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#181
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Chad Irby wrote in message m...
(Tony Williams) wrote: Chad Irby wrote: Part of that "cost effectiveness" appeared to be a lowball pricing structure that fell through on closer examination. Do you have a source to support that? You may be right, but I like to work on hard info rather than forum gossip. This talks about the cost issue: http://stage.defensedaily.com/VIP/ddi/previous/ddi0927.htm#A1 "We had a cost-growth problem that forced a recompetition," he said. "Affordability is a prime concern of the program. Based on that we were forced to recompete the gun system integration. We selected our supplier on a best-value case." Thanks for that link. I had to smile at: "GD had initially offered its GAU-12 25mm gatling cannon for the JSF in July 1999, but withdrew its proposal in February 2000." since that was only after L-M had selected the BK 27 - in the UK, we call that 'spin' A "cost-growth problem" for an established weapon like the Mauser means "they tried to stick us for some more cash after they got the contract." The usual response in that case is to tell the supplier to keep the price down or lose the contract. With a potentially huge market for the F-35, Mauser would have to have been mad to throw it away. There is no inherent reason that I am aware of that the BK 27 should have been more expensive to make than the GAU-12/U, particularly since both would have been made in the USA (unless they're planning to save money on the initial batch by re-using guns from the AV8-B). I remain suspicious that GD was both the gun integrator and the supplier of the GAU-12/U; they weren't exactly innocent bystanders. Tony Williams Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/ |
#182
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#183
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"Tony Williams" wrote in message m... Chad Irby wrote in message m... (Tony Williams) wrote: Chad Irby wrote: Part of that "cost effectiveness" appeared to be a lowball pricing structure that fell through on closer examination. Do you have a source to support that? You may be right, but I like to work on hard info rather than forum gossip. This talks about the cost issue: http://stage.defensedaily.com/VIP/ddi/previous/ddi0927.htm#A1 "We had a cost-growth problem that forced a recompetition," he said. "Affordability is a prime concern of the program. Based on that we were forced to recompete the gun system integration. We selected our supplier on a best-value case." Thanks for that link. I had to smile at: "GD had initially offered its GAU-12 25mm gatling cannon for the JSF in July 1999, but withdrew its proposal in February 2000." since that was only after L-M had selected the BK 27 - in the UK, we call that 'spin' A "cost-growth problem" for an established weapon like the Mauser means "they tried to stick us for some more cash after they got the contract." The usual response in that case is to tell the supplier to keep the price down or lose the contract. With a potentially huge market for the F-35, Mauser would have to have been mad to throw it away. There is no inherent reason that I am aware of that the BK 27 should have been more expensive to make than the GAU-12/U, particularly since both would have been made in the USA (unless they're planning to save money on the initial batch by re-using guns from the AV8-B). I remain suspicious that GD was both the gun integrator and the supplier of the GAU-12/U; they weren't exactly innocent bystanders. Do you remember the American production of Roland? Each and every drawing had to be reproduced with SAE equivalents of all the metric dimensions. That kind of "Americanization" ran the price up to the point that the AF choked. |
#184
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Ed Rasimus wrote in message
It wasn't a readily available option when initially called for. Remember that Afghanistan is a long way from anywhere. At the time of Anaconda, the primary tactical assets were carrier based and flying extremely long duration, multiple refueling sorties. The flexibility for immediate on-call CAS was not available. Ed, I take issue with your last statement, unless you're limiting the scope of your answer to tacair only. My wing flew 300 sorties during Anaconda and dropped 845 JDAM's and 24 Mk84's providing excellent on call air power. Granted we're a heavy bomber and could fly 1000 miles and then loiter for a few hours, which the fighter guys couldn't do. I'm sure BUFDRVR can chime in with the BUFF's contribution to CAS in Afghanistan. It only goes to back up what you've been saying, methods of delivering CAS are changing. Cheers, Michael Kelly, Bone Maintainer |
#185
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In message , Kevin
Brooks writes "Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ... It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15 chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements, for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1] Ugh! That all sounds dangerously like the "operations research", or systems analysis, kind of numeric mumbo-jumbo so characteristic of the McNamara era---PLEASSSE don't go there! What do you think my day job is? _Someone_ has to try to work out the best way to use what we've got, and while the Services take the lead they also hire some civilian help. Ed raises some valid criticism of the data as raw numbers, but he agrees with the main thrust: guns on or off fighters were a trivial factor in air-to-air combat effectiveness; at least when compared to training, tactics, doctrine, personnel deployments, maintenance, technology... Trouble is, the "we did badly because we didn't have guns" mantra is attractive, seductive... and wrong. It took us a generation to rid ourselves of the most of the "mantle of the number crunchers" (and we were only partially succesful--witness the continued use of the POM process in budgeting) as it was... Too little analysis is as bad as too much. -- 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 |
#186
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"Paul F Austin" wrote in message . ..
