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| photos via RAF website. |
The UK is walking a very fine...and unusual line. On one hand they're trying to maintain commonality and relevance with US forces while also doing the same with European forces.
The A400 is a good example. Why buy C-17's at all when the opportunity to neck down to an all A400 force was possible?
Because the entire point of the A400M is to carry loads that the C-130 can't, into places the C-17 can't go.
ReplyDeleteIts like asking why the USAF continues to operate C-5s and C-130s when the option to neck down to an all C-17 fleet exists. The aircraft have different capabilities that complement each other.
Its got nothing to do with trying to maintain commonality.
i call bullshit on that. read the original specs of the C-17! it was touted as a tactical airlifter with strategic reach. also follow the development history of the plane. it was developed from the aborted YC-14/15. the exact same thing can be said of the A400. its being called a tactical airlifter with strategic reach. in the end it will end up doing the same job as the C-17 but much more poorly. there is a reason why US forces have stuck with the C-130. real rough field ops involve aircraft weight on unprepared surfaces as much as they do on robust aircraft.
Deleteif the RAF actually bought into the idea of a A400 being able to go into the same places as the C-130 then they are in worse shape than i thought.
"if the RAF actually bought into the idea of a A400 being able to go into the same places as the C-130 then they are in worse shape than i thought."
DeleteSolomon, somehow I feel that you put up the main Atlas Post here just to position yourself in a perfect poise to say the above mentioned line. Looks like you were waiting in ambush for the first person responding in the defence of the A400. The marine corps has taught you well.
"It's a trap!"
Delete- Admiral Ackbar
:D
No one has ever touted the A400M as being able to operate for exactly the same kinds of fields and dirt strips as the C-130, some loss of rough field capability was consider acceptable for the dramatic increase in payload, speed, and range that the Atlas offers over the C-130 and primarily its stretched derivatives.
DeleteOn top of this is the fact that combat vehicles and engineering plant are only getting larger and heavier, requiring a larger and more capable airlifter to transport them.
As to the utter bollocks about the C-17 being a tactical airlifter. It just isn't, the YC-15 was but the C-17 is larger then then its parent by almost 15 meters in length, 10 in wingspan and, 160,000 kg in max take off weight.
The C-17 is about as far from its tactical airlifter ancestor as its possible to be and was conceived to replace the C-141 Strategic airlifter. while you claim it was supposed to be a tactical airlifter with strategic reach it is in fact the other way round, a strategic airlifter with some tactical utility.
This entirely apart from the fact that in RAF service the tactical abilities of the C-17 are never utilized due to the airframes being far far too expensive and operationally valuable to risk in tactical roles.
the A400M is a viable replacement for the vast majority of the RAF's C-130 fleet because it does what you claim the C-17 to do, it provides some strategic reach to tactical airlift. a task that C-130 has been pressed into in its stretched C-130-30 form despite its inherent unsuitability.
The fact that some valuable capabilities will be lost with the withdrawal of the short C-130Ks from RAF service is well known and if funds are available it is hoped that some of the Js can be retained and refitted for the special forces role. However in the real world where money doesn't flow like water they will most likely just have to do without.
"Because the entire point of the A400M is to carry loads that the C-130 can't, into places the C-17 can't go"
ReplyDeleteif the great C-130 can't penetrate area with high risk of man portable SAM / AAA , a A400M certainly wont be able too..
A400 looks great though, i hope it is bought by many air forces all around the world.. cant wait to see it's performance in a real combat zone..
Its got nothing to do with the ability to penetrate an area defended by MANPADS. and everything to do with range and lift capacity. over half the RAF C-130 fleet are stretched versions which in fact have demonstrably worse short field capability then even the A400M.
DeleteThe sneaky penetration missions are performed by a handful of specially adapted older model C-130Ks.
Well Sol you cannot transport tanks or extra large loads with an a400m. Whenever the Europeans need to transport ultra heavy loads they have to either use C-17s or use these private companies that fly massive Antonov heavy lifters.
DeleteI never thought that air lifting MBTs was ever a good idea. You can only carry one per, even with C-17s or AN-124s. You can get in a lot more firepower shipping in something else. Like a few hundred infantrymen with support weapons or 5 Apaches vs a single Abrams. Hell, even medium armour faces the same problem. Airlifting armour simply isn't efficient.
DeleteEveryone seems to forget that in also boils down to industry jobs.Airbus provides many in the UK while Boeing not so much.
ReplyDeleteC130 airframes in service are old and C17 i no tactical airlifter and for heavy loads much of nato uses Antonov heavy lifters anyway.
C130 also lacks capacity to carry future 8x8 and tracked APC and IFVs being developed.
God, I hope they don't go down the "must be airlifted" path again, you'll end up spending billions trying to develop armour that weigh as much as styrafoam and failing miserably. Ship armour. Airlift infantry.
DeleteWhat about an afghanistan type nation with no coast. There is still a need for airborne armor transport IMO
DeleteHell no, you ship to port and transport across land. That is what they did in Afghanistan. And there is almost never a need for airborne armour, in recent years, I only remember one case and even that was a dick up which left *one* tank by its' own for 24 hours before the rest of the unit trickled in.
