Our reader forwards a blurb from the AP which reports that the Osprey has been getting into some bang bang during some of its insertions of Marines, with Cobras swooping in for the kill as RPGs and small arms zing by.
“insurgents tried but failed to bring down an Osprey aircraft with rocket-propelled grenades as Cobra attack helicopters fired missiles at enemy positions, including a machine gun bunker”
I’ll work to flesh this out with my sources, but it doesn’t surprise me that given the combat environment in Afghanistan as opposed to Iraq when it was first deployed, the Osprey is finally proving it can handle the stress of the real thing. Critics claimed the Corps was holding back in Iraq, keeping its fragile new toy from the fray. But by the time the Osprey got to Iraq, a lot of the hardcore combat had ended, and the pricey plane was used for lots and lots of admin flights.
Afghanistan has proven completely different, with the Osprey finding itself in a pretty heated combat environment from the start.
I haven’t seen any footage of Ospreys in the fight, but I’ll keep my eyes open. If you all come across any, let me know on the Tip Line.
– Christian
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Great stuff! How ignorant of the would one have to be to ever believe the Marines would procure something they had no intent of using for the purposes they have in mind?
Yeah, imagine the Navy buying but not using active sonar or passive hull arrays on the Tride…. Oh, wait.
Oh, I'd understand if the NAVY didn't use something they bought, but we're talking about MARINES. [I kid! - my seafaring brothers]
Odd though, I am unfamiliar with the "'Tride.." Submarine? Class? Or do you mean a Trident carrying SSBN? i.e. Ohio Class — In which case I would point out that 'never' used is probably incorrect as far as the passive array is concerned. As to 'active' sonar- do you mean the Ohios' BQQ-6 bow mounted sonar? because that is passive component of the suite while the BQS-13 is the active component of an integrated system. If the Navy NEVER uses it (and I doubt that is true) then the most one could say is that the Navy doesn't use a feature of the BQQ-5(V) sonar suite (or hasn't used it yet). As an aside, it WILL be interestign to see how the Navy employs the new suite coming down the pipe.
This is great, been seeing the osprey dropping troops off while watching the news last couple days. Bout time they getting these things "dirty". But I want to see how they are keeping up maintenance wise, any problems? Anyways, the osprey is the future. Soon more helis will be developed with tilt rotors incorporating the lessons learned from the osprey. Won't be long til we start seeing these ALOT more.
I think training maintainance teams and building their familiarity with the aircraft was one reason for a more passive deployment in Iraq. I forget who it was but a ranking marine was discussing how they were slowly but steadily pushing the maintainance rates. Going from 50% upon first deployment past 75%.
The latest reports of the Osprey in deployments has them running at 80% reliability and that is expected to continue to go up as they are now learning the supply chain better and are understanding what parts will be the first to go, etc. The birds have performed admirably in A-Stan. They also did perform missions for the recovery efforts in Haiti. They were relatively unmentioned in how their speed and range made them a great choice for medical evacuations.
Let's see a squadron of them operate on the boat with the rest of ACE before we begin to crown the Osprey as a successor to the Sea Knight; it's downright appalling it's gone as far as it has thus far w/o proving it can make an entire six month deployment at sea without tearing up either the ship, itself, or part of the other aircraft in the wing.
They have already operated on a LF6F as the ACE, I believe that VMM-263 was out with them.
Okay, why don't a Defense Tech reporter simply contact the Corps PAO and ask for the current readiness rates of the V-22? If they are doing good, they will brag. If they give the run around, or have some General dancing around saying "on one day" or "its on a trajectory upward", that tells us something is wrong. When the GAO asked last June, the Corps said readiness info was secret and would take weeks to dig up, even though the Chief gets daily reports.
So does Defense Tech have reporters, or does it just pass along second hand rumors?
The readiness rates of the V-22 are improving with each deployment and as the spares become more readily available. I you read the magazines such as Combat Aircraft and AirForces Monthly, they have articles in there about the V-22's in quite a few of them. The latest issue of AirForces Monthly has an article about VMM-263 flying its aircraft into Afghanistan to turn them over to VMM-261. VMM-263 was operating off the ship USS Batan (LHD-5) as the ACE for 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.
