Apache rocket attack....drunken shotgun of the gods

[Lee]

John Kettler: While it is fair to point out that the 160th chopper pilots are particularly good, there's is also a video in this thread of an Apache attack chopper, which is not in the 160th, in Afghanistan that is firing rockets at terrorists on a small hill-top position, a tricky target, and the Apache is putting those rockets right on the money, excellent accuracy. The rockets certainly aren't flying all over the place, there are going into the target.

I think perhaps there is some confusion because of the different types of attacks that are being discussed. If a chopper is laying down suppressive rocket fire on an area target, to hit some diffuse enemy presence, especially if it's unloading all of it's rockets in one go to try and saturate that area, then, yes, there is going to be quite a bit of spread. And that's fine for a strike like that, you want to spread those rockets about some in that situation. But when the pilot and/or gunner has a point target that has been specified by ground forces on location, then those rockets, as we have seen in the actual combat videos, can be placed with a high degree of accuracy.

[Splinty]

There's no doubt that the 160th guys are good, but keep in mind that almost every other aviation battalion in the Army has done multiple tours now and what edge the 160th guys had over the "regular" pilots has been evened out by experience.

[Clavicula_Nox]

There's no doubt that the 160th guys are good, but keep in mind that almost every other aviation battalion in the Army has done multiple tours now and what edge the 160th guys had over the "regular" pilots has been evened out by experience.

I agree completely.

[theFightingSeabee]

I agree completely.

I also agree. Our military is extremely well trained and after almost 7 years of war in 2 theatres, we are quite experienced as well. We have learned so much from these wars. We have upgraded equipment, upgraded tactics and strategy, and by the time this hypothetical war with Syria hits, most of our nco's will be hardened veterans. When we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, most of our guys were pretty green.

[Secondbrooks]

Question: What good does experience in Iraq or Afganistan kind pacification operation give in ways of hot conventional war against Syria? Opponent is totally different case, reality of battlefield is totally different. What i see to be similar are possibly terrain, own organization(from squads to brigades have worked together alot), tactics and gear which have been tested in "crisis" condition instead just peacetime training and most of stuff has been done alot. But rest of reality is pretty much different from what US troops have done... Well i don't know much what US troops currently does in Iraq or Afganistan, so right now i'm acting like drunken shotgun, i quess.

My county's peacekeepers have not been in war, they are forexample in afganistan doing some peacekeeping. Most of them to which i've talked (some of them have done peacekeeping tours in southern parts of world for even several years) to are saying that what they have seen, done and learned doesn't help in conventional war. Reality is just so much different. There are some things like radiocommunications, vehicle's maintance and their reliablity, but in big picture lessons learned from low intensitety conflicts are not much. I don't know what high ranking officers are thinking, these viewpoints are from lower rank men, NCOs and junior officers. Again i presume that Peacekeeping is bit different with what US troops are doing, but basically i could think that they have alot same characteristics. Use of lethal force is biggest difference by both friendlies and hostiles ("hostiles" in peacekeeping).

Reality after conventional war would be far more relative to US and also to British troops, i think. But i'm not claiming to be expert in this area. I've not done peacekeeping tours, not enough age when i was willing (i'm NCO so higher age standart applied to me) and when having enough age to go, i already had wife and kid comming.

Any thoughts from those who actually has done it and been there.

Ps. ****e. I wandered biiit offtopik. Well, i mentioned drunken shotgun.

[John Kettler]

Lee, Splinty, Clavicula_Nox, the FightingSeabee,

Good points, but doesn't the cream also get better with practice, or is the cream already so incredible no significant improvement's possible?

Secondbrooks,

While the combat environment's going to be different, the experience of being under fire

alone, regardless of whether the actual threat, never mind working together in cohesive units, will be a big leg up in the hypothetical Syrian invasion. These sorts of experiences have the effect of greatly improving the combat life expectancy of the aircrews involved, as shown by Air force studies that those who survived their first ten missions tended to survive pretty well over a full tour. The whole point of Red Flag, created in response to that study, was to provide the most realistic artificial combat experience, under real world stress and demanding operating conditions, to include live radar threats, Smoky SAMs, AAA simulators and the like, in order to synthetically "age" the combat aircrews. Would argue that even the relatively low air defense threat level in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing much the same for the helo crews there.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I think the experience gain has been massively valuable for grunts, NCOs and Officers in particular.

Artillery, armoured vehicles and aircraft though would do well to first unlearn some of the bad habits you get that work well in COIN but get you killed in a conventional war against any semi-competent opponent.