DeleteNo one in the West has seriously considered airborne armour for a while, all the C-130 requirements have been quietly dropped and shoved under a rug where they hope no one notices. Rapid intervention force? Use infantry.
You want airborne armour? Try the Sprut, only the Russians are crazy enough to do it, but their military doctrine is brute force.
You can massage scenarios all you want, but baseline, airlifting armour is inefficient to the extreme. No joke. Infantry and B-vehicles are your go to for airlift. Don't try to get creative/stupid and airlift A-vehicles. Not worth the candle.
While I get that we use land routes when avialible, I was more talking about an action where land routes were not an option be it political of geographical. No person alive is going to argue that airborne armor is efficient or very practical,however there are locations that can only be reached by air. Now I realize that this may not be relevant to the Brits, however it should be kept in mind. As per airborne assault armor, the sprut is not the only airborne assault gun out there, we had the M8 ags which got reborn in the mobile protected firepower program. I doubt it will get funded to completion but it means there is still someone that thinks it works.
DeleteYou realize that if all the countries surrounding your target is going to deny you transit rights, they are going to deny you overflight rights as well?
DeleteAnd you're still trying to make armour fly. The MPF is technically still vapourware at this time. And I suspect will be for a long long time.
Sometimes, you just got to recognize lost causes.
There is always a need to air drop armored vehicles, and the US military has been neglecting it for some time since the phasing out of the M113 and the retirement of the Sheridan. We live in a delusional world where we will be presented with wars that conveniently allow us to ship our armor to secured ports or perfectly paved air fields.
DeleteAirborne forces need more than humvees. There is a value to tracked vehicles armed to the teeth with automatic and large caliber cannons, missiles, and stabilized machine guns.
That is why the Luftwaffe designed the Wiesel. And the Russians the BMD and BTR-D. The Chinese with their own series of airborne combat vehicles.
General James Gavin was far ahead of his time. So were the Soviets.
nOt, I was partially involved in the testing of airdropping vehicles. The test vehicles did not survive the drops, mostly damage was to the suspension, the impact breaks the suspension, this was with the old AMX-13s and some M-113s. Think the Germans also had the same problem with the Wiesal, their test vehicles broke on landing.
DeleteWe gave it up as a lost cause. If you think you can succeed by pouring money into the problem, all power to you. Much more efficient to helo sling load, though shorter range.
And were you on airdropping or airlifting? Different things. One is tactical, the other is strategic.
I know the US is a big place, but sometimes, I wonder if they live in the same reality as the rest of the world. No insult intended, but some suggestions are really...off.
I'd class airborne armour in the same boat as the EFV. By the time you get it to a state you are happy with, it would have hit white elephant status a long time before.
so you're telling me that airborne forcible entry is a joke then right? because even third world armies equipped with decent artillery can decimate an airborne force once its on the ground if all it is is footmobile. additionally you're talking about massive command and control issues. little groups of paratroopers sounds all noble and stuff but you're talking about forces that are penny packet in size and can be destroyed at the leisure of the enemy.
Deletewe're talking about what happens once you get the force on the ground...not having to make an entry.
i also want to add that the French in Mali have experienced a hard truth. airborne forces might get their fast but they're totally insufficient to conduct any reall offensive operations.
your testing of the AMX-13 and M-113 must have been used with old tech. the Sheridan and M-113 were frequently LAAPES and air dropped without difficulty.
LAPES was the pallet slide dropping I mentioned. And yes, you are right, it was fairly old tech, better to lose something you can afford to than to lose a brand new vehicle. We were not the US of that time, we had a budget. :)
DeleteAnd yes Sol, airborne drops sounds all noble, but there are heaps of issues, some of which you covered. Once you drop airborne, you damn well better link up with them fast, they don't have the best of logistics supply, most of the time, they only have what they initially packed.
And if you have to link up with them anyway, why not simply use an armoured assault in the first place?
I can see some limited objectives, like dropping them immediately behind the enemy FEBA and opening the door, just not some kind of deep strike strategic ops like people are fond of imagining that they do. Or sudden reinforcement of friendly areas. Not deep strike.
Just to be clear, I'm not against them being motorized in some form or other, my point is that the 15+ ton vehicles are past the efficiency curve, packing something lighter would give you a lot more punch. Like the Spike carrying jeep that you had a pic of from the RoK. One tank? Or 5 of those? Or even the 5 Apaches I mentioned? Those would give you a heap lot more of firepower than a single tank. And we're getting messed up again, strategic vs tactical. Airdrop is tactical, we were on strategic airlift, or at least we were. Apaches are under strategic airlift, not airdrop.
I suspect why we are getting a mess is because some people did not differentiate between airlift and airdrop.
The A400M can, at best, carry an IFV.
ReplyDeleteThey need something the size of the C-17 to carry an MBT-sized load.
While it's not very efficient, sometimes it is needed.
Just looking at the raw load numbers: For an equivalent transport need, they would have to have 1x C-17 or 2x A400Ms.