I had a friend who was with the squadron in Al Asad, and if I remember correctly they didn't spend much time on the boat conducting flight ops on the way over; in fact, I thought they flew most of the way?
As I understand it, they have yet to complete a six month deployment on the boat, maybe they have accomplished that by now.
Are there even any Phorg squadrons at New River anymore? That's my point – they avoided and tried to hide the sea legs issue far too long while they continued to replace Phrogs. I will forever be a proud former Marine, but the Corps has been stubborn to the point of ignorant on this issue; it's a niche platform and just too maintenance prohibitive (cost and time,) to ever be the bulk of Marine Air.
What good is it's speed if it outruns everything else in the wing? The Corps is just replacing their attack helicopters, so it's not like they are going to be replaced anytime soon now. The Osprey just gives a whole new meaning to the unofficial Marine Corps slogan of "hurry up and wait."
Have you been listening to any of the other comments posted? I was on the g-d USS Bataan with a composite ACE that included 10 V-22s for 6 months. VMM-162 is out on another ship with a squadron of Ospreys as we speak!
What good is speed? If you're asking that question, then it's useless to even try to reason with you.
Well Phrogdriver, talk to some Phrog and even Osprey maintainers, if you want the whole picture. How'd the Bataan's flight deck look after that cruise, by the way? Re-surfacing flight decks every time they deploy is not exactly a viable solution.
I've been in the MV-22 sim and there is no doubt, it's a tremendously improved pit for the drivers, especially when compared to the Phrog, but it's an otherwise virtual hangar queen with a blank check written out of an account who's well will not last forever. Given that the Corps does have a limited budget, the decision to carry on with the Osprey was a fiscally imprudent, if not irresponsible one.
It cost too much to develop, it costs too much to purchase when compared to other readily available alternative medium lift rotary winged aircraft, and it costs too much to maintain per operating flight hour.
Ralph:
I think the Osprey is nothing but a political plum, It'll never replace the helicopter because of it's fraility. One AK round in an engine would bring one down.
Actually, no it wouldn't.
Moose, you're absolutely right. It's amazing how much anti-Osprey trash-talking occurs with zero knowledge on the part of the speaker. The Osprey is less vulnerable (less likely to get hit) and more survivable (likely to survive if it does get hit) than most rotorcraft available today.
I'll tell you one thing. There were hundreds of places in a 46 where 1 round would mean near certain death. Take out any of the flight control cables or the syncshaft, and you'd be toast, for example.. I can't think of any such single-point-of-failure areas in the V-22. I guess if you took out a blade or the hub you could do it, but that's true of every helo, isn't it?
Well Phrogdriver, talk to some Phrog and even Osprey maintainers, if you want the whole picture. How'd the Bataan's flight deck look after that cruise, by the way? Re-surfacing flight decks every time they deploy is not exactly a viable solution.
I've been in the MV-22 sim and there is no doubt, it's a tremendously improved pit for the drivers, especially when compared to the Phrog, but it's an otherwise virtual hangar queen with a blank check written out of an account who's well will not last forever. Given that the Corps does have a limited budget, the decision to carry on with the Osprey was a fiscally imprudent, if not irresponsible one.
It cost too much to develop, it costs too much to purchase when compared to other readily available alternative medium lift rotary winged aircraft, and it costs too much to maintain per operating flight hour.
First off, any rotary winged aircraft would be best to avoid getting into a urinating contest with enemy fire in any rotary-winged aircraft, and the tilt-rotored Osprey with even more moving parts, and it's engines on the ends of the wing rotating 90 degrees up and down, is certainly no exception. The Phrog has a Jesus nut on the driveshaft, but the Osprey has a few of it's own, too; golden BB's come in all shapes and sizes.
I agree, the Osprey's increased speed and flight envelope can be advantageous in certain scenarios, but then again the skidz gunships are still poking around at the same slow, rotary-winged speeds, and there will still be plenty of times when the Osprey's costs and speed are just overkill.
Now maybe, just maybe, all the kinks will get worked out and it won't face a fiscally-derived premature demise a la the F-14 because it got too expensive to maintain once the production line shut down, but I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest that the probabilities of that happening are less than 50%. The aircraft first flew 20 years ago, and they just stood down the last Phrog squadron at New River last month- that's not exactly a record to be proud of.
