"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
ink.net...
George Z. Bush wrote:
"Garrison Hilliard" wrote in message
...

(Snip)

The Comanche program was started in 1983 and had survived many
reviews. Under a restructuring worked out in 2002, a decision on
going ahead with initial low-rate production was to be made in 2007,
with the first Comanches delivered to the Army in 2009 and full-rate
production to begin in 2010.

Since this Reagan era DOD project survived the Reagan DOD
evaluations, and those of Daddy Bush, and those of Bill Clinton, we
now have arrived at the present situation, with our present DOD
deciding that the project was unworthy of completion and not worth
spending any more money on. Why do I have that uneasy feeling that
brain surgery is about to be done by our neighborhood podiatrist? Why
do I feel that they'd rather spend the money on some other project,
like Star Wars, that they'd like rather than this one that the Army
has said all along that it needs?

The Army aviaiton community has said so all along. But Army aviation's
credibility is not what it once was. It's a little hard to claim, with a
stright face anyway, that the Army's next-generation scout helo needs
extensive and expensive radar-frequency stealth when Apache units in
Afghanistan and Iraq are getting rocked by optically-aimed guns and IR
MANPADS. Granted they may not have done as badly as press reports
suggest,
but these wars showed that the idea odf the deep penetration striek by
helicopters independant of ground forces was probably not a viable option.

That is one hell of a leap based upon the results encountered during a
single mission where the SEAD support was intentionally withheld. A lot of
green suiters (outside the aviation community) thought that the emphasis on
the deep attack mission was bit overdone, but to condemn the entire concept
as "not viable" based upon one mission? That's a bit much.

And that was what Commanche was designed around. That level of stelath
was
only needed to penetrate an enemy's sophisitcated battlefield air defenses
and strike deep into their rear area, where the radar SAMs would live.

Well, to be honest, that is not quite completely true. The Soviet (and hence
it still remains a viable model since so many potential foes still use it)
FAAD system did indeed include radar guided systems, both missile and gun
type (even the ubiquitous ZSU-23/4 used a radar gun laying system). You
could expect to encounter those kinds of systems up pretty close to the
FLOT.


It's also hard to understand why a scout needs an armament that's only
slightly lighter than the attack helo it's supposedly scouting for,

You think the cavalry scout helos are there only to operate in support of
the attack helos? Nope. Cavalry units can be tasked to independently screen
and guard at the division level; add the other required assets (i.e.,
additional tanks and arty support on the ground side and attack helos on the
air side) and you can also do a covering force fight (though that would
normally be in the corps level cavalry regimet's domain). Scout helos also
support indirect fires, and with the RAH-66 it was expected to perform
general deep intel collection. Personally I see the latter as stretching
things a bit too far, but as to including weapons on scout helos--witness
the AH-58D; that weapons capability id there for a reason.

or why
you need a scout at all when the attack helos have potent surveillance
radars like Longbow.

So the attack helos can concentrate on their mission (killing bad guys),
while the cavalry scouts perform their mission (screen, guard, reconnoiter,
etc.).


Commanche may have been the right answer for fighting in the 1990s against
a
Soviet force with integrated air deffenses even with its mobile armored
units (but I won't bet on it). But the mid 1990s, it was obviously the
wrong answer. Likely some sort of replacement was needed, but Commanche
was
way too much helo for the job.

I think Commanche could have been of value against the old Soviet threat in
a European battle environment. But I agree with your last two sentences, and
it is a shame that the previous leadership (at both DoD and senior Army
levels) got sucked into supporting the beast for as long as they did.

Brooks


--
Tom Schoene