"Tony Williams" wrote in message m... Chad Irby wrote in message m... (Tony Williams) wrote: Chad Irby wrote: Part of that "cost effectiveness" appeared to be a lowball pricing structure that fell through on closer examination. Do you have a source to support that? You may be right, but I like to work on hard info rather than forum gossip. This talks about the cost issue: http://stage.defensedaily.com/VIP/ddi/previous/ddi0927.htm#A1 "We had a cost-growth problem that forced a recompetition," he said. "Affordability is a prime concern of the program. Based on that we were forced to recompete the gun system integration. We selected our supplier on a best-value case." Thanks for that link. I had to smile at: "GD had initially offered its GAU-12 25mm gatling cannon for the JSF in July 1999, but withdrew its proposal in February 2000." since that was only after L-M had selected the BK 27 - in the UK, we call that 'spin' A "cost-growth problem" for an established weapon like the Mauser means "they tried to stick us for some more cash after they got the contract." The usual response in that case is to tell the supplier to keep the price down or lose the contract. With a potentially huge market for the F-35, Mauser would have to have been mad to throw it away. There is no inherent reason that I am aware of that the BK 27 should have been more expensive to make than the GAU-12/U, particularly since both would have been made in the USA (unless they're planning to save money on the initial batch by re-using guns from the AV8-B). I remain suspicious that GD was both the gun integrator and the supplier of the GAU-12/U; they weren't exactly innocent bystanders. Do you remember the American production of Roland? Each and every drawing had to be reproduced with SAE equivalents of all the metric dimensions. That kind of "Americanization" ran the price up to the point that the AF choked. Yes, something like that is what I assumed in the first place. Tony Williams Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/ |
#188
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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. 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, the range, the targets (whether air-to-air or air-to-ground), 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. 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. 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. It's not an enormously convincing argument that the existing gun armament is a potent and essential CAS tool, is it? 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. Burdening most of your tactical air fleet with a thousand pounds of ballast that's used on 0.05% of combat sorties is 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. 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) 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). 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 differnce, when viewed against the Anaconda model. In at least one case the main armament had to be used anyway, danger-close be damned. 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. 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? 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. http://www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml +++++ Combat controller recalls Operation Anaconda by Tech. Sgt. Ginger Schreitmueller Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs "I had an aircraft overhead carrying 500-pound bombs, but the 'bad guys' were too close to our position to drop that much ammo without risking our lives. I waved the pilot off the bomb run. I had him come around and strafe the area with guns," said the sergeant. The aircraft made a low and hard sweep over the entrenched area, popping off rounds at the enemy troops. "You could see the snow flying off the ground near the bunker and I knew he was hitting it," said Brown. The aircraft made several more passes at the enemy before indicating he was out of ammo. Despite the thousands of rounds pitting the area, the al-Qaida forces kept firing. "I kept yelling across the area at the platoon leader about our options to eliminate the bunker,” said Brown. “We coordinated on what we needed to do to 'frag' out the enemy and blow the bunker. We knew the bad guys were still hiding in the bunker. We were already two hours into the fight and it was only going to get worse if we couldn't take down their position." Using his close air support training and skills, Brown targeted the spot using precision bombs. The need was urgent as additional al-Qaida troops were pulling up the mountaintop toward the U.S. team. "If we couldn't kill the bunker, we were going to be surrounded,” said Brown. “We knew that we had enemy soldiers hiding in the terrain to our (right). Effectively, they were moving in on us and we had nowhere to go." The danger-close call proved effective, as the bombs skidded across the side of the mountain just in time and collapsed the bunker. "The noise was just like it sounds in the movies," said Brown. "You could smell the burning pine off the trees and see the snow kicking off the ground." snip But with the bunker out of action and the enemy forces moving up toward the Americans, Brown turned his attention to the rock and tree cluster on the other side of the landing zone. "Since I couldn't use target designators, I needed some marking to be able to talk the bombs onto target," said Brown. "I used a small tree I referred to as the bonsai tree as a reference point." Brown cleared a fighter pilot to drop bombs. When the smoke cleared the tree was now just a stick in the ground, he said. Enemy resistance waned and Brown took a breath." +++++ Doesn't sound like the 'flexibility' of having a gun helped much, except to waste time; and they lost seven men in that firefight. There's an identified need for a more effective danger-close weapon, but the gun doesn't seem to be it. Another account of that battle from SSgt Vance at http://globalspecops.com/sts.html includes the following two excerpts: +++++ "I told the combat controller to have the F-15s to strafe the bunker and have them come in from our right to our left. The CCT repeated what I said. He was smart enough that I did not have to tell him too much detail of what to say on the radio. We used the position of the helicopter to give clock directions. He