Sorry for the delay in posting, folks. Was on a much-needed vacation with the family that recharged my batteries and prepared me for what is certain to be a very newsy fall.
One thing I wanted to make a note of with our readers is a story that ran last week on Military.com from a well-respected journalist whom I’ve known for years, Jonathan Landay. He writes for McClatchy news and was involved in a sudden ambush and firefight that resulted in the loss of two senior enlisted Marines, a young Marine officer and a Navy Corpsman — all on an advisor team for Afghan forces.
Jonathan’s takeaway from the ambush and the hours-long firefight that ensued was that the Marines were begging for some kind of fire support to help get them out of the pinch in Kunar. Because of the new restrictions placed upon forces there to avoid civilian casualties — or the perception of civilian casualties — fire and air support for the Marines (and their Afghan troops) was delayed for hours. Anyone reading this who’s been in combat knows how long an hour is when the bullets are flying — most of the fights I’ve been in have lasted minutes, and that was plenty.
…The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said…
When an Afghan soldier demanded helicopter gunships, U.S. Major Kevin Williams replied through an interpreter: “We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today.”
The Americans were assisting Afghan forces in an operation that called for Afghans searching the hamlet for weapons and then meeting village elders to plan police patrols.
But U.S. officers suspected insurgents were tipped off about the operation beforehand, as the coalition and Afghan forces were ambushed as they approached the outskirts of the hamlet at dawn, the report said.
Aside from the policy aspect of the screwup, there’s something that might be worth considering here that could have made the crucial difference. We’ve been covering the larger issue of COIN air power and the micro issue of a COIN support and recce plane. Would not have something like this made a decisive difference in the ambush?
Let’s look at the key points:
The COIN plane would have 5 hours of loiter, more than enough time to recce the area before the meeting with the elder that was the bait of the ambush. The crew could have alerted the advisors and their Afghan charge well before they entered the village of the ambush setup.
Even had they missed the emplacements, the COIN plane could have provided graduated levels of precise CAS and could have worked as a FAC-A for artillery and mortar support. Helicopters are great for this, but they were too far away and have limited loiter time. A COIN plane can be based at FOBs or even COPs with only a few hundred meters of runway and a skeleton maintenance crew.
Sure there is greater risk to the pilots and there’s plenty of logistical problems to account for. But it seems the solution to this problem is well within our grasp and the Pentagon has been much too slow to send it down range.
This loss of life is a tragic (and preventable?) shame and rest assured that Defense Tech and Military.com will continue to investigate its circumstances and follow its conclusions.
– Christian
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Also see this story and an audio report/ slideshow from Landay:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/75300.html
Briefly, the article says we have too few helicopters in that part of Astan, and two helicopter pilots had been wounded in combat north of Ganjgal around the time of this battle which slowed air support even more.
The recce/FAC/FSO roles you assigned to a COIN plane can just as well have been assigned to a loitering UAV, like the ones already in service, especially the ones which can be operated by troops deployed in the field (eg Raven, Scaneagle). It could have alerted higher echelons and scramble fast air, or put helos on high alert nearby.
Prop CAS/COIN aircraft are definately a requirement for the ‘Stan, but they just aren’t ‘sexy’ enough to mobilize the needed inter-service commitment to keep a COIN Wing up and running.
Although prop COINs can land on unpaved strips, but still need bullets and beans forward, which means dispersed (vulnerable) FARRPs.
“…their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties…”
Digusting. Did we learn nothing from Vietnam? War is messy business and the innocent will be killed. This assumes, of course, there are truly innocent civilians in the area as opposed to those who may not actually fire on our troops but nevertheless harbor Taliban, AQ, or heroin merchants.
Back to the point of Christian’s narrative. At first I was luke warm to the idea of 21st century Skyraiders but after reading everything I can on the subject I’m firmly in the COIN a/c camp. My only question is which a/c to use.
To the UAV comment, Scan Eagle and Raven are only small platforms capable of limited recon. They do not have any kinetic capability and you need to be close to use either one as they have very limited range so they could only deploy it once they got to the ambush site anyway. Choppers also won’t do the full job and I agree with Christian there. We need them for not just our own forces but for everyone else that doesn’t have their own helos or enough of them to do the job.
