From The Depths

From The Depths

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Khertland Air Force (v4.1.2)
   
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Description
The Khertland Air Force, the youngest branch was first formed after the civil war and has historically been underfunded. Under the military dictatorship, the Air Force maintained a small fleet of planes due to funding priority given to the navy and their naval aviation. It did manage to inherit the strategic bombing fleet built by the Nationalist forces and also adopted the carrier-based Bellerophon II as its primary fighter. But due to priority given to naval aviation over their land-based equivalent, it was starved of funding. Fortunes started to change during the regime's peak under Doron Dubbs. The Air Force had acquired a fleet of light bombers, a new light fighter, and two new types of heavy fighters in service. The Air Force also operated a small numbers of strategic airlift and shared a common AEW&C aircraft design with the navy. While still small, the Air Force was slowly gaining importance as part of Khertland's nuclear triad. More funding was directed towards the branch to improve air defenses over urban centers. The boon ended when the economic depression struck the nation.

As the country democratized and recovered economically, the Air Force once again received a low priority in funding. Although its numbers have recovered to pre-depression levels, it operates very few aircraft types. The funding allotted to the branch is sufficient for purchasing air frames but lacks the capital investment for consistently introducing new models. The funding woes is due to a delineation that close air support, fixed wing or rotary is under the realm of the army. Much like naval aviation under the navy, this severely cannibalized aviation funding from the Air Force. The role of the Air Force was to 'win the air battle,' leaving direct ground support to the army. The idea is that the Air Force is naturally more inclined towards air supremacy instead of CAS. Meanwhile, the Army argues integrating CAS directly allows them to better coordinate the assets. Instead, the Air Force's mission is interdiction, air supremacy, deep strikes, and long-range, wide area surveillance. While the army may operate ground attack aircraft and helicopters, the air force operate fighters, AEW&C, and long range strike aircraft of various types. Instead of having ground spotters call fires up the army chain and down the Air Force chain of command, CAS is closely coordinated within the army's tactical and operation structure. In high intensity conflicts, Air Force fighters will be assigned at a operational level to escort army CAS.

Both the government and joint services have lost interest in sustained strategic bombing, leading to divestiture from heavy bombers. Heavy bombers were seen as too expensive and vulnerable which reduced their utility in high-intensity conflicts. Strategic bombing was also seen as a strictly total war concept, which necessarily had to be high-intensity. This contradiction meant heavy bombers couldn't effectively do its job.
Furthermore, the land-based cruise missiles like the Interitus could provide the necessary regional reach without needing bombers. Land-based launchers are smaller, easier to hide, easier to disperse, and can remain in friendly territory. Besides, military planners noticed that strategic bombing had the opposite moral effect than intended. The other goal of strategic bombing would be to cripple industries, but without launching a continuous 24/7 bombing campaign, industries proved too resilient to eliminate with half measures. In a budget constrained environment, the Air Force determined the opportunity cost of maintaining a viable strategic bombing fleet was just too great.
Meanwhile for low-intensity conflicts, these bombers are too expensive for the job. Already constrained budget-wise, the Air Force decided a tactical aircraft could fill the role of air-launched nuclear deterrence instead of bombers. It would be cheaper, dual-use, more easily dispersed, and in larger numbers, while retaining its flexibility and recallability.

Current Air Force doctrine is aiming for a network-centric layered kill-chain. The primary mission of the Air Force is to dominate the skies and conduct strikes on high value targets beyond the reach of ground forces. The proposed doctrine involves fusing multiple different sensors layered atop each other across a broad front. This will provide multiple angles and sensor types to detect both stealthy and non-stealthy targets.

To gain air dominance, a small strike package supported by SEAD/EW aircraft can be used as bait. The EW aircraft can use spoofing and blip enhancement to fake a larger strike package and attract enemy interception.
Fighters not needed for escorting will be concentrated to overwhelm enemy formations. AEW and ELINT aircraft will help vector large fighter groups to intercept. Meanwhile EW assets blind their adversaries to hide the impending ambush. Light fighters will provide target lock for heavy fighters further back to launch LRAAMs. The initial salvo should seek to achieve surprise and maximize kills. After the enemy is forced to break formation, expending energy to evade; the more maneuverable light fighters will engage. The follow up attack needs to begin before the enemy can recover, necessitating close coordination.

