In message , Kevin Brooks
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
It didn't do them much good, compared to the numerous bombs they called
in. Read SSgt Vance's testimony: where the al-Qaeda troops kept firing
despite the strafing, their position was destroyed with bombs, and lack
of bombs (not guns) was cited as a significant delay in their
extraction, which contributed to at least one death (SrA Jason D.
Cunningham, who was badly wounded and died before being evacuated)

More likely they still enjoyed getting that strafe support for suppression
purposes. I note one CCT member's description of the change in situation
that finally required sucking up doing the danger-close bomb work:

"If we couldn't kill the bunker, we were going to be surrounded," said
Brown. "We knew that we had enemy soldiers hiding in the terrain to our
(right). Effectively, they were moving in on us and we had nowhere to go."
www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml

So they only used the bombs when it was a factor of outright
survival--understandable IMO.

Still hardly a persuasive argument why the guns are indispensible. Why
wasn't 20mm able to adequately suppress, deter or destroy the enemy?

And that site indicates the controller's name was SSG Gabe Brown, not
"Vance"--being as it is a USAF source I'd trust it.

To quote SSGt Vance's account again:-

"There was a combat controller [CCT] with us named Gabe Brown who was
behind me a bit. I turned around and yelled at him to work on getting
communications running, he already was working on it. I decided that I
needed to be on the line fighting, if I had been on the radio, then the
combat controller would have been sitting there doing nothing because he
doesn't have the assault training. I decided that he should call in the
CAS as I directed him."

More than one person has commented on that operation.

Is it forever impossible for the USAF to use those weapons, or are they
just not in the current plan?

APKWS is currently planned for use only on rotary assets, beginning in 2006
IIRC.

Again, is that because it is physically impossible to adapt it or
develop something similar? Has analysis shown that it would be
ineffective? Or is it "not in the plan, we just strafe for danger
close"?

You can carry plenty of APKWS with the weight freed up by deleting a
gun: so an aircraft tasked for CAS gains capability without losing
weapons or fuel.

Huh? Not if those weapons are not loaded out prior to departure. You do
realize the difference between preplanned and immediate CAS requests, right?

See later.

So where CAS is a likely diversion, then standard loadout includes a
seven-round APKWS launcher (just as sorties over parts of the FRY used
to require an anti-radar missile either per aircraft or per flight,
IIRC). When you've freed up a thousand pounds, using a quarter of that
for contingency CAS isn't a large problem.

FYI, that little seven load RL still takes up a hardpoint, which is why no,
you *can't* plan on it being included as standard.

Why not? Again, you keep obsessing about current platforms and systems
as though they were the only possibilities and nothing new will ever
appear.

With very marginal effect, however.

Again, since there were repeated requests for just that level of support
during Anaconda

What else was available? Nothing.

You're then using the circular argument that since nothing else was then
available, there's nothing else that could ever be used.

and given that it is a common sense starting point to use
the safest (to your own force) option before moving up the risk category,

The safest option is to keep your forces tucked up in bed at home.

the gun provides that additional level of flexibility. I seriously doubt
were you in the position of calling in that "oh, ****" mission with the bad
guys well within the danger close margin for bombs that you'd have leaped
immediately to that riskiest of options.

"riskiest of options"? (Bear in mind that the first strafe pass was
waved off because it wasn't clear whether the F-15 was aiming at the
right troops...)

You seem to forget that the min
separation factor for 20mm is *25 meters*

Which tells you much about its lethality, no?

, while for bombs that minimum
jumps to between 145 and 500 meters (depending upon whether you are in a
protected or open position).

And those are the only options that can be considered?


--
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