I like the idea of newer updated versions of something like the skyraider. A missile is a one and done thing. Even stuff like the hellfire, as effective as it is, you better have the right target or you’re now out of ammo a lot quicker, but put a COIN craft up there with guns and rocket pods along with some free fall ordnance and now u can chase these guys a lot easier. The long loiter time means that not only can he hit the insurgents, but they will not be able to quickly come back to the fight knowing that the hunter is lurking them from above.
Undoubtedly it would save lives. It’s a clear example of the Pentagon simply not buying what it needs to fight the wars it is in, and frankly going to be in for quite some time. The really disgusting part of it all is, platform debate aside, these things are not expensive. For the price of 1 F22 we can probably buy like 15 or 20 turbo props.
I don’t understand why the Marines haven’t modified a small, STOL cargo plane like the C-27J spartan into a AC-130 Spectre type aircraft. These planes have superior loiter time, and the “civilians-in-the-area” bullsh*t could be avoided because the weapons supported by these planes have the ability to be just as, if not more, accurate than a smaller COIN plan.
I understand that more crew might be needed for such a plane, but I’m sure that the Marines will figure out some way to automate reloading (manual reloading is the cause for the need of a big crew).
Hell, I bet with some very doable work, a C-27 could take off from the deck of a Wasp or Tarawa class amphib ship.
If I were on the ground, I would rather have one of these firepower laden planes hovering over my head than a COIN plane. Just a thought.
AC-27J is not a bad approach, with to props and promising survivability, but requires a certain amount of crews. It’s better to have four pilots operating four COINs for area coverage than one gunship with four crews. It’s good to add AC-27J to the COIN fleet, but more as a supplemental option.
Oi vey; here we go again. I completely agree that we need a COIN aircraft. The issue comes in defining and/or describing a COIN aircraft. My personal opinion is that an improved, modified, Bronco is the easiest way to go and is a much more realistic approach that a quasi- COIN capable modified Pilatus. Do we, however, need all of the multi-role, one size fits all, design factors in the Bronco such as the large cargo bay or is the Pucaru a better model?
Loiter time, a degree of CAS capability, forward basing, ease of maintenance, commo for FAC duties: all of these have to be factored in.
If one wants to restart the “Tweet” line, please get rid of the tubby fuselage & side-by-side seating, give her some internal guns and engines to match the requirements.
What about something along the lines of the Skyfox or some other mini A-10? A 1,000 rpm 20 or 20mm gun would probably be more than sufficient; 7.62 and 12.7 mm probably better. I strongly suggest that folks go back and review the LAR designs from the 1960s.
No more Turbo Mustangs or calls for bringing back the SPAD, please.
The real COIN bird issue will come down to C2: who will own and sortie the birds? Unless we can rewrite the Key West accords, the Air Force will control Army CAS. The Marines will be better off with birds ashore. While OV-10 like birds are suitable for MAGTF ships the Navy won’t allow arresting gear so that degree of flexibility is out.
justbill: “It’s good to add AC-27J to the COIN fleet, but more as a supplemental option.”
I agree. Perhaps a new air doctrine is in order? For instance; air-craft carriers don’t go anywhere without their attack submarines and Ticonderoga class’s. Maybe one AC-27J and three smaller COIN planes make an effective fighting unit?
Also, an AC-27J would easily cover twice to three times the area a smaller COIN plane could, just as a result of it flying so high.
NVSmith: “It’s a fairly large, comparatively lumbering cargo plane. That makes for a pretty easy target compared to a Nimble Bronco or Texan II. Spectres only operate at night for good reasons.”
I don’t understand exactly what the threat is to COIN planes. Air superiority has been established by the Navy, and I’m not sure what enemy we are facing today has access to a portable surface-air missile system. After all, the COIN air-force we are trying to develop is taylored for a specific enemy type (relatively ill-equipped insurgents, at least as far as challenging aircraft is concerned). Am I wrong?
Even if the enemy we were facing had access to shoulder launched SAM’s, wouldn’t those SAM’s be just as much a threat to a smaller COIN plane compared to a larger one?
What threat would create a hazard for a high-flying, large dual-engine AC-27J that wouldn’t also create a hazard for an ultra low-flying, single engined COIN plane?
Not trying to offend anyone. As you all can tell, I am certainly not an air-power expert. I’m just throwing ideas out.
COIN…CAS…blah, blah, blah. It’s all treating the symptoms rather than the disease. The disease here is treason.
“President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but “victory” in the war-torn country isn’t necessarily the United States’ goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.
