Christian Lowe reports:
I’ve heard rumblings that both the Air Force and Navy are looking to the Super Tucano for their primary ground attack bird. That’s an excellent choice for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the ST’s long loiter time and impressive array of machine guns, a 20mm cannon, and rocket pods. It’s also a proven in the field. A Columbian Air Force Super Tucano dropped the bomb that killed FARC #2 Raul Reyes during a cross-border raid into Ecuador last year. Additionally, the Air Force has fielded a new squadron of MC-12 ISTAR birds in a Iraq, an intelligent solution to a long standing capabilities gap between ground pounders and the overtasked UAV fleet. Key to both the MC-12 and (proposed) Super Tucano acquisitions is that they’re cheap enough to be purchased by second and third world allies plagued by indigenous insurgencies, easing the tricky task of standing up friendly foreign air forces. This is all part of a smart new COIN v2.0 campaign sweeping the Pentagon, and evidence that the US Air Force is finally getting serious about counter-insurgency.
