USAF looks to cut TACPs almost in half
Much like the USMC getting rid of their tanks and cutting helicopter squadrons, this decision by the USAF comes with a free T-shirt that says, “We’ll never regret this decision.” The Air Force is looking for Congressional approval to cut their Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) special operations forces. I’ve talked about TACPs before, SrA Bradley Smith earned a posthumous Silver Star for gallantry in action in Afghanistan.
TACPs, if you don’t know, are the guys who deploy with your various tier one special operations units (Army SF, Navy SEALs, et. al.) and call in close air support, artillery, and medical evacuations assets. I’m sure we’ll never need those skills again. What with the most recent information I can find, we’ve got SOF deployed in some 154 countries (about 80% of the globe).
From Air Force Times;
The Air Force is set to shrink its elite corps of tactical air control party airmen by nearly half over the next three years, Air Force Times has learned.
Downsizing the cohort is among the Air Force’s latest steps to pivot toward the Indo-Pacific after 20 years of more traditional air-ground wars in the Middle East.
TACPs deploy with Army and special operations units and act as liaisons between forces on the ground and those overhead. Cutting those airmen would significantly limit the number of officers and enlisted airmen who are trained as battlefield scouts to plan attacks and call in airstrikes on the front lines.
Around 3,700 officers, enlisted airmen and civilians currently serve in the TACP workforce, Air Force spokesperson Maj. Patrick Gargan said Monday. If approved by Congress as part of the Pentagon’s annual budget requests, that would fall to around 2,130 positions by 2025 — a 44% cut.
“The Department of the Air Force continues to work hard to create a force of airmen and [Space Force] guardians with the right mix of skills to meet the mission requirements today and address future pacing challenges,” Gargan said. “We’ll continue to manage our personnel programs thoughtfully and deliberately, recognizing that people are our most valuable resource.”
Still, the service argues that the field command-and-control skills TACPs offer will “become even more imperative” in competition with other world powers like Russia and China.
Most active duty TACPs are part of air support operations squadrons that fall under the 93rd Air Ground Operations Wing at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia; and the 435th AGOW at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The Air National Guard employs TACPs as well.
…
The Air Force is shrinking its workforce overall to repurpose funds for higher priorities as it gets rid of hundreds of outdated aircraft.
Among those airframes is the A-10C Thunderbolt II attack plane, or “Warthog,” with which TACPs work closely to protect soldiers and other ground troops in combat. The Air Force wants to dump all of those planes by 2029 and use F-35 Lightning II fighter jets for the close air support mission instead.
Troops in Contact, an advocacy group for the close air support community, opposes the Air Force’s plan to retire the Warthogs, arguing that the changes will “cost lives” and “risks losing battles.”
“Ground troops would be supported, if at all, by [close air support] amateurs in a small, expensive fleet of fragile aircraft that are far less effective,” the group said on its website.
Air Force Special Operations Command and Air Combat Command, which oversees TACPs, have started to rethink the role of their airmen in competition with world powers. Troops in Contact argues a robust group of TACPs would still be relevant in conflicts with Russia or China.
“Europe’s low weather and missile threats drive low-altitude standoff tactics that a team of well-trained TACPs and A-10s were built for,” the group said. “A 50% cut in TACPs will mean no support below the brigade level. Coordination with ground forces will be abysmal.”
In the Indo-Pacific, the group added, TACPs would be “invaluable” to soldiers and Marines as they secure island territory.
“A properly manned TACP force can provide critical [communication] nodes forward,” the group said. “This not only increases the survivability of … fighters and bombers, but it provides CAS expertise and island defense in a theater that will need it.”
More at the source.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Air Force, Defense cuts
TACP’s don’t just support Special Forces, every maneuver Brigade (Armor/ Infantry) has one. I used to routinely dish on what many soldiers called the Brigade Golfing Team, but they are an invaluable resource when it comes to fires planning and execution. If they are pulling back from the Direct Support role that is so not a good thing. Hopefully somebody will give that another look.
I suspect some of this reduction is due to recruitment gaps. I was looking into possibly switching to the AF later in my career… several different recruiters informed me that the jobs available to non-AF prior service (at least those with more than 10yrs TIS) at the time were limited to TACP, CCT, EOD, etc.
They seemed desperate to fill those billets.
Got word from a VERY reliable source of numerous C-130 Gunships sitting parked because they can’t get crews for the aircraft…and mechanics to maintain them.
Yep.
If I remember rightly, we had some of those guys with us when I was in 3ID, back in 98.
Had a few attached to my platoon back in the day.
Good dudes to have around.
Time to revisit the Key West agreement. Army needs their own tactical air force.
Anyone else of the opinion that the gutting of Warriors, and War Machines, from our Military is being done deliberately? Yeah, I thought there would be.
God help us. Guess I need to build a berm around my blade of grass.
So a backdoor backstabbing to ditch the A-10 in other words.
Stupid.
I have never understood why the Air Force big wigs want to get rid of the A-10.
‘Cause they ain’t ground-pounders.
They want the latest & greatest to add “picket fence” to their OERs for the next promotion.
‘Cause the Fighter Mafia is in charge.
George Santayana is rolling in his grave.
It’s a rhyming history, just like some Air Force strategists after Nagasaki, assuming strategic bombing had eclipsed all other realms of aerial warfare.
Why do a job with a purpose-built, rugged, inexpensive Warthog when you can use a super expensive, flashy new fighter jet? They need to justify those half million dollar helmets with some mission.
Great idea Air Force.
Shitcan your A-10s, and also cut 50% of your TACP personnel. Then you’re going to try to rely on your F-35s to support the CAS mission. What could possibly go wrong?
