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Thomamelas posted:Is there some reason perceived reason that the A-10 would better at CAS then an Apache? It just seems like an attack helicopter is a more natural fit for close in support then the A-10, and the discussions about the A-10 never seem to bring up attack helicopters in general. Helicopters are really god drat fragile.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:00
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Helicopters are really god drat fragile. A friend's dad flew UH-1s in Vietnam. He always said that OH-6s were great at marking the locations of VC/NVA forces just look for the burning OH-6 wreckage, the enemy will be nearby
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Mar 6, 2015 19:18
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Thomamelas posted:Is there some reason perceived reason that the A-10 would better at CAS then an Apache? It just seems like an attack helicopter is a more natural fit for close in support then the A-10, and the discussions about the A-10 never seem to bring up attack helicopters in general. Because it literally takes foot-mobiles with rifles to put them out of commission.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:20
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Attack helicopters have a really poor record against air defense.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:24
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Panzeh posted:Attack helicopters have a really poor record against air defense. So basically the answer is "they'd require an even more of a permissive environment than an A-10 or AC-130"?
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Mar 6, 2015 19:37
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Hubis posted:So basically the answer is "they'd require an even more of a permissive environment than an A-10 or AC-130"? It depends on the specific air defense systems and capabilities.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:44
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Attack helicopters can hide behind terrain, trees, buildings, etc. and fixed wing aircraft can't. Attack helicopters are also handy for escorting other helicopters. The Marines have been trying to figure out how to escort V-22s for a while since they're so much faster and longer ranged than Cobras. I think the solution they're working on is putting bombs/missiles on the V-22 itself.
Mortabis fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 20:14
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Mortabis posted:Attack helicopters can hide behind terrain, trees, buildings, etc. and fixed wing aircraft can't. Attack helicopters are also handy for escorting other helicopters. The Marines have been trying to figure out how to escort V-22s for a while since they're so much faster and longer ranged than Cobras. I think the solution they're working on is putting bombs/missiles on the V-22 itself. The army is probably going to solve that problem for them in the next decade with FVL, but of course the Marines will demand their own platform anyway and waste perfectly good R+D money on it. Throatwarbler posted:Weren't the AH64s originally designed to all take off and run headlong into a Soviet tank column in a massed attack (independent from other forces on the ground) as soon as they crossed the border? Your explanation would make sense then - they are more like tanks that can also fly. The AH-64 and the Hellfire basically became a thing right at the same time. The Apache program kicked off in 1972 after the AH-56 program died for several reasons, including the Air Force's upcoming A-10 and the program overlap, which the USAF didn't enjoy. The Hellfire in 1974 as a rotary-wing based anti-tank missile that wasn't limited like the TOW. There was never really any intent for the Apaches to take fire by design. There armored to a certain degree yes but something like a Shilka will still cause serious problems by sheer volume of fire. The intent was more to carry as many Hellfires as possible and use terrain features, even trees, to their advantage, tossing missiles at targets that didn't even have to be designated by the launching platform. This is the big reason the Longbow radar and the 114L became a thing, because you could get a truly fire-and-forget effect, and didn't need proper line of sight. Hubis posted:So basically the answer is "they'd require an even more of a permissive environment than an A-10 or AC-130"? Bsides mlmp's answer, I'd say terrain is also relevant. Helos can fly very low in rough areas and still be dangerous, fixed wing CAS can fly low but they can't attack poo poo without room to maneuver. Rotary wing gets the benefit of dancing in and out of ground cover to an extent fixed wing can't. Mazz fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 21:22
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Mazz posted:The army is probably going to solve that problem for them in the next decade with FVL, but of course the Marines will demand their own platform anyway and waste perfectly good R+D money on it. The difference in air defense vulnerability for choppers vis a vis CAS planes is that helicopters are a lot more vulnerable to yokels on trucks with ZPTUs and strelas than any jet aircraft. While MANPADS are dangerous to planes in a few situations, they're pretty dangerous to helicopters in many others, and there's not always the kind of terrain that allows a helo to stay hidden. The Soviets in Afghanistan made extensive use of Mi-24s and Mi-8s and they had problems with autocannons and manpads, taking a lot more losses than they expected. There's a reason the Apache was developed to try to stay back as far as possible.
