Best dogfight gun?

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...

In message , Kevin
Brooks writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
Risky, perhaps. Indicative of serious pressure on the EP budget,
certainly. Personally I'd be a little less inclined to abandon a
capability that was actually built in, but it is more expensive than it
seems to maintain (it's not just guns, or even ammunition, but the
training burden)

The training burden? For gosh sakes, you already have to have armorers,

Trained gun-fitters and repair teams, and the logistic pipeline to
support them, cost money.



But you are claiming we would retain the gun pods--don't they already then
have to maintain these skills?



and
I doubt that including a periodic requirement for the pilots to do some
range work would be that great a burden--it is after all what they do
during
peacetime.

Try costing up the aircraft,



They have to bore holes in the sky anyway--having them chunk up hours on the
range instead of doing touch-and-go's seems to be of little impact. Keep in
mind that the strafe mission is not their highest priority training event.



the range,



The range would undoubtedly be a multi-use facility (i.e., unlikely to have
a range dedicated to strafe only), so that is no argument.



the targets (whether air-to-air
or air-to-ground),



Yeah, putting up a target panel of fabric must be extremely expensive...



the equipment to provide useful feedback and training
(because 'pulled trigger, gun made loud noise, came home, landed' is not
useful training) and it adds up with alarming rapidity.



Gee, they have to grade all kinds of exercises already--I'd suspect a bit of
gun camera footage of the strafe pass would be acceptable.



How much of a CAS stack existed that far from the nearest airbase?

Apparently a pretty decent one including F-15E's, F-16's, and A-10's as
well, from what I have read of the reports on Anaconda.

I'd heard the A-10s got pulled early due to hot/high problems, and given
the frequent sniping at the F-16's range I'm surprised to hear it doing
significant long-range loiter.



The 354th FW *did* do "significant long-range loiter" during that operation
with their F-16's, so that argument is meaningless.



How effective were the anecdotal strafing runs? It's a tough problem to
judge. For sure nobody's going to stand up and say "the CAS birds came
in and strafed, but it didn't seem to do much good against the
scattered
and dispersed enemy we were fighting" - when someone takes a risk to
help you, you _don't_ go public saying they endangered themsevles for
little result.

Actually, one senior US Army commander *did* sort of hammer the CAS
effort
after-the-fact, though not specifically directed at the strafe
operations.
Some of his comments were valid, and some were likely as not an attempt
to
shovel off blame that he should have borne on his own shoulders. As to
effect, the reports I read varied, with some indicating that in some
instances they ended up having to resort to using PGM's a lot closer than
they originally cared to in order to finally destroy the target (and in
at
least one case that almost literally "blew up in their face", so to
speak,
yielding a quick, "you almost got us with that last bomb" from the CCT).
I
recall two reports indicated that the strafes were on target and at least
suppressed the bad guys (and sometimes suppression is the best you can
hope
for).

According to

http://www.csis.org/burke/hd/reports...irwar_exec.pdf

the US flew 17,500 combat sorties over Afghanistan, of which you've
heard of several failed strafes ('danger close' sorties where the gun
passes failed to stop the enemy, leading to 'even more dangerously
close' use of other munitions) and two cases where the enemy was
'suppressed'. Guesstimate two aircraft in each case for eight sorties
with a 50% success rate.



Failed to stop the enemy? How much suppression did they achieve? And here
you go with your McNamaresque number crunching again... war cannot always be
resolved into neat little statistical piles. Witness the recognition lately
of the fact that the old attrition models for simulations are just plain
inaccurate as all get out.



It's not an enormously convincing argument that the existing gun
armament is a potent and essential CAS tool, is it?



Your strawman. I have said from the beginning that it is a last resort,
only-when-nothing-else-should-be-tried-first tool, and as such preserves
flexibility for the system beyond that which exists sans guns. But hey, you
tell me what the groundpounder who finds himself with a nasty situation
located in that 25-to-500 meter danger-close gap in CAS coverage that
results when no gun is available is supposed to do.



Either the gun needs
to be made significantly more effective in order to increase its
lethality and utilisation... or it needs replacing with something better
able to provide _effective_ close fire to troops in combat.



But this is, by my own admission, a "niche" capability that probably does
not merit much more resource dedication than it has already received. A
nice-to-have capability for use when none of the other tools are initially
suitable or acceptable.



Burdening most of your tactical air fleet with a thousand pounds of
ballast that's used on 0.05% of combat sorties is



I guess the USAF is utterly clueless then, as they seem to disagree with
you. I'd note that a fair portion of your own RAF was apparently not happy
with the loss of the gun from the Typhoon. Do you know something none of
these folks do?



As well as getting into ricochet hazard, bringing up problems of target
fixation, all to employ a very limited weapon system. (Actual
effectiveness data is hard to come by for strafing, except that many
aircraft doing it seem to have shot themselves dry... suggests they ran
out of ammunition before their guns killed all the targets)

Well, if you don't even *have* a gun, that is not going to be a problem,
is
it?

And you describe above how in at least one case, strafing failed to
deter the enemy and heavier weapons had to be resorted to.



You are really having a problem with the idea that the ground commander
would prefer to work *up* the risk ladder, don't you? Not jumping in and
placing his ground troops at maximum risk from the outset? Odd, since you
were so risk adverse when it came to allowing the CAS assets down into the
weeds to make these sort of attacks.



