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Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:07 AM
To: Barry.Martens
Subject: RE: Phu bai
Well it seems to me the cobras were employed more like an aircraft than a
helicopter.....in other words, diving attacks not much different than a spad
or a bird dog or OV-10, etc.........except the achilles heel of the
helicopter is always in terms of what it can carry and how long it can stay
on station. And of course the helicopter has always and will always be very
susceptible to ground fire...........it's obvious the A-10 warthog was
designed with vietnam in mind.....it's too bad it came too late to be a part
of that war. I've always felt they should never scrap an A-10, ever.
Because there will always be some third world conflict in which it would be
the perfect weapon to support troops in
contact. What this country has always needed, and people are so hard
headed about (in the pentagon and in the design world) is an A-10 type
aircraft that can take off and land in less than 1000ft of rough strip. Sure
you loose the ability to land on a dime like a helicopter, but if you think
about it, if we could design something that can land and take off on any
semi flat, prepared surface within' 1/4 to 1/2 a mile length.....and we lose
the verticle requirement (which is what always makes the design have to
sacrifice range and payload)......in any conflict that you could ever
imagine, we'd most likely be able to base or forward deploy units of this
kinds of aircraft close enuff to the front to really support the CAS
role..........the technology exists to do this, but the zoomie guys hate the
A-10 because it's low and slow........how much do you think they'd hate
something that sacrifices
speed even more than an A-10. So you still today end up with F-16's
and F-18's that can't carry much, and can't carry it far, and can't stay on
station.....but they sure do look good in airshows.
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry.Martens
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 6:14 PM
To: Martens, Matthew D
Subject: RE: Phu bai
A1-E Skyraiders!! Spads they called them. One of the best close air
support tools we had. Most belonged to the ARVN's so you never would know
what they were going to do for sure. They could get in pretty close, carry
a million pounds of ordinance, all kinds of stuff and they could stay on
station long enough to do some good.
The Zoomies would fly in from who knows where and have about 5 minutes on
station, drop and then get the hell out of the AO. The only time they had
any time on station was when they were covering for one of their downed
crews. Just like magic, they all of a sudden could stay for 30 or 40
minutes if needed.
The whole idea behind the 20mm was to get the standoff range for the 12.7mm.
The only problem, the bad guys would set-up in gulley's or ravines and the
only way you could get to them was in a dive. Then you were head to head
again and it was the ultimate game of chicken. The 20mm has a max effective
range of way less that 2000 meters. Tracer burn out is just over a 1000
meters so it was hard to shoot in the jungle. Once the tracers burn out the
only way to adjust your fire was to watch for the round burst on impact. In
triple canopy jungle that was next to impossible. Not many of the 20mm
ships were deployed because they just didn't work that well. Plus it was
very heavy. They finally took off 3 barrels and lightened it up a lot for
the turret. Big heavy gun, bad recoil, devastating muzzle blast, relatively
small amount of ammo and limited range. Not the best combination.
The combat sight setting a 50 cal, or 12.7mm, was 2500 meters. It was good
to 3000 with the right gunner. That's 10,000 feet of air you needed to be
completely out of range. Not enough air for a helicopter, and a slow target
to boot.
The TOW was for armor and pretty much useless in the jungle. Same scenario,
the only way to get the angle on the pit was in a dive and with the TOW you
have to hang it out there for the full missile time of flight. Good rocket
shooting was the best in these situation. You could let them loose anywhere
inside of 4000 meters hit the target if you were good. The guys in the pit
still required a dive and you could easily lay in 10-15 pair on a dive with
your wingman following up with just as many. If you had a few pair of nails
on board so much the better. When the red powder started popping overhead
everybody that saw it go down in their holes. They covered such a large
area with devastating effects. You could get home early if you have a few
pair of nails on board.
When we were not going out for troops in contact we normally carried 3 pair
of nails in the first 3 holes of the outboard pods. We could control what
we shot by starting with the outboard nails if needed or go with inboard
10lb warheads and wait to see what happened. Sometimes we could not use the
nails and we would have to move off target and bury them in the jungle.
Usually they guys on the ground would have a target for you when they found
out you had nails onboard. If the friendlies weren't to close we would
always find a home for the nails.
DAD