"Raymond Chuang" wrote
"Paul F Austin" wrote

This is the first big lessons learned to come out of Iraq War-2. Between
the
Apaches getting put out of action by massed gunfire and the demonstrated
advantages of UAVs, the Army decided that Comanche was last-war's
weapon.

There's also another factor: the development of GPS-guided munitions and
the
arrival of the JSTARS command platform with its powerful side-scanning
radar
that could track targets hundreds of miles away. During Operation Iraqi
Freedom, JSTARS planes frequently guided attack planes carrying JDAM and
JSOW weapons to attack targets with great accuracy where the launch plane
was well away from MANPAD rockets and low-altitude AA guns. At the rate
things are going, we may see after 2010 stealthy fast-flying UAV's
dropping
GPS-guided bombs and launching TV/laser-guided missiles.

No single sensor sees all and knows all. For example, JSTARS is extremely
limited in mountainous terrain (because of limited sight lines). Likewise,
very high fliers like U-2 and G-Hawk have trouble with some sensors and some
angles. It takes (and we're deploying) a wide range of sensorcraft that
complement each other. Some of the key ones (U-2, G-Hawk, Rivet Joint and
JSTARs) are extremely over-committed right now.


In short, the days of low-flying attacks by manned aircraft are coming to
an
end.

That may be true in the future, which isn't here yet.