Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
- Start date
The zoomies will put everything on the block to save the fast movers. There's a saying along the lines of if fighter jets don't come first then you don't have an Air Force, and there's a lot of truth to that.
Our Air Force has gone through the exercise of eating their young a number of times. One painful trade off was eliminating the Chinooks in the 1990 timeframe. When we really needed them in Afghanistan some years later we wound up bumming rides from the Dutch who bought ours at surplus for a screaming deal.
I am curious about the 'stats'...how many fighters/bombers have been brought down due to aerial engagements vs surface/air missiles? What is the 'kill' ratio? And for a country focussing on 'defensive' operations where is the best pay-off? Say... in the last 1/2 century.... since 1967.
Our governments no matter what party has short changed our armed forces something awful for the last 20+years and are still doing it. Just look at all the delaying of equipment replacement going on in the last little while. How many years to replace Sea king or ships or looking for new or replacement Jets.
But they thing nothing of deploying our troops in questionable places and then even after they have been told that we don't have the proper equipment to do what ever it is they still keeping cutting things. we continue to elect morons to Ottawa. The ones in power now are the worse ever.
But they thing nothing of deploying our troops in questionable places and then even after they have been told that we don't have the proper equipment to do what ever it is they still keeping cutting things. we continue to elect morons to Ottawa. The ones in power now are the worse ever.
From the civil war in Yemen, a good looking collection of milsurps.
The unwise and uneducated would laugh at these old weapons. Those who know however, know that one round from any of these at 300 yards and it is good night Charlie
The US military kept detailed stats on the causes of wounds in Afghanistan. Of course, the vast majority of casualties were from IED's, but a strange pattern emerged when they analyzed the gunshot casualties.
Although the overwhelming majority of gunfights (something like 95%) were against insurgents with AK's or similar intermediate calibre carbines, nearly half the actual gunshot wounds were from full powered rifles, sustained in engagements with "snipers" - who were generally using iron sight old WWII era battle rifles - mostly Mosin 91/30's and Lee Enfields - for various reasons, Mausers were never really seen in significant numbers.
It followed a very predictable pattern. The "snipers" would set up 300-400 yards off, and start taking pot-shots, pinning down the Americans, while the Americans tried to figure where the shots were coming from. Within 10-15 rounds, the "sniper" would either actually hit something, or fade off into the desert.
At those distances, the ambush sniper is at a distinct advantage for a number of reasons. Past 200 yards, it becomes incredibly difficult to figure out where the incoming fire is coming from, at least precisely. "That large cluster of trees" is not an aiming point for a rifleman. The carrying power and accuracy of a WWII bolt gun will beat the pants off that of an M4 at 300 yards, and the margin is even wider at 400 yards. And the sound... If you've ever sat in the butts at a target range, raising and lowering the cards, the sound a full powered round whipping overhead, a solid, gut churning, "Crrr-ACK!" is much more fear inducing than the "sss-whack!" of a 5.56 round (it's really hard to describe, but the sound of those full powered .30 cal rounds... you can feel it).
Good NYT embed video:
Yesterdays marksman is todays sniper. Back when I was still young, we had the FnC1. With iron sights we would generally shoot out to 400 yards with reasonable effect. Now that is a sniper shot?
My understanding is that it is primarily about operating costs. Also the long standing Air Force lack of understanding about what close ground support means. There has been an ongoing fight over these issues since the 50's. The airforce does not see it as a priority role but won't let the army take over fixed wing aircraft for this role. Back in the 50's the Airforce opposed the army putting guns on its helicopters as this was an Airforce role. Mutter mutter stupid turf wars.
No. Just good rifle marksmanship. We all did it with the FN C1.
Something about this pisses me off. Maybe it's the MP40.
And this is the real truth. Tie airforce has long believed they can win a war by themselves, this started before WW2, but the truth is feet on the ground is required. It is true that air superiority makes it possible for ground troops to win but without ground troops the best you can achieve is a stalemate. See WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Personally I think the A10 is far and away the best ground support aircraft out there. The airforce wants to use the F35 etc in this role. Can't see this being anywhere near as effective as the A10. The best plan would probably be to take the lessons of the A10 and apply modern technology and create a new version with better economic but I can't see that happening.
As far as we know the only strictly air campaign that was successful was in 1999 when the Serbs were "bombed" back to the negotiating table by NATO.
Other than that, air power has always been a valuable adjunct to ground operations by crippling an enemy's production and infrastructure, isolating the battlefield, establishing air superiority, attriting enemy forces and supply lines and giving close air support to troops in contact. Air was fully integrated into army operational doctrine with the Airland Battle concept in 1980. At the end of the day airpower cannot occupy ground.
The A-10 has been an extremely valuable asset and its capabilities need to be maintained. Attack helicopters are good, but are still quite vulnerable in comparison.
Other than that, air power has always been a valuable adjunct to ground operations by crippling an enemy's production and infrastructure, isolating the battlefield, establishing air superiority, attriting enemy forces and supply lines and giving close air support to troops in contact. Air was fully integrated into army operational doctrine with the Airland Battle concept in 1980. At the end of the day airpower cannot occupy ground.
The A-10 has been an extremely valuable asset and its capabilities need to be maintained. Attack helicopters are good, but are still quite vulnerable in comparison.