Similarly, one drag on developing a weapon for danger-close CAS is the
airy claim that "that's what the gun is for" when its effectiveness is
patchy (some reports of 'suppression' when it was used, but others where
the enemy declined to be deterred)



Gee, if it really sucked so much, why did those CCT's keep calling for
strafe as opposed to bombs in the first place?



Of course, neither will the CCT (or its supported ground combat element)
get the CAS effort they want either... As to the value of the guns, it is
interesting to note that one of the comments that came out of the
Anaconda
participants was, "Every light division needs a supporting *squadron* of
AC-130's." Pie in the sky statement that may be, it points out the value
those ground folks placed upon aerial gunfire support. Imagine a scenario
where the bad guy has a better MANPADS capability and you are stuck in a
similar (daytime) situation--which would you rather commit to making
strafing runs to suppress the bad guys, fast-movers or that AC-130? If
you
are as concerned about risk as you claim, you know what the answer to
that
one is.

Sounds like there's a need for a similar weight and accuracy of fire as
the AC-130 can deliver, but with the survivability of a fast jet.

In your scenario, neither aircraft is particularly suitable: if the
AC-130 can't survive the SAM threat, repeated passes by fast movers will
also get them speared by those improved MANPADS (especially since
they're delivering a lot less firepower and so *need* to make multiple
passes through the weapon envelope of an alerted enemy... this is what
is technically known as a Really Bad Idea).



Really Worse Idea is not being able to deliver support when the risk is
assessed and accepted.



Where's the evidence of serious effectiveness to compensate? "This was
available, it was used, therefore it must be hugely lethal and vitally
necessary" is a shaky proposition.

Better than, "This was not available, so it could not be used, and we
lost a
lot of guys", IMO.

So where's the evidence for that?



The same place as your evidence that the gun is worthless--a product of the
argument. If you don't have a gun, and the bad guys are in so tight that you
*can't* resort to a bomb, then you are effectively saying CAS is out of the
picture, so any increased losses could be attributed to that, at least in
part.



Alternatively, you may want to investigate more capable options for
"really close support", with particular attention to target acquisition
and IFF (it's awkward to accidentally strafe your own side, or to make
a
low pass but not be able to find the dust-coloured dust-covered targets
on the dusty mountainside) rather than insist that a given weapon
system
is now and forever a fixture.

OFCS, the separation range mentioned in a couple of the reports (one from
a
participating Viper pilot and one from a CCT guy on the ground) was
*seventy-five meters*. Do you want any kind of bomb going off that close
to
*your* patrol if there is another method entailing less risk of
fratricide
available to be tried first? I wouldn't.

And the only options are 20mm cannon or 2000lb bombs? Think again. If
this is a genuine and frequent need, neither weapon is appropriate.



Nobody said "frequent". I have noted before that you seem ready to place
combat into the "nice neat box" category, where all things happen according
to plan, and there is a playbook for handling the proceedings. That just is
not the way it happens. Which is why flexibility is important. And I hate to
say it, but I think your empathy is a bit lacking--if it *were* you hugging
the dirt up close and personal and well within the danger close margin for
bombs, and you had the option of starting with guns and then working up
through higher risk alternatives, I suspect you'd do that as opposed to
starting with the more risky "big bang". It is a bit easier to say you
wouldn't when you are not facing that dilemma.



What is the real requirement, what is the real target, and is a M61
Gatling really the best solution? How about a different gun? How about
a
different type of munition? Is air-launched weaponry really the best
option for danger-close or should some other option be pursued?

For gosh sakes, Paul, we are talking a real world example where the M61
was
their best hope, at least initially.

No, we're talking about current and future procurement.



We have been using Anaconda as the point of discussion-the M61 was used in
that role by both USAF and (IIRC) USN aircraft during that operation.



Unless you plan your only combat to be action replays, then you need to
learn what worked and what didn't; decide what lessons are valid and
which were special cases; and then plan for the future so you do more of
what worked, less of what didn't work and learn from the Lessons
Identified.



Well, since it looks like the 25mm is going to be our next major gun caliber
for the fast movers, maybe that will satisfy some of your concern.



Remember, we (or at least I) am not talking about ripping guns out of
existing aircraft and plating over the ports; the issue is what to
procure in the future.

So if we have (God forbid) another Anaconda situation (and you know as
well
as I do that there *will* be someday another force inserted somewhere
that
will find the enemy in an unexpected place, in unexpected strength, and
find
itself fighting for survival), and our CAS stack is made up of Typhoons
and
STOVL F-35's sans guns, you think that is OK?

About as acceptable as declaring that there's no particular problem that
a few strafing passes won't completely solve.



Why would you claim that? I did not say any such thing. What I have been
saying is that when the ground guys find themselves in such a knife fight
and CAS is available, it is sure nice for that CAS to be able to contribute
to the fight. If it is successful in suppressing the bad guys (and I imagine
that it usually will at least be able to achieve short-term suppression), it
affords the troops a chance to either break contact or to maneuver into a
better situation. If it fails, then you have to do what SSG Brown did and
call in the heavier ordnance, accepting that you are placing your troops at
greater risk. I can't understand what you find disagreeable about allowing
those ground troops to escalate the risk level as needed, as opposed to
having to accept that greater risk of fratricide from the outset if you have
no gun capability.



