Cobra CAS footage, aka the Syrian armored forces should just go home.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Peter,

I agree. But that is a sort of blurry line between a strategic campaign and close air support. Remember, the weapons used for both are now-a-days pretty much the same. The difference is the situations they find themselves in. Fixed wing aircraft hunting down targets using satellite images is very different than the same exact aircraft, armed with the same weapons, being told by troops on the ground where a target is.

Bottom line is the Kosovo campaign can not be compared with OIF any more than the Desert Shield air campaign can be. They are different types of engagements with different goals and results.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

I agree but part of the issue for CAS is the ability of the ground forces not only to identify targets for aircraft, but also to assess the level of air defence.

In terrain like Bosnia or Kosovo, it is much easier for a decent defender to coceal and use close in weapons against aircraft, particularly if the nature of the targeting precludes high or medium level bombing.

In some respects thats why I thik things like "smart" mortar rounds and Hellfire on a MLRS are in some respects a better way to go, and cheaper. Though If you've got CAS by all means use it.

Peter.

[Gpig]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151

Ok. This link doesn't show you any CAS. But it does take you to a video of plenty of full auto firing. It's the low-tech version of the CAS video. More like CGS. CloseGroundSupport.

And can anyone tell me what that short-barreled MG is that the little girl is shooting?

Crazy

[akd]

Originally posted by Gpig:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151

Ok. This link doesn't show you any CAS. But it does take you to a video of plenty of full auto firing. It's the low-tech version of the CAS video. More like CGS. CloseGroundSupport.

And can anyone tell me what that short-barreled MG is that the little girl is shooting?

Crazy

Looks like quite the field day, but there are too many pyrotechnics involved to say what it "shows."

I have no idea what the MG the little girl has is, but it looks like it is a vehicle mounted version of something (spade grips and ring-and-bead sight).

[MikeyD]

Weren't B52s performing CAS in Afghanistan? They'd stay a couple mile up loitering and loitering and loitering like nothing else can, occassionally dropping a 2000 lb. laser or GPS bomb when asked. A bit more cost-effective than flying F-16s in-and-out every fifteen minutes all day long.

The chances are probably slim BFC will give us our own loitering B52 to play with in the game.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Gpig:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151

Ok. This link doesn't show you any CAS. But it does take you to a video of plenty of full auto firing. It's the low-tech version of the CAS video. More like CGS. CloseGroundSupport.

And can anyone tell me what that short-barreled MG is that the little girl is shooting?

Crazy

if its not a .50 cal Ma Deuce then what is it?

Carzy is right!

-tom w

[SgtMuhammed]

Looks to me like a .30cal.

[MikeyD]

I can't view that video, but whenever people have a debate about weather a certain mg is a .50 cal or a .30 cal it usually turns out to be the short-barrelled .50 cal usually used on Allied bombers in WWII. A ring & bead sight would point in that direction.

[flamingknives]

Way too small for a .50cal - the ring and bead dwarfed the weapon, and the ammunition was much too anaemic to be .50cal. It looked like an M1919-alike, but had a disintegrating belt.

[SgtMuhammed]

I was thinking a modern knock-off of the 1919. kind of an expensive toy. Like you often seen at these shows.

Not just the barrel is short but the reciever is as well. A .50 would have dwarfed that little girl.

[Battlefront.com]

I haven't seen the video, but anybody with a Class II license can make their own full auto weapon. I've seen quite a few custom made guns at shows, like that Oklahoma show, using parts from standard weapons. One of which looked like a mini-.30 cal. The design was obviously to make the most out of the muzzle blast. So while I can't comment on the one in that video, don't assume it is a standard production weapon.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Some thoughts on the rather long video.

First, it's a confusing pastiche of intercuts, though presented as a kind of seamless sequence of events. The SuperCobras in the early part are unmistakably Hellfire armed (counted 8 missiles and

2 x 2.75" (Hydra?) rocket pods, yet later on, we see the unmistakable spiral TOW flight path depicted. Gun attacks can't be from a 25mm Chain Gun because Cobras have never been fitted with one to my knowledge. It's a three-barrel 20mm Gatling gun; believe it's GE that makes it. Am puzzled that many of the weapon lock gates appear to be markedly off boresight (target circle not centered on crosshairs). IR footage was much easier to interpret than the poor contrast daylight footage.

