AC-130J 105 Removal?

[tac airlifter]

7 hours ago, Mark1 said:

20 seconds time of fall after 10-20 minutes of coordination necessary to satisfy all parties with weapon release.  As opposed to 5-10 seconds to get a round away. 

You were asked to drop a PGM at 15m as a matter of convenience.  It's a testament to the engineering of the weapon that they trust its accuracy and effects so implicitly that they will accept the risk of weapons employment in relatively mundane scenarios, but I assure you the gravity of the situation that required CH to employ at 27 meters was in a different universe by comparison.

Also, while your hyperbolic description of gunship employments doesn't reflect reality, a concept that the point-and-click 'CAS' community lacks understanding of is that suppression now is almost always 1000x better than a kill in 5 minutes.

Pylon turn employment comes with its survivability and other minor idiosyncratic downsides, but in a permissive environment it's the greatest CAS force multiplier on the battlefield.  There is no other platform in the inventory with this benefit to include rotary wing.  No run-ins, no maneuvering to an IP, no 'i was off-aspect when shit kicked off'.  Just ready to go, always.

The fact that Air Force Special Operations Command is thinking of divesting itself of a specialized capability so as not to be left on the sidelines in a conventional conflict tells you all you need to know about the competency of those running the place for the last while.  Especially when adding a dime-a-dozen capability to the gunship platform results in a second rate implementation of that capability, when plenty of others can already do it more effectively.  Precision munitions are great as a complement.  Hang as many as you can the airframe, but not at the expense of the cannons.

It's hard to 'get through' the gunship culture, as Danger41 suggests, because they know better than those who are trying to get through.

This was a very well articulated reply, thanks for the thoughtful words.  I don't agree with everything you've said.  But you're right that I dropped because I was there (not because I was an optimal choice) and TEA trusted the weapon.  And I definitely grant that no one does CAS better than your community... in pylon turn employment.  "Pushing 5 minutes" was a real radio call I heard when they were doing CLT shots.  Compared to other assets engineered differently that reported "in continuous."  But that's a result of forcing gunships to do something they weren't built to do.

Thanks for writing this, good post.  FWIW I don't agree with the decision to divest the 105 and, despite poking fun at gunships sometimes (who send more than their share of shit at other communities), I have extreme respect for the effects they bring to the fight and the heroic things they've done.  My favorite part of your community is the aggressive mindset they inculcate in crews.  It does make you hard to work with sometimes (and hard to talk to), but we're here to kill not make friends.  Even so, drinks on me if we meet 🥃

Edited November 11, 2023 by tac airlifter

[ClearedHot]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:57 AM, Danger41 said:

You're welcome for the input. And I chose my words poorly with "hammering away". I'll replace it with "30 minutes straight of misses to eventually have an MQ-9 do it." My bad. But that was a U model crew and I know the H models flown by you would never do something like that.

It has been my limited experience that "30 minutes of straight misses to eventually have an MQ-9 do it", does not typify the gunship community I was a part of for 20+ years.  You are certainly entitled to use your observations and experience to form an expert opinion, kind of like when I heard about the C Model dude screwing his Crew Chief at Kadena, that obviously means all Eagle Drivers (past and present), swing the other way...

On 11/9/2023 at 11:57 AM, Danger41 said:

And I'll definitely take you up on that offer next time I'm in your neck of the woods. I should be in your phone under "Sky SEAL 01"

I like you bro but the plank holders from your community are old friends (many from my community), and they hold the  #1 moniker.  As you can see below I've given you a more appropriate designation.

On 11/9/2023 at 11:57 AM, Danger41 said:

If the writing is on the wall for that, I think removing the 105 isn't stupid. I think that decision is moronic and wish someone would give me odds on some other conflict outside of China that Gunships will be perfect for popping off, but Vegas won't hook me up. I honestly don't understand why AFSOC is trying so hard to fit into that fight where the other SOCOM components are getting more back to their roots while growing from there to find ways to affect a peer competitor. I'm not even in AFSOC anymore so maybe my outsider view is wrong but I don't see it.

It is one of the most maddening observations one can make if you dedicate your life to this endeavor, as good as we are we constant run to the latest crisis and in haste we forget the lessons of the past.  14 short years after the great aerial battles of of WWII the mighty F-4 launched on it's first flight, sans a gun.  As a reward for forgetting that history the lads initially paid a heavy price over Vietnam.  The AIM-7 had a sub 10% kill rate, in total 452 Sidewinders were fired during the Vietnam War, resulting in a Pk of 0.18.  Years of gun pods to get them through until the E model came along with a gun...we will never repeat that mistake right...here we are in 2023 and Fat Amy Charlie does not have an internal gun.