Oh well; I’m sure that it’ll be a real barrel of laughs to watch USAF F-35 pilots attempt to get low enough/close enough to effectively deliver ordnance danger close to friendly troops in contact during a “talk-on” CAS mission.
YeeHaw!
They need the money for SHARP training.
The stupid bastards on the internet (youtube pacifically) bitching about how out of all air assets the A-10 has the most blue-on-blue incidents “so it has to go.”
Even weighted, it’s true.
It’s a lethal aircraft…
that happens to be able to get there.
How the fuck is an aircraft with a stall speed best expressed in scientific notation and a fraction of the bullets (when the gun works) gonna fill the same roll?
It’s fucking rhetorical, it won’t.
Fuck the Air Farce brass and the asshole Pentagoinggoinggone.
The last time we tried to replace the A-10 with a fighter we got the quickly aborted attempt to make the F-16 into the F/A-16. As I recall the GAU-8 derivative they mounted on the wing made it one or two days in combat before they chucked the whole program out the door.
The only thing I can think of is there must be a major pilot shortage current or one brewing. Each TACP is normally led by a pilot. If they are being called home then the need for pilots must have dramatically increased or is expected to.
This might be a great time to bring back the A1 Skyraider. A cheap, outstanding little performing aircraft that carried a bunch of ordinance and was easy to maintain and fly. It is much faster, with greater range than and can carry more ordinance than any rotary wing air craft out there the US flies.
Here they are preaching the word in Vietnam.
A-1 SKYRAIDER “FLYING DUMPTRUCK” / “SANDY” S.A.R. MISSION IN VIETNAM 74222E – YouTube
I like that idea, might need a little engine modernization though. Maintaining that awesome Wright Duplex-Cyclone could be problematic.
PT6C? I’m sure there is something out there that will work.
I like that idea, might need a little engine modernization though. Maintaining that awesome Wright Duplex-Cyclone could be problematic.
There is always the Piper Enforcer, a turbo-prop Mustang on steroids.
Or the AT-6 variant of the T-6 Texan II. Or we go with the Brazilian Super Tucano variant the USAF bought for the now deposed Afghan government. Both of these designs are based on Pilatus aircraft.
I still vote for the A-10 even though the Piper Enforcer would have plenty of cool factor going for it.
I guess they’re downsizing everywhere.
I don’t remember reading it here, so I apologize if you’ve already mentioned it:
Air Force to Retire Half Its AWACS Fleet, Most JSTARS, Leaving ‘Small Gap’ in ISR
“The Air Force plans to retire half its AWACS fleet of E-3 Sentries and most E-8C JSTARS in fiscal 2023 and 2024, but it anticipates a delay between the retirements and new space-based ISR capabilities that could replace them, Air Force leaders said as the 2023 budget request rolled out.”
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-to-retire-half-its-awacs-fleet-most-jstars-leaving-small-gap-in-isr/
Didn’t we have to beg NATO allies for AWACS after 9/11?
I’d be willing to bet they haven’t downsized a single golf course.
Time to retire some Flag officers, save a fortune.
My first assignment out of Aircrew Life Support Tech School was to an OV-10 Bronco unit (27th TASS, 602nd TACW). I was heart broken, as my dad had always been assigned to fighters and here I am working on a prop plane. Hell he worked next door to me in a F-4 unit. Yeap dad and I were stationed at the same base at the same time. Didn’t take long to fall in love with the bird or the Ground FAC/Air FAC mission. Our sister squadron flew the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Then I got sent to C-130s, thinking OMG this sucks even worse, where I was placed on mobility with the Special Operations MC-130s (7th SOS, 39th SOS). Fell in love with that aircraft and mission. Then I finally went to fighters F-15 Eagle (1st FS, 325th FW), you’d think I would be happy, but I missed being in AFSOC and their mission. So when I left AD, I joined a Reserve AFSOC unit (711th SOS, 919th SOW), where I became an Air Reserve Technician (ART). But I noticed that the AF retires planes and such when they are old. The aircraft has a proven record, and seems irreplaceable, but hey a new aircraft can do the job instead. But it doesn’t workout in the long run. They tried using the F-16 as a ground attack aircraft, also as a Wild Weasel. I’m reminded of something my first NCOIC in the Reserves said. He stated to a Bird Colonel, that “Yall get a lobotomy when yall make Colonel”. When asked why, he followed up with “Because yall make the most idiotic decisions, that make no sense to anyone but yall selves”. That said, I really think he was on to something there. TACPs do something no one else does in the AF, let’s cut their manning. Oh the A-10 is getting long in the tooth, but we have nothing that can fly that slow, that low, take a beating, and come home. Let’s replace it with a high speed, 5th generation 75 million dollar bird, we haven’t worked the kinks… Read more »
If they shitcan the A-10 there’s effectively no going back. As I recall, all of the tooling for that airframe has long since been destroyed. I don’t think the Air Force is going to put the Warthog in storage, the want it gone, Gone, GONE!
Of course they want to cut the war fighters. That way they could spend my federal dollars on pronoun investigation and trans surgeries. A far more important situation than some petty war.
It’s way past time that the Army tore up the Key West Agreement and took over the CAS mission from the Air Force. The zoomies have nothing but disdain for it. Let the Army take the A-10 and TACP missions.
“we’ve got SOF deployed in some 154 countries (about 80% of the globe)”
Then we can afford to cut the number of SOF by 50% as well.
The AF decided that there weren’t enough under represented ‘protected class’ interested in the TACP job so they had to cut numbers in order to make it look better.