From what I can see, camouflage use was nil, there were no decoys, and many of the targets were fully exposed in the open. Also, as someone else noted, many did not appear to be occupied at all. I saw no evidence at all of hostile fire in any of the frames. Call this air defense environment superpermissive! See Lam Son 719 for one that wasn't, and that was with

small arms, flak, and relatively crude SA-7s. Helicopter losses there were so great that the entire prior concept of helicopter employment had to be rethought. For a more recent example, take a look at the havoc inflicted on Russian helicopter and CAS aircraft use as a result of the introduction of Blowpipe and Stinger into the Afghanistan War. For the life of me, I do not understand why so few manportable SAMs were used by the Iraqis when they had thousands and thousands of them. Nor does it take state-of-the-art gear to gravely damage a high tech foe. The AH-64B? Apache Longbow is heavily armored, ballistically tolerant, etc., but was downed by farmers with rifles (type not given in reports I saw; Mosin Nagant cartridge much more powerful than AK-47 cartridge, though), and practically every other helo in that unit received significant damage. Russian training manuals teach soldiers where the weak points are on such helos,

with one of the more interesting aimpoints being weapons on hardpoints. As I understand it, the upshot of the shootdown by the Iraqi farmers was that the Army essentially abandoned deep strike ops by helicopters. Good thing we didn't learn that lesson in the middle of a major war against a foe with extensive, ramified, and deeply echeloned air defenses!

Clearly, left unopposed, attack helicopters can certainly wreak havoc, but to assume this a priori as the outcome in a clash against a much better foe than the Iraqis is, in my view, fundamentally insane. There are dozens of things which could easily be done to make things positively hellish

for our helicopters, many of them cheap.

For example, rocks are everywhere, and a pile of them flung skyward by explosive detonated beneath them would be most disturbing. Certainly proved so to Allied Jabos attacking tunnels and such during WWII. Simple rockets towing piano wire, Kevlar cord or similar could be proliferated and launched

into the path of low flying helicopters (add parachute for greater hang time), as could

smallish tethered balloons so equipped. Nor would it be all that difficult to festoon rooftops with

lightweight, superstrong meshes which could be easily picked up and sucked into the rotors, not to mention antilanding obstacles of all sorts.

In his thread Potential Nasties, Peter Cairns lists acoustic antihelicopter mines, to which the entire MON family of claymore type mines should be added. Some of them have ranges of 100m+ and are designed to destroy things like missile launchers.

Imagine what something that can shred a heavy truck could to a helicopter. Since wire strikes are a major concern to helicopters, how about creating mobile tower units to create a wire strike hazard where there shouldn't be one? Think that's crazy? The North Vietnamese snagged a terrain-following F-111 in a strong net stretched between two closely spaced karst peaks and downed it. Wire strikes involving known wires claim helos and fixed wing aircraft year after year. Areas at risk from helicopter assault could be seeded with command detonated bombs, and FAE, purpose built or improvised, strikes me as a potentially devastating antihelicopter weapon. Care to be in low hover potting away at some "target" when FAE goes off underneath you? I'll pass. And we haven't even discussed flak and SAM traps using modern weapons, let alone improvised or purpose built radio frequency weapons. There's a simple device which can be built from parts from

Wal Mart and Radio Shack which will fry unprotected electronics and KO computers at tactically useful ranges, and the weapon grade stuff has ranges at least on par with helicopter weapons. Blinding lasers (e.g.,red laser pointer) would also be cheap, but it appears the U.S. has a pretty good handle on that threat.

The above list is by no means comprehensive. Rather, it is intended to counter what I see as inflated perceptions of the utility of attack helicopters in the context of CM:Strike Force. I believe it would be manifestly unfair and militarily inappropriate to essentially serve up the Syrian forces on a platter to U.S. attack helicopters.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ December 04, 2005, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[FAI]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

... As I understand it, the upshot of the shootdown by the Iraqi farmers was that the Army essentially abandoned deep strike ops by helicopters. .