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Mar 6, 2015 21:46
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Hinds aren't really designed for hovering though, are they? Like, they physically can't hover very well/for long and are more suited for zooming by at high (helicopter) speeds making GBS threads rockets everwhere. Or maybe I'm remembering that factoid wrong. Either way, Dude With Manpad is like the basic and cheap hard counter to a helicopter gunship, but plenty of ordinary autocannons will do the trick too in a pinch (see that Apache case in Iraq for an example).
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Mar 6, 2015 22:54
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Dumb question - so if 1) air defense has become so much better that you need LO-tech solutions just to survive, why am I going to be most likely dead by the time they retire the B-52? If you have these old bomb trucks still in service because they are useful, doesn't that somewhat undermine the No-survivability without LO point?
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Mar 6, 2015 22:59
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question - so if 1) air defense has become so much better that you need LO-tech solutions just to survive, why am I going to be most likely dead by the time they retire the B-52? If you have these old bomb trucks still in service because they are useful, doesn't that somewhat undermine the No-survivability without LO point? Permissive environs where you need bomb trucks will still exist (probably) throughout the B-52s lifetime but they are totally worthless in anything resembling a contested environment. As for attack helicopters they were and are very effective versus old school armor formations and against poorly armed insurgent type targets, which is still a pretty useful thing to have. Versus a peer or near peer opponent the answer basically is they stay very, very close to ground forces and provide direct fire support as needed. They aren't and never have been intended as a strike platform. bewbies fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 23:02
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question - so if 1) air defense has become so much better that you need LO-tech solutions just to survive, why am I going to be most likely dead by the time they retire the B-52? If you have these old bomb trucks still in service because they are useful, doesn't that somewhat undermine the No-survivability without LO point? First step, discover and destroy all enemy air defense. Once that first step is done, you can bring in the very-high-observability bomb trucks to take out the rest. It's in the first step that the LO aircraft find their justification. Small stuff like MANPADS will probably survive the sweep, but their reach is limited, so you just need to keep flying high.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:30
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On that topic the MALD is pretty interesting. Simulating flight profiles and radar signatures of actual aircraft to get the other guy to light up air defenses and waste missiles on a (comparatively) cheap drone. Newer model even has jamming capabilities and it looks like the next proposed step is to put some form of offensive payload in them. An interesting alternative method to disabling top-of-the-line air defenses. Let them shoot down a bunch of drones in one big "which ones are cheap drones, which ones are more expensive drones with a hellfire onboard for your RADAR, and which ones are actually planes" shell game. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 00:23
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Bog-standard heavy bombers can also do nice things by spewing out cruise missiles and the like.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:38
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Pimpmust posted:Hinds aren't really designed for hovering though, are they? Like, they physically can't hover very well/for long and are more suited for zooming by at high (helicopter) speeds making GBS threads rockets everwhere. Or maybe I'm remembering that factoid wrong. Hinds get a fair amount of lift from their stub wings. They are also prone to rotor strikes on the boom IIRC.