had basic knowledge of CAS so I could tell him to have the fighters do gun runs on an area from which direction and he would get on the radio and make it happen. The first F-15 pass was really close and I was uncomfortable because I could not tell if the guns were pointing at my team or the enemy bunker so I told the CCT to abort it. I told him to have them come in more from behind us, so I could tell they were not pointing at us. I told him to clear them and the rounds hit right by the bunker. I told him to have them do that over and over again. I think the gun runs were made by both F-15s and F-16s. For the first 10-15 minutes, the CCT thought I was the team leader. He yelled to me 'team leader' when the team leader was sitting next to him. At this point, the team member who was injured in the leg and could not move easily was facing one way. Another Sgt. and I were pulling security on the bunker. The Platoon Leader and I tried to determine where would be a good landing zone. The fighters did some more gun runs and the enemy was still jumping up shooting at us." snip "I asked the medic 'if we hang out here, how many guys are going to die?" The medic said at least two, maybe three. I reported to Controller 'it is a cold PZ and we are going to lose three if we wait. Just as I said it was a cold PZ, we were shot at. However, we could have made it cold by the time they got the helicopters in there. It was just every once and while the enemy would take pop shots at us. If we had CAS on station dropping bombs, we could have gotten out of there at that time. I told CCT to drop bombs down in the valley and on the small hill every now and again. Every time the plane showed up and you could hear them, we weren't being shot at. Just having the planes nearby kept the enemy away. Continuously dropping bombs discouraged them from coming after us. So every now and again, we would drop bombs on them with B52s, B-1s, those were the last aircraft we had. I cannot remember which one." +++++ Again, not a ringing endorsement of the strafing runs... -- 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 |
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In message , Kevin
Brooks writes "Jake McGuire" wrote in message . com... It points out the value that the ground troops placed on AC-130 support. Which is naturally much more effective than fighter strafing support, as the AC-130 has more, larger guns, on trainable mounts, with dedicated gunners, and a very long loiter capability. This is not the same as a fighter that can make two or three 20mm strafing passes before he's out of ammunition. Well, you kind of snipped away the related bit about the scenario where you are well within danger-close and under a significant MANPADS threat during daytime, which sort of eliminates the AC-130 from the running. The point was that the groundpounders found the guns a better starting point for CAS during that operation than PGM's. Are you claiming that the 10th LID and 101st AASLT DIV folks did not like getting that 20mm strafe support they received from the F-15E's and F-16's that day? It didn't do them much good, compared to the numerous bombs they called in. Read SSgt Vance's testimony: where the al-Qaeda troops kept firing despite the strafing, their position was destroyed with bombs, and lack of bombs (not guns) was cited as a significant delay in their extraction, which contributed to at least one death (SrA Jason D. Cunningham, who was badly wounded and died before being evacuated) Your mistake is to assume that this is always going to be the case. The Small Diameter Bomb and the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System both address this issue, and address it very well. And if they don't do a good enough job, then it's always possible to develop something better. Your mistake is drawing the wrong conclusions based upon different platform requirements, for starters. APKWS is a Hydra-based (or Hellfire based) solution (neither is scheduled for USAF use) Is it forever impossible for the USAF to use those weapons, or are they just not in the current plan? , and just like the option of using a gun pod, requires specific load out. You can carry plenty of APKWS with the weight freed up by deleting a gun: so an aircraft tasked for CAS gains capability without losing weapons or fuel. In other words if your existing CAS support package does not have it onboard when they show up, or are routed in based upon urgent need, and the separation between forces precludes use of larger PGM's, the ground guys are out of luck. So where CAS is a likely diversion, then standard loadout includes a seven-round APKWS launcher (just as sorties over parts of the FRY used to require an anti-radar missile either per aircraft or per flight, IIRC). When you've freed up a thousand pounds, using a quarter of that for contingency CAS isn't a large problem. OTOH, if they have their trusty internal cannon the ground guys will get at least some form of support. With very marginal effect, however. -- 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 |
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In message , Magnus Redin
writes Hi! "Paul F Austin" writes: So you really do need to justify a gun's place on the airframe on more than "it might be useful and you never know".. A gun is probably the cheapest way of killing low-performace targets like UAV:s, cheap targets that an enemy can produce in large numbers forcing you to deplete your stock of expensive AA-misiles. UAVs are going to be really tough gun targets: just look at the size of them. Aircraft guns aren't a good option, if only because you're going to need so many rounds per target. It is of course possible to develop a fairly cheap and small low performance AA-missile but it is hard to get it as cheap as a gun system. "a gun", or "a gun system"? Be careful about actually costing everything you need for a gun system, including the total cost of the training sorties needed for pilots to reliably hit Predator-size or smaller targets. This gun competitor might be developed if someone decides to arm small UAV:s with AA-missiles for killing other UAV:s and helicopters. See the armed variant of Predator already for the air-to-ground version... -- 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 |
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