Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[SWJED]

16 Jan. Defense News reports - 'Aerial IEDs' Target U.S. Copters (not online).

Insurgents are attacking U.S. helicopters in Iraq with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that leap into the air and detonate when an aircraft passes nearby, said a U.S. Army aviation general.

Insurgents, who place these aerial IEDs along known flight paths, trigger them when American helicopters come along at the typical altitude of just above the rooftops. The devices shoot 50 feet into the air, and a proximity fuze touches off a warhead that sprays metal fragments, said Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala.

The bomb-builders may be obtaining radio-guided proximity fuzes from old Iraqi anti-aircraft and artillery shells and mortar rounds.

Sinclair said these aerial IEDs have been used against multiple U.S. helicopters. He declined to say whether such IEDs had damaged any aircraft.

The new weapon is one way insurgents are taking on Army aircraft, which come under fire between 15 and 20 times a month, Sinclair said. Other methods include small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and advanced shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles...

[SWJED]

18 Jan. - U.S. Helicopters Face Menace of 'Aerial Bombs'.

American helicopters in Iraq are facing a new threat from so-called aerial bombs, which are fired into the air from the ground and explode close to passing aircraft.

The new home-made weapons, known to the Americans as "aerial improvised explosive devices" have been used on numerous occasions.

"The enemy is adaptive. They makes changes in the way they fight, they respond to new flying tactics," Brig Edward Sinclair, a US army aviation commander, told Defense News, which first revealed the new threat.

He refused to say whether they had brought aircraft down. The aerial devices are placed along known flight paths and are triggered when insurgents see a low-flying helicopter approaching...

[SWJED]

20 Jan. Stars and Stripes - Military Backs Off On Claim That Insurgents Are Using Aerial IEDs.

The military is backing away from an initial claim that insurgents are using aerial improvised explosive devices to attack U.S. helicopters.

Defense News first reported Monday that insurgents were setting off rooftop-planted devices that leap 50 feet into the air and spray shrapnel as U.S. helicopters pass by.

In the story, Brig. Gen. Edward Sinclair, commander of the Army’s Aviation Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., said insurgents had used aerial IEDs against several U.S. helicopters, but an official later said this was not the case.

“At this time, we do not know of any incidences of insurgents employing aerial IEDs against U.S. helicopters. No aircraft have been lost to this type of device,” said a spokeswoman for the Defense Department task force working to defeat IEDs.

Multi-National Force-Iraq also has no information on reports of aerial IED attacks and would not release specific information on IED attacks due to security concerns, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Other officials spoke about aerial IEDs in general and hypothetical terms...

[SWJED]

March Issue of National Defense - Insurgency Tactics Test Helicopters’ Staying Power.

Technology so far has proven to be of little use in protecting Army helicopters from the ravages of small arms and rocket propelled grenades, military and civilian experts contend.

The Army has spent nearly $2 billion outfitting helicopters with high-tech sensors and flares that help foil shoulder-launched missiles, but none of these devices can prevent choppers from getting shot out of the sky by rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, which are among the preferred weapons of Iraq’s insurgency.

“The longer we stay in this conflict, the greater the ability of the insurgents to counter our countermeasures with their technology,” says Steve Greer, a retired Army command sergeant major, and professor of unconventional warfare at American Military University...

While a number of technologies have been proven successful in deflecting shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, none exists today that can protect from RPGs or standard rifle rounds, Greer says. “There’s no way to defend from small-arms fire other than visual recognition and maneuvering away from the line of fire.”

RPGs and small-arms rounds fall under the category of “dumb munitions,” which are unguided and far more difficult to counter with technical solutions, says Kernan Chaisson, senior electronics analyst at Forecast International, a market intelligence firm.

“You have high-tech protective equipment, but sometimes it doesn’t do you any good,” he says. “It’s a real predicament for aviation. The threat they face, it’s hard to do anything about.”...

[Merv Benson]

While the A-10 may have more armor than helicopters, it also is more difficult to hit with dumb munitions, because of the way it manuevers for attack. Helicopter pilots are probably going to have to adjust their tactics so that they are moving while attacking and not hovering as much. They also will need to attack from different altitudes making it harder for ground fire to get a bead on them. If the choppers can't find away to avoid the dumb ammo their usefulness in attack is going to be greatly restricted. If the Air Force is phasing out the A-10, the Marines should try to pick them up as a close air support weapon.

[Stu-6]

Some one should get those A-10, they’ll be more useful than F-22s.

Helicopter pilots may need to adjust their tactics in urban areas or anywhere there are an excessive mount of weapons firing at them. Still I think the threat posed to aircraft by things like RPGs is over stated. Small tactical adjustments should be sufficient for them.

[Jones_RE]

A-10's probably shouldn't see much use for attack missions in the Iraq theater of operations - too much collateral damage. In Afghanistan, on the other hand . . .

Traditionally, helicopters are most vulnerable on takeoff and landing - for those situations they'll simply have to exercise a certain degree of tactical caution, e.g. always flying in pairs so that one can cover the other one in case of a shoot down attempt, coordinating with ground forces to watch potential launch sites, consciously randomizing regular flight times and routes etc.

The question is how much effort do we put into helicopter protection? Every dollar we spend on keeping those birds in the air is a dollar that is not spent on reconstruction or training Iraqi soldiers. Both of those activities offer a far greater return in terms of our casualties then some gimmick.

[Strickland]

While shoulder-fired missiles are surely a threat to rotary wing assets, and will be a congruent threat to tilt rotar aircraft; ground fire continues to be a major concern. Due to the method we employ rotary wing aircraft, and the fact that they only fly hundreds of feet off the ground, they are all still incredibly vulnerable to simple ground fire from small arms.