Comments on: Stealthy Airlift for Commandos

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:03:57 +0000

The idea of airships is acually one that has been preposed before.. Main concern is stealthedness.. Does the tech. allow one to be made that could reflect or dampen radar and/ or other dectection modes.. I believe that we could make one pretty close to invisable.. And like was mentioned before, the operators could be picked up and brought out as well.. Not to mention that active defensive systems could be placed on one.. A 50′ simirigid airship, w/ crew area, cargo area, and even small survallence area is possable.. Not to mention the detection devices that could be placed all over the outer perimeter of the semirigid.. only thing is that it would be slow.. max speed about 50-60knots @ present.. But then again, the airship has not had the engineering resouces the plane or even helicopter has had over the last 75+ years.. Tech. would catch it up quite quickle though..
Anyway, food for thought.

By: ajay

ajay — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:28:53 +0000

Personenabwerfgerat.

By: Achmed Fubar

Achmed Fubar — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:19:04 +0000

Back at the 95 Spec Op Expo at Bragg they had pods attached to each wing of Harriers that could each hold 3 operators and 300lbs of equipment. Just update it to a F-35, 6 operators and 600lbs of gear per aircraft. You have stealth, VSTOL and capacity.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:20:52 +0000

i believe that a multi role force is needed, made up of all the defense forces.
i have for some time looked at the use of a vtol stealth craft which has fans built into the wings for vtol and can on landing by way of hydraulics lift itself up similar to that of thunderbird 2 yes the puppet show to allow 3 containers to be left on the ground.
These would house a cac centre with the other 2 containers housing a unit and equipment in the other.
these can be with camouflage and location be stealthily left for recon and assist as a forward base of ops using data from ground forces ie the unit and equipment such as uavs and land uavs with control by the cac and also transmit data by use of sat.
These same 3 containers are self sufficient for power water and anything else for use by the unit concerned along with land vehicles that can go offroad and in water and extend out to carry its own container.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:42:27 +0000

Yeah, far be it from me to look at new defense systems and say “why are we wasting money on this?” (I never saw a cool new weapon that I didn’t like), but this is a bit over the top. I just don’t see the use.
It’s not like we’re likely to have a need to get a squad of troops into the dead center of China in like 4 hours. We have ways of getting guys into hostile territory without detection already. And if we’re deploying ground forces to a country where they have enough integrated air defenses that we NEED stealth transports, we’re probably going to be at war with them anyway. We can just as easily bomb the crap out of them and then send in our guys to mop up the mess.
Not to worry, though, Roy. There’s zero chance of this thing getting a penny of funding. It’s just like when I was a kid and would sit and flip through the Sears catalogue toy section and dream.

By: yasotay

yasotay — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:01:43 +0000

CV-22 is too expensive and a stealthy CTOL transport that needs a runway (or even more expensive to land horizontally on dirt)is the great idea of the day…

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:51:06 +0000

The Syrian Air Defence Force has 1980s SAMS, and a limited front-line fighter force. It definitely doesn’t qualify as “integrated air defenses that are available today, let alone 2015 or beyond”.
That said, I’m never entirely convinced by Henlein-style ‘drop pods’; even if you rein in the designers and point out at what speed you can fling the human body before it goes kablooey, the problem with using such a system to do deep penetration of heavily defended airspace is that it is fundamentally one-way.
Unless SOC is going to switch to kamikaze doctrine, some means of extracting the team is still needed…which either begs the question “then why didn’t you send them IN that way?” or requires such a large-scale suppression of defences that any chance of being covert is eliminated and you might as well have done that first and then flown in perfectly safely in a blackhawk.
A stealthy transport? Yes, good idea. But please go with a concept that you can fly out on again afterwards.….

By: Roy Smith

Roy Smith — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:59:11 +0000

You know,the Russians & Chinese are patiently waiting for us to implode. Our current military equipment is wearing out because we cannot come up with a coherent plan for the future. The only thing that is certain for our military is that they are not going to get ANY of the modern weapons that are being dangled in front of their eyes. I watched both "the Hulk" & "Iron man"(both great propaganda puff pieces for the U.S. Military),& like the movie "Transformers",I saw weapons that will NEVER be fielded by our military. I'm not talking about sci-fi weapons,I'm talking about weapon systems that our own Pentagon has been saying for years that we'll get. Like the "Flying Wing" bomber in the original War of the Worlds movie,we are seeing weapon systems today,like the JSF(or the Comanche helicopter in the original Hulk movie),that will never see the light of day. People who cannot make up their minds what they want end up with nothing at all. Meanwhile the grifters who make up the Military Industrial Complex scam us out of billions of dollars more for their "fake,phony" weapons systems that will never be produced after all of the money spent in "research & development" is put into their off-shore bank accounts.

By: Drake

Drake — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:40:21 +0000

More outdated conventional war planning for a Chinese Cold War that may never be fought, in a world increasingly occupied with fighting non state actors in failed state arenas. What good is a costly to maintain and purchase B1 inspired troop carrier in increasing conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan?
Stick with helicopters that are reliable and affordable so we can purchase more of them to carry our expanding Special Forces.

By: C-Low

C-Low — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:39:06 +0000

Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to just make a pod that will fit in a B-2 or new B-X bomb bay that would hold a SOF unit and their equipment? Then just have a hatch on the bottom so they can roll out and parachute down? May actually be financially possible if they don’t have to buy the airplane.
A pod would be a hell of a lot easier than redesigning a aircraft and you get the added advantage the enemy has no tell like someone seeing C-X enter theater or take of from base X in theater. A B-2 bomb bay is a pretty big space to work with, little cramped for a 10hr or so ride but we are talking non-standard rare need here.
Landing a aircraft behind enemy lines is not a stealthy insertion. HALO with Para sail insertion is.
The only problem I see with my plan. We could get you in, support, & resupply ya (same pod but instead of SOF we roll out a man-size supply pod with GPS para sail attached) but you are humping it out. Sounds over the top but when you think any mission this deep would be Intel or target assisting mission anyway, humping it out may be a option considering red team doesn’t know you are their to search for.