What happens when the Bad Guys have a SA-11 parked out of sight? That's
serious trouble for anything flying within ten miles... bye-bye CAS
unless someone's willing to take some risks.

Taking risks is inherent to military operations. METT-T rules, and the
commanders get paid to weigh those risks versus gains. If you are
claiming
otherwise, then thank goodness our fathers who fought in WWII did not
take
that view.

I'm not the one claiming four situations in 17,500 sorties demonstrates
a completely untouchable situation, Kevin.



Neither am I; I shy away from such meaningless statistics. I recognize that
strafe is the least preferable manner of delivering effective CAS. I also
recognize that there is a lot of ground radiating out from between 25 meters
and (let's assume for the SDB which will shortly be in the inventory) maybe
20 meters, and retaining the ability to conduct immediate CAS requests
against such targets may very well mean the difference between
success/failure for the mission or life/death for the troops. Finally, I
recognize that the best laid plans can go to hell before you even cross the
LD, so "Semper Gumby" can be said to be the epitome of military slogans, and
the gun contributes to that.



Taking out an aircraft's gun is a risk (that somewhere in the future,
horrible things will happen for the lack of a strafing pass) but also an
opportunity (that's a thousand pounds more disposable load to use, and
training time freed up - now how to best use it?)

If there's a marginal capability (like danger-close CAS), does the gun
actually add much to it? Does it happen often enough to justify the very
real costs? Is there a better solution available or capable of
development?

Is it an unacceptable risk? Well, according to some... but then you get
into the mutual contradictions of "guns are essential weapons" and "it's
not worth developing anything better".


And it was my grandfather who fought in WW2, only his war started even
earlier than usual: he got a two-day head start on British and French
troops.

The idea is to stay out of as much avoidable predictable grief as
possible, and MANPADs and light AAA are known and hugely proliferated.
They're also most effective against an opponent flying a predictable
straight-line path... like a strafing run.

No, they are even more lethal to that guy flying the AC-130,

Who has the option of operating above the light AAA, though MANPADS are
a problem there too.



It does not matter how high he is operating-we don't like using the gunships
for daylight operations. Khafji put paid to that approach.



or to those
guys flying the cargo helos in to haul all those mortar and arty rounds
that
you would prefer we use exclusively.

Given that the mortars should be one to two miles back at least (for
81mm tubes, more for 120s) and artillery five to ten miles, that is one
_hell_ of a light AA gun or man-portable SAM that can detect and hit a
cargo flight at that distance while in contact with friendly troops and
under artillery fire. It's a *lot* easier to acquire and shoot at the
Big Loud Plane that just flew overhead.



Here is where your "should be" falls apart on the rocks of reality. During
Anaconda the troops found themselves engaged a lot earlier, and a lot more
heavily, than they predicted-that is war, with all of its uncertainty. So, I
'd assume (though I have not read anything to corroborate this) that the
plan was to have the mortars set up somewhere near the initial LZ's to cover
the troops movement to contact. By making contact a lot earlier than
anticipated, that put the mortars up near the close fight, and made the
resupply mission rather hazardous. Tube arty in this case was another
matter-Hagenbach, the MG in charge, has to shoulder the load for failing to
have a firebase set up within range, but he apparently did not anticipate
getting into a knifefight that precluded the use of the usual CAS delivered
bombs from the outset. Which is why those CCT's ended up begging for
strafing runs, again and again.


If the enemy air defences are _that_ good, you're definitely not wanting
to fly strafing passes.

Keeping a capability to strafe is worthwhile, but permanently giving up
a half-ton of useful payload while wearing a "Shoot Me!" sign is
perhaps
not the best solution to the problem.

I'd imagine had you been with those guys from the 10th LID who were so
happy
to get those strafing runs you'd have a slightly different view of the
value
of retaining that capability, as distasteful as having to resort to its
use
may be.

But the air-combat equivalent for a bayonet would be something on the
line of permanently issuing a halberd or bill, or at least a Bloody Big
Sword to every soldier and insisting it be carried everywhere they take
a rifle: it might be useful for those occasions where troops find
themselves at arm's length from the enemy, but it displaces a
significant amount of beans, bullets or batteries from the basic combat
load. A worthwhile tradeoff, or would the troops be better off with
more
of their main armament?

Not if their main armamnet was incapable of handling the situation that
arose. That is the difference, when viewed against the Anaconda model.

In at least one case the main armament had to be used anyway,
danger-close be damned.



ONLY as a last resort. Common sense dictates that you don't start off
treating a simple puncture wound to your hand by amputating the arm at the
elbow, though that option may be exercised later if the mere cleaning and
bandaging of the wound does not prevent blood poisoning. Likewise, those CCT
's did not jump directly to the risky use of bombs in a danger close
situation until they had exhausted their other less risky options.

Had
you taken up that M61 space and crammed a few new radios, or another few
pounds of fuel onboard, it would still not have allowed those CAS
aircraft
to do what they were *there* to do, which was support the troops engaged,
no
matter how close the separation of the two combatants. With the M61's
they
did that.

In four cases, with patchy results at best.



They DID it, which is more than they could have done had they lacked
those guns. Fratricide is a nasty thing, and we apparently came rather close
to a disastrous frat incident with one of those bombs-that is why those CCT'
s wanted to use the strafe first.