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Mar 7, 2015 01:31
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Cat Mattress posted:First step, discover and destroy all enemy air defense. Once that first step is done, you can bring in the very-high-observability bomb trucks to take out the rest. It's in the first step that the LO aircraft find their justification. Yeah, I think it's functionally impossible to knock out every infantry air defense team or autocannon in a country so it never really gets that permissive for attack helos, though there are obviously degrees here. I think had Vietnam come in the era where Strelas were more available air cavalry would not be remembered anywhere near as fondly.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:35
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Mazz posted:The army is probably going to solve that problem for them in the next decade with FVL, but of course the Marines will demand their own platform anyway and waste perfectly good R+D money on it. They would have destroyed a lot of Soviet tanks, and if you absolutely needed to blunt an armoured offensive right here right now helicopters are going to be able to get there more quickly than towed AT guns or whatever. Yes some aircraft would be lost to ground fire. A Guards Tank Army isn't Libya or the Taliban, planners accepted that in a general European war with the Soviet Union not everyone was going to come home.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:53
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Throatwarbler posted:They would have destroyed a lot of Soviet tanks, and if you absolutely needed to blunt an armoured offensive right here right now helicopters are going to be able to get there more quickly than towed AT guns or whatever. Yes some aircraft would be lost to ground fire. A Guards Tank Army isn't Libya or the Taliban, planners accepted that in a general European war with the Soviet Union not everyone was going to come home. I'm missing with how that really contests with my point, more like we're talking past each other. I'm not arguing they wouldn't have been shooting at tanks/AAA and getting shot down in the process, I'm just saying the intent was never to swoop in and just strafe enemy armor with rockets and point blank hellfires while getting shot at from every gun that could elevate high enough to shoot. They still had some elements of tactics, and the Hellfire was built from the ground up to support that kind of standoff, non-line-of-sight if possible style. Mazz fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 03:05
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Mazz posted:I'm missing with how that really contests with my point, more like we're talking past each other. I'm not arguing they wouldn't have been shooting at tanks/AAA and getting shot down in the process, I'm just saying the intent was never to swoop in and just strafe enemy armor with rockets and point blank hellfires while getting shot at from every gun that could elevate high enough to shoot. They still had some elements of tactics, and the Hellfire was built from the ground up to support that kind of standoff, non-line-of-sight if possible style. We can still be bros.  I'm just saying that the context of how the AH64 was going to be deployed against the Soviet Union (what it was originally designed for) isn't the same one that it faces today. Calling it a Maneuver element I think makes sense.
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Mar 7, 2015 03:18
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Basically, choppers are at risk from small arms, crew-serves, and basic eye-ball guided AAA in a way that planes aren't, outside of golden BB scenarios or going against a site armed with craploads of antiquated AAA. On the other hand, if you put some fancy-pants SAM system up that can shoot to the moon and range things 100 miles out, there's a good chance it can be wrecked by a helicopter with a decent pilot and PGMs. In the middle lies the danger of stuff like MANPADS and SHORAD vehicles, which are dangerous to both planes and choppers, short of planes flying rather high.
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Mar 7, 2015 03:59
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mlmp08 posted:Your daily dose of A-10 cancellation anger: I'm so sick of hearing about this because at this point both sides are/have gone completely retarded. Case in point, this article. It's from the CFR, which is supposed to be the home of the (mostly) adult discussion in foreign affairs/international relations, yet here they are publishing an article that summed up is basically "The Air Force should buy more A-10s and AC-130s because me and my Army infantry buddies like them and think they're super cool, plus IT HAS A REALLY BIG GUN ZOMG" Also while you're at it get me like infinity more RPA CAPs, tia. I mean FFS, he touts the A-10's "rough field capability" (whatever the gently caress that means) as an advantage IN THE PACIFIC THEATER. But that's okay, because stealth is vulnerable to any and all air defenses all the time so we can throw A-10s against the Chinese, it's not like the Raptor would do any better...I mean, the Serbs shot down a F-117 15 years ago, QED. Is there anything the A-10 can't do????? Also I seriously laughed out loud in the last paragraph when he implies that Kelly Ayotte has no ulterior motives because her state is getting F-35 money and has no A-10s...pay no attention to the fact that her husband is a former A-10 driver, she clearly has no biases that may be driving her decision-making. mlmp08 posted:Basically, choppers are at risk from small arms, crew-serves, and basic eye-ball guided AAA in a way that planes aren't, outside of golden BB scenarios or going against a site armed with craploads of antiquated AAA. On the other hand, if you put some fancy-pants SAM system up that can shoot to the moon and range things 100 miles out, there's a good chance it can be wrecked by a helicopter with a decent pilot and PGMs. In the middle lies the danger of stuff like MANPADS and SHORAD vehicles, which are dangerous to both planes and choppers, short of planes flying rather high. Which is why smart countries pay attention to the I in IADS and make sure they have a bunch of SA-22s and SA-17s protecting their SA-20/21 sites. Fortunately most countries are dumb. Which is why the US military is so dominant...we aren't smart, we're just less stupid than everyone else and we have more money than god.