“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,” Obama told ABC News.”
From:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/obama-victory-necessarily-goal-afghanistan/
When your greatest concern shifts from protecting your people and killing your enemy to concentrating on avoiding civilian casualties, you’ve lost.
Whoa. Some are going off here on Obama unfairly. Let’s be clear: The air cover was NOT delayed by the ROE. As the article states, the air cover wasn’t there because the Bush administration starved Afghanistan for resources in favor of Iraq. The artillery was denied for ROE reasons which appear now to have been incorrectly interpreted by the chain of command… Having said all that, a proper COIN aircraft is a great tool to have in the kit.
asdfg,
If you’re going to quote someone, do so accurately. The words you attributed to me are “pedestrian’s.”
Sorry about the quotes Justbill,pedestrian, and NVSmith. I took the name on top and attributed it to the post below it. Little new around here.
The top quote is pedestrian’s, bottom quote is Justbill’s.
Sorry for the double tap but…
asdfg,
If you’re going to quote someone, do so accurately. The words you attributed to me are “pedestrian’s.” Then what you attribute to NVSmith belongs to me.
COIN a/c need to be maneuverable to avoid AAA and MANPADS. A fighter-sized a/c can do that given sufficient warning. Cargo planes can’t. As noted earlier, Spectres fly at night to prevent eyeball detection from the ground. They can fly nice, lazy circles over a target area without much concern over low tech threats likely to be faced in A-stan and similar AO’s.
CAS is more than just putting firepower on target precisely, as Christian points out above. Aircraft loitering overhead can give the ground force vastly greater SA, which makes their fire and maneuver much more effective as well. Modern sensors and avionics enables this mission in a greater range of environmental conditions than has ever been the case. These aircraft are also ideal for border patrol, route security, helicopter/ tilt-rotor escort, and surveillance.
As for the air defense situation, I can point to the two OV-10As shot down by MANPADS over Iraq/ Kuwait in the Gulf War, which had no IR suppression on the exhausts. Three of the four crew survived. In contrast, the OV-10Ds had IR suppression and strobes, and took no losses. Ten other aircraft were lost to MANPADS in that conflict, including fast jets.
Hey, other “Mike J”, how about using a different handle, please?
Thanks.
asdfg: Are you the asd of the galrahn blog?
“When your greatest concern shifts from protecting your people and killing your enemy to concentrating on avoiding civilian casualties, you’ve lost.
Posted by: Nidi at September 14, 2009 01:15 PM”
-Dead on accurate.
mike j at September 14, 2009 01:48 PM
IF you have the information,could you tell what fast jets were lost to MANPADS and what type of MANPADS(Strlla,Stinger,blowpipe)
You can buy 15 Super Tucanos, a plane well suited to COIN, for the price of 1 F-22. Somebody should tell Congress.
There is no reason why the US Army can not put something up to help out the troops on the ground.
Agree with below, bronco and mohawk
COIN Planes that could have been or may be.
ARES Mudfighter – built to carry a GAU-12/U 25 mm cannon
A2D Skyshark – toss a turboprop on the front of a skyraider
AT-802U Air Truck (think crop duster with 8,000lb load and 10 hr loiter)
Piper could dig up the PA-48 Enforcer – turboprop P-51 with lots of hardpoints
And the usual suspects: Super Tucano, Pilatus PC-9M, etc.
Forgive me if this sounds completely ignorant or out of place, but why can’t we just use more A-10s? They were designed for CAS, have great loiter time, are extremely resilient to damage, and are a proven fighter. So why spend time and money making a new plane when we have the A-10 already? I know we have a limited supply (around 200 I think), but it seems to me it would be far easier to re-open assemply lines on a known and proven comodity than trying to start from scratch.
Could a combat vet explain to me, please; Shouldn’t we be able to extricate from an ambush without air support?
elgatoso-
It takes some digging for type of MANPADS, but 12 of 29 US Gulf War shoot downs are attributed to them. Two were the Marine OV-10As, have not seen what weapon. Three more were A/OA-10s, and a single AC-130H, all by the SA-16 (Igla-1).
Found mention of an F-16 downed by the SA-16 on Feb 27, 1991, and a British Tornado lost also to the SA-16 on Jan 17. I remember reading in William Smallwood’s “Warthog: Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War” that most MANPADS were SA-7s (Strela-2), but the SA-16 was considered one of the most dangerous.