How about improving ground-to-air comms to shorten the targeting cycle?
More fuel, meaning more loiter time per aircraft, for more responsive
support? Both reduce the time needed from call-for-fire to delivery;
meaning instead of 'suppressing' the enemy with strafing passes, they
can be engaged with destructive weapons because they've had less time to
close. Or more payload, for a new munition that's got both short
danger-close and high lethality on target



Huh? They "closed" almost instantaneously in this event, from what I
have read. There was no detection of the bad guys in strength at 1000 meters
followed by maneuver to within danger-close limits-for gosh sakes, they
would have just pasted the guys with CAS delivered PGM's at the outset if
they had known they were there.

Again, you're not talking "a few pounds", you're talking about half a
ton: some wags would have you believe you could double an F-16's payload
that way. ("Wall-to-wall bombs today, boys, I'm carrying BOTH Mark
82s!")

The AH-64s got badly hammered (seven of eight badly damaged and IIRC
five were so shot up they never flew again...), and again IIRC the A-10
was pulled out early on because it struggled to cope with the
hot-and-high conditions.

Those AH-64's were indeed getting hammered--but because they hung around
and
continued to press home repeated gun runs against the critical targets.
How
many AH-64 crews were lost? None.

How many missions did they fly the next day? None. How much ordnance did
they deliver? None.



And they hung around because the guys on the ground were in deep do-do
and needed that support right then, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is meaningless if
you are likely to die today.



How many lives did they save on the
ground? We'll never know.

And how many helicopters were available to fly sorties the next day, and
the day after, and how many men could have died as a result? Or, what
was cancelled because the air support they needed for backup suddenly
wasn't there?



They were able to bring in replacement helos: IIRC some USMC AH-1W's
showed up to handle the attack helo role subsequent to having those Apaches
get shot up.



Losing a half-squadron of AH-64s in a single incident suggests that
there's a serious capability gap, not that the existing systems are just
fine.

Similarly, 88% attrition is _not_ sustainable.



Any source for that number? ISTR reading that most of those helos were
back up within the week (I only recall one being a write off at the time)?



The question is not "did they want strafe" but "did they want effective
fire support even at close range"? Not the same thing, not at all.

They wanted fire that would not also kill them in the bargain, which is
why
they repeatedly *requested* strafe, again and again. In some cases they
later resorted to using LGB's, with the curious methos of walking them in
as
if they were conventional rounds, from what I could decypher. And yet
they
still continued to request gun runs...wonder why?

Because those were the only two options available to them, and neither
sound satisfactory: the LGBs worryingly lethal over too large an area,
the gun runs inadequately lethal.



And they requested the gun runs in preference to the bombs-case
closed.



I doubt you'll find a soldier there who insisted on the support fire
coming from a given asset or weapon now and forever... provided it was
available and turned Bad Guys into Dead Guys (or at least Hiding Guys)
without creating blue-on-blue then it will be considered Good..

Yep, and what was available that day (or days, as IIRC this lasted well
into
the next day) was CAS, and what those soldiers kept asking for from the
CAS
was guns, at least in the early stages. Tells me they liked the guns.

Tells me they need another option available to them.



That may be, but I know of no other option that we can count on always
being onboard the loadout of the CAS packages. Even if APKWS was adopted by
the USAF it would not be an integral weapon. As it stands now we can get
some kind of CAS support at the 25 meters-from- friendlies- range from every
fast mover CAS aircraft we have-that is called flexibility.



Trouble is, when you've got an internal gun you've eaten up weight:
tending to, if you're using guns you're stuck with what you've fitted.
Remember, we're not discussing a major frontline capability here, but
an
emergency reversion. Can you justify _more_ guns when you have one
built
into the airframe anyway and crews expensively trained in its use?

It is not that important an issue. The fact is that all of the incoming
aircraft we will be fighting with in the foreseeable future, minus the
STOVL
version of the F-35, have guns included in their armament suites. I say
great, keep 'em and keep that flexibility they give us.

It must be wonderful having that much budget.



It is. And as we discussed earlier, the gun is a marginal part of the
total program cost. Which is maybe why most air forces still have them, and
why most, if not all, new aircraft orders, excepting that curious RAF
Typhoon situation, include them.



Then explain the STOVL JSF, which opted for a gun pod rather than an
internal solution despite CAS being high on its priority list.

From what I gather that was dictated by the addition of the STOVL
capability, which necessitates making room for the lift fan, etc.

But the STOVL version is more, not less, likely to be performing CAS.
How then can the gun be optional, if it's so effective and essential.



I did not say it was the most effective weapon-that is you twisting my
words (again). I said it affords a greater degree of flexibility, especially
in the very close fight, that you lose without the gun, and I believe that
flexibility is very important.



If the US can claim it's never run short of tanking assets in-theatre,
I'll call them liars, because they're the only force to achieve that.

And unless the tankers are flying low orbits over the firefights,
breaking off to refuel still means "not on station". More fuel means
more time between those absences.

Those absences are kind of meaningless if the alternative is another
couple
of circuits with an arament suite that does not allow you to serve the
customers down below, aren't they?

Yet again, armament suites are not fixed forever.



Ever try to specify what loadout you want from the air force side?



I doubt the groundpounder down below who
is in a situation where his options are such that he wants a strafe/can't
risk even a PGM is going to be very relieved by the knowledge that his
CAS
stack can do a few more circles without being able to actually handle his
request.

Having the enemy "suppressed" for a pass or two is not a great return on
investment either.



