In message , Mary Shafer
writes
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 23:13:38 +0000, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
Again, AWACS is situation-dependent, and there's that oft-quoted
statistic about 80% of surviving pilots wondering who shot them down
(tracking that statistic to a source is probably good for a PhD thesis -
anyone up for funding it? )

I got a fair way toward a conference paper on it, with the help of the
guys at Wright-Pat. The conclusion is very limited because it's based
on very limited data, more like randomly-collected anecdote, long
before AWACS or modern RWR. I wouldn't use it to try to support my
arguments about modern air warfare.

Thought so (and I recall you mentioning your studies on it in the past).
It seems to be one of those guesstimates that hang around enough to
become rules of thumb, without ever being really validated.

Again, for real life this isn't much of a problem because the A-10
operates in total air supremacy and has never had an enemy aircraft ever
get a chance to shoot at it (rendering the preparations of the A-10
crews to fight back untested).

I don't think that's right. We know that two A-10s nailed helos in
'91, so the possibility of helo-A-10 combat has to be considered.
If an A-10 can get a helo kill with a gun designed for air-to-ground,
then a helo with such a gun can do the same thing to the A-10.

True to a point, but there are significant differences; a flexible-mount
gun on the helicopter has a lot more dispersion, less muzzle velocity
and a much lower rate of fire than the 30mm in the A-10 (using the M230
on the AH-64 as a comparison - it's one of the bigger helo guns)

The helicopter's gun is at several disadvantages in terms of its hit
probability, worsened because it's got a faster target to try to hit.

Restricting armament to its advertised role is silly. Just ask the
Argentineans in that ship that the Royal Marines pasted with their
Carl Gustavs.

True to a point, but while the Guerrico retreated out of small-arms
range it didn't stop them bombarding Lt. Keith Mills's position with
100mm shellfire, or prevent Mills and his 22 men having to surrender.

Or the F-15 that nailed the helo with the 500-lb dumb
bomb. Having seen those happen, the idea of an A-10 going up against
an enemy aircraft doesn't seem so far-fetched.

True again, which is why you usually see them with a pair of Sidewinders
under one wing

This is too true, sadly, and imposes all sorts of limits on open debate.

I don't think it's that kind of limitation. I think it's more like
there being too many scenarios to really predict accurately. Most of
them are going to be kind of unexpected, which makes it hard to
predict.

Trouble is, someone has to at least try: there simply isn't the budget
to prepare fully for all possible scenarios.

I hate to be contrarian... all right, I don't. I _like_ being
contrarian. Lessons from the past suggest that getting missiles working
and crews trained is a better path to dead enemies for air-to-air work.
Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s that
isn't healthy.

The fighter world decided this once before, you know. They were wrong.

Correct: but does that mean the situation has not changed since then?

A lot of this discussion is assuming, rightly or
wrongly, that the only scenario is the overwhelming Western military
against some over-classed small country. That may not be a good
assumption.

Actually, quite a bit of my thinking is precisely that the Next
Enemy(TM) may be significantly more capable, and able to exploit any
mistakes, gaps or problems more effectively.

What about India and Pakistan? Are they going to be fighting the same
kind of air war? Probably not. The UK and Argentina fought something
a lot different from either anti-Iraqi action.

And the clear, obvious lessons in the air war there were that the Sea
Harrier's guns were not effective air-to-air weapons: what was needed
was (a) more missiles, (b) longer-ranged missiles.

We design and build most of our aircraft for export as well as
domestic use (for pretty much every current "we"), so it's important
not to get too fixated on one combat scenario. We may have to put
guns into fighters to keep aircraft salable, after all.

I'd suggest that's a very French approach

"Never mind what *our* forces actually need... we've got to make a
profit on export, so we'll build something that will sell overseas and
Our Boys will just have to cope with it"

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk