"Kevin Brooks" wrote

"Paul F Austin" wrote in message

Yep. A suprising outcome, that LO isn't really worth much when operating
at
low altitude. The Iraqis adopted the levee en masse tactics that the
Vietnamese used, with every available tube firing upward as soon as the
alarm is given. And that's at_night_. During daylight hours things get
even
worse. Slow-movers operating at low altitudes will suffer unacceptable
attrition if they're manned. The Army should develop a low-cost unmanned
weapons platform, one that can use fused data from off-board sources to
cue
a low-cost on-board targeting sensor. Being a helo isn't important,
carrying
heavy ordnance loads may or may not be the way to go but being able to
persist in the interdiction area_is_.

Why? Maybe the lesson should instead be to refrain from using attack helos
in the deep fight (what you call the "interdiction area", I presume) when
(a) the terrain is unsuitable, and/or (b) the normal SEAD support package
is
not provided. Ever been in the woods when helos were operating around you?
Or in rugged terrain? During those situations it is hard to find the helo
during daylight hours; at night you are hopelessly confused. In those kind
of environments the deep attack option becomes more tenable. Even in the
situation that the 11th AVN encountered during their dissapointing OIF
deep
attack mission might have had a very different outcome had the SEAD arty
support been included (it was not executed due to collateral damage
concerns). Again, you are reading a bit too much into the results of a
single mission which was conducted under rather unique circumstances, and
very likely with some serious planning flaws included in the mix.

You kinda miss the point. Comanche's reason for existence was to incorporate
LO into an Army platform. Otherwise, continued development of OH-58s would
have delivered the needed functions sooner and cheaper. As an ancillary
issue, the Army dragged out the development 'way too long. My company's part
of Comanche was designed twice because of parts obsolescence. If Comanche
were in the middle of production, then likely, the lessons from Iraq-2 would
have been incorporated into operations. As it is, the program gets canned.

As for the lack of SEAD, my impression (and that's all it is) was that the
Iraqis had everyone with a weapon that could elevate far enough fire into
the night once the alarm was given, much the way the Vietnamese did. If you
can suppress_that_then you don't need to AHs in the first place.


Your UCAV concept is not new--the Army has already initiated a rotary UCAV
R&D program. In fact, the early idea was to have such UCAV's support the
Commanches, and even be controlled from the Commanches in some cases.

Of course it's not. It's not even "my idea". I'm under no illusion that I or
anyone on this forum will "think up" a new paradigm that those blockheads at
the Pentagon, yadayada... Real analysis doesn't happen on Usenet. Although
why the Army restricts its thinking to rotorcraft is a good question.

The last two years have clearly illustrated some major advantages for UAVs.
They can't do everything by any means but the "natural advantage" of an
unmanned platform lies in great persistence, being able to stay on station
for very long times so that the platform is there exactly when needed. The
ISR community has found that there are step-change improvements in coverage
over satellites and manned aircraft that derive from keeping a platform
overhead all day long. Likewise, hitting fleeting, moving targets benefits
from having a launcher available_right now_, not five minutes off and that's
hard to do with manned platforms and_may_be easier with UCAVs. It's
a_may_because the analysis is in progress but apparently OSD decided that in
light of bad management, bad programmatic news and repeated program replans,
to cut its losses.

There's something systematically wrong with the way we develop aircraft.
Neither Comanche nor F-22 development should have taken as long as it has.
One of the trolls was asking for delays in F-22 production until a "complete
and independent evaluation" can be done, whatever that is. For a variety of
reasons, we can't seem to get a combat aircraft into the hands of troops in
anything like a reasonable time. During the fifties and sixties we developed
aircraft, got the -A LRIP model into the hands of troops, incorporated the
fixes for problems identified by the users in the -C model and then went
into volume production. Now, no one is willing to stick their weenie out and
the "development" stretches endlessly.