I like the specs of the A400. Don't know what problems the tests have shown (and follow-on fixes.). C-17 production slots are ending. C-17 was designed not to need depot (3-level) maintenance. It was built with light materials. Early C-17s are starting to arrive at end-of-life. After flying the C-17 awhile guess what USAF did? Made it a 3-level depot aircraft (right alongside C-130s, and C-5s at Robins AFB). So to do that from scratch on an aircraft that was never designed that way has shown some problems. But better than nothing. I have known some C-17 guys. It can do a lot. I have always thought we should never close down the C-17 line. Built them at low-rate and start replacing the older C-17s. That is not going to happen. I could see having 10 or so A-400 squadrons throughout the DOD. 3 of them being USMC. I also think the C-27 needs to come back. Having alleged "excess" airlift capacity is not a bad thing. C-5s (even with C-5M), C-17s, and now necked down C-130J-only .... well, you thought the tac-air bathtub is bad now. Consider what the airlift one will look like in the 2020s ...and all the negative maintenance / budget metrics to go with it. And of course, combat capability.
ReplyDeleteC-17 have jet engine, turboprop engine like on A400M much less susceptible to bird strikes and debris on runway that could be sucked up and destroy jet engine during take off. Maybe this is why turboprop planes is still popular.
ReplyDeletehow much this bird cost compared to a C130J ? if one can get 2 C130 for just one A400, then the advantage is C130
ReplyDeleteAll fanboyism for either faction aside, this is the first I've seen of this a/c.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like someone took the best features of the C-130 and the C-141, and made damned fine Frankenplane, cutting Lockheed completely out in the process. If the A400 flies as good as it looks, I say it's a winner.
And flying armor? Even we're not that stupid anymore. We pre-position stocks of it much closer to likely contingencies.
Look at the graphic with the article: They're buying 22 planes. Total.
What's that...about an armored company, and a couple of spares, if they dedicated their entire squadron, and all the planes were mission capable on the day, if they'd bought something bigger? That was never going to happen no matter how the cards were dealt.
For the price of one of those planes, they could buy and mothball 22 MBTs, and then on the day, just fly one plane in with the entire personnel contingent, peel off the wrappers, and head out. That's how it's done.
If the Brits need to airlift armor anywhere, it'll be the Kevlar wrapped around the guys in the Para Regiment.
Sometimes we do have our disagreements Aesop, but in this case, I'm with you 100%. Airlifting armour is utter stupidity. The efficiency of that is totally crap. You get so much more firepower and boots on the ground lifting infantry instead. Or Apaches.
Deletehttp://cqplanespotting.blogspot.sg/2014/09/photos-of-rsaf-ah-64d-apache.html
From Australia, one AN-124 can ship 5 AH-64s + stores. Add this to civilian airlines charter and you got the potential to drop 150 men (-50 for AH-64 engineering team + pilots) to reinforce an area with rotary wing support on 2 aircraft (one airliner of your choice, one AN-124). Much more potential firepower than 2 MBTs that you can barely squeeze out of 2 aircraft.
Or use the prestocked stockpile you mentioned, which was the MO for REGORGERs IIRC (and most common sense ops, the "emergency airlift of infantry" I mention is only for cases when you realized you dropped not only the ball, but the whole sports shop as well, which is rare.)
Anything but flying armour.
AH64s cannot replace armor. That is utter insanity.
DeleteAnd we (america) tried such a little endeavor that was an absolute clusterfuck of a failure in Albania. It was called Task Force Hawk. One write an entire series of articles about this.
And prestocked stockpiles is a luxury with so much wrong with being dependent on it as a viable national security strategy, it is almost comical. Im not dismissing it and think it is important, such as the case of Australia and Scandinavia, although it is certainly not a substitute for air dropping armored forces.
I know of TF Hawk. We attributed it to Americans being Americans. :)
DeleteAnd airdropping armour, even small tankettes, is stupid. Been there, done that, lost vehicles. Even pallet slide dropping caused damage. Use a helo and sling it if you are so die hard to get tankettes into play, but don't drop them from C-130s. Unless you want to use them as pillboxes.
I agree with the damage part, need I only look in the mirror (or my surgery scar from a landing that was less than optimal).
DeleteI disagree, but if you keep that up, Im going to start arguing in favor of Tetrarchs. http://goo.gl/5DtqPb
;)
At least they are cheap! :)
DeleteWhich is why I think it'll never fly. Imagine that, the US doing something cheap!! Quick, check the direction of the sun! Did it rise in the West??!!
Think there are 2 phases in "air" handling of equipment, the "airlift" where it is simply moving stuff into theatre and you don't do stupid things like LAPES and parachuting into an area, I mean, if you are simply shipping into an airport, why the F are you parachuting or airdropping in as opposed to simply landing and unloading? And the 2nd phase which is more tactical, the airdrop. Both have different characteristics. For example the AH-64s I mentioned. It makes sense as a strategic move to get them into theatre. It's utterly stupid to airdrop pieces of an Apache into an LZ as a tactical move. (Some assembly required!).
So maybe we need to split the subject into 2 while discussing the issues?
(aka try to arm wrestle each other into submission!! DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!...*cough*...) :P
that's false. the 82nd airborne has been