A-4 / A-7 Question

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote
"Grantland" wrote:

(Harry Andreas) wrote:

Joe Osman wrote:
snip
While doing CAS from afar doesn't have the dramatic flair of
the good
ol' days, it certainly is just as effective. Won't make very
good
footage for some future war movie though.

That's all well and good if the technology works, but if it
fails the results can be a lot nastier than when the
ordnance was being pointed in the proper direction until the
last second with the pilot there to make the decision to
release or not. And if the enemy defeats or spoofs the
terchnology we should still have the old fashioned
capability around, especially in an expeditionary context
where troops on the ground need "flying artillery".

The technology is a lot harder to defeat than most people
realize.

The alternative is to spend a LOT of time training for dumb bomb
deliveries that you'll probably never do: a waste to resources
when
you could be training for something more useful.
Or not train for dumb bomb deliveries enough, and if you have to
do it,
not be competent enough which is a risk all it's own.

I think you need to bet on the odds, which are strongly in favor
of
the technology, especially since it's been demonstrated in
service.

until someone detonates an EMP nukes(s) in high orbit. No doubt
there's a coupla candidates already up there, waiting. There goes
your $trillion+ investment.. tsk tsk


Right because terrorists can drive U-Haul trucks into space.

Since GPS Sats are thoroughly radiation hardened, it don't matter
much. It's impossible to take out GPS service with a single weapon of
any kind, any where. You_might_degrade system accuracy some places,
some times but that's about it. The Air Force is active in increasing
the hardness of the GPS system through increased coding gain, radiated
power and AJ antennas for the weapons. I don't see much payoff and do
see a lot of costs is maintaining the ability to deliver CAS fires
with dumb munitions. Better to proliferate the ways of guiding smart
munitions (mm-wave seekers for instance). The most fruitful avenue to
interfering with the New Age CAS is in network communications attacks
to slow down, corrupt or block those automated 9-line messages.

On 10/11/03 6:07 AM, in article ,
"Paul Austin" wrote:


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote
"Grantland" wrote:

(Harry Andreas) wrote:

Joe Osman wrote:
snip
While doing CAS from afar doesn't have the dramatic flair of
the good
ol' days, it certainly is just as effective. Won't make very
good
footage for some future war movie though.

That's all well and good if the technology works, but if it
fails the results can be a lot nastier than when the
ordnance was being pointed in the proper direction until the
last second with the pilot there to make the decision to
release or not. And if the enemy defeats or spoofs the
terchnology we should still have the old fashioned
capability around, especially in an expeditionary context
where troops on the ground need "flying artillery".

The technology is a lot harder to defeat than most people
realize.

The alternative is to spend a LOT of time training for dumb bomb
deliveries that you'll probably never do: a waste to resources
when
you could be training for something more useful.
Or not train for dumb bomb deliveries enough, and if you have to
do it,
not be competent enough which is a risk all it's own.

I think you need to bet on the odds, which are strongly in favor
of
the technology, especially since it's been demonstrated in
service.

until someone detonates an EMP nukes(s) in high orbit. No doubt
there's a coupla candidates already up there, waiting. There goes
your $trillion+ investment.. tsk tsk


Right because terrorists can drive U-Haul trucks into space.

Since GPS Sats are thoroughly radiation hardened, it don't matter
much. It's impossible to take out GPS service with a single weapon of
any kind, any where. You_might_degrade system accuracy some places,
some times but that's about it. The Air Force is active in increasing
the hardness of the GPS system through increased coding gain, radiated
power and AJ antennas for the weapons. I don't see much payoff and do
see a lot of costs is maintaining the ability to deliver CAS fires
with dumb munitions. Better to proliferate the ways of guiding smart
munitions (mm-wave seekers for instance). The most fruitful avenue to
interfering with the New Age CAS is in network communications attacks
to slow down, corrupt or block those automated 9-line messages.



Love the automate 9-line concept. Never actually used it. All that is
usually required is a set of target coordinates and a friendly location.
The rest of the 9-line WRT JDAM CAS is useless. What I'm saying is that a
network attack may slow the process down--but even then only slightly. All
it really means is that the pilot better have a blank kneeboard card.

