argie

IIRC, there wasn't a proper flak trap, but the usual small and medium weapons fire any soviet style division could deliver. The affected helos came back mostly with 7.62 holes on them. BTW, I wasn't limiting the discussion only to COIN, thoough it can be even more difficult than many other CAS missions, despite being considered low intensity.

Then the NATO Force lean some Mil Mi-17s to do the all the lift than only needed a VTOL truck.

Is worthwhile for one, and maybe two, CAS roles it excels to: Anti Tank (think on them as the fastest way to set an AT ambush or to cover a flank with offensive AT maneuver, inside the ground operations plan), and, marginally, Anti Helicopter (it's very difficult to kill helos with jet planes at high speed on diffcult terrain).

A fairly entertaining take on OA-X

All those, PGM and NVG/FLIR are already standard, for instance, in the AT-29 Super Tucano. The FLIR was standard on the OV-10 before the program O/A-10 was started and all the all time/all weather capabilities on the single seat A-10 are fairly recent. The Avenger is a great gun, but, again, overkilling. Most of the time what is needed is a spray of a few 12.7 to 20 mm ammo than being able to peel off the armor from anything on threads at 4.200 rounds a minute. In fact, just from the bang for the buck perspective, there is nothing on battlefield more expensive than a burst from the Avenger. The A-10 is really cost efective when carrying Mavericks. Something the turboprop CAS airplanes can do. The A-10 can go twice the distance than a A-1, but you can deploy de A-1 directly on the frontline, not a few hundred kms away on a thousand meters road. If you uses the A-10 STOL ability or in dirty roads, the payload gets brutally reduced (to around the same an A-1 can carry in the same circunstances). Maximum design values have very little to do with actual operational capabilities. Yet, the A-1 can loiter for a few more hours over the battlefield than the Warthog. Anyway, today, the A-10 is the more capable CAS a/c. That doesn't mean that automatically is the plane needed for the all tasks at hand, or the best suited. In fact, the subject is even more complicated, as in the USAF the real problem resides in lack of air controllers, which are difficult to train, given the cost of operating the aircraft they should train with. So, to the operational cost of such beasts (including F-15Es and F-16s) you had to add the deficit, because of the cost of training mainly, of the ground specialized teams to work with them. It is a long logistical chain that claims for something that not excels, but that is just suited for the job and lowers the costs in all the processes implied. The A-10 is complementary in specialized CAS tasks, like destroying AAA and AFVs, and having it is a BIG plus over sending multirole fighters to a job that isn't the best for them.

Marginally better in some aspects, overkill in others. Surely a lot more expensive not only as a plane, but also in operational cost. Survival rates against common threats are not quite dissimilar, AFAIK, as far as operations in different environments are comparable.

Indeed. It was the best CAS airplane ever. It had its cons and some things can be done with a lighter airplane and PGMs today, but coming to have a bomb truck and cannon support, its specifications were the best.

The A-67 is non existent. Look at real reports from the USAF on the AT-6 or AT-29. I'll suggest you a few sources on why it is effective a plane in that range. Campbell, Douglas. Close Air Support: A Primer. Annapolis, MD, U.S. Naval Institute, April 9, 2003. Campbell, Douglas. The Warthog and the Close Air Support Debate . Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press, 2003. Maj W.H. Beckett and Maj K.P. Rice . The Need, Concept of Operation and General Specifications for a Very Light S.T.O.L. Support Aircraft, 1960. W.H. Beckett, K.P. Rice and M.E.King . The OV-10 Story: Innovation vs. The "System" . Leon E. Elsarelli, Major, USAF. From Desert Storm to 2025: Close Air Support in the 21st Century. AU/ACSC, April 1998. Maj Michael W. Binney. Joint Close Air Support in the Low Intensity Conflict . Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. Major Gary P. Shaw, United States Marine Corps Implications for the Future CSC, 1995. Gulf War Close Air Support: . . Bruce R. Pirnie, Alan Vick, Adam Grissom, Karl P. Mueller, David T. Orletsky. Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership . RAND Corporation, 2005. OTOH, UCAS will take a lot longer yet to become an effective mean of real CAS and even combat recon with friendly forces involved. See the recounts on Kandahar fight: operators were unable to differentiate between blue and red in the middle of the struggle, despite direct comms with the involved forces. Without human eyes and the direct comms right over the field, unmanned close support is almost chimeric yet. The successes came for other kind of operations.

The USAF thinks different, finally. What sense makes to have the carrying capacity of a Warthog (around 7 ton), when you only uses 1.5 when deploying from alternative airfields most of the time? Remember that with the Skyraider already around, the OV-10 was introduced (true is that the little plane suffered the usual creeping features disease, and went bigger than planned).

This plane seems to be in the same category than the Stavatti (spell?) Machete: vaporplane. The USAF more likely will chose between the Brazilian AT-29 Super Tucano and the AT-6 Texan II.

The AC-130 is the "ultimate" CAS plane, capable of loitering for hours, with all the sensors, weapons and, not only comms, but also liaisons officers on board. But is big, expensive, and only can be used in a highly controlled environment, preferably by night. The advantage of today OA-X planes is that they can be used as the trainers, OCU and operational aircraft all in one, for a flying cost of less than 1600 $ by flying hour. Everytime a F-16 is sent on demand just to fire a burst of 20mm on a few "rebels", you are expending a few times that figure, plus a risk of capital (human and material) far higher. In CAS, planes are lost, no matters what is the menace level (low level flight, low speed maneuvering, and small arms fire are a constant that made for the real danger).