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Mar 7, 2015 05:59
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That and we keep attacking countries that have a barely functioning military or less. We're gonna take a big fat bloody nose next time we go up against anyone using hardware developed after 1985 and with a modicum of training. After that we'll get our poo poo together for 20 years. Rinse, repeat.
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Mar 7, 2015 06:32
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If you're bombing dudes with no air defenses it makes perfect sense to take advantage of that permissive environment. That doesn't mean you'd do the exact same thing in the next conflict. The only people with SA-17s and SA-22s are the Russians. After that you have the Chinese with some relatively modern stuff. Neither have glowing records as far as training and performance in conflict are concerned. It's all downhill (or allied) from there. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 06:44
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Godholio posted:That and we keep attacking countries that have a barely functioning military or less. It'll take those 20 years to get unfucked. During which time we'll lose the political will to do so. outside of reoccurring 9/11 style events every 3-5 years. I think there might be something to mandatory service to bridge the divide a bit. Yes I realize that has a poo poo ton of problems too.
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Mar 7, 2015 08:03
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Mazz posted:The army is probably going to solve that problem for them in the next decade with FVL, but of course the Marines will demand their own platform anyway and waste perfectly good R+D money on it. Anti-tank missile systems like the TOW and Hellfire are rotary-wing/aircraft mounted and the Javelin and TOW are man-portable. It seems like both the Hellfire and Javelin were intended to supplant the TOW. Is there any reason why the TOW is still in use?
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Mar 7, 2015 08:16
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Suicide Watch posted:Is there any reason why the TOW is still in use? We have a lot of them in surplus, they're fairly effective at doing their job, relatively cheap compared to alternative missile systems, and they're a real bitch to counter.
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Mar 7, 2015 09:14
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Suicide Watch posted:Anti-tank missile systems like the TOW and Hellfire are rotary-wing/aircraft mounted and the Javelin and TOW are man-portable. It seems like both the Hellfire and Javelin were intended to supplant the TOW. Is there any reason why the TOW is still in use? Hellfires are much bigger/heavier than TOWs, hence not being man portable. Don't think one really supplements the other.
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Mar 7, 2015 09:49
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So here's an idea. How about a single use mortar tube that can be triggered remotely with a simple seeker warhead that 's guided by GPS or laser? Like an M72, that you can plant on top of a hill, sort of like a tiny VLS system. The shooter goes behind another hill, behind cover/concealment, locates the enemy with his smart binos, picks a target, and remotely fires the mortar, the round then either hits a predetermined GPS location or laser. It can be freefall like a mortar, or rocket propelled, and be top attack. That way the enemy can come under fire and the shooter/designator is not revealed by backblast or muzzle flash.
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Mar 7, 2015 09:57
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Throatwarbler posted:Weren't the AH64s originally designed to all take off and run headlong into a Soviet tank column in a massed attack (independent from other forces on the ground) as soon as they crossed the border? Your explanation would make sense then - they are more like tanks that can also fly. Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question - so if 1) air defense has become so much better that you need LO-tech solutions just to survive, why am I going to be most likely dead by the time they retire the B-52? If you have these old bomb trucks still in service because they are useful, doesn't that somewhat undermine the No-survivability without LO point? Throatwarbler posted:So here's an idea. How about a single use mortar tube that can be triggered remotely with a simple seeker warhead that 's guided by GPS or laser? Like an M72, that you can plant on top of a hill, sort of like a tiny VLS system. The shooter goes behind another hill, behind cover/concealment, locates the enemy with his smart binos, picks a target, and remotely fires the mortar, the round then either hits a predetermined GPS location or laser. It can be freefall like a mortar, or rocket propelled, and be top attack. That way the enemy can come under fire and the shooter/designator is not revealed by backblast or muzzle flash. Pimpmust posted:Hinds aren't really designed for hovering though, are they? Like, they physically can't hover very well/for long and are more suited for zooming by at high (helicopter) speeds making GBS threads rockets everwhere. Or maybe I'm remembering that factoid wrong. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 10:30
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The Javelin was built to supplant the Dragon. TOW is only nominally man-portable. It's still in use because it's still very effective. It's also roughly a quarter of the cost of the Javelin and about half that of the Hellfire. E: beaten.