In particular helicopters should learn to be afraid again, I reckon.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Good points, but doesn't the cream also get better with practice, or is the cream already so incredible no significant improvement's possible?

Of course improvement is possible, I think we're just suggesting that the divide between specialized pilots and regular pilots is significantly smaller. Sure, 160th is probably better at certain missions involving SOF deployments, I would hope so because that is their mission.

What good does experience in Iraq or Afganistan kind pacification operation give in ways of hot conventional war against Syria?

Well, keep in mind, Iraq and Afghanistan both had a Phase 1. Right now, we're still in Phase IV with a transition to Phase V. The conventional war was obviously bigger and..I dunno.."more conventional" in Iraq than A-stan. Also, John put it very well about pilots being in combat. Just being there gives them the ability to adapt to a conventional situation, though I think there would be a short and painful adjustment period, I also don't think a Syrian invasion would be a long campaign.

[Lee]

I agree that the best pilots can get even better. But with the huge amount of combat experience our Apache, Cobra, Huey and Blackhawk gunship pilots have in Afghanistan and Iraq after flying *tons* of air strike missions, they are all more or less at least in the "excellent" level of combat skill rating.

So any terrorists (or Syrian army, etc.) that they are making attack runs on are in serious trouble, whether the pilots are in the 160th or not. Below is another awesome video of a Cobra gunship pilot laying down some serious cannon and rocket fire on a terrorist target across a river.

[DaveDash]

Back on topic:

I used to think the rockets in the game were wildly inaccurate.

BUT after reading a forward air controller (can't remember his name, he was a Major with 1st Marine Recon in OIF) he mentioned how 'WILDLY inaccurate' they are, I think BFC may have got it right.

My biggest problem, as I've mentioned, is you should be able to bring in airpower to the area to destroy any targets they can spot, instead of limited 400m spots (which makes airpower almost unusable against moving targets like tanks).

[Bigduke6]

Why was that helicopter strike awesome? I just saw fire hitting a woodline on a shore of some kind, and I'm just guessing about the distance but it looked like the fire was more or less in a 200meter box. Sometimes substantially more.

Looked to me like for sure there were a lotta place to hide out there in that 4,000 square meter box. Had some decent infantry been in the target area, and given even a half minute find the cuts and low ground, I bet a grunt could have rode out that strike.

Sometimes the aircraft makes its run, drops its ordnance, and flies back to the O-club, and meanwhile the infantry picks itself up and laughs about the stupid pilots. A nice fireworks show is not necessarily an effective air strike, no matter how much the friendlies whoop and holler about it.

On the pilot quality issue, I agree with the school of thought that right now the skill difference in the US military between the super-duper-secret-airdriving-troopers and the regular chopper jocks probably isn't that substantial right now. Pilot skill depends on experience, and during peace the overfinanced elite guys get extra practice. During combat operations quite often it's the other way around, the regular guys fly day in and day out, while the special ops guys sit around waiting for, er, a special op.

[Bigduke6]

On the little war/big war issue, I recommend a book by a British officer by the name of John Masters called "Bugles and a Tiger". Masters was an officer in a Gurkha battalion on the NW frontier, and during the 1930s from time to time they would hike into the mountains to chase the Pathans, who hated foreigners in general and the British Empire in particular. (Interestingly, these same tribes are now called Pashto and instead of just hating the British, the English-speakers are attacking them for hating Democracy and supporting world-wide terrorism. But I digress.)

Anyway, Masters responds to charges that the Gurkhas and units like it with plenty of experience in little wars were spoiled for action in big wars. He rejects the charges, pointing out that if you are fighting a not very intense war with people like the Pathans/Pashto, you learn the infantry basics that keep you from getting killed: endurance, wile, patience, marksmanship, read the terrain, know your weapons, take your enemy very seriously, and "absolute unblinking" vigiliance. He wrote vigilance was probably the most important, the point being that if you drop your guard, even for a moment, in a little war your opponent will see it and sooner or later exploit it, and that means your guys dead and wounded.

He argued that things like large unit tactics and combined arms were, compared to the ground-level infantry lessons the "Frontier" (now Pakistan's NW Territories) taught, were relatively easily learned. The main thing was the men and junior officers' absorbing the rules that keep small units from getting wiped out in a moment of stupidity. The bigger stuff at the end of the day was dealt with by educated military professionals, and provided the soldiers knew the basics, according to Masters the officers' adapting to a larger war was relatively simple.