These links have some info, though not very specific:
http://128.121.102.226/aaloss.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_combat_losses_of_military_aircraft_since_the_Vietnam_War
AF is currently nosing around with an investigative request to buy 100 COIN planes; Probably Tucanos or Texans. The navy and the marines have their own programs floating around.
Will any fruit ever fall from those trees? I doubt it. Fighter generals and carrier admirals abound. Good thing I got this tinfoil in my helmet.
In the meantime, all the Air support in the world will do you no good if you don’t have the will to use it. They had friendly artillery in range; request denied. Fast mover support was overhead: Request denied. If they couldn’t get a strafing run or even a low pass from a fast-mover, what makes you think that a turbo prop would have gotten the go ahead? Hell, if the opfor has RPGS and medium machine guns, the turbo prop pilot risks hitting the silk. If the situation had not been as desperate, the Apaches probably wouldn’t have gotten the green light either.
We traded bad press for blood.
thank for the information mike J
JOHN :the US Army can not put something up to help out the troops on the ground becouse of the Key West agreement.
“If I were on the ground, I would rather have one of these firepower laden planes hovering over my head than a COIN plane. Just a thought.”
You’ve obviously never heard of the sky raider :)
Warren if i remember correctly the line for the A10 was shut down a long time ago cause well…..the airforce has hated the A10 for as long as its been a thoughts in a engineers head.
And reopening the line would cost alot of money.
I put my money on the sky raider just do some minor updates then do a new line of the plane we could sell them around the world iraq would probbly take some.
Warren,
There is no more A-10 line. Hasn’t been for decades. “Restarting” that line would be starting from scratch. As far as using the A-10 for this kind of fight, its on the right track, but that 30mm gun is overkill and we’re talking about prop planes half its size.
Re: Ambush
Chosunking, if the enemy did their job, then it might not be possible to get out without support. That’s kinda the point of an ambush.
re:”…that 30mm gun is overkill…”
If you haven’t seen this vid, or just a reminder, this demonstrates the meaning of “overkill.” Almost.
NSFW for language, turn up the bass to hear it right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuYmn_xYB78
Valcan, sure the Sky Raider was a great plane…
But, if McDonnell couldn’t re-open the production line during the Viet Nam war, what makes you think that Boeing can somehow make one magically appear, roughly 40 years later?
The Super Tucano might not be the very best plane imaginable for the role, but it would be good enough…
And, it’s *available*!!!
>Posted by: Rick at September 14, 2009 09:23 PM
>but yes its a new line of them not upgraded old ones
That’s news, I thougth A-10Cs were just plain upgrading. I never thought it was to be built from scratch.
>If it save life then that is good. But we need to know that this is a no match plane against chinese,
>n. korean ,russian and Iran plane.
In the case for requesting a jet for assymetric with additional conventional warfare capabilities, F-20s would be ideal, which could also be sold to countries having concern on multi-role issues, but are strict on money. However, F-20s would not be the best solution for COIN alone. Meanwhile countries like Afghanistan may favor cheap F-20s to counter both Taliban threats and future potential threats by China.
Proper mission planning includes the availability of supporting fires. The ground unit was told they had support withing 5 minutes of request. (Which is a long time, but better than never). The reason given for not having AH-64 support was thta it was 5 hours flight time from where they are based to the location of the fight. One tactic technique procedure TTP is to bounce supporting aircraft forward with a Jump FARRP. This allows more timely aviation support. Boring as hell sitting and waiting the many times nothing happens, but obviously needed. This TTP is not as simple to plan in CION operations, but then again thats why the enemy uses the tactics that they do. The solution does not lie in any new aircraft. The enemy simply changes their tactics once a new technology shows up in hteir area. We simply have to learn to fight in a more effective manner against a fairly compitent foe. THey dont have sharp uniforms or high tech equipment, so we discount the effort required to defeat them in battle. We could certainly use a COIN aircraft, however the proper use of what we have is going to have to happen in order to stop the senseless loss of lives.
Yes, regarding the ‘All New A-10C’. I remember reading that the AF chose to have the dies for the A-10 destroyed after the production run because they were so p.o.’d about having it shoved down their throats.
Mike J,
I can’t watch youtube from where I’m at, but when I say “overkill” for the 30mm, I mean that gun carries a few hundred rounds of tank busting uranium shells. What this COIN plane should probably carry is more like a couple thousand rounds of .50 cal to use against enemy troops and small buildings.
