"Paul F Austin" wrote in message
news

"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.

No, its reason for existance was to provide a state of the art
reconnaissance and light attack capability that incorporated low
observability (not in just the radar spectrum, either) features. There is a
difference--the goal was not to get LO into an Army system so much as it was
to get a system that incorporated the LO.

Otherwise, continued development of OH-58s would
have delivered the needed functions sooner and cheaper.

But without the capabilities of the Commanche. The 58 series is not capable
of continual upgrade; hell, the D model is already grossly different from
the original A model, and probably about maxed out in terms of economical
upgrade. You can only cram so much poop in a bag that size and of that
particular configuration.

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.

Hey, I *like* the decision to can it, and it was drug out too long, was a
bit too ambitious, its radar LO design was of questionable value in view of
its trade-offs, and it was too darned expensive. But NONE of that bears upon
your claim that the manned attack helo is allegedly a thing of the past, now
does it?


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.

I don't think you fully understand the SEAD effort, and the resources that
it can include, that normally supports such an operation. Likely areas where
ground fire or weapons systems would be encountered during the ingress and
egress can be suppressed (actually saturated) by a combination of tube arty
fires, MLRS (which is probably the best single SEAD asset out to around 70
klicks), and even ATACMS (which can go to around 300 klicks) if the
mission/threat requires them. Any idea what the effect of those submunitions
going off around your "everybody shoot up" crowd would be? How many of those
that just *witness* that kind of firestorm are subsequently willing to
expose themselves if they *do* get a shot? Would it have been highly
effective if it had been included in this attack? Maybe--we'll never know.
But the idea that the results of a single mission flown under one set of
circumstances and without SEAD support should be the decisive factor in
determining the feasibility of attack helo operations is not a very
supportable postion IMO.



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.

Kind of hard to have a CTOL airframe use a FARP, isn't it? Or use terrain
masking effectively while it loiters and peeks, or loiters and shoots?


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.

You are mixing your systems up a bit. Long duration ISR missions are
normally flown at altitude; but the Army needs a system that can also get in
closer (lower) for finite detail. When you switch to the UCAV role, all of
those current long duration UAV's have a pretty miserly weapons load
capability--they are of little value rotating overhead if they don't still
have munitions capable of doing the various jobs required. Fixed wing UAV's
can't hit a FARP and be back into the fight quickly after rearming and
refueling--they have to mosey on back to the rear, land, get turned around,
take back off and mosey on back up to the battle area, dispense their
munitions (which from what I have seen so far is a load of maybe two
Hellfires, or four BAT's), after which they have to do it all over again.
Which tells me that the larger attack helos still have a role in the fight,
and if you are planning to go the UCAV route, a VTOL system that can use
your FARP's is an advantage.


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.

I'd agree with that.

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.

Which is why spiral development is all the rage these days. But when they do
use that approach, they have some congressional weenie sitting on the Hill
start whining about the lack of complete testing, and risk, etc.

Brooks