All tests have demonstrated that speed isn't so important to survival. The barrier seems to be in the order of the 300/400 km/h. It makes helos vulnerable, but not so much prop driven planes. They are more resilient to small arms fires, the primary treat in CAS, than heavily armored helos or jet planes, and have a very low signal on radar and very low IR signature (low heat in exhausts and negligible in the front), plus low flying capabilities comparable to helos. The thing that tends to bias the studies is that most attack missions of jet planes are not properly CAS, but some kind of BAI. When considering similar missions, the casualty rate is pretty similar. The A-10 fly in almost the same envelope and the figures in survivability are more related to redundancy and armor than to avoiding actual small arms fire, plus simplicity, that makes it possible to patch them on the field and send them to fight another day.

A temporary trial that helped to develop the CAS doctrine for the Allies. It has its downs, and it was very bad at beginning, plus changed a lot ongoing, but the (solid) foundations were made there.

On the Pucará on Malvinas, though I doubt it impressed the study I mentioned, the operational rate was abysmal, but it was interesting looking to it through the glass of the very poor logistic, infernal, mud ridden airfield in which it operated, and impressive survival rate when hit (IIRC, only 3 were actually shot down, all the other losses being on the ground). No other combat plane could have operated in such conditions and it was an eye opener on how useful could be that kind of plane in direct use and contact with front troops, in a better (or at least, planned) situation. IIRC, one was flying after receiving a Sidewinder impact in lethal range and had to be shoot down with 30mm cannon from a Harrier. And it isn't an armored planed.

I think you are a bit confused: wasn't the Congress who asked for the Piper Enforcer, neither it had anything to do with it. It was an old little war on effective CAS at low cost to complement the A-10. At the time, the idea from the Pentagon was to have low cost CAS directly on FEBA, maybe the sucesor of the Piper Enforcer, which was more than anything a demo, plus a refurbished A-7, the F, for BAI. The ones never liked it (as they didn't like the Warthog, but they have to keep it despite wanting to ditch it every time they could) was the USAF. As there are buying procedures that are tailor made for some contractor, there are also requirements tailor made to not being meet. All this started with a study on CAS, by the USAF itself, which determined that the best CAS was a turboprop, simple, robust plane capable of being loitering most of the time over the troops. If you read the history of the OV-10, you'll know why the USAF don't like to do CAS, much less with turboprops and the struggle to even have the A-10 running, a plane that made for a lot of it cost in its lifespan.

I'm shocked to know that Lazarus is a wargamer!

+ somefink. That would be really useful.

I've seen a similar behavior on a Sniper team. But the marksman was actually firing his rifle in one turn, in the next, he switched to his pistol. At the time, I guessed his magazine went empty and with a lot of targets below 50 m, it was intentional, instead of reloading.

Is it the thread in which everybody is playing with everyone testes?

Since I came back I was astounded to see this nonsensical hobby or lifestyle of yours still going on. I wanted to congratulate you, gentlesomefink, for your persistence on absurdity. Carry over.

Ask him. The Jaguar was the KanonenJagdPanzer converted to use ATGMs when the 90mm gun was considered obsolete: same AFV. But you can also look just at the blueprints I provided and easily spot the differences. Even the power axis was in the front wheel in the JgPz IV and in the last wheel in the KJP, as external obvious difference, not to mention the different suspension and wheels. I think that the MG-3 and the MG-42 were the only pieces of equipment with some commonality.

Well, the German version is wrong, plain and simply. Just look at the chassis and the general specifications of each AFV. The PzIV chassis was obsolete by the middle of the war: no space for more improvements, no neutral steering, lack of a good weight/power ratio, etc, etc, etc. The JagdPanzerKanone is an entirely different chassis, engine, drive train... everything, with prototypes made well over 20 years after the first PzKw IV left the factory.

Sorry, I don't speech German. I was talking on the English version of Wikipedia (and I said "even Wikipedia has it correct", not that I like it) in which the phrase you posted reads: "Its design was very similar to that of the World War II Jagdpanzer IV." And thats all. It has nothing to do with any WWII era model, except the external resemblance to the Jagdpanzer IV. Basically, low profile, frontal fixed gun and sloped armor. Everything else, specially the relevant parts, power and drive train, are something totally different. And, to be more specific, the Jpz IV, with the Pz IV chassis, had not neutral steering.

The first prototype of the KanonenJagdPanzer came out in 1960 and had nothing to do with any WWII design, except the obvious traits for armor and signature, which made it externally "similar" to the JPz IV. It wasn't based in it and it has all the advantages of post-war drive trains and engines (the brute and per ton HPs were already posted). No idea from where you took your data. Even Wikipedia has it correct.

Now all seems to be working as expected, but... I got three rows of white numbers on my lower right corner: First, some variable numbers from 0.0 to over 30.0 (it seems to be frame rate). Second, "Q: XX" (being Xs numbers, of course). And third, "LOS(K): XXXX". Is it a setting I left on or something that isn't supposed to be there?