First off, any rotary winged aircraft would be best to avoid getting into a urinating contest with enemy fire to begin with, and the tilt-rotored Osprey with even more moving parts, and it's engines on the ends of the wing rotating 90 degrees up and down, is certainly no exception. The Phrog has a Jesus nut on the driveshaft, but the Osprey has a few of it's own, too; golden BB's come in all shapes and sizes.
I agree, the Osprey's increased speed and flight envelope can be advantageous in certain scenarios, but then again the skidz are still poking around at the same slow, rotary-winged speeds, and there will still be plenty of times when the Osprey's costs and speed are just overkill.
Now maybe, just maybe, all the kinks will get worked out and it won't face a fiscally-derived premature demise a la the F-14 because it got too expensive to maintain once the production line shut down, but I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest that the probabilities of that happening are less than 50%.
The aircraft first flew 20 years ago, and they just stood down the last Phrog squadron at New River last month – that's not exactly a record to be proud of.
First off, any rotary winged aircraft would be best to avoid getting into a urinating contest with enemy fire in any rotary-winged aircraft, and the tilt-rotored Osprey with even more moving parts, and it's engines on the ends of the wing rotating 90 degrees up and down, is certainly no exception.
I agree, the Osprey's increased speed and flight envelope can be advantageous in certain scenarios, but then again the skidz gunships are still poking around at the same slow, rotary-winged speeds, and there will still be plenty of times when the Osprey's costs and speed are just overkill.
Now maybe, just maybe, all the kinks will get worked out and it won't face a fiscally-derived premature demise a la the F-14 because it got too expensive to maintain once the production line shut down, but I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest that the probabilities of that happening are less than 50%.
The aircraft first flew 20 years ago, and they just stood down the last Phrog squadron at New River last month- that's not exactly a record to be proud of.
“I think the Osprey is nothing but a political plum, It’ll never replace the helicopter because of it’s fraility. One AK round in an engine would bring one down.”
WRONG in so many ways!!!!
One RPG in a helicopter would kill all aboard and destroy the craft. Give the damn V22 a chance to prove itself. The Osprey was designed to operate with one engine; there are limitations to the load it can carry in that circumstance; along with the speed and other factors will be cited as the situations manifest themselves. The craft only just pasted all the trials set down in the RFP by the Pentigon. The limitations will come out after thousands of sorties and hours in theatre; every environment is just another opportunity to learn from. No craft, arms or ammo is or was 100% effective initially until the input of all involved are through adjusting things to meet their specific needs; give it a chance, its a wonderful start of the new things to come that continue to make us the most advance and affective military in the world.
Being an Osprey pilot, formerly a Phrog pilot, I see the maintainers everyday. It's not a hangar queen. The readiness is getting better everyday. The decks of the Bataan looked no worse than they did after my previos LF6F on it.
It's already developed. That money is gone no matter what. We're already almost halfway done with the acquisition process, so switching course to another aircraft would cost exponentially more than sticking with the Osprey. Since nothing's going to change, why are we still debating the Osprey at all?
I understand the arguments against it based on cost. It's expensive. Got it. But we've ALREADY SPENT THE MONEY. It's not like a Christmas sweater. We can't take it back. Since we've already got an aircraft superior to any helo out there, we might as well keep it, move on, and quit saying, "should've gotten a Blackhawk," or whatever the alternative du jour is.
While I would agree that the program has already had too much money sunk into it to cancel it outright, (seems to be a common theme nowadays with defense projects,) the aircraft are still costing $70m a pop when you can get a readily capable MH-60S or EH-101/H-71 for half to one third of the price.
Osprey's were tripping liferafts off the port side of the boats well over a decade ago with their hot exhausts, and now the Navy is asking DARPA for a solution to the hot exhausts melting chunks off the flight deck.
Readiness rates have been in the low 60% range, the RR engines have not been lasting as long as the wings as they were advertised.
The aircraft would be better off suited to half the proposed numbers, and supplemented with a less expensive, modern and traidtional rotary-winged aircraft. Look at our Federal deficits and budget, the Corps cannot continue to spend like they print their own money. They also ought to buy less F-35B, and add Super Hornets/Growlers to their Wing.