--Woody

Woody,

Sad - well maybe.

I can't think of a single shipmate who relished flying into combat with an
unreliable weapons system. Catshot-lovin' inertials; nonintuitive knobology
(all of us "old" B/Ns managed to cycle steering in memory point at some
embarrassing juncture); AMTI circuitry that classified freeway overpasses as
"movers" and Whack-A-Mole circuit-breaker management techniques (most often
performed in unusual attitudes) were all aspects of the A-6A that added
greatly to risk - especially when combined with a mission of dubious value.
(And there were many such missions during the VN conflict.)

But such was life in a first-generation technology.

I've always loved the idea of driving as many of the smarts as may be
feasible from the manned delivery vehicle into the unmanned weapon. Humans
shouldn't go into harm's way unless there is no better solution.

Besides - smart weapons make lousy POWs.

Owl sends.
--
Mike Kanze

436 Greenbrier Road
Half Moon Bay, California 94019-2259
USA

650-726-7890

"The best political metaphor from Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie career is
not his three 'Terminator' roles. Rather, it's 'Kindergarten Cop.' In the
California legislature, Ah-nold will be taking on the largest
publicly-funded day-care center west of Washington, DC."

- Mike Kanze


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 10/9/03 9:41 AM, in article , "Mike
Kanze" wrote:

All excellent discussion and very good points, but what do our
ground-pounding "customers" think of the effectiveness of current CAS
doctrine?

Owl,

The customers LOVE it. Even now, they pass coords via secure. 6 minutes
later, there are warheads on foreheads. I think there's mutual agreement
that its both safer and more effective.

In effect, your old B/N job got replaced by GPS.

--Woody

P.S. I know. It's sad for me too.

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 04:46:26 GMT, "Dudhorse"
wrote:


"Grantland" wrote in message
...
(Harry Andreas) wrote:

In article , Joe Osman
wrote:
snip
While doing CAS from afar doesn't have the dramatic flair of the good
ol' days, it certainly is just as effective. Won't make very good
footage for some future war movie though.

That's all well and good if the technology works, but if it
fails the results can be a lot nastier than when the
ordnance was being pointed in the proper direction until the
last second with the pilot there to make the decision to
release or not. And if the enemy defeats or spoofs the
terchnology we should still have the old fashioned
capability around, especially in an expeditionary context
where troops on the ground need "flying artillery".

The technology is a lot harder to defeat than most people realize.

The alternative is to spend a LOT of time training for dumb bomb
deliveries that you'll probably never do: a waste to resources when
you could be training for something more useful.
Or not train for dumb bomb deliveries enough, and if you have to do it,
not be competent enough which is a risk all it's own.

I think you need to bet on the odds, which are strongly in favor of
the technology, especially since it's been demonstrated in service.

until someone detonates an EMP nukes(s) in high orbit. No doubt
there's a coupla candidates already up there, waiting. There goes
your $trillion+ investment.. tsk tsk

Grantland

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

.... and you can bet your last eggroll that the Red Chinese have got one of
their top thinktanks devising ways to circumvent/destroy the U.S. digital
infrastructure - Gulf War I & II have taught them and the world the way to
defang the U.S. across the board is to take out every one of our
networks/uplinks & downlinks. If they ever go head to head with us in the
future it will have to be their number one priority if they want to stand a
chance.

Trust me, that would be extremely difficult. Systems are EMP hardened,
encoded, and backed up. Not to mention the existence of systems that
are not discussed in public.

Al Minyard

piggybacking due to tinkerbell leaving out the real ng.
"Tank Fixer" wrote in message
k.net...
In article et,
lid says...
"Tank Fixer" wrote in message
k.net
In article ,
says...

It almost sounds like the 30mm Caseless Pods that can be mounted
under Fighters making even an A-4 into a tank killer. That died
when the A-7 did. Too bad. The A-7E was a superior AC to the A-10
when armed with the 30mm caseless chain gun. To upgrade the A-7 to
an AC with the F/A-18 perfomance would have cost appr. 3.5 million
per copy. versus how much for an A-10 that requires constant
TopCap? Another Congressional Boondoggle.



