Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[slapout9]

You're 100% right! - not surprisingly. Plus Medevac!
... and this is why Helicopters are extremely useful in both regular and irregular warfare. - so you need lots of them!

It was developed years ago for Vietnam. Actually for the original Air Cavalry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOVh-vlUius

[slapout9]

Original Hiller Flying Platform......made good Helicopters and VTOL Aircraft too.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhBW...eature=related


That's Ken White driving it.

[Rex Brynen]

I'm rather surprised, Slap, that you missed the opportunity to mention this particular marvel of modern flight

[slapout9]

rex, I am not allowed to expose any secerts of the Redneck Air Force

[Pete]

I wasn't in Vietnam, but I've heard that helicopter landing zones there could be extremely dangerous places. I'm sure our current adversaries would quickly figure that out and adjust their tactics accordingly. A guy I served with, now a retired lieutenant colonel who was in Vietnam, said he was amazed to see how slow soldiers were to exit helicopters during a training exercise he witnessed in the 1980s. He mentioned it as an example of how skills degrade when they are not frequently practiced.

[reed11b]

I have some STOL UAV plans from an old school FAC that had some published articles on UAV concepts a while back. They kind of address what Xenophon is saying though they are longer range in concept. I'll have to see if the owner of the concepts is okay with me sharing. There was a double ducted fan VTOL UAV design a few years back by the same company that was trying to make backpack vtol that was meant for resupply type missions. My though is that they would have to be able opperate autonomously to be viable.
Reed

[tankersteve]

They were conducting a deep attack against a brigade (I believe) of Iraqi armored forces. This was an AH-64 force. The attack was not coordinated well with any SEAD and the force got fired up quite a bit by small-arms fire, to the point that they couldn't continue the mission.

So what is the relevance? Well, the Army seems to be forgetting about deep attacks and is focusing on Apaches conducting direct support to ground forces - and are doing an excellent job of it. If reacting to a TIC, they show up overhead, and talk to the ground force commander, telling him what he has, and for how long, and asks for an update on the situation and what the ground force needs him to do. Simple, no JTAC/Anglico to work through, on regular FM nets. If it is a preplanned mission, a bit of coord can make sure that they have the same mission graphics that the ground force is using.

I am not an expert on Air Assault missions, I am just a big fan of the direction that attack aviation elements have gone. I would not be surprised if the deep attack has fallen completely out of favor, freeing up a lot more Apaches to work with the guys on the ground.

By far, the easiest and most responsive aviation asset available to the ground force maneuver commander.

Tankersteve

[Ken White]

Not offended, just have a long term antipathy to dropping or 'smoking' people -- idle harassment IMO. I've never seen any benefit in it. None. The concept raises my hackles and being a curmudgeon, I tend to curmudge about it...

Thanks for the expansion on the original post, that places it in context and makes sense. Might I suggest that wasn't apparent to an old slow Dude like me. The younger folks may have instantly gotten the connection but many of my synapses have synapped...

No need to try to draw me out, best bet is just to ask a question and I'll answer as best I can or admit I'm clueless (a frequent occurrence). Some folks post with a lot of links, I use very few. Everyone has their own techniques, which is fine but this is a discussion board where one can say what one thinks and ask questions, it isn't a forum where brevity is desired (good thing or I'd be in deep yogurt...).

As Tankersteve says, aviation doctrine is evolving and mostly for the better. Helicopters are great items of equipment but like anything else, they have to be used as designed and the limitations have to be respected. We misused them in Viet Nam (badly in some cases) and the Karbala attack was an exercise in bone stupidity. However, we are getting better.

Interestingly, Howze -- a former cavalryman and one of the better Generals of his era (he was the best XVIII Abn Corps Commander I've seen thus far, probably as good as was Ridgeway) was way back then adamant that attempting to directly attack ground elements with Armor and ADA using gun ships was excessively dangerous and that airmobile raids with carefully chosen LZs and the guns in support were the best use of airmobile assets...

He also said they'd be used for log support and overflying significantly dangerous terrain or routes subject to heavy attack -- and he pushed for more heavy birds (Chinooks) versus the lighter ones (UH1 / UH60). Unfortunately, he lost that one but the Marines listened and thus are replacing their Phrogs with Ospreys and the 53E with the K model...

