead of live rounds, the two sides battled on the ground and in the air. Opfor uses Lakota helicopters painted to represent Russian-style gunships.SOCOM is big enough to handle the unconventional warfare role worldwide solo. Time for the conventional force to swing back to dealing with the conventional threat. It'll take about 4 years of hardwork to reorient the force to fighting the conventional fight....tons of rotations through JRTC, NTC and Steel Knight (or whatever the USMC is calling it these days) but it can be done.
The Opposing Force quickly gained the advantage. “The Army got it handed to them,” Waring said. “No other way to put it.” Opfor “killed” the entire Army force twice, forcing it to “regenerate”—like getting extra lives in a video game.
This is a wakeup call.
I hope HQ Army and HQMC are listening.
Sidenote: One other thing I find interesting but can't know the details of till I can get my hands on the order of battle for this exercise, but did the OPFOR use or imitate fast attack aircraft? Something like the SU-25? The OPFOR Lakota's point to a glaring weakness. The belief that we will have air superiority. Even if the USAF, USN and USMC win the deep fight, if the enemy can gain even local air superiority over our forces then we're screwed...and we still don't have viable, mobile anti-air systems that can keep up with our armored formations.