On 11/10/2023 at 1:36 PM, tac airlifter said:

Things that SOCOM wants more, given there aren't many eagles being ambushed on patrols, not to mention SOCOM wants out of that game permanently.

I am guessing you don't know how this went down.  This whole thing started not because the SOCOM masters wanted out of the CAS business (quite the opposite), but because Slife was harvesting manpower from Ops squadrons across the command to man his pet project.  When Slife tried to cut the gunship crew further he was stonewalled by the Gunner union and A1.  Keep in mind that community already paid a price when another herbivore was at the helm (Wurster), and convinced Congress he could cut the gunship crew from 13 to 7 in order to replace 8 H models with 16 J's and keep it manpower neutral.  Think I'm kidding, go look at page 23 of the 2009 QDR, actual airframes and numbers are rarely called out in a strategic document but it is there in black and white.  When the union said "No" to Slife he immediately replied, "Ok, get rid of the 105MM".  There was no analysis on employment history, just a shoot from the hip response.  There is much more to the story, I feel bad for the folks that continue the day to day in that toxic HQ building.

On 11/10/2023 at 1:36 PM, tac airlifter said:

I understand the frustration with herbivores leading the command, but 3 stars work for 4 stars.  This didn't originate in AFSOC without coordination between the two 4-star commands who rule them.

Keep in mind, this was NOT a Big Blue decision.  I REALLY wish the system worked as you think it does but SOCOM is a different animal.  In the history of the command there as been exactly one Airman running the show.  Slife badly wanted the job but was denied and sadly survived long enough to worm his way into the VCSAF job (god help you all).  Because this was a SOCOM decision and the CC is a ground pounder, the boss looks to his air power experts to shape his decision.  Keep in mind the proposal is coming from his air power component commander so he turns to his USAF aviator SOCOM/CV for expert advice and validation.  Said SOCOM/CV is a Slife's puppet, he is an herbivore who wants the AFSOC/CC chair next (and gets it), does understand kinetic airpower and most certainly does not push back. 

Again SOCOM is different and components get a vote so when this idea surfaced the component commands representing the ground parties pushed back VERY hard, but if you know SOCOM you know the components fight each other for resources.  The Purple Pot battles get ugly and if you think USASOC is gonna give AFSOC support, especially when the TF is fighting to resource 160 rotors of their own that are running around with guns and rockets...they will quickly stab a brother in the back to get $.  Big Blue could give a rat's ass, they are completely focused on China so there was no debate or actual thought put into the impact this decision will have.

On 11/10/2023 at 1:36 PM, tac airlifter said:

Since numbers were given above I'll mention: I've dropped PGMs during CAS at 7 and 15 meters from friendlies (granted the 7 meter shot had a Hesco protecting falcons); with low yield, time of fall at 20 seconds, and 1m CEP there are highly responsive options outside of a giant cannon flown so low targets break contact before you can kill them.  Which, like it or not, is the gunship story during the final years of AFG.

Well done, but as pointed out above just a bit different from the fight I was in.  I would also point out that because last days of AFG differs from the early days does not mean fights like the early days will never happen again...thus I would actually prefer to have BOTH options.  

The gunfight I ended up in was far more typical of Al-Fallujah, supporting a team fighting a crap ton of bad dudes literally across the street.  Chaos everywhere as the bad guys tried to flank, got on the roof to throw hand grenades, popped in and out of windows, doors and alleys.  Thank god both guns were humming and we were able to shift fire in a second or two to stop every attempt to over run the good guys.  PGMs would and the time it takes to employ them would have been useless in that particular fight.

Point and click CAS is cool and offers another tool in the container but it has limits and dangers all it's own.  Professionally I would ask you keep in mind the actual definition of CEP...it means HALF of your munitions will fall within those parameters, there are consequences when they land outside that circle.  26 years of flying and a little bit of combat time, the most focused and SCARED I've ever been (including two MANPADS guiding on me at the same time), was when I pushed that button that close to the friendlies.  8 seconds TOF felt like an eternity and I will freely admit some quite moments of reflection the next morning over some bootleg brown liquor.  There was no chest thumping, just a quiet thanks upward that I didn't F it up...and I say "I" because it was me that had the A code, it was my decision and my responsibility.

I recall a training sortie as an O-6 when I was flying with the W's working AGM-176 employment on movers.  Obviously I won't get into tactics but it was an exercise in frustration as we tracked farmer brown driving his truck around Clovis.   Numerous turns over a 10 minute period repeatedly tumbled gyros tumbled as the crew rode the struggle bus trying to reset the LAR.  I could not watch them hump the bowling ball anymore and finally said "Shoot TWO if you want a high Pk, but for the love of god shoot something before he gets away."  Point being, there is a benefit of deep magazines.  A couple Griffins is cool, a crap ton of candy corn is even cooler and useful in big fights.