I say that the Marines that Died were Cannon Fodder in a bigger game of Who can blame who on proper Military Surveillance and recon of a Mission that went sour. The same things happened in Vietnam “Why” because civilians IE: the senate and congress and the White House do not want to anger the population or the foreign government. Of the danger that they put “OUR” Troops in in a combat zone. I wonder if they worried about that when they shelled the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Are all the French men that they killed inadvertently in the shelling. I would love to take every one of those so called Senators and Congressmen and Even the Commander in Chief and put them instantaneously in that fire fight are mortal danger and watch their butts suck wind trying to protect themselves from the incoming fire.. If We can’t get the modern air support and ground support that we possess then why have it. Oh yes I know its to protect General Mcchrystal . obama’s boy genius. I’ll bet if some one eye balled him in a unfriendly way he would probably Sh** his pants???.
Its a good idea but when? Too late for those guys. That village should be leveled. This was a setup, and the border police probably knew. I would have brought down the arty like rain. Yes, we traded lives for bad press, and thats unconscionable. Hell, the villagers were in on it too. Running ammo, performing other battlefield activities. We are fighting with an arm tied behind our back. Those guys are gone, and this COIN plane is a little late.
elgatoso: I think it is time to re-think the key west agreement, last revised in 1954, and the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966 giving army all rotary and airforce everything else.
The Army really needs a COIN aircraft.
The Marine’s have it right. They purchase aircraft best suited (for the most part) to supporting troops on the ground, it is really time the Army did the same.
As for the A-10 it is one hell of a good tank buster, but, it is out of production and wasn’t built with COIN as a requirement.
Stop talking hardware. That’s not what lost this. It was the erosion of the will to fight. It’s the assumption that unless the soldier meets the conditions laid out by the media as to what they believe is a “just war”, then we are not allowed to employ our might against our enemies. It is complete illiteracy of the way our enemy fights. We didn’t get it in Vietnam when they engaged us on all planes of battle, used bad press, became masters of propaganda, used cease fires as a way to restore their supply channels, etc.
This is made even worse by leaders who refuse to make tough calls until someone is standing still, in our gunsight and wearing a t-shirt that says “yes, I’m a bad guy” We need someone who is not afraid to be wrong. In this “one failure is too many” society we’ll never allow men with the courage to make a hard decision to survive, even when they made the correct choice.
So stop talking hardware already and start evaluating the obvious and apparent psychological warfare being leveraged against us by an enemy we should be able to easily squash under the heel of our boot.
I know this is an old aircraft but it worked at on time but why develop a new aircraft when bring back the A-1 Skyraider.
Janiz98,
Good point.
I’ll put this out as a question.
Do you agree/disagree that part of the USA’s reluctance to maintain a small wars, extended campaign is due to the lack of ever having a large scale war fought on our shores in the 20th century. The US has done a great job of fighting all over the world, but has not experienced first hand the devastation of a 20th century war at home. Yes there are veterans from the wars abroad, but there isn’t that direct connection that even the younger generations of Europe and Asia have.
Best example is Germany post WW-I. The soldiers and citizens were told that they were defeated and yet for the most part the war was fought and lost in France without any invasion of Germany. This lack of invasion instilled a lingering question of how could they have lost the war when they were the ones who pushed deep into France and were never truly beaten back. Had France, England, and the US pounded Germany back to Berlin and demolished everything along the way like what happened in WW-II, would WW-II even occurred? Yes, I know there were economic and treaty induced issues associated with WW-II, but had it taken 5 – 10 years just to rebuild Berlin after WW-I would there be hesitation to enter another war?
Also since the USA never colonized in the way that Europe did we never acquired the tools to deal with local uprising.
While not a big fan overall of the British style of controlling a colony, they did understand how to utilize local populations to augment a relatively small controlling force.
As difficult as it might be to swallow the US needs to look at long term “colonization” style strategies and an exit strategy that will not foster future conflict.
The final question, how badly do you need to beat down a society before you can rebuild it in a new form. Think about how badly German and Japan were beaten before they could be built up again. Also think about how post WW-I Germany was not beat down and the ultimate consequences that produced.
A little more AVGAS for the fire…
Pedestrian: As an F-5 replacement I liked the F-20 but a Mach 1+ bird does not a CAS/COIN bird make.