It is if it allows you to disengage, or if it allows you to maneuver
to a position offering better cover, or if it allows you to conduct an
assault to dislodge the bad guys. I believe if you asked the average ground
guy which he'd prefer to have, the ability to achieve short-term
suppression, or the inability to suppress at all, he'd take the former




Neither is having to use those PGMs even closer than the original "too
close" because the gun runs didn't do the job.

How much flying time does that get you, loitering in a notional 'CAS
stack'?

It does NOT matter if that CAS asset can't conduct the kind of attack you
need!

So you don't have the right weapons for the job? (20mm lacks
effectiveness, current PGMs too generous in their danger zones)

Bear in mind you're making force-wide assertions on the basis of 0.05%
of the offensive air sorties here.



Paging Mr. McNamara.



I'd suggest that if your CAS effort is so short of usable ordnance, or
so badly co-ordinated and equipped, that you're depending on guns...
you've also got something badly wrong.

You just don't get it, do you? "**** happens" in combat, and flexibility
is
what allows you to adjust. having that aerial gun option is a tool for
flexibility



snip what is undoubtedly the largest citation I have ever
encountered



Glad to see you found the article, Paul. Too bad you can't understand
the basic fact that those ground guys kept asking for strafing attacks
because they did not want to escalate their own risk until/unless they had
to.



Brooks

In message , Kevin Brooks
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
Trained gun-fitters and repair teams, and the logistic pipeline to
support them, cost money.

But you are claiming we would retain the gun pods--don't they already then
have to maintain these skills?

Sure, but you can scale back sharply when you're maintaining a MTE fit
rather than a fleet-wide fit. Training is more of an issue and a more
significant risk.

Try costing up the aircraft,

They have to bore holes in the sky anyway--having them chunk up hours on the
range instead of doing touch-and-go's seems to be of little impact.

How many fast-jet sorties are flown for purposes of 'wheels up, flew
around, wheels down'?

If you want strafing practice to be useful, the pilots need to know
whether they did well or badly (and if they did badly, what to improve).

None of this is simple, easy or cheap in a modern world.

Keep in
mind that the strafe mission is not their highest priority training event.

Why not, if it's operationally vital?

the range,

The range would undoubtedly be a multi-use facility (i.e., unlikely to have
a range dedicated to strafe only), so that is no argument.

If it's multi-use then time spent strafing is time it's not usable for
other missions. That's a serious cost, especially when you're not
exactly awash in live-fire range facilities to start with.

That's before you even _start_ on the effort needed to keep the range
clear, score the passes, clean up afterwards...

the targets (whether air-to-air
or air-to-ground),

Yeah, putting up a target panel of fabric must be extremely expensive...

How many times have US units been attacked by large stationary panels of
motionless fabric? Real targets move, use camouflage and obscurants, and
are (if guns are required) close to similar-looking friendly units.

the equipment to provide useful feedback and training
(because 'pulled trigger, gun made loud noise, came home, landed' is not
useful training) and it adds up with alarming rapidity.

Gee, they have to grade all kinds of exercises already--I'd suspect a bit of
gun camera footage of the strafe pass would be acceptable.

I bow to your obviously superior experience of gunnery ranges: since
I've only worked the damn things I can't compete with your assertions
and enthusiasm.

I'd heard the A-10s got pulled early due to hot/high problems, and given
the frequent sniping at the F-16's range I'm surprised to hear it doing
significant long-range loiter.

The 354th FW *did* do "significant long-range loiter" during that operation
with their F-16's, so that argument is meaningless.

I'd be interested in some numbers, given the very significant problems
experienced with keeping F-16s stacked in kill boxes during Gulf War 1
(fifteen minutes or less was common, with 'dump targets' getting heavily
hit when aircraft arrived, waited, and left without hot targets)

According to

http://www.csis.org/burke/hd/reports...irwar_exec.pdf

the US flew 17,500 combat sorties over Afghanistan, of which you've
heard of several failed strafes ('danger close' sorties where the gun
passes failed to stop the enemy, leading to 'even more dangerously
close' use of other munitions) and two cases where the enemy was
'suppressed'. Guesstimate two aircraft in each case for eight sorties
with a 50% success rate.

Failed to stop the enemy? How much suppression did they achieve?

The description by a participant of the enemy in a static defensive
position continuing to fire despite repeated strafes, until they were
taken out by a LGB, indicates a lack of effectiveness.

And here
you go with your McNamaresque number crunching again...

Hey, Kevin, _you're_ the one suggesting that "rounds fired = results".
Perhaps we should count the 20mm rounds fired during those strafes and
calculate the body count?

The strafing passes were intended to deter, defeat or destroy the enemy
in that position. They clearly failed to do so.

war cannot always be
resolved into neat little statistical piles. Witness the recognition lately
of the fact that the old attrition models for simulations are just plain
inaccurate as all get out.

'Lately'?
It's not an enormously convincing argument that the existing gun
armament is a potent and essential CAS tool, is it?

Your strawman. I have said from the beginning that it is a last resort,
only-when-nothing-else-should-be-tried-first tool,

One which is important enough to be fitted to all tactical aircraft, now
and forever, without doubt or question.

and as such preserves
flexibility for the system beyond that which exists sans guns. But hey, you
tell me what the groundpounder who finds himself with a nasty situation
located in that 25-to-500 meter danger-close gap in CAS coverage that
results when no gun is available is supposed to do.

