Comments on: Release the Gunships! Part One

By: U Boat Pilot

U Boat Pilot — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:01:35 +0000

To dasloat: Were you even in the squadron yet when Bob was around? I think Bob was on point whith a lot his article. You don’t neet 200 combat sorties over the desert to realize that the gunships are not utilized effectively. Having to stay in my BAO over a quiet OBJ while troops are getting mortared only a few miles away can be just a tad frustrating. Trying to call that back to C2 only gets you a reprimand for “trolling” when you get back on the deck. That’s screwed up, regardless of what’s going on “behind the scenes.”

By: War Is Boring

War Is Boring — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:44:40 +0000

[...] The Air Force’s 25 AC-130 gunships, pictured, are some of the most effective weapons in the U.S. air arsenal. But they’re old, and too few. Air Force Special Operations Command had the great idea of taking 16 C-27J light airlifters and adding guns, to complement the bigger AC-130s. But that plan appears to be unraveling, as the Pentagon trims funding for C-27s. [...]

By: Robert Seifert

Robert Seifert — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:03:15 +0000

To the author of the last comment. . .are you kidding? I’ve got 2,800+ hours in the gunship and you think I’m going to ask the “community” for permission to write an article for a Department of Defense professional journal. You don’t write an article like this without tons of input and when a former Chief of Staff of the Air Force told me “Your points are on target. . .” and took the article to Mosley, you tend not to worry too much about guys like you. As far as combat sorties go, you criticize my 45 Iraq sorties but fail to mention that my director of operations and squadron commander had ZERO combat sorties in Iraq and is probably why they didn’t and don’t understand how to best utilize the gunship in an INSURGENCY versus previous gunship conflicts. Your “get back inside the box” pretty much says it all and helps to explain why the Air Force has been relegated to second team status in Afghanistan and Iraq.

By: dasloat

dasloat — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:30:59 +0000

Bob Seifert does not speak for the community and does not understand the bigger picture. I appreciate where he is coming from, but before claiming to speak for the community, he needs more credibility than 45 combat sorties over Iraq- (A very low number for a gunship crewmember) There is a lot of command and control going on behind the scenes to determine who gets to work with the gunship. Every crewdog gets frustrated from time to time when they feel that they are being utilized poorly, but this is when they need to call home and let their C2 know what the situation is.
Time to reel in the fangs just a little bit and get back inside the box. When proposing personal theories in JFQ, buy-in from the community experts would be a good thing to get beforehand.

By: War Is Boring

War Is Boring — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:35:50 +0000

[...] More and more, native troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing the dirty street-level fighting while the U.S. and allies offer up airplanes for support. After all, it’s one thing to put rifles in the hands of a few hundred dudes and call them an “infantry battalion.” It’s quite another to put together safe, useful flying squadrons. (Video!) [...]

By: War Is Boring

War Is Boring — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:11:15 +0000

[...] Why gunships? Because they’ve got long legs, accurate guns and sharp eyes — all perfect for spotting and killing sneaky bad guys in big, empty chunks of terrain. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:

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By: War Is Boring War Is Boring — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:28:21 +0000 [...] After 20 years of development, the V-22 is finally out there in the real world working — and slowly proving that tilt-rotors can do more than dramatically crash and kill Marines. As for that AC-130? The rescue underscores what folks have been telling me for months now: that gunships are really good at finding small targets on big chunks of terrain. In a rescue op, you spirit people to safety after locating them. Over Iraq, you shoot them — another thing gunships are really good at. [...] By: War Is Boring War Is Boring — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:40:23 +0000 [...] Related: Why the A.F. sucks Prototypes, please Army to A.F.: hands off Release the gunships, part one Part two A.F. eyes small gunship F-35 over-budget A.F. lacks COIN planes A.F. “going out of business” 3 Comments so far Leave a comment [...] By: Alan Alan — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:29:02 +0000 The day of a costly fuel hungry big four engine aircraft flying with guns are limited. Soon AC-130s are going to need a hell of a lot of money spent on them for maintenance to the wing spars. In the next 10 years we are going to see unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) mounting a gun maybe even several guns Like the “Gladiator” and those systems will have the ability for aerial refueling. I have just completed design work on a single-engine aerial refueling tanker platform for unmanned aircraft systems utilizing the U-27A mounting the United Technologies PT6A-68, a 1250 shp engine to carry 900 gallons of fuel for “ultra slow aerial refueling” (USAR). This tactical weaponized tanker will be able to perform air-to-air refuel at airspeeds down to a 100 knots at lighter weights down to 70 knots at less than 3 degrees of angle of attack that took some doing. The U-27Q will have “Short Take Off and Landing ” (STOL) capability allowing it to utilize unimproved landing zones keeping the tanker close to the mission area. With unmanned fueling tankers able to resupply the U-27A only the pilot and a squad of Marines will be needed to set up a brief landing zone perimeter that can then be moved to another location and a new lily pad. Having several attack UAS flying over the mission area for days not hours and being able to perform aerial refueling is the future, Operating a half century old transport design using over 500 gallons of fuel fuel per hour flying around with several crew members on board that’s not how to go after the bad guys anymore that is old school. With the new ultra light smart bombs that are now being developed and closer sensor to shooter link now only a satellite dial up away allowing the shooter to see the image from the air taking out a target from a small gunship UAS is just about here. With aerial refueling of those future attack UAS along with the “Predator and Reaper” the days of the manned AC-130 are limited, Sorry Hercules time to move out and make room for a more cost effect weapon system I look forward to see you in a Museum. By: Dave Dave — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:15:09 +0000 Keith, the footage is from an Apache just before it shot 3 insurgents. the short version of the video you refer to is very ambiguous (and gut wrenching) but the full video (available online if you search) makes it clear that the Apache was in fact shooting “bad guys” and not unarmed civilians. and before you dismiss my comments, know that I protested against this war several times BEFORE it began. By: Keith Keith — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:08:11 +0000 interesting picture you used for that. If memory serves that’s footage taken by an Apache just before it shot up an unarmed farmer and family members. Of course such things will be eliminated by the use of fixed wing gunships. Or at least, you’ll have less to explain when the 40mm’s scatter any evidence. By: Sean Sean — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 05:37:25 +0000 Too many US military leaders still doesn’t seem to have grasped that counterinsurgency requires simulataneous military and political action to solve. They are already very good at killing insurgents when they can find them- that’s not the problem. But finding them, and convincing un-committed Iraqis not to fight, can’t be done with weapons. And it won’t just fall into place if the military situation improves. Then again, I think the US lost the war in Iraq several years ago, so no change in tactics would do much good at this point. This is a very interesting blog you have, David.