W.H. Peterson: my opinion & nothing but my opinion but I don’t think redesigning a single engine prop trainer will be effective. We used modified T-6s, T-28s & T-34s because we had them, not because they were good. I’ve been familiar with improved Mustangs since Cavalier had a shop at SRQ & they had good load capacity but skinny survivability.
John: with the exception of the Enforcer, I have details on those birds plus LARA contestants in my file for a COIN bird search that went on a few years back. This information went to the project officer in our office; the sotto voce response was that if it didn’t like like a Texan II the Air Force wasn’t interested. I don’t know what niche ARES was built to fill, but COIN wasn’t it. For the Air Truck, take a look at the Fletcher Defender.
asdfg: I’m sorry but the thought of an AC-27 leaves me absolutely cold. One of the AC-130 issues is standoff; yes, they can be shot down.
One of the wayback machine proposals that I thought had some merit was a brand new F7F Tigercat. Or is that a heftier Pucaru?
For the pure jet COIN and trainer fans, which I’m not, take a look at the Hawk 200 and 100.
John;I completely agree,SAC and fighters for AF and CAS for the Army
Roland:fighters and Coin are completely different.wikipedia show you some aircraft used for COIN:
BAe Hawk (UK)
Britten-Norman Defender (UK)
BAC Strikemaster (UK)
Cessna A-37 Dragonfly (USA)
Cessna O-2 Skymaster (USA)
Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano (Brazil)
FMA IA 58 Pucar
As marine in VN in 1965 the only cas we had were fastmovers, f-4s, a4s and the like, helo gunships were not in place yet. cas was always done with a prayer, hoping that the fast mover knew where you were and where the vc was. I have studied the OV10-a and varients. haveing a pilot AND an observer, and mixed payload could just about cover any fire mission
As marine in VN in 1965 the only cas we had were fastmovers, f-4s, a4s and the like, helo gunships were not in place yet. cas was always done with a prayer, hoping that the fast mover knew where you were and where the vc was. I have studied the OV10-a and varients. haveing a pilot AND an observer, and mixed payload could just about cover any fire mission
In reading through all this, I have to ask, are we missing something here? While I
joejoejoe said, “You can buy 15 Super Tucanos, a plane well suited to COIN, for the price of 1 F-22. Somebody should tell Congress.”
And how many jobs will buying 15 Super Tucanos create in any Congressman’s district? Surely even the most casual observer can see that the needs of the services is not what drives the defense budget. It’s all about what help keeps a politician in office – claiming credit for jobs by trying to get more F22′s in the budget than the Air Force asked for. That, and campaign contributions from Defense Contractors and their PACs. Votes and money to get more votes….the lifeblood of a US politician.
That said, I just saw an article about the Air Tractor AT-802U . http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2009/may/29/armed-and-ready-air-tractor-hopes-reconfigured-a/
What a great concept! AND MADE IN TEXAS!!!
And, even better: it costs half what a Super Tucano costs.
And, it actually has a combat pedigree already, of a sorts: Plenty have been shot at while performing drug eradication in South America. But they are armored against small arms fire, have self-sealing fuel tanks, and keep on flying.
Posted by: NV Smith at September 15, 2009 01:00 PM
>Pedestrian: As an F-5 replacement I liked the F-20
>but a Mach 1+ bird does not a CAS/COIN bird make.
The issue involving F-20 is more about cost per flight. Once again, I also do not beleive F-20 is the best choice for COIN. The reason why F-20 is a COIN candidate is its cheap price tag, and possible low cost per flight. COIN for third world countries is also an issue. Meanwhile these countries also may have conventional war threats. In this case, a fighter that is cheap, ideal cost per flight for COIN, ”AND” a muti-role capabilities to engage coventional war may be the recommendations. In modern days, we should not forget a hybrid generation of assymetric AND conventional warfare mixed together. This is where the F-20 fits, only as part of the US strategy if it wants to share COIN ”PLUS” conventional multi-role cheap fighter with poor allied countries, like Afghanistan. Once again, if it is just for US COIN use, I beleive OV-10 Bronco is the solution. However, if US concludes that it wants to share a multi-role fighter with poor allied countries, F-20 is on the table. F-20 is a COIN candidate only in terms of cost per flight and the price tag, with ”ADDITIONAL” conventional warfare performance, not for its technical performance as COIN.