Anyone know what he is talking about ?
I've not heard of any system like this before.

I'm guessing he's takling about a couple two things.

First is the GPU-5 (aka Pave Claw) gun pod, which holds a four-barrel
version of the GAU-8 called GAU-13. (Definitely neither caseless nor a
chain gun, though). It was supposed to give conventional fighters almost
the
same gun power as the A-10. But it really didn't work very well. The
New
York Air Natioanl Guard had one F-16 unit that went to the Gulf with the
GPU-5 in 1991 (the "Boys from Syracuse"/174th Fighter Wing). They took
the
pods off the planes early in the proceedings and never flew them again.

This was a new gun that never went into production. It was supposed to be
for the A-7D for the Air Force. But the acceptance of the A-10 stopped all
research into it. It was caseless. Good idea that never reached
production.



http://www.f-16.net/reference/versions/f16_fa.html

Second, for a time, there was discussion of using a modified A-7 with
afterbrning engnie as a CAS bird instead of the A-10. But that was Air
Force, not Navy. And as much a I like the A-7, I have to admit that
this
was probably a dead end idea. Even with extensive mods, the A-7 was
never
going to be a turning fighter or radar missile shooter like the Hornet.

http://www.vought.com/heritage/products/html/ya-7f.html

The Air Force didn't want to give up the A-7 anymore than the Navy did. The
A-10 was helpless unless you had air superiority. The A-10 was a sitting
duck for even the Soviet SU7 Attack. This made the AF look at alternatives.
But the F-16A was the answer to that question when it was affordable.

And of course, the coming of the FA-18 filled the need for the Navy. At the
time, the FA-18 was still on the drawing board. But at 3.4 mil, the Super
Corsair was tempting. Things just happened before the need for the Super
A-7 was finished. Nothing lost in the end.






Looks like those in RAM know a bit more about the subject than you do
daryl....

Hey Tinkerbell, keep trolling.

"Colin Campbell" (remove underscore) wrote in
message ...
On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:02:00 GMT, Tank Fixer
wrote:


In article ,
says...

It almost sounds like the 30mm Caseless Pods that can be mounted
under Fighters making even an A-4 into a tank killer. That died
when the A-7 did. Too bad. The A-7E was a superior AC to the A-10
when armed with the 30mm caseless chain gun. To upgrade the A-7 to
an AC with the F/A-18 perfomance would have cost appr. 3.5 million
per copy. versus how much for an A-10 that requires constant
TopCap? Another Congressional Boondoggle.



Looks like those in RAM know a bit more about the subject than you do
daryl....

Personally I regarded the A7 as a boondoggle. For years the Air Force
would not request any but it would be included in the budget because
it was made in the district of a powerful politician.

The A-10 was at least 10 years in the future when the A-7 made it's debut.
In it's time, it was the replacement AC for the A1E Skyraider which had gone
through 3 wars and had a problem of being a Maintenance Pig in comparison to
a jet. The Navy didn't wish to give them up until the FA-18 hit and the Air
Force didn't want to give them up until the F-16 hit. The A-10 really
didn't have a mission except against Battle Tanks. The F-15, F-16, F-14,
FA-18 and almost any fighter in the inventory could handle anything less.
In order to use the A-10, complete Air Superiority had to be had before it
could even come into the area. Otherwise, any Subsonic Attack or Fighter
made by the Soviets, French, etc. in the last 30 years would just pick it
off. The A-10 had and still has too narrow of a mission requirement and
productions stopped a few years ago on it. The F-16 and the F-15E is
taking over the A-10s mission. And the Navy never did miss it.



And as actual combat has shown - nothing beats the A10 in the CAS
role.

How about a quote on that one. "Actual Combat"? Whose?

In article , Daryl Hunt says...


"Replacement_Tommel"
'SINV ALIDBABY wrote in message
...

Tell the USAF that... for awhile they wanted to get rid rid of the A-10
and were pushing the "A-16" - picture a F-16 in green camoflage with a 30mm
gatling gun pod on its center hardpoint.