Get your head down and use available ordnance.

Now, what do you say to the groundpounder who finds a strafing pass or
two _doesn't_ stop the enemy?

Either the gun needs
to be made significantly more effective in order to increase its
lethality and utilisation... or it needs replacing with something better
able to provide _effective_ close fire to troops in combat.

But this is, by my own admission, a "niche" capability that probably does
not merit much more resource dedication than it has already received.

And yet it is a sacrosanct future fit.

Can't do without it... but can't possibly improve on it either.

See the contradiction yet?

A
nice-to-have capability for use when none of the other tools are initially
suitable or acceptable.

Is there a real need or not? (The evidence suggests there is). Is a
fixed aircraft gun the best solution? (The evidence strongly suggests
not).

Burdening most of your tactical air fleet with a thousand pounds of
ballast that's used on 0.05% of combat sorties is

I guess the USAF is utterly clueless then, as they seem to disagree with
you.

They don't pay my salary or ask my advice.

I notice that the USMC do seem to agree with me, as far as their version
of the JSF goes.

I'd note that a fair portion of your own RAF was apparently not happy
with the loss of the gun from the Typhoon. Do you know something none of
these folks do?

That it's a lot more expensive to maintain the capability than most seem
to think (the idea that sorties are free, ranges sit fully manned but
unused for opportunity use, and logistic pipelines cost nothing).

I'd personally argue that once you've designed the gun into the aircraft
you might as well bite the bullet and keep it, but to do so means
finding the same saving in a different area: and the gun was the least
indispensible capability.

And you describe above how in at least one case, strafing failed to
deter the enemy and heavier weapons had to be resorted to.

You are really having a problem with the idea that the ground commander
would prefer to work *up* the risk ladder, don't you?

When the "low risk" option failed and the "high risk" option needed
using anyway, then it's a problem. (If the enemy had been advancing,
then the "high risk" option that actually succeeded might instead have
become OBE...)

An "option" that actually just wastes time is not a good option in my
opinion.

Not jumping in and
placing his ground troops at maximum risk from the outset?

Is the only risk from your own CAS?

Odd, since you
were so risk adverse when it came to allowing the CAS assets down into the
weeds to make these sort of attacks.

Particularly since 'danger close' target identification is a very
difficult art even when you can give it full attention.

Similarly, one drag on developing a weapon for danger-close CAS is the
airy claim that "that's what the gun is for" when its effectiveness is
patchy (some reports of 'suppression' when it was used, but others where
the enemy declined to be deterred)

Gee, if it really sucked so much, why did those CCT's keep calling for
strafe as opposed to bombs in the first place?

How many times had they called for strafe against live enemies and seen
the results before? Combat is a learning experience.

Sounds like there's a need for a similar weight and accuracy of fire as
the AC-130 can deliver, but with the survivability of a fast jet.

In your scenario, neither aircraft is particularly suitable: if the
AC-130 can't survive the SAM threat, repeated passes by fast movers will
also get them speared by those improved MANPADS (especially since
they're delivering a lot less firepower and so *need* to make multiple
passes through the weapon envelope of an alerted enemy... this is what
is technically known as a Really Bad Idea).

Really Worse Idea is not being able to deliver support when the risk is
assessed and accepted.

Which is where you end up with an enemy with improved air defences, if
your only 'danger close' argument is a fixed gun.

So where's the evidence for that?

The same place as your evidence that the gun is worthless--a product of the
argument. If you don't have a gun, and the bad guys are in so tight that you
*can't* resort to a bomb,

Not the case here, note - or rather, when the guns failed then bombs had
to be used risks or not.

Suppose the enemy are even closer and the guns still don't stop them.
What then?

then you are effectively saying CAS is out of the
picture, so any increased losses could be attributed to that, at least in
part.

Trouble is, saying "whether the gun is effective or not, it's all we've
got, so we must have it" is a thoroughly circular argument.

Why the fevered opposition to considering alternatives? "The USAF don't
use that", "that's an Army weapon", "nobody's cleared it for fast
movers" all sound suspiciously like excuses rather than reasons.

And the only options are 20mm cannon or 2000lb bombs? Think again. If
this is a genuine and frequent need, neither weapon is appropriate.

Nobody said "frequent". I have noted before that you seem ready to place
combat into the "nice neat box" category, where all things happen according
to plan, and there is a playbook for handling the proceedings.

Your imagination, not reality. (I'm not the one advocating keeping a
'marginal infrequent' capability on the entire TacAir fleet).

That just is
not the way it happens. Which is why flexibility is important. And I hate to
say it, but I think your empathy is a bit lacking--if it *were* you hugging
the dirt up close and personal and well within the danger close margin for
bombs, and you had the option of starting with guns and then working up
through higher risk alternatives, I suspect you'd do that as opposed to
starting with the more risky "big bang". It is a bit easier to say you
wouldn't when you are not facing that dilemma.

And when that decision is made, and the Bad Guys keep shooting despite
strafe passes, and you take casualties?

Life isn't simple, and working your way up from "safe" to "risky"
options is sometimes a luxury.

Just out of interest, how close is "danger close" for mortar fire?
Officially it's 250 metres, but what's the _real_ danger close?

No, we're talking about current and future procurement.

We have been using Anaconda as the point of discussion-the M61 was used in
that role by both USAF and (IIRC) USN aircraft during that operation.