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Mar 7, 2015 11:02
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Dead Reckoning posted:I'm genuinely curious what use you foresee for this system. Shooting at Israel
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Mar 7, 2015 11:17
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Dead Reckoning posted:Quite the opposite, actually: their role was envisioned as almost a defense-in-depth or mobile reserve, destroying enemy armor before it could create or exploit breaks in friendly lines. I guess I'm not expressing myself very clearly because what you said sounds pretty much the same as what I said?
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Mar 7, 2015 11:46
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What did West Germany use for their helicopter gunships during the Cold War? US, France, Britain all had something, was it just not a part of the German doctrine? Seems unlikely due to their tactical situation (Fulda Gap) though.
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Mar 7, 2015 11:48
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Throatwarbler posted:I guess I'm not expressing myself very clearly because what you said sounds pretty much the same as what I said? They weren't meant to attack independent of other forces, they weren't meant to attack enemy armor before it was in proximity to friendly forces, and weren't meant to attack en masse (in say Brigade-sized elements) which were all things you said.
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Mar 7, 2015 12:33
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Dead Reckoning posted:They weren't meant to attack independent of other forces, they weren't meant to attack enemy armor before it was in proximity to friendly forces, and weren't meant to attack en masse (in say Brigade-sized elements) which were all things you said. But are they primarily reacting to/being tasked and controlled by the commanders of frontline ground units as a supporting arm, or are they generally sent out on specific missions against specific targets? I was under the impression that it was the latter, and that they operated as a mobile anti-armour force that can be dispatched against massed armoured breakthroughs.
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Mar 7, 2015 12:54
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Suicide Watch posted:What did West Germany use for their helicopter gunships during the Cold War? US, France, Britain all had something, was it just not a part of the German doctrine? Seems unlikely due to their tactical situation (Fulda Gap) though. The Bo-105 PAH. Not a gunship per se, more of a pure anti-tank machine. Nimble as hell, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNWCSE9BaW0
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Mar 7, 2015 13:12
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Throatwarbler posted:So here's an idea. How about a single use mortar tube that can be triggered remotely with a simple seeker warhead that 's guided by GPS or laser? Like an M72, that you can plant on top of a hill, sort of like a tiny VLS system. The shooter goes behind another hill, behind cover/concealment, locates the enemy with his smart binos, picks a target, and remotely fires the mortar, the round then either hits a predetermined GPS location or laser. It can be freefall like a mortar, or rocket propelled, and be top attack. That way the enemy can come under fire and the shooter/designator is not revealed by backblast or muzzle flash. Sounds an awful lot like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM501_Non-Line-of-Sight_Launch_System
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Mar 7, 2015 13:18
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Baracula posted:Shooting at Israel Yeah, that kind of system as described is not very useful to a conventional force who might want to fire, you know, a full barrage but it's perfect for insurgents. In Vietnam the VC used very sproadic harassment fire from mortars to slow down US troops and it proved to be a pretty effective tactic which has been there ever since, though in Iraq it was more a dude firing a mortar at a FOB and then driving his truck off.
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Mar 7, 2015 13:45
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Suicide Watch posted:What did West Germany use for their helicopter gunships during the Cold War? US, France, Britain all had something, was it just not a part of the German doctrine? Seems unlikely due to their tactical situation (Fulda Gap) though. I believe West Germany's Cold War doctrine was "die, because the Russians are throwing nukes at us to pass through, while the French are throwing nukes at us to block the Russians".
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Mar 7, 2015 13:52
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