CAS simply isn't something taken seriously by the USAF.

You tell the AF that.

Oh, they already know it.

"Not a pound for air to ground" as the Fighter Mafia used to like to say...
(funny how you don't hear about a "CAS Mafia," huh?)

They aren't buying anymore A-10s for a good reason.

They aren't sexy enough, so the USAF just ignored it and hoped it would die.

I believe the A-10 has been upgraded exactly ONE time in the USAF, when they
hung a Pave Penny on it. The F-16 has been updated numerous times (F-16A --
F-16C) with numerous "block" upgrades. I believe the current model is a F-16C
Block 50/52, correct?

The USAF has spent tons of money on the F-16 program and has come up with
numerous test beds for the Lawn Dart (like the F-16XL and "A-16" - where the
USAF tried to convince everybody that a lizard green F-16C with a 30mm gunpod
was an A-10...).

There was a two seater all weather A-10 (NAW-10?) that he Air Force looked at
briefly and then decided that it didn't want (what a surprise...).

The fact is - the USAF gets the F-16 pilots LANTRIN pods and fun stuff like
that, while the A-10 guys are given Night Vision Goggles.

It's pretty obvious where the USAF is spending it's money at.

Hell, the USAF never even wanted the A-10 in the first place, or haven't you
noticed that most of the USAF's attack birds were taken from USN designs (yes,
the Navy takes that role more seriously than the USAF does...).

USN: A-1, A-4, A-6, A-7 (not gonna include F/A-18 in that mix)

USAF: A-1 (taken from the Navy when the USAF realized they had no suitable
attack designs), A-7 (same as previous), A-10, AC-130

USMC: A-4, A-6, AV-8 (Brit designed, extensively modified by McD-D)(F/A-18 also)

The fact is, the USN has led the way with attack craft. The Navy even considered
the A-12, whereas the the USAF has never really considered a follow on for the
A-10 (oh yeah, the A-16 - but the Air Force brass didn't fool anyone on that).

Are you telling me that the USAF is foolish enough to believe that everything
with wings has to be capable of enagaging MiGs in 1v1. Hell, the Army and the
Marine Corps don't think that everything with treads should be able to engage
MBTs...

(I won't even get into the whole P-51 (F-51) fiasco in Korea... although some
parellels could be made - the F-51 was "sexy" but the P-47 wasn't...)

It's mission died with the fall of the iron curtain.

As did the F-22's and the (especially) the B-2's yet the USAF doesn't want to
drop them does it?

The major power with the Main Battle Tanks the A-10 was designed to combat
can't even get the fuel to drive them anymore.

So why does the USAF want the F-22 and B-2 then? The Russian Air Force is a
joke, and it's not bloody likely that we need to nuke them anytime soon...

And the F-16 can completely fill the role

The USAF dropped the "A-16" idea because they knew nobody was daft enough to buy
it...

the A-10 was supposed to do (and never did).

Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Liberation?

Life expectancy of an A-10 against almost any Mig or SU is about 30 seconds.

The A-10 isn't a fighter, right?

And why does the USAF want to keep the AC-130? It's s-l-o-w, b-i-g, can't fight
Migs... damn that thing is WORSE than an A-10!!!

This is typical fighter mafia mentality - look downwards, because man lives on
the ground and not up in the clouds. It's the ground battle that's paramount.

Life expectancy of a F-16 all depends on the Pilots.


Yeah, control the air but place no emphasis on what goes on in the ground...

You are reading your Armies PR again.


No, just taking note of what the USAF has historically done.

http://www.f-16.net/reference/versions/f16_fa.html

-Tom

"For the cause that lacks assistance/The wrong that needs ressistance/For the
Future in the distance/And the Good that I can do" - George Linnaeus Banks,
"What I Live for"

UMA Lemming 404 Local member, 404th MTN(LI)

Replacement_Tommel wrote:
In article ,
Daryl Hunt
says...


"Replacement_Tommel"

'SINVA LIDBABY
wrote in
message ...