Posted by: NV Smith at September 15, 2009 01:00 PM
>Pedestrian: As an F-5 replacement I liked the F-20
>but a Mach 1+ bird does not a CAS/COIN bird make.
The issue involving F-20 is more about cost per flight. Once again, I also do not beleive F-20 is the best choice for COIN. The reason why F-20 is a COIN candidate is its cheap price tag, and possible low cost per flight. COIN for third world countries is also an issue. Meanwhile these countries also may have conventional war threats. In this case, a fighter that is cheap, ideal cost per flight for COIN, ”AND” a muti-role capabilities to engage coventional war may be the recommendations. In modern days, we should not forget a hybrid generation of assymetric AND conventional warfare mixed together. This is where the F-20 fits, only as part of the US strategy if it wants to share COIN ”PLUS” conventional multi-role cheap fighter with poor allied countries, like Afghanistan. Once again, if it is just for US COIN use, I beleive OV-10 Bronco is the solution. However, if US concludes that it wants to share a multi-role fighter with poor allied countries, F-20 is on the table. F-20 is a COIN candidate only in terms of cost per flight and the price tag, with ”ADDITIONAL” conventional warfare performance, not for its technical performance as COIN.
Forget the ARES Mudfighter. Every time they fired the Gatling it snuffed the flame in the engine. The exhaust gases from the gun were sucked into the jet intake causing a flame-out requiring the pilot to do a emergency restart. Not a good thing anywhere.
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I wonder if we can make the A-1 Skyraider again?
Pedestrian, et al:
We’re getting off track; F-20ish aircraft aren’t COIN birds & the one size fits all multi-role concept hasn’t worked too well. The Royal Malaysian AF may be an example; while they have (had?) a squadron each of Su 30, F/A 18, MiG 29 and F 5, they also have two squadrons of Hawk 108 & 208 and they aren’t trainers.
Besides, the F-20 is dead & ain’t never coming back. Possibly the closest thing around is the ROK T-50 and F/A-50 combination. I know nothing about their actual existence: I’m a grunt, not a zoomie.
IF we have to have a pure jet vice turboprop, and I remain dubious, then I suggest looking at something along the lines of the Hawk 200.
I really think “we” should go back to the LARA concept and take a look at the theory behind those design proposals.
Medik47-
re:”Every time they fired the Gatling it snuffed the flame in the engine.”
Source that, please. The gun and intake were on opposite sides to prevent exactly that. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that the design didn’t work exactly as intended.
We need a carrot-stick approach in Afghanistan. The carrot is the Taliban lay down their arms and join the rest of their countrymen in the closest thing they can come to a democracy. The stick is Fuel-Air-Explosives on their cash crops, i.e., opium poppies, food, etc. Join up or get bombed back into the Stone Age!
A combination of long-loiter AC-47 gunships, OV-10 Broncos, A-1 Skyraiders and attack helicopters would be enough to provide accurate close air support for counter-insurgency.
But Remember this: we’re fighting an enemy that hasn’t an aircraft. Using air power to counter their iniative is one answer, but not the only answer. It is, however, the expensive answer, and that plays right into attrition-the more it costs, the sooner we’ll quit. Seriously, a Folker Triplane might work best, simply because they are low maintainance, need little run way, and are cheap enough to deploy a few with every company of grunts. When we go high-tech, we run the crap out of a few aircraft, especailly as current doctrine is to spread out and hold for a long time, and whatever the F-20 or F-22 or F-33&1/3 capabilites, most won’t be used and it will all have to be maintained in a major facility, for along time. In WW1 adn WW2, the war itself convinced the defeated that it was time to quit. But, with all our high-tech, we haven’t yet convinced a bunch of rag muffions with small arms and pick up trucks to quit, and we’ve been at it twice as long. We have to get close, personal, and hug them all over, all at once, for along, long time, and that takes a lot of cheap, Soviet thinking in regards to hardwear. I wasn’t serious about the Folker, but tell me, what a few crop dusters with 30 cals and a couple rockets, each, could do, if they were always close at hand, and what would they have to contend with from the enemy?
A thought from an ole USAF Wpns viet vet. After someone has been boring holes in the wild blue for 5 hours, are they as sharp as after just a couple, no matter which single seat? Stop pushing the limits. When I make the run to San Antonio, I stop several times and its only 4 hours. True, I’m not 20 something, but then lets use common sense and wisdom. 2 birds per area, and rotate. My God guys, we’re not launching a mars shot!!!