Comments on: Secret Program Works to Field SEAL Plane

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:45:07 +0000

Bring back the A-1 Skyraider. Update them and call it the Super Spad. No need to buy this junk from Brazil when you already have a proven winner.
A little A1 steaksauce goes a long way.

By: Snapper

Snapper — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:14:35 +0000

As goes the threat, so should go tactics and equipment. Permissive threat exists now! The fact that it takes an “act of Congress” to get warfighters what they need and are asking for NOW is a horrible reflection on how special interests in the political, military, industrial complex are not responsive to the warriors in need!
A variety of tools in the tool box while using the right tool at the right time! We cannot even give them the tool they are asking for because we are slaves to bureaucracy! Disgusting and disappointing!!!
Had the Marines simply held onto to their Broncos, the tool being asked for would have already been in use. And don’t be coughing up that crap about how they got shot down in Desert Storm — as if no other aircraft got shot down in Desert Storm!!
Innovative tactics and improvisation — whatever happened to that concept?

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:23:10 +0000

The COIN plane must work tactically if the rumors of AFSOC getting into the game are true. That’s why the Air Force tried to punt COIN plane funding in the budget, hoping it will blow over with any success in Afghanistan. Regardless, there is a need for an economical low end to the high/low mix. Ultimately the Texan or Super Tucano are both capable of doing the job. True, the Texan is American made, but A) I believe Embraer is looking at doing some production of the Super Tucano in Florida if the military buys it; and B) what often goes unstated is that we’re also looking for a plane that is disposable, i.e., we take a COIN plane into Afghanistan, use it, train the Afghans on it, and leave it with them. In some events, if CIA and spooks are operating in a country clandestinely, supporting a faction, etc., it’s politically better for South American planes to start showing up than American ones.

By: Realcav17

Realcav17 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:15:10 +0000

p-51 twin mustangs dowed the first migs in korea. A-1 skyraiders did an outstanding job of providing cover for jolly greeens as they recovered downed airmen in north vietnam.

By: johnno

johnno — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:01:04 +0000

The real game in COIN is (a) being out of AAA/SAM range (b) being within sensor range © being within the weapons envelope. Shortly this will all be achieved by (a) weapons assets high and dry in a bomb truck (b) cheap, multiple, tiny UAV sensors in meshed networks passing video/IR feeds for weapons release/area targeting and local designation for the terminal phase of the weapon.
The bomb trucks can drop the expendable UAVs as they’re attrited and go past bingo. The kill to dollar ratio for such a system will be enormous compared to conventional a/c, refuelers, CAPS and SAR.
It would also saturate even complex IADS and jamming countermeasures by combining visual/IR and even GPS targeting data into burst transmissions to near neighbour UAVs to daisychain the data out of the jammed zone. One by one the IADS components would be picked off by remotely released weapons. This exposes no expensive assets, the attrited assets are cheap, plentiful and quickly replaceable. It’s the modern long bow with the redundancy of the internet.

By: Dale Kuehl

Dale Kuehl — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:32:52 +0000

Byron,
Not sure where you got your information but I gave up command of 1–5 CAV in April 2008 and was not in Baghdad last November, nor was I riding in an MRAP thinking I was invisibile, nor was I wounded. Also, never called myself Jedi Knight.
Dale Kuehl

By: mike

mike — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:30:40 +0000

Hasn’t anybody heard of the Black Ponies ????? Sounds like a somewhat similar mission to me.

By: spad driver

spad driver — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:06:26 +0000

First,Remember the silent little bird used in Vietnam for recon and precision strike? I think it was a Helio — utterly silent even up close. This was for a reason. Any normal turbo engine is going to tip off the shooters that a peril is nearby. Second, flying low and slow or even low and fast puts you in the ground fire envelope. So little SEALBird, better have some under armor. Since things that go boom generally flash, better have scoot speed to get away after they’ve been angered. Lurk, look, shoot, scoot. Requirements derive from that doggerel.

By: Jay A. Stout

Jay A. Stout — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:08:02 +0000

No, it’s not a joke–there’s a real place for a system like this. And it’s for ops against the “goat hearders [sic]” that M167A1 mentioned. These aircraft will be very effective for ops against ill-equipped folks like the Taliban in Afghanistan, or insurgents in Iraq.
Performing these types of ops with our current stable of aircraft is wickedly inefficient. For instance, launching a section of Hornets from a CVN in the Arabian Gulf, refueling them multiple times to get them where they need to go, keeping them there and finally getting them home…is grossly expensive (cost of keeping a CVN on station, wear and tear on the Hornets, fuel, cost of supporting tankers, etc.). And for what? Watching a couple of knuckleheads mucking around at the edge of a road?
On the other hand, sending a couple of these inexpensive (relatively) aircraft airborne from within country, and keeping them overhead for hours at a time–without inflight aerial refueling–is a great option. Waaaay more efficient, and probably more effective, than supporting with Hornets (and I’m a former F/A-18 guy).
They aren’t intended for ops against folks with a comprehensive IADS.
BTW, I agree that the P-47 would have been better than the P-51 for the mission in Korea. But most of the P-47s had been replaced by P-51s by then so they danced with what they had.
And we will see a UCAV capable of performing CAS, but not in the same dynamic fashion that the A-10 operates.

By: M167A1

M167A1 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:45:17 +0000

LOL…
What a joke, from a tactical point of view this thing is not going to survive. Its low slow and easy meat for the most primitive of SHORAD.
Maybe the SEALS will use it to beat up on goat hearders but anyone else will knock it down.
It reminds me of the P-51s that ended up deploying to Korea in 1950. They could not handle fast movers and they were surprisingly vunnerable to ground fire. Should ahve kept the P-47 instead.. Likewise the AH-64 got their butts handed to them in 2003 when they tried to take on good old AAA without fast movers to soften it up for them but I digress.
The COIN concept was largly discredited because low and slow usually ends up meaning down and dead. Some A/C like the A-10 get around this with armor but this thing is just a deathtrap unless you are going after domestic hot-heads with no AAA. Everyone else will just shoot it down and forget about it.
Build more F-22s and F-18s, cancel the useless F-35. And for CAS how about a UCAV with similar specs to the A-10.