Tell the USAF that... for awhile they wanted to get rid
rid of the
A-10 and were pushing the "A-16" - picture a F-16 in
green
camoflage with a 30mm
gatling gun pod on its center hardpoint.

CAS simply isn't something taken seriously by the USAF.

You tell the AF that.

Oh, they already know it.

"Not a pound for air to ground" as the Fighter Mafia used
to like to
say... (funny how you don't hear about a "CAS Mafia,"
huh?)

They aren't buying anymore A-10s for a good reason.

They aren't sexy enough, so the USAF just ignored it and
hoped it
would die.

Even the USAF A-10 pilots say that the USAF is ignoring the
A-10 and hoping it'll go away.

snip


It's mission died with the fall of the iron curtain.

As did the F-22's and the (especially) the B-2's yet the
USAF doesn't
want to drop them does it?

No, the A-10s mission really began in Desert Storm when we
found out that it could do so much more than bust tanks.
The A-10 and AH-64 make a credible team for dealing with
hardened targets like bunkers and other defense works. It
is also an outstanding weapon in Close (and I mean close)
air support of ground operations providing covering fire as
effective (maybe more effective) as artillery and is more
versatile in "Danger Close" support missions because of its
ability to fly slow enough for the pilot to properly
identify ground targets. The A-10 can fly at altitudes
where the AH-64 is not effective such as the Hindu Kush
where they could be called against caves, stone works and
other defensive positions.


The major power with the Main Battle Tanks the A-10 was
designed to
combat
can't even get the fuel to drive them anymore.

So why does the USAF want the F-22 and B-2 then? The
Russian Air
Force is a joke, and it's not bloody likely that we need
to nuke them
anytime soon...

The A-10 has a current mission and is more capable of
performing it than any other aircraft whether fixed or
rotary winged.

And the F-16 can completely fill the role

The USAF dropped the "A-16" idea because they knew nobody
was daft
enough to buy it...

It can't fly slow enough and it can't direct gunfire
accurately enough. The numbers of "blue on blue" incidents
with F-16s should be enough to tell anyone that.

the A-10 was supposed to do (and never did).

Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Liberation?

Add Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Just Cause.
All of which have proven (at least to the US Army, US Navy
(hence A-12) and USMC that the A-10 is an excellent aircraft
with a continuing mission in Close Air Support.

Life expectancy of an A-10 against almost any Mig or SU
is about 30
seconds.

The A-10 isn't a fighter, right?

Do we expect that we will be unable to provide CAP and air
superiority anytime soon?

And why does the USAF want to keep the AC-130? It's
s-l-o-w, b-i-g,
can't fight Migs... damn that thing is WORSE than an
A-10!!!

This is typical fighter mafia mentality - look downwards,
because man
lives on the ground and not up in the clouds. It's the
ground battle
that's paramount.

Life expectancy of a F-16 all depends on the Pilots.

Life expectancy of an A-10 depends on the skill of the
Pilots as well. Or didn't you read about how they were
employed as "deep strike" aircraft in Desert Storm?

Snark

In article ,
says...
piggybacking due to tinkerbell leaving out the real ng.
"Tank Fixer" wrote in message
k.net...
In article et,
lid says...
"Tank Fixer" wrote in message
k.net
In article ,
says...

It almost sounds like the 30mm Caseless Pods that can be mounted
under Fighters making even an A-4 into a tank killer. That died
when the A-7 did. Too bad. The A-7E was a superior AC to the A-10
when armed with the 30mm caseless chain gun. To upgrade the A-7 to
an AC with the F/A-18 perfomance would have cost appr. 3.5 million
per copy. versus how much for an A-10 that requires constant
TopCap? Another Congressional Boondoggle.



Anyone know what he is talking about ?
I've not heard of any system like this before.

I'm guessing he's takling about a couple two things.

First is the GPU-5 (aka Pave Claw) gun pod, which holds a four-barrel
version of the GAU-8 called GAU-13. (Definitely neither caseless nor a
chain gun, though). It was supposed to give conventional fighters almost
the
same gun power as the A-10. But it really didn't work very well. The
New
York Air Natioanl Guard had one F-16 unit that went to the Gulf with the
GPU-5 in 1991 (the "Boys from Syracuse"/174th Fighter Wing). They took
the
pods off the planes early in the proceedings and never flew them again.