[Pete]

Thanks Steve. Perhaps "Aviation doctrine and tactics" were the words I should have used.

Edit:
Ken, I'm glad you weren't offended. For a moment there I thought you might have something against people who live in West Virginia!

[82redleg]

In preparation for "WW3 (TM)" in Europe, Aviation (specifically, attack aviation) convinced the Army that they were a maneuver branch, vice a fire support element (witness the use of the Aerial Rocket Artillery Battalion in the Vietnam-era Air Cavalry Division, vice the normal GS 155/8in composite BN). I think that Karbala finally showed the fallacy of this, and since then, attack aviation has generally been employed as a fire support asset (witness TankerSteve, and the increased emphasis on CCA).

As a fire supporter, this is a good thing, IMHO. It emphasizes the necesity of integrating the aviation plan into the ground plan, which sometimes falls by the wayside when you treat your aviation as a separate maneuver element.

[Ken White]

That move, IMO, was as bad as making SF a branch. Both fields originally were effectively branch immaterial and Officers from all branches got to fly and do SF things -- they then rotated back to the 'Big Army" and spread their wealth and knowledge and the two specialties reaped the benefit of a far larger pool of incoming folks which forestalled a lot of bureaucracy and inbreeding. It was beneficial for everyone. The Warrants in both branches (SF later) and the NCOs provided continuity and the system worked quite well. This from a guy who actually wore Branch Unassigned brass and had no beret even if he did have an 'S' suffix on his MOS in the days prior to the 18 series...

However, it was a pain to the Per community who cheerfully supported separate branches to lighten their workload -- great Guys, they're always giving...

The few to many (it varied from time to time dependent upon the attitude of the Army leadership to the specialty in question) malcontents who argued for pure Branch status with the expectation that 'everything will be better, we'll be richer, we can write our own doctrine and we can control our own destiny...' have found out that it may be better in some respects but it's worse in others -- and it isn't much more wealth-showering, their doctrine is still shackled and they do not control their own destiny.

The Army, Aviation and SF all lost a bit...

Pete: How can anyone who reveres T.J. Jackson as one of his major Gods have anything against West by God... *

( * aka Byrdland )

[William F. Owen]

It was developed years ago for Vietnam. Actually for the original Air Cavalry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOVh-vlUius

Actually, I'm pretty against AIR CAV.
AIR SUPPLY, AIR MARCH and AIR SUSTAIN, all make sense to me, but using Helicopters as an APC or IFV doesn't really make sense to me.

OK SOF may have some applications, but I just don't see putting Support Helicopters in harms ways as something sensible folks should do.

[Rifleman]

.....using Helicopters as an APC or IFV doesn't really make sense to me.

But what if we come in low out of the rising sun and about a mile out put on the music?

Sorry, I just couldn't resist!

[John]

Having been attacked with IEDs, I am not an advocate of just driving down roads in hopes you are not blown up. However, IMO completely avoiding roads, via helicopters, erodes credibility with the people, prevents Soldiers from developing intelligence, and seeing the ground from the people's perspective. Helicopters have viable missions, but not just as troop carriers.

Chief Bratton (Chief of Police) NY, Boston and most recently LA - used to have his officers ride public transportation to work periodically so they saw the streets as did the people. I submit Soldiers have to do the same thing.

[William F. Owen]

However, IMO completely avoiding roads, via helicopters, erodes credibility with the people, prevents Soldiers from developing intelligence, and seeing the ground from the people's perspective. Helicopters have viable missions, but not just as troop carriers.

All true, if done badly by stupid people. None of that is true, if done well, by a well-trained Army. All the negatives you cite had no impact on UK operations in South Armagh, or even the use of helicopters in other theatres, such as South Arabia, and Cyprus.

[Pete]

The air assault division concept came about two years before the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The following is from American Military History, Volume II, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2005:

Seeking to improve mobility, an Army board in 1962 [the Howze Board, named for its president, Lt. Gen. Hamilton Howze] had compared the cost and efficiency of air and ground vehicles. Concluding that air transportation had much to commend it, the group recommended that the service consider forming new air combat and transport units. The idea that an air assault division employing air-transportable weapons and aircraft-mounted rockets might replace artillery raised delicate questions about the Air Force and Army missions, but Secretary McNamara decided to give it a thorough test.