And using the results of that to inform future planning. Some new kit
may be integrated onto existing platforms, other issues may be for the
future.

Existing aircraft have the fit they do, it's the next step that's
controllable.

Unless you plan your only combat to be action replays, then you need to
learn what worked and what didn't; decide what lessons are valid and
which were special cases; and then plan for the future so you do more of
what worked, less of what didn't work and learn from the Lessons
Identified.

Well, since it looks like the 25mm is going to be our next major gun caliber
for the fast movers, maybe that will satisfy some of your concern.

So the F/A-22 is flying with a deficient weapon? How many lives will
_that_ cost? (I'll wager that USAF F-22s take as many air-to-air gun
shots as F-15s have)


About as acceptable as declaring that there's no particular problem that
a few strafing passes won't completely solve.

Why would you claim that? I did not say any such thing.

So what did thegun actually _achieve_? Wasted some time while failing
to prevent the enemy returning fire, seems to be all.

What I have been
saying is that when the ground guys find themselves in such a knife fight
and CAS is available, it is sure nice for that CAS to be able to contribute
to the fight.

No argument at all. It needs to destroy the enemy: failing that, to
suppress and disrupt them enough to seriously interfere with their
operations.

If it is successful in suppressing the bad guys (and I imagine
that it usually will at least be able to achieve short-term suppression),

"Imagining" is not much use, Kevin.

I can't understand what you find disagreeable about allowing
those ground troops to escalate the risk level as needed, as opposed to
having to accept that greater risk of fratricide from the outset if you have
no gun capability.

Nothing at all - I want them to have an _effective_ option to use.

I'm not the one claiming four situations in 17,500 sorties demonstrates
a completely untouchable situation, Kevin.

Neither am I; I shy away from such meaningless statistics.

But you're claiming that all tactical aircraft *must* have guns for just
this option.

I recognize that
strafe is the least preferable manner of delivering effective CAS.

So would a more effective and survivable method not be desirable?

Apparently not: it's "guns or nothing" for close engagements, now and
forever.

I also
recognize that there is a lot of ground radiating out from between 25 meters
and (let's assume for the SDB which will shortly be in the inventory) maybe
200 meters, and retaining the ability to conduct immediate CAS requests
against such targets may very well mean the difference between
success/failure for the mission or life/death for the troops.

Then why is the idea of looking at alternatives to cover that zone so
abhorrent?

Who has the option of operating above the light AAA, though MANPADS are
a problem there too.

It does not matter how high he is operating-we don't like using the gunships
for daylight operations. Khafji put paid to that approach.

It's a bloody expensive capability if you're limited to 50% utilisation,
but that's just my opinion.

You're happy to have fighters make predictable passes through MANPADS
and AAA come what may, but flying an AC-130 in daylight is Completely
Impossible? Weird priorities.

Given that the mortars should be one to two miles back at least (for
81mm tubes, more for 120s) and artillery five to ten miles, that is one
_hell_ of a light AA gun or man-portable SAM that can detect and hit a
cargo flight at that distance while in contact with friendly troops and
under artillery fire. It's a *lot* easier to acquire and shoot at the
Big Loud Plane that just flew overhead.

Here is where your "should be" falls apart on the rocks of reality.

How many ammunition resupply flights were shot down, then?

During
Anaconda the troops found themselves engaged a lot earlier, and a lot more
heavily, than they predicted-that is war, with all of its uncertainty.

This is true, but irrelevant. How many resupply flights were shot down?

(The lesson might be "it hurts to underestimate an opponent" and
learning it might be more useful than bolting guns into yet another
generation of aircraft, but that's just me)

So, I
'd assume (though I have not read anything to corroborate this) that the
plan was to have the mortars set up somewhere near the initial LZ's to cover
the troops movement to contact.

I'm wary of assumptions - bear in mind the troops allegedly went in
without artillery support, it not being judged necessary. (Whoops...)

By making contact a lot earlier than
anticipated, that put the mortars up near the close fight, and made the
resupply mission rather hazardous.

It seemed more that they had more missions than capability to fire,
rather than having their resupply destroyed.

Tube arty in this case was another
matter-Hagenbach, the MG in charge, has to shoulder the load for failing to
have a firebase set up within range, but he apparently did not anticipate
getting into a knifefight that precluded the use of the usual CAS delivered
bombs from the outset. Which is why those CCT's ended up begging for
strafing runs, again and again.

Precisely how many runs, out of interest? Both accounts of the battle
we've discussed indicate strafe was called but ineffective at the
start... and indicate that while bombs were called and used throughout,
strafe only seemed to feature in the first phase (against the bunker
that resisted it, until a PGM solved the problem)

And again, this comes into the category of planning for failure and
obsessing about "if we can't supply our mortars, don't bring artillery,
and then land right on top of the enemy, _then_ we need this capability"
- this isn't a convincing argument of why every tactical fighter in the
US inventory needs to have it available.

In at least one case the main armament had to be used anyway,
danger-close be damned.

ONLY as a last resort.

Point being that the strafing runs were a time-wasting distraction.

Common sense dictates that you don't start off
treating a simple puncture wound to your hand by amputating the arm at the
elbow, though that option may be exercised later if the mere cleaning and
bandaging of the wound does not prevent blood poisoning.

Unless the septicaemia has spread by then or developed into gangrene
while you fiddle about with bandages. (Also, perhaps you need somewhere
between 'bandage and pray' and 'chop it off at the elbow'?)