I am not trying to be a dinosaur, I was actually an early adopter and advocate for SDB and incorporation on on the gun pig, but as a whole I see USAF and AFSOC forgetting our history and drifting away from core capabilities like CAS.  I have great concern when we take away the 105MM (and maybe the 30MM...yes it has been discussed), and retire the A-10...the two greatest CAS platforms that have existed, all in the name of a pivot to peer near-peer.  God help us if we do these things and end up in another dark night over Jalalabad and all we have is Fat Amy with 181 rounds and some PGMs.

[brabus]

I do not understand why AFSOC thinks it’s a good idea to fuck with something that has proven to be excellent for the mission set it’s made for. China is our #1 priority, and that doesn’t mean every piece of hardware/community will play. Gunships are not for China, but they are for a hell of a lot of other scenarios. So what happens when many of us are posturing (or worse, actively fighting) China and some shit goes down in Indonesia, Africa, etc. where we can utilize capes like Gunships. It’d be real dumb to not have them, or have them all loaded up with SDB and sans guns. 

Bottom line: Some can and should adapt to changing threats, but others will only worsen by just blindly jumping on the bandwagon headed towards something they have no chance of being effective in.

[Lawman]

The funny part about this is with a LSCO fight we keep forgetting about our opponents SOF and what they will be doing.

It is entirely possible we will need a heavy dedicated asset to remain behind the forward line of troops in the support zone both to keep an eye on whatever strongholds we bypass, as well as be there to smack the shit out of whatever irregular forces they try and hit us with.

Nobody wants to brief that as their chosen mission set because it’s not sexy. I for one would feel a lot better in a division combined arms rehearsal or target decision board if we weren’t standing around a table but simultaneously worried about Charlie jumping the wire while the MPs are busy picking their noses. The murder bus being overhead for persistent security would help solve that. That would be the Gunship truly going back to its roots in being the overhead persistent ass whooping for any ground troops in Asia.


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[Danger41]

@ClearedHot

Excellent attention to detail lol.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Danger41

[ClearedHot]

5 minutes ago, Danger41 said:

@ClearedHot

Excellent attention to detail lol.

 

I knew you'd check it...

[brabus]

21 hours ago, Lawman said:

It is entirely possible we will need a heavy dedicated asset to remain behind the forward line of troops in the support zone both to keep an eye on whatever strongholds we bypass, as well as be there to smack the shit out of whatever irregular forces they try and hit us with.

Sure…if we ever actually did a full scale land invasion of China. I’m going to put that probability somewhere around 0.00000000069%. It’s a good point in general terms, but irrelevant to the China proper scenario.

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

Sure…if we ever actually did a full scale land invasion of China. I’m going to put that probability somewhere around 0.00000000069%. It’s a good point in general terms, but irrelevant to the China proper scenario.

Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Machiavelli all share rule #69 - "Never fight a land war in Asia."

 

[guineapigfury]

Vizzini concurs.

[Majestik Møøse]

If I were fighting an enemy that had gone all-in on high-end low volume $500M silver bullets with standoff weapons, I think I’d just pay some insurgent groups a couple $B to go start fires on the other 5 continents. The idea that we should only have assets that can fly west of Taiwan is ludicrous.

[08Dawg]

On 11/18/2023 at 2:42 PM, Majestik Møøse said:

The idea that we should only have assets that can fly west of Taiwan is ludicrous.

That's exactly the mindset of our brass right now, though.  Ref. F-15C, AWACS, JSTARS, and A-10 retirements.  

[brabus]

10 minutes ago, 08Dawg said:

That's exactly the mindset of our brass right now, though.  Ref. F-15C, AWACS, JSTARS, and A-10 retirements.  

I despise the retards in the GO ranks as much as the next guy, but I think the more accurate way to look at it is we’re prioritizing capabilities on a constrained budget. I also want to own 6-9 airplanes, but my wife reminds me I have to prioritize what “mission” I want. This isn’t me advocating for wiping out everything that’s not “west of Taiwan,” but it is prudent to address China as our #1 priority, and that’s going to mean we can’t afford to keep everything we’ve historically had the past 30-40 years.

[08Dawg]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

I despise the retards in the GO ranks as much as the next guy, but I think the more accurate way to look at it is we’re prioritizing capabilities on a constrained budget. I also want to own 6-9 airplanes, but my wife reminds me I have to prioritize what “mission” I want. This isn’t me advocating for wiping out everything that’s not “west of Taiwan,” but it is prudent to address China as our #1 priority, and that’s going to mean we can’t afford to keep everything we’ve historically had the past 30-40 years.

Agreed.  I just wish we weren't giving away everything now, with none of the replacement capes expected to be on the ramp in maybe even this decade.  