I remember seeing the old farmer posing with his Mosin-Nagat rifle next to an intact Apache. IIRC later he confessed that he didn't shot it down. It just made an emergency landing at his backyard and some Iraqi officers made a propaganda out of it.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, the Iraqis used the "farmer" thing as propaganda to show how helpless the American technologgy was in the face of a determined Iraqi. Many other Apaches were shot down or forced back around the same time. I recall a number of around 30 taken out of service within a very short space of time, but could have that number wrong.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Had someone been on the ball, that Longbow system, however it got there, would've been stripped out toute suite and sold to an interested party, say, Russia. Am amazed no one did so.

My understanding is that practically every Apache in that unit (anyone know designation and size) was hit and damaged enough to require sidelining for inspection and repair.

Regards,

John Kettler

[FAI]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Had someone been on the ball, that Longbow system, however it got there, would've been stripped out toute suite and sold to an interested party, say, Russia. Am amazed no one did so.

My understanding is that practically every Apache in that unit (anyone know designation and size) was hit and damaged enough to require sidelining for inspection and repair.

Regards,

John Kettler

Yeah, on many occasions a single rifle company were succesfull in routing the Apaches, and forced several to crash land. Mostly palm tree ambushes.

IIRC, almost all nearly intact helicopters that were captured were brought elsewhere, torched and claimed as new and different kills by the Iraqis. That way they doubled the total number of choppers that they brought down

[John Kettler]

FAI,

Do you have any links to battle reports describing these forcedowns? Was only aware of the one incident.

Nice tidbit on Iraqi "leveraging" of U.S. combat losses!

Regards,

John Kettler

[FAI]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

FAI,

Do you have any links to battle reports describing these forcedowns? Was only aware of the one incident.

Nice tidbit on Iraqi "leveraging" of U.S. combat losses!

Regards,

John Kettler

Sorry, I didn't save the links. Two years ago, some choppers made emergency landings due to hostile fire seemed trivial compared to other ongoing fightings (the defense of Basra, river crossings in Baghdad, the downing of Blackhawks, M1's got knocked-out, Iraqi counter-attack in the middle of a sandstorm etc). I'm still looking for a particular article about a Republican Guard unit manning 57mm AAAs during the defense of Baghdad. They claimed to have shotdown missiles and choppers.

I also read somewhere that many choppers returning from such ambushes went to the shop for some very long time that they never participated again during the major battles or simply sent back home and replaced.

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Weren't B52s performing CAS in Afghanistan? They'd stay a couple mile up loitering and loitering and loitering like nothing else can, occassionally dropping a 2000 lb. laser or GPS bomb when asked. A bit more cost-effective than flying F-16s in-and-out every fifteen minutes all day long.

The chances are probably slim BFC will give us our own loitering B52 to play with in the game.

Yes, bring in the B-52s!

[ December 05, 2005, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: JC_Hare ]

[Battlefront.com]

John, I also remember more incidents of Apaches being brought down. However, only that one was taken intact. The others were "disassembled" by airstrikes. I don't think we're talking about more than 2 or 3 that were so bad off they didn't make it back to friendly lines.

Steve

[Lee]

We go to shooting events like that in the video above. There is nothing else like

firing your full auto gun while all around you there are dozens of other machine guns

opening up. Ahhh, the sound of freedom!

[SgtMuhammed]

I don't know, being in the middle of a 155 battery during a fire for effect is pretty uplifting.

Or being at the recieving end when the Washington National Guard decides to fire on the wrong range.

[Peter Cairns]

Lee, sgtgoody (esq),

I once heard someone being heckled say,

"Audiences are like armies, it's the ones not at the front who bay most for blood",

Next time, walk out on to the range before they start firing and see how free you feel.

There's two sides to war, there is the guy above the trench with the Lugar, and the guy kneeling in it waiting.

I find neither, uplifting or the report of a single 9mm sound anything like freedom.

Peter.

[Lee]

sgtgoody: Yes, those would also be very interesting events to be in. But there are

a couple key differences. One is that one's life is not generally in immediate peril

as in the latter case, which makes it a bit easier to enjoy the event; and the other

is that one actually owns the weapons in question, can fire them when he likes

and gets to take them home afterwards, unlike the former.

[Lee]

Peter Cairns: I was referring to the ability to live as a nation of citizen soldiers,

where the law-abiding bear arms freely, and also the general enjoyment of getting to own

and fire such interesting weapons. No reference was made in any of my posts to

it being particularly fun being shot at by those with evil intent or to war

in general. So please don't add in any such thing that I didn't write myself.