Masters and his battalion went on to fight during WWII in Syria, Iraq, and Burma; during which last campaign the Gurkhas really stuck it to the Japanese - in jungle conditions the Ghurkhas had not trained for, against a very dangerous conventional opponent. Compared to the Pathans/Pashto, Masters wrote, the Japanese were relatively easy: they attacked in mass, without guile, and were a good deal worse than the Gurkhas at exploiting the terrain.

That I think would be a strong arguement US forces with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq would be more not less competent in a Syrian war, than US forces sent to Syria, without that experience. Even if you figure a big portion of the US force in Afghanistant pretty much lives on fire bases and is trained to deal with any serious contact with massive firepower not manuever or organic weapons, I would say the value of the experience of worrying about what you need to do to stay alive when there are people out there actively trying to kill you is pretty much superior to any form of training.

[c3k]

Agreed regarding the point of air attack: it is MUCH more effective at suppressing rather than causing actual casualties. At least with area attack munitions: rockets, chin guns. Point targets - bunkers, vehicles, hardpoints, can and will be destroyed. Deployed troops in broken ground, with any sense of self-preservation will hug any depression. A few may get hit. Not enough (depending on saturation of area fire) to seriously degrade their combat power. However, there needs to be time for them to stop hugging the dirt, look around, assess casualties, reform and carry out their movement/spotted fire.

If air support stays in the immediate vicinity, so that the just-struck troops see and/or hear the air support, they would be much more cautious in any movement or exposure.

I disagree with the last paragraph.

Regards,

Ken

[c3k]

Cross post: my post above refers to Bigduke6's post number 111.

Regards,

Ken

[missinginreality]

. Pilot skill depends on experience, and during peace the overfinanced elite guys get extra practice. During combat operations quite often it's the other way around, the regular guys fly day in and day out, while the special ops guys sit around waiting for, er, a special op.

Interestingly I have a friend who used to be in the RAF who was one of their top pilots flying F4's.Most of the time he was kept busy flying QRA over the North Sea playing with the Russians. When it came to the first Gulf War they wouldn't post him into action coz they felt he was too expereiced to risk! You wonder what they were training him for in the first place! He has since left as a direct result of that.

[dan/california]

There are a great many things about air support that the game doesn't handle very well. I think Steve is made reasonable case that the reason the game doesn't handle these things very well is that it would require writing a whole new game to do them well. It would be called the JTAC trainer model 101. This problem is made much worse by all the neat video coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, of air strikes made in very close support situations. However, the game posits a situation in which there is a full a conventional war going on, and the Air Force will have a great many other things to do besides flying in small circles and waiting for the Army to yell for help. The Air Force's primary jobs are to ensure that not one enemy fighter makes it off the runway, and that not one significant size unit or supply convoy can move any distance whatsoever behind enemy lines. Both of these tasks have an enormous influence on what happens at the sharp edge of the army's spear, but they don't show up in the scope of the game.

The games great failing is that it is not modeling the drone support that is now integral to most US army brigades at all. These have a very limited strike capability, if any. But they do provide a persistent top view of the battle on which armored fighting vehicles in particular stand out like sore thumbs. Most of these drones also have the ability to designate for various kinds of GPS and laser guided ordinance.

Many of the specific issues with helicopters occur, I believe when trying to use the same interface for both helicopters and air strikes. There is also an issue with trying to model what we see in many of the videos from the current low intensity conflicts. My understanding is that no Apache pilot, with any desire whatsoever to stay alive, would over-fly an enemy mechanized unit with any functionality left at all. Instead they would carefully approach just close enough to deploy their missiles, making full use of any available terrain features to do this. Every possible attempt will be made to stay out of the enemy's line of sight except for the actual moment of the deployment. It is my understanding that in some cases it is even possible to deploy the laser designator of the JTAC in such a way that the Apache never has to show itself in the known enemy line of sight. Thus, the game both under, and over models various aspects of the Apache’s capabilities. I do feel that in some cases it is far too difficult in practice to kill enemy armor in uncovered positions. That is the single job that the Apache was designed to do well. If someone who has actually flown one wants to tell me that I'm wrong I will cheerfully listen to him.

[The_Red_Rage]

On the little war/big war issue, I recommend a book by a British officer by the name of John Masters called "Bugles and a Tiger". Masters was an officer in a Gurkha battalion on the NW frontier, and during the 1930s from time to time they would hike into the mountains to chase the Pathans, who hated foreigners in general and the British Empire in particular. (Interestingly, these same tribes are now called Pashto and instead of just hating the British, the English-speakers are attacking them for hating Democracy and supporting world-wide terrorism. But I digress.)