Likewise, those CCT
's did not jump directly to the risky use of bombs in a danger close
situation until they had exhausted their other less risky options.

Luckily, the target wasn't advancing.

In four cases, with patchy results at best.

They DID it, which is more than they could have done had they lacked
those guns.

And they got very little result from it where results are available.

How about improving ground-to-air comms to shorten the targeting cycle?
More fuel, meaning more loiter time per aircraft, for more responsive
support? Both reduce the time needed from call-for-fire to delivery;
meaning instead of 'suppressing' the enemy with strafing passes, they
can be engaged with destructive weapons because they've had less time to
close. Or more payload, for a new munition that's got both short
danger-close and high lethality on target

Huh? They "closed" almost instantaneously in this event, from what I
have read. There was no detection of the bad guys in strength at 1000 meters
followed by maneuver to within danger-close limits-for gosh sakes, they
would have just pasted the guys with CAS delivered PGM's at the outset if
they had known they were there.

So you're now defining capability based on one battle?

How many missions did they fly the next day? None. How much ordnance did
they deliver? None.

And they hung around because the guys on the ground were in deep do-do
and needed that support right then, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is meaningless if
you are likely to die today.

Who's "you", Kevin? One unit of troops in contact? Don't the units
moving through them tomorrow who will be in contact but with less
support count?

Either this is an essential capability, or it isn't. If it's not
essential and the troops can cope without it, what's the problem with
doing without? If it _is_ essential but you lose a lot of aircraft
delivering it, there's a clear need to improve it.

And how many helicopters were available to fly sorties the next day, and
the day after, and how many men could have died as a result? Or, what
was cancelled because the air support they needed for backup suddenly
wasn't there?

They were able to bring in replacement helos: IIRC some USMC AH-1W's
showed up to handle the attack helo role subsequent to having those Apaches
get shot up.

And where were they brought in _from_? Okay, if you've got so much
capability you totally overwhelm the foe then who cares? But that's not
always the case: realistically, "brought in as replacements" in one
theatre means "taken away from" another area.

Losing a half-squadron of AH-64s in a single incident suggests that
there's a serious capability gap, not that the existing systems are just
fine.

Similarly, 88% attrition is _not_ sustainable.

Any source for that number? ISTR reading that most of those helos were
back up within the week (I only recall one being a write off at the time)?

My sources said seven of eight grounded for repairs of which two were
repaired and five never flew again (at least not in that conflict)

Because those were the only two options available to them, and neither
sound satisfactory: the LGBs worryingly lethal over too large an area,
the gun runs inadequately lethal.

And they requested the gun runs in preference to the bombs-case
closed.

Case reopened when they called for the bombs _anyway_ because the guns
failed to do the job.

By all means plan your procurement on "first request". I'll stick to
"what actually worked".

Tells me they need another option available to them.

That may be, but I know of no other option that we can count on always
being onboard the loadout of the CAS packages.

In other words, every US tactical aircraft _must_ have a gun, no debate,
no question.

Even if APKWS was adopted by
the USAF it would not be an integral weapon. As it stands now we can get
some kind of CAS support at the 25 meters-from- friendlies- range from every
fast mover CAS aircraft we have-that is called flexibility.

It's also called "ineffective" on the limited results available.

It must be wonderful having that much budget.

It is. And as we discussed earlier, the gun is a marginal part of the
total program cost.

Not when you run the numbers. $100 million up front and $8m a year
in-service adds up to some genuine money.

But the STOVL version is more, not less, likely to be performing CAS.
How then can the gun be optional, if it's so effective and essential.

I did not say it was the most effective weapon-that is you twisting my
words (again). I said it affords a greater degree of flexibility, especially
in the very close fight, that you lose without the gun, and I believe that
flexibility is very important.

So why delete it from the airframe most likely to have a heavy CAS
tasking?

Yet again, armament suites are not fixed forever.

Ever try to specify what loadout you want from the air force side?

So you're now trying to solve institutional and doctrinal problems with
procurement?

Having the enemy "suppressed" for a pass or two is not a great return on
investment either.

It is if it allows you to disengage, or if it allows you to maneuver
to a position offering better cover, or if it allows you to conduct an
assault to dislodge the bad guys.

None of which were true even after multiple gun passes, in the
documented combat example.

I believe if you asked the average ground
guy which he'd prefer to have, the ability to achieve short-term
suppression, or the inability to suppress at all, he'd take the former

Actually, he'd want the Bad Guys made into Dead Guys (or at least Gone
Guys) and I doubt he'd care too much how it was done so long as it
worked.

So you don't have the right weapons for the job? (20mm lacks
effectiveness, current PGMs too generous in their danger zones)

Bear in mind you're making force-wide assertions on the basis of 0.05%
of the offensive air sorties here.

Paging Mr. McNamara.

Not sure what this means - you're the one using assertion and opinion to
inform decisions, not me.

Glad to see you found the article, Paul. Too bad you can't understand
the basic fact that those ground guys kept asking for strafing attacks
because they did not want to escalate their own risk until/unless they had
to.

And at some point you'll notice they switched ordnance because the
strafing runs failed and they needed something better, risks or not.

Luckily, this time the target was static and they had the time for this
progression.


I say that something better is needed. You're insisting that the status
quo is just fine and no improvement is possible. Something of an
impasse.


--
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