[brabus]

But what is “giving away everything?” I mean, the MDS you referenced above make a lot of sense to get rid of given the current pol/mil and budget circumstances, coupled with better tech replacements (even if the timeline is not ideal). It is logical when taking into account the conditions we are forced to deal with.

For example, AWACS - Go away today and I couldn’t care less (not saying I want WD/ABMs to go away, but there are better ways to do that besides the E-3 that has abysmal 21st century capes and MND rates).

Edited November 20, 2023 by brabus

[Lawman]

But what is “giving away everything?” I mean, the MDS you referenced above make a lot of sense to get rid of given the current pol/mil and budget circumstances, coupled with better tech replacements (even if the timeline is not ideal). It is logical when taking into account the conditions we are forced to deal with.
For example, AWACS - Go away today and I couldn’t care less (not saying I want WD/ABMs to go away, but there are better ways to do that besides the E-3 that has abysmal 21st century capes and MND rates).

We just did a Division exercise where JSTARs MTI was being briefed as the primary collection asset at the target working group.

The ALO and I had a laugh at that in the back.

That’s the real worry as the military services rapidly divest capes in a vacuum to preserve their own sacred modification and renovation requirements. Nobody is talking to each other about what serious capability gaps are going to exist for the next 6-9 days/months/years while we adjust.


See the Marine Corps entire reinvention of it’s self and divesting all it’s Armor and Tube artillery. Yeah it’s nice they want an identity of their own, but the MAGTF concept as it existed was a critical piece of a lot of O plans in between the light airborne speed bump forces and the arrival of the heavy divisions that have to be floated into theatre.


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[Biff_T]

The only way to solve this problem is to put a chick in it and make her gay.  

 

 

[Boomer6]

6 hours ago, brabus said:

But what is “giving away everything?” I mean, the MDS you referenced above make a lot of sense to get rid of given the current pol/mil and budget circumstances, coupled with better tech replacements (even if the timeline is not ideal). It is logical when taking into account the conditions we are forced to deal with.

Reference Kadena and two of the aforementioned platforms that are being divested. The $$$ being spent just to backfill to “desired” levels meets the logical definition of FW&A, in large part due to a desire to fund assets that won’t be available in theater for several years. To Lawman’s point our sister services are being forced to pick up the slack, but at least they know what capes we lack since they’re being forced step in and fill some of the role.

Meanwhile 2049 doth approach and our ineptness at fielding replacements before retiring less capable assets must give the chicoms a warm fuzzy.

[brabus]

12 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

The $$$ being spent just to backfill to “desired” levels meets the logical definition of FW&A

Eh? The assets that are “backfilling” are accomplishing things that are not achievable by the old assets. And that’s old news, not future hypothesis. It’s pretty simple - things like C models and AWACS (since we’re focused on Kadena) are old and not capable of doing what we need done, so we’re cutting them, replacing them with more capable assets today, and while paying for even better tech replacements coming in the future. 
 

Don’t mistake any of this for me thinking our acq process isn’t fucked wholesale (it is), nor am I arguing there aren’t SESs and congressional members fucking it away on the daily, but let’s zoom out a bit and try to understand a much larger picture that frankly doesn’t need to GAF about C-model divesture.

[brabus]

3 hours ago, Lawman said:

The ALO and I had a laugh at that in the back.

Yep! I mean even as the secondary I’d laugh…tertiary at best. 

[Boomer6]

15 minutes ago, brabus said:

Eh? The assets that are “backfilling” are accomplishing things that are not achievable by the old assets. And that’s old news, not future hypothesis. It’s pretty simple - things like C models and AWACS (since we’re focused on Kadena) are old and not capable of doing what we need done, so we’re cutting them, replacing them with more capable assets today, and while paying for even better tech replacements coming in the future. 

If they were being backfilled by more capable assets I would agree. I’m not arguing old should not be replaced with new. I’m saying robbing Peter to pay Paul is a waste of time/money/ass pain. It’s like taking all the lightbulbs out of your kitchen because you need new lights in your bedroom..Guess we’ll cook in the dark.

[brabus]

They are backfilled by more capable assets, what are you talking about?

[Boomer6]

4th gen backfilled by fourth gen is more capable?

[brabus]

You haven’t been tracking all the pieces, but your statement makes more sense now. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by brabus

[Boomer6]

I’ve worked with some of the other pieces on the ramp and regardless of the assets it’s a dumpster fire. 

[Danger41]

The thing with a lot of the divestment of classic jets like the Mighty Eagle, A-10, AWACS, etc isn’t a capability replacement as much as the jets are just old AF and aren’t holding together. When you have to write into your v3 to not put over 5 G’s on your 9 G jet (ref C model) unless absolutely necessary to preserve fleet health, that ain’t good.