Anyway, Masters responds to charges that the Gurkhas and units like it with plenty of experience in little wars were spoiled for action in big wars. He rejects the charges, pointing out that if you are fighting a not very intense war with people like the Pathans/Pashto, you learn the infantry basics that keep you from getting killed: endurance, wile, patience, marksmanship, read the terrain, know your weapons, take your enemy very seriously, and "absolute unblinking" vigiliance. He wrote vigilance was probably the most important, the point being that if you drop your guard, even for a moment, in a little war your opponent will see it and sooner or later exploit it, and that means your guys dead and wounded.

He argued that things like large unit tactics and combined arms were, compared to the ground-level infantry lessons the "Frontier" (now Pakistan's NW Territories) taught, were relatively easily learned. The main thing was the men and junior officers' absorbing the rules that keep small units from getting wiped out in a moment of stupidity. The bigger stuff at the end of the day was dealt with by educated military professionals, and provided the soldiers knew the basics, according to Masters the officers' adapting to a larger war was relatively simple.

Masters and his battalion went on to fight during WWII in Syria, Iraq, and Burma; during which last campaign the Gurkhas really stuck it to the Japanese - in jungle conditions the Ghurkhas had not trained for, against a very dangerous conventional opponent. Compared to the Pathans/Pashto, Masters wrote, the Japanese were relatively easy: they attacked in mass, without guile, and were a good deal worse than the Gurkhas at exploiting the terrain.

That I think would be a strong arguement US forces with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq would be more not less competent in a Syrian war, than US forces sent to Syria, without that experience. Even if you figure a big portion of the US force in Afghanistant pretty much lives on fire bases and is trained to deal with any serious contact with massive firepower not manuever or organic weapons, I would say the value of the experience of worrying about what you need to do to stay alive when there are people out there actively trying to kill you is pretty much superior to any form of training.

I agree 100%.

Going back to the events of the last 30 years we see the same pattern. For example, a wealth of Soviet experience in Afghanistan was simply ignored by Russian command during the 1st Chechen war, when everything was "re-learned" through massive casualties. Even though the country had plenty of people with Afghan experience, it chose to send 18 year old draftees with 15 rounds of live fire range and not a vaguest idea of what urban or mountaneous terrain combat was all about. and while commanders admitted that troops performed admirably considering the circumstances, 90% of casulties could be avoided by augmenting units with experienced personnel. Those who survived first few weeks in Grozny gained more CQB experience than the best SWAT teams in the world - a deadly "fast track" training.

Now, if we look at S.Ossetia ("a big war") - both Afghan and Chechen experiences were utilized, with front line units as well as command consisted almoast 100% of veteran units. Result was a lightining victory and a complete rout of enemy forces on their own (very difficult) terrain. Interestingly, comments similar to those about the Japanese, were made about the Georgians as well, who seemed "easy" after fighting lightly armed Chechen formations.

[Lee]

I meant that it's one of the best videos showing an attack chopper air strike at night. And while the enemy is too far away to see exactly what is being hit, and there in fact may be several targets being hit at once, based on the other attack chopper videos we have where the target area can be clearly seen, it's very safe to assume that there was a high degree of accuracy on the indicated target/s.

I agree that it's very preferable to have veteran units lead the attack when conducting a major operation. Or at least have plenty of veteran soldiers mixed in with the less experienced men to advise them on the finer points of combat tactics. Apparently the Russians had planned something like this for awhile. And when the time came, they were ready and hit the Georgians hard. It's sad to see us fighting amongst ourselves, though.

[John Kettler]

dan/california,

That capability has existed for decades. Hughes (now Raytheon) in the late 1970s built both a rifle like Laser Target Designator and the Ground Locator Laser Designator (GLLD), both of which could perform target designation not just for Hellfire, but LGBs, Laser Maverick and anything else with that kind of appropriate seeker. In a benign threat environment, such as the Gulf War after air defense "sanitization," the original Apache could and did self-designate, but for the classic Cold War Fulda Gap scenario, the game plan was to use OH-58D Kiowa helicopters to find and designate the targets using the Mast Mounted Sight, with the Apaches firing from defilade. The Apaches were going to essentially lob their Hellfire missiles into a seeker acquisition box, after which they'd lock on and home in the usual manner.

Apache Longbow, though, can do either by itself or with the OH-58D, being set up to receive data linked video for target selection, then engagement, or, it can pop the radar mast just over the obstacle, take a MMW radar snapshot, remask, then fire.

Regards,

John Kettler

[theFightingSeabee]

John, you're exactly right about the longbow. But it's really only going to do that in a really hot environment. When it comes down to supporting infantry actions against other infantry, the radar is going to be useless. It's still going to have to go in and light **** up face to face to be effective in that capacity.