Controversial article about parachute operations

[jcustis]

The problem in defending an airhead such that an air force would dare to send lots of transport aircraft to land on that airfield is the artillery threat.

I don't know why exactly you trained that, but certainly not for conventional warfare with medium to high force densities.
Aircraft are extremely vulnerable on ground and the mere possibility that an enemy shoots a rocet salvo over 50km distance that scatters ICM on the whole airfield would let the air force generals veto such a plan.

It's possible against lesser enemies, btu even then you need to assume that this enemy is incapable to hold the airfield or at least an area nearby. You basically assume that the enemy fails to do his job. That's overly optimistic against competent enemies.

Well, you could of course just attack practically defenseless countries and end up with COIN warfare.

By the way, artillery range was much lower in the 70's, effective artillery range of mainstay guns has almost doubled in the meantime and longer-range tactical missiles are no longer exotic equipment.

There's no way how shoot & scoot missile artillery can be suppressed - even in fancy RMA scenarios in desert areas you end up with the capability to destroy them AFTER they shot their salvo, compromising their identity as MRL and not standard logistical or civilian trucks.

I'm waiting for an air force guy to describe what AF officers would think about sending C-130 or C-17 onto an airfield that's periodically hit by ICM.
They could for example say that dud removal from the runway alone would require minutes after each single incoming rocket - if several several specialist mineclearing vehicles were flown in early and not lost to air defense or artillery.

LD, you seem to be in a debating mood, so entertain me these questions:

-I'm curious what "competent" adversaries there are out there that can achieve the appropriate degree of accuracy to sling a rocket (or salvo) 50km with the required accuracy to influence (I'll not go so far as to say stop expeditionary airfield operations. I mean, c'mon, we put thousands of troops under the possible umbrella of SCUD-delivered WMDs just over four years ago. Can we agree it is a stretch to say we wouldn't risk a few aircraft (that won't be sitting on any runway for long).

-Do you really think MRL can be effectively disguised as simple logistical or civilian trucks, and then exercise the required command and control to set into a fire position, receive fire missions, and shoot? They can hide for a while, but if we are going to protect a airhead (or beachead for that matter) we are going to employ a wider range of shooter/sensors than an airborne force would bring in on its own. Expand your mind a bit to consider that.

-Have you ever seen dud ICM neutralized? It's remarkably easy using the appropriate personnel. It doesn't take a mineclearer, believe me.

[RTK]

LD, you seem to be in a debating mood, so entertain me these questions:

-I'm curious what "competent" adversaries there are out there that can achieve the appropriate degree of accuracy to sling a rocket (or salvo) 50km with the required accuracy to influence (I'll not go so far as to say stop expeditionary airfield operations. I mean, c'mon, we put thousands of troops under the possible umbrella of SCUD-delivered WMDs just over four years ago. Can we agree to say it is a stretch to say we wouldn't risk a few aircraft (that won't be sitting on any runway for long).

-Do you really think MRL can be effectively disguised as simple logistical or civilian trucks, and then exercise the required command and control to set into a fire position, receive fire missions, and shoot? They can hide for a while, but if we are going to protect a airhead (or beachead for that matter) we are going to employ a wider range of shooter/sensors than would an airborne force would bring in on its own. Expand your mind a bit to consider that.

-Have you ever seen dud ICM neutralized? It's remarkably easy using the appropriate personnel. It doesn't take a mineclearer, believe me.

J,

You got the fight. I'm breaking contact and bypassing.

[Lastdingo]

LD, you seem to be in a debating mood, so entertain me these questions:

-I'm curious what "competent" adversaries there are out there that can achieve the appropriate degree of accuracy to sling a rocket (or salvo) 50km with the required accuracy to influence (I'll not go so far as to say stop expeditionary airfield operations. I mean, c'mon, we put thousands of troops under the possible umbrella of SCUD-delivered WMDs just over four years ago. Can we agree to say it is a stretch to say we wouldn't risk a few aircraft (that won't be sitting on any runway for long).

-Do you really think MRL can be effectively disguised as simple logistical or civilian trucks, and then exercise the required command and control to set into a fire position, receive fire missions, and shoot? They can hide for a while, but if we are going to protect a airhead (or beachead for that matter) we are going to employ a wider range of shooter/sensors than would an airborne force would bring in on its own. Expand your mind a bit to consider that.

-Have you ever seen dud ICM neutralized? It's remarkably easy using the appropriate personnel. It doesn't take a mineclearer, believe me.

OK, one after another.

- Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Algeria, North Korea, Colombia, Venezuela, Brasilia, Chile, Peru, Mexico. Just to name a few. It doesn't take more than standard artillery and motivated men.

- The South African Valkiri is a MRL that cannot be recognized as MRL in travel mode. Towed versions of BM-21 MRL could easily be camouflaged as normal trailer. The military components of a BM-21 can be removed and put onto a civilian truck in a backyard repair shop. It's easy to cover that launcher.
Long-range MRL can be scattered over such a large area and still reach out to the airfield that securing the Iraqi borders is easy in comparison to finding such a vehicle.
It's also not that difficult to aim with a MRL. All you need is your position and the airfield position on a 1:50,000 map plus a meteological rocket shot into the air and observed with optics as well as a bit meteorological information that helps you guess the wind between the MRL and the airfield in the relevant altitudes. That's no high-tech, it's barely Korean War level tech.

The U.S. military knew that Iraq had no functioning Scuds left in 2003. The whole rocket fuel issue prevented that. The fuel degrades within weeks, and they had no supply for years. Besides that the U.N. had found almost all examples and documented their destruction.

- ICM dud neutralization is not difficult once they're spotted, but that's something different if stones from nearby explosions are scattered over the runway as well and if you want to clear a runway of almost a km length and 30+ m width within less than the couple of minutes as I mentioned. Artillery ICM is also usually much smaller than bomb submunitions are.
And even if you simply shot the dud with a .50cal, you would likely still be required to clear the runway of sharp metal fragments. One such fragment is no problem, dozens on every take-off or landing are a problem.


The whole idea that C-17 alike aircraft would land on an airfield that's only secured with a safety distance of a couple of miles is simply unrealistic. That's good for very nice propaganda pictures when congress needs to be convinced to pay for the C-17, but no air force in the world would do that, not even the Russians.

[Lastdingo]

80 km = 40 km to left and 40 km to the right, enough safety distance to most enemy artillery. That's where 80 km diameter comes from. Of course nobody needs 80km runway. But just securing an airfield to use it while under artillery fire is BS.

M777/LW155 batteries (why batteries in the first place with modern tech?) set up facing in different directions. The gun has a traverse of +/-400 mils, 360° is for Americans 640 mils, so you'd need 8 batteries (guns) to cover all 360°, probably 7 if some range is wasted and emplacement optimized for traverse coverage.
Anything beyond that +/-400mils traverse requires to move the spade out of the ground (never gets stuck, of course!), turn with manpower, ram it again into the ground and fire. Requirement for that was 2-3 minutes. For an action that some other towed gun designs do in 10-20 seconds since about sixty years.

[/quote]And I thought MRL systems were Korean War-simple, yet you make them out to be inefficient as it suits you:

The responsiveness to different missions (different munitions) is also better, and accuracy is better for unguided munitions. Minimum range is smaller. I meant this for the 30 km range, without BB or RAP.

Are you reading all of this out of your copy of Jane's, or a Tom Clancy novel?[/quote]

I don't read Clancy, and I don't need Jane's A&A for such fundamentals.
Artillery aiming is relatively simple in comparison to much of today's other military activities, unobserved indirect artillery fire is more than 100 years old. A target like a long runway can easily be hit and even more easily be threatened.
Yet at the same time rocket artillery cannot as quickly respond to different missions as howitzers and mortars, as you cannot simply in a couple of seconds unload the DPICM rockets to load WP and switch to HE for some cratering or else. A military professional should not doubt such facts.
But maybe you can actually prove that anything in above quote (well, my part of the quote) was wrong instead of resorting to polemic?

Well, anyway. Why should I care. As long as it's not my people I shouldn't care if other armies try missions like seizing an airhead and using it with 250 million $ airplanes loaded with dozens of soldiers while under artillery fire.

Airfield operation under artillery fire has been done before. It eliminated much of the Luftwaffe's transport aircraft inventory in winter 1942/1943 near Stalingrad.
Of course, no enemy that the USA will attack in the next years will be as sophisticated as the Red Army in 1942/43...operating rocket artillery is too challenging... the enemies are too dumb... Murphy's Law doesn't exist... no one would emplace mines below the runway to blow it up in time... U.S. presidents have the guts to send thousands of relatively lightly armed troops behind enemy lines... no one would simply build some concrete obstacles on the runway or blow it up in advance as the own air force cannot use it anyway... no one would pre-register artillery or even mortars on possible infiltration points...howitzers have a longer minimum firing distance than a MRL...MRL unguided rockets have less dispersion than howitzer rounds...HIMARS is fine for obscuration missions...whatever. I learned a lto today.


I'll tell you something. All I'd need to make any airfield useless and unacceptable for forced entry missions is to cover parts of it with garbage. Ah, and I'd set up some snipers with IR sights and passive IR movement sensors to cover it.
The uncertainty if the runway could be made usable in time and if it's even left or already blown up would make the whole airfield useless for the planners.

Sorry for double posts, the forum first showed me page 3 as last page and I bet one post of double length wouldn't be an easier read.

[jcustis]

I'll tell you something. All I'd need to make any airfield useless and unacceptable for forced entry missions is to cover parts of it with garbage. Ah, and I'd set up some snipers with IR sights and passive IR movement sensors to cover it.
The uncertainty if the runway could be made usable in time and if it's even left or already blown up would make the whole airfield useless for the planners.

By all means Napoleon, have at it. You win! You sunk my battleship!?! Maybe I'll trump your sniper with my AC-130 Spectre? Oh wait, I forgot that those snipers will be wearing their invisibility cloaks...no...aw crap, that's the Harry Potter stuff...

Gotta remember to take my eldest to the midnight freakshow at Borders so she can pick up her copy.

[Lastdingo]

OK, then we quit both. This is not going to convince anyone anyway.

The article wasn't great and no better than an ordinary forum post somewhere in the vast internet and it's not worth to argue like this about details.

[RTK]

Check it out. For guys like me and JCustis, this isn't our hobby.

This is our job.

Let go of our ears. We know what we're doing.

[Rifleman]

I never meant for this to turn into a flame war. I just thought it was basically a goofy little article, poorly thought out and articulated, with only one (to me) interesting point: greater possible use of small scale tactical parachute operations.

People were sounding the death knell of the Airborne way before I graduated jump school in 1984. Yet, just post Vietnam we've seen Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, northern Iraq, and one operation called off in Haiti where the invasion force had already gone "wheels up." Now throw in numerous small operations in Africa conducted by the French, Belgians, Rhodesians, and South Africans. Mass tactical airborne operations are far from "no longer relevant."

Let's Go, Falcons!