These bait attacks will be mixed in between legitimate missions to avoid being predictable. Interdiction missions are done by light bombers and ground attackers. While deep strikes utilize palletized cruise missile systems dropped from transport aircraft, doing double duty. It's a cheaper solution, allowing more "long range strike" aircraft than a dedicated heavy bomber fleet. Further saturation of enemy air defenses are accomplished by cheap long range drone decoys. Regardless of the type of attack, it needs fighter escort and SEAD/EW support.

As Khertland spans a wide geographic area and have a variety of regional commitments, the Air Force needs to be able to disperse its forces in sometimes austere locations. Due to their high maintenance, stealth aircraft are unsuitable for remote operations. The sustainment and dedicated infrastructure necessary was too expensive as well. Khertland relies primarily on 4th and 4.5 generation fighters. Khertland Air Force planners hope to achieve stealth without stealth aircraft via dominating the electromagnetic spectrum. Sensor fusion and overlapping sensor nodes from AEW, fighters, and ELINT will provide a multi-spectral and multi-static network for detecting even stealth aircraft. Meanwhile, SEAD and EW aircraft will protect and hide friendly forces, or at least prevent the enemy from sharing their location. In heavily contested EW environments, C3 aircraft at the rear will act as relay nodes far away from high interference zones. Even if full EM stealth could not be maintained, this system will preserve situational awareness in case of attrition or ECM.
These small number of high capability assets help elevate the lower end fleet to fight against peers adversaries in high-intensity conflicts. To protect these critical assets, AEW, EW, and C3 aircraft have their basing classified. They are stored in hardened shelters with decoy facilities dispersed into other fighter-only bases. The activities of fighter planes help further mask the decoys by feigning activity. The ruse may be further enhanced by directing large transport aircraft to conduct touch and go on these smaller airfields. AEW and EW aircraft may also conduct flight operations in those air spaces to create electronic signatures for enemy observing SIGINT.

However, the chronic under funding despite the military modernization program being well underway have left key capability gaps. Due to limited funds, the Air Force is trying to slowly build up the necessary platforms through sequential development when funding is freed from one program to the next. As such, this operational concept remains mostly theoretical for now.
Items (7)
ACI2M1 Dalang
Created by Afjklol
The ACI2M1 Dalang is a Khertlandian purpose-built, four-engine, high-speed airborne early warning and control aircraft. The Dalang has a radome merged into the aircraft’s fuselage and wing roots for improved aerodynamics. It was designed for the Khertland ...
GA2M2 Candus II
Created by Afjklol
The GA2 Candus II is a single seat twin-engine ground attack aircraft succeeding the previous Candus bomber. Compared to the previous ground attacker, the Candus II has twice the payload (4 bombs) with larger more powerful bombs. The development for the Ca...
S16M1 Kavus
Created by Afjklol
The S16M1 Kavus is a two-seater twin engine light fighter designed to replace the aging F6 Bellerophon II. The S16 Kavus can be armed with up to six air-to-air missile and equipped with flare and chaff dispensers. Standard load out however are four missile...
RH1M1 Sylphid
Created by Afjklol
The RH1 Sylphid is an Khertland all-weather airborne early warning helicopter. The twin turboshaft was designed in 2022 initially for the army as part of the 2021 modernization program of Khertland's armed forces. The helicopter is equipped with a combined...
SA5M2 Trigon
Created by Afjklol
The SA5 Trigon is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun of the Khertland army with development dating back to May 4th. Initial prototypes did not meet performance requirements causing the development to drag on with engineers trying to iron out the issues. An...
SA7M2 Iron Guardian
Created by Afjklol
On May 4th, the army began development of its first SPAAG in years but have encountered a number of problems ranging from rate of fire issues, sustainment, firepower, and survivability of the platform. Two proposed designs were built as a result for evalua...
SA8M1 Altai
Created by Afjklol
The SA8M1 Altai is a self-propelled short ranged surface-to-air missile system in service with the Khertland army. The SA8 Altai uses an 8x8 wheeled chassis originally developed for the canceled SA6 SPAAG. The chassis was also used as a platform for the Ir...
In 2 collections by Afjklol
Khertland Military (v4.1.2)
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State of Khertland (v4.1.2)
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