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2009-04-07 Home Front: WoT

Harvest Hawk - USMC plans to convert KC-130J tankers into gunships

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Posted by Besoeker 2009-04-07 09:45|| || Front Page|| [10 views ] Top

#1 "Spooky"

Posted by Injun Jutle2612 2009-04-07 11:47|| 2009-04-07 11:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Seems to me that a two-seat version of the A-10 (like the A-10B was supposed to be) with a couple of miniguns out the sides and controlled electronically would be doable. Weapons officer cursors onto the target, presses the button, and lead flies. Platform could use the targeting computer to provide information to the auto-pilot to keep it in a nice, stable circle so the weapon stays on target.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-04-07 12:35|| 2009-04-07 12:35|| Front Page Top

#3 A-10's are low-wing aircraft. You really want a high-wing.

Posted by mojo 2009-04-07 13:05|| 2009-04-07 13:05|| Front Page Top

#4 A-10's drink a lot, have greatly reduced loiter time and can't carry 40mm cannon or 105mm arty. C-130's can conduct combat insertions and airdrops if necessary. They can also carry onboard analysts and techs, and land on combat assault airstrips to conduct extractions.

Posted by Besoeker 2009-04-07 13:26|| 2009-04-07 13:26|| Front Page Top

#5 Harvest Hawk - somebody has an appropriately vicious sense of humor.

Posted by Pappy 2009-04-07 13:37|| 2009-04-07 13:37|| Front Page Top

#6 Wait, what? It's a tanker/gunship? Are they high on crack? Who in their right mind would send a flying gas tank into close support missions with a 30mm autocannon?

The whole point of the boxcar gunship is to quickly bring small, mobile batteries in to loiter in a highly predictable circular orbit over a target & deliver direct fire. You *don't* want to do that if you've carrying god only knows how much gas for the rotaries. I'm sort of surprised we haven't lost any since Somalia.

If you need more Spookies, make more gunships. Don't send airmen into close proximity to ground fire with thousands of gallons of aviation fuel snuggled up tight next to 'em!

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2009-04-07 15:08|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2009-04-07 15:08|| Front Page Top

#7 Seems something like an updated OV-10 is the low cost, long range and right size aircraft for this war. A targeting pod, belly mounted 30mm, some Hellfires and 2.75" FFARs and you're ready for Taliban Season.

Posted by ed 2009-04-07 15:10|| 2009-04-07 15:10|| Front Page Top

#8 Wait, what? It's a tanker/gunship? Are they high on crack?

Was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't want to be near one. Even the residual vapors in an empty tank would be fatal if hit by a tracer.

Posted by ed 2009-04-07 15:13|| 2009-04-07 15:13|| Front Page Top

#9 Well whaddya know, the P-38 is back, FASTEST FIHTER IN WW 2

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2009-04-07 16:00|| 2009-04-07 16:00|| Front Page Top

#10 Dual purpose 130 gunships like this are not new and a natural fit. The J model 130 is perfect for this mission and SOCOM has a few like this. I think there is a bit of misconception here. This aircraft is nothing like the tankers we commonly think of, its not a full caro bay of tank. It is just outfitted with two lines to refuel helicopters and a small internal tank. The J model gunship has an internal tank for range that can easily fill the couple hundred gallons for a helicopter without missing a beat or hurting its range. The gunship is loaded internally with a gunners control room, ammo racks, and of course the 105mm cannon, 20mm guns and an assortment of other fun stuff. It can help the heavy helicopters that take off low on fuel to make it to the fight, then provide that air cover that they do so well, and finally help them stay on station until the end of the fight and in return.

Posted by 49 Pan 2009-04-07 16:19|| 2009-04-07 16:19|| Front Page Top

#11 Loiter time? You want loiter time, it's time to bring back the war zeppelin. Only this time we we don't fill them with hydrogen, ok?

Posted by SteveS 2009-04-07 17:08|| 2009-04-07 17:08|| Front Page Top

#12 Wouldn't the recoil from any good-sized weapon mess with an A-10's aim? Slow and heavy is what's needed I would think.

Posted by gorb 2009-04-07 17:37|| 2009-04-07 17:37|| Front Page Top

#13 "Wouldn't the recoil from any good-sized weapon mess with an A-10's aim"

Nah, you use something like the same technology that is used to keep a tank's main gun on target when moving over rough terrain with a could of extra features. Once you achieve a weapon system "lock" on the target and start a stream of ordinance on the way, you can track that stream with radar or optically, even, and the system can make its own compensations to get the rounds to the target. That adjusts for things like wind, humidity, temperature ... stuff that changes how bullets fly through the air. As for the plane moving, that can be compensated for, too.

Once you get the stream onto the target, it should be pretty hard to to miss as long as you maintain a lock on the target. The plane might move more than the system can compensate for but if you have the weapon system interacting with flight control electronics, that can be prevented from happening.

Lock on the target, pilot gives the weapon system control of the platform, pull the trigger, and from that point on the crew is "along for the ride" until delivery is complete. The weapon system has control of the platform until disengaged by the pilot or that activity is complete.

The wings are low on the A-10 to protect the engines from ground fire.

But my prediction is that any smaller gunship developed by the military will be unmanned. No need to put humans at risk for that mission and you can give a human exactly the same view from a cockpit sim that they would have from the actual cockpit anyway.

Just have a pair of video cameras that "look" in whatever direction the remote pilot is looking and feed these back to a stereoscopic display to the pilot. It would be just as if he is sitting in the cockpit except he isn't in any danger of being shot up.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-04-07 19:01|| 2009-04-07 19:01|| Front Page Top

#14 The A-10's 30mm cannon is on the center line of the aircraft, so no yawing is induced during firing. The A-10 does slow down from the recoil but it is fired in 1-2 second bursts.

Posted by ed 2009-04-07 19:36|| 2009-04-07 19:36|| Front Page Top

#15 From my USMC C-130 pilot son:
As for #6 below, hes cluelessThe current AC-130s (gunships) have the same fuel cell configuration as all other -130s. So gunships have been in relatively close proximity to ground fire with fuel snuggled up to them for years! All -130s have fuel inside their wings ( and some carry externally under the wing, or inside the cargo compartment in removable tanks). So, ground fire is always a risk no matter what model -130 you fly. We takeoff with enough fuel for ourselves, as well as carry the extra fuel for our receivers in the tanksif you pass too much to the receiver, youre screwed because he cant give it back.

As for the tanks taking a bullet, there have been some recent modifications to the fuel tanks so hopefully prevent an explosion should they be hit by ground firethey have inserted **** into the tanks and that is supposed to reduce the gas/air mixture and prevent an explosionhave to trust the slide rule guys on that one

The real answer to risk management comes from tactics The AC-130 flies at an altitude that is higher than the effective range of small arms fire / weapons. So Im not worried about taking a small arms tracer to one of my tanks. You would never employ a -130 the same way at a AH-1 or A-10.No air to mud mission for the Herk!

Posted by Muggsy Glink 2009-04-07 21:04|| 2009-04-07 21:04|| Front Page Top

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