US Army Cancels Comanche Helo

"Kevin Brooks" wrote

"Paul F Austin" wrote



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.


Kevin, why fly the AH strike in the first place if you're going to use this
much support for ingress and egress? You're taking it as a given that AHs
are more efficient at delivering ordnance to some class of targets than any
other alternative. That may be true against armor in a maneuver battle but
in Iraq-2, that wasn't the target set.

If we were arming for the Fulda Gap, then AHs make a lot of sense. It's not
clear to me that it's true for the battles we fight these days.



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 object is warheads on foreheads. The FARP/short flight time ordnance
taxi is one model for doing that. A cloud of UCAVs in another. A Giant
Bombtruck In the Sky is still another. Because the Army has been wedded to
short range, low endurance platforms is no reason not to open up the
analysis space to consider other alternatives.



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.

AHs may have their place. The Israelis certainly get a lot of use from them
(and so do the Iranians from what I've read). In the current environment,
the target set that needs servicing is the "30 second" target, between
detection and identification and either a warhead on a forehead or *oops* he
disappeared. That kind of target requires ubiquitous platforms rather than a
heavy loadout on a few platforms.

Snooping and pooping is a traditional role that OHs have filled. There's a
real question whether they're the best way to do it. A platform that flies
in the Predator envelope (about 10Kfeet) misses nothing from a sensor
standpoint that could be gained by flying at a hundred feet. In any case,
you're ignoring the value of fused sensor data from multiple platforms. No
single scout is_ever_going to operate outside the data network in the
future. To do so would be stupid.

There are two missions here.

The first is an ISR mission that's going to be served by a network of
sensors and platforms. Some of the platforms will be under control of
brigade and lower, some will be controlled by higher echelons but_all_the
take will be available to all the forces.

The second mission is ordnance delivery. AHs can do that although they
compete with fixed wing assets as well as the artillery crowd. An AH
integrates sensors and ordnance and it's not clear to me, given that data
network, where the right place in the number of platforms/loadout per
platform/sensors per platform/endurance per platform space is the right
place to be. If you're dealing with a Sea O' Tanks heading your way, that's
one thing. If you're looking to pot a target speeding from one hide to
another, that's another thing. If you're looking for a rascal on a
motorcycle that just launched an RPG at the local headquarters, that's still
another.

One abiding fault of armies is the desire to equip yourself to fight the war
you_want_to fight. That's a cardinal error.