This was a new gun that never went into production. It was supposed to be
for the A-7D for the Air Force. But the acceptance of the A-10 stopped all
research into it. It was caseless. Good idea that never reached
production.


You're statement implied they existed and were used.





http://www.f-16.net/reference/versions/f16_fa.html

Second, for a time, there was discussion of using a modified A-7 with
afterbrning engnie as a CAS bird instead of the A-10. But that was Air
Force, not Navy. And as much a I like the A-7, I have to admit that
this
was probably a dead end idea. Even with extensive mods, the A-7 was
never
going to be a turning fighter or radar missile shooter like the Hornet.

http://www.vought.com/heritage/products/html/ya-7f.html

The Air Force didn't want to give up the A-7 anymore than the Navy did. The
A-10 was helpless unless you had air superiority. The A-10 was a sitting
duck for even the Soviet SU7 Attack. This made the AF look at alternatives.
But the F-16A was the answer to that question when it was affordable.

I'm not talking down the A-7. It did a good job during it service time.

And I do not believe the A-10 would be helpless. Many an F4 pilot rued
the day they decided to get low and slow with Mig-17's in Vietnam.



And of course, the coming of the FA-18 filled the need for the Navy. At the
time, the FA-18 was still on the drawing board. But at 3.4 mil, the Super
Corsair was tempting. Things just happened before the need for the Super
A-7 was finished. Nothing lost in the end.





Looks like those in RAM know a bit more about the subject than you do
daryl....

Hey Tinkerbell, keep trolling.

Sorry you feel that way. I asked those in RAM and they disagreed with you,
again.



--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

"Alan Minyard"wrote
"Dudhorse" wrote:


"Grantland" wrote in message
(Harry Andreas) wrote:

In article , Joe Osman
wrote:
snip
While doing CAS from afar doesn't have the dramatic flair of
the good
ol' days, it certainly is just as effective. Won't make very
good
footage for some future war movie though.

That's all well and good if the technology works, but if it
fails the results can be a lot nastier than when the
ordnance was being pointed in the proper direction until the
last second with the pilot there to make the decision to
release or not. And if the enemy defeats or spoofs the
terchnology we should still have the old fashioned
capability around, especially in an expeditionary context
where troops on the ground need "flying artillery".

The technology is a lot harder to defeat than most people
realize.

The alternative is to spend a LOT of time training for dumb bomb
deliveries that you'll probably never do: a waste to resources
when
you could be training for something more useful.
Or not train for dumb bomb deliveries enough, and if you have to
do it,
not be competent enough which is a risk all it's own.

I think you need to bet on the odds, which are strongly in favor
of
the technology, especially since it's been demonstrated in
service.

until someone detonates an EMP nukes(s) in high orbit. No doubt
there's a coupla candidates already up there, waiting. There
goes
your $trillion+ investment.. tsk tsk

Grantland

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

.... and you can bet your last eggroll that the Red Chinese have
got one of
their top thinktanks devising ways to circumvent/destroy the U.S.
digital
infrastructure - Gulf War I & II have taught them and the world the
way to
defang the U.S. across the board is to take out every one of our
networks/uplinks & downlinks. If they ever go head to head with us
in the
future it will have to be their number one priority if they want to
stand a
chance.

Trust me, that would be extremely difficult. Systems are EMP
hardened,
encoded, and backed up. Not to mention the existence of systems that
are not discussed in public.

The most effective attacks would insert bogus calls for fire into the
network. If the net gets the reputation as being untrustworthy (and it
only takes a few instances for that to happen) then every goes back to
1992 paper ATOs. I don't have your faith in the invulnerability of
military networks since 1. enemy IW people have huge incentives to
penetrate our networks, 2. our networks by their nature are not
exposed to the kinds of constant "test by enemy fire" that open
networks are. Robust encryption and physical security of key sets is
probably our best line of defense.