Organized in February 1963, the 11th Air Assault Division went through two years of testing. By the spring of 1965, the Army deemed it ready for a test in combat and decided to send it to Vietnam, where the war was heating up. To that end, the service inactivated the 11th and transferred its personnel and equipment to the 1st Cavalry Division, which relinquished its mission in Korea to the 2d Infantry Division and moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. Renamed the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the reorganized unit had an authorized strength of 15,787 men, 428 helicopters, and 1,600 road vehicles (half the number of an infantry division). Though the total of rifles and automatic weapons in the unit remained the same as in an infantry division, the force’s direct-support artillery moved by helicopter rather than truck or armored vehicle. In the same way, it employed an aerial rocket artillery battalion rather than the normal tube artillery. In all, the division’s total weight came to just 10,000 tons, less than a third of what a normal infantry division deployed.

[TYR]

From my experience in Afghanistan I defiantly felt we needed more helicopters. The problem I see is that when helicopters are used they are not used properly. Most times a unit infiltrated right on top of their objective. All surprise and security was lost and usually the unit damaged the local’s private property in the process which isnt good if you want to make friends. I guess if you are going to plan for failure and land on top of your objective then yes you are taking a chance of getting RPG’d or shot down with a SAM. Sometimes I thought that some of those units who planned those operations wanted to replay “Blackhawk Down”. I was always a proponent for conducting an operation over a week or more, inserting far enough away from the objective area and walking in moving along the high ground to get to our objective area. After all, the enemy was using the high ground as well to move from village to village. In most cases the enemy wasn’t in the village anyway, but rather using Sheppard cabins further up the mountain or valley then coming down to do their business with in the village. Most village elders wouldn’t let the insurgents live within the village anyway. The village never wanted to risk getting extra attention from the coalition. Every time we walked in using the high ground the locals as well as the enemy were surprised and wondered where we came from. The further we were inserted from the Objective area the more success we had. The closer we inserted to the target area we always ran into a dry hole. If we inserted using vehicles we moved at night using non standard vehicles. The insurgents would never risk IEDing a Jinga truck for fear of turning the locals against them. After disembarking we moved on foot to high ground. When we got to the target area again we had success. It only takes one time driving down the restrictive roads in Afghanistan and getting IED’d to understand that whatever you are doing is probably not the preferred method. The problem I see is that we have thrown out the “decentralize” Light Infantry concept that was developed to fight “Brush Fire Wars” for a more motorized way of getting to the battle, becoming heavier in restricted terrain and becoming less mobile and more dependent on that vehicle as a support platform in the process. Not to say we shouldn’t move on the roads at all, but maybe employ a more balanced approach of getting to the objective. Airmobility defiantly can give you an advantage in Afghanistan. But it takes planning and resources. However, using the Rhodesian “Fire Force” technique as someone suggested wouldn’t have worked where I was operating just because the terrain was to extreme.

[Ken White]

Who made the first helicopter borne assault on 21 Sep 1951 (LINK). They were far ahead of the Army in chopper use by 1960, much less by 1964. Still are, in many respects.

The Howze Board and the Air Assault test showed every flaw later to become apparent in actual Army helicopter operations. However, the Army wanted Birds so reality was not allowed to intrude. In the test, the rule was that if you could get the aircraft's full visibility tail number, you could consider it killed and the umpires would credit it. One little Airborne Infantry Battalion Reconnaissance Platoon, on that two week test exercise in North and South Carolina, accounted for 20 plus Chinooks and over 100 Hueys--plus three Mohawks.

All that said, the birds do have their place, TYR is right on setting down elsewhere and walking to the objective -- which, as Wilf notes, is the right way to do it and does not cause the isolation phenomenon. The down side is that it takes longer. That is bad for overly impatient and demanding US Commanders who try to operate on a peacetime schedule (the MTCs teach bad habits as well as good...). It also means the troops are exposed (which of course, they should be...) but that is apparently not done today.

Never enough time to do it right...Combat is dangerous...

Who knew...

The air assault division concept came about two years before the Tonkin Gulf Resolution...

[John]

But what if we come in low out of the rising sun and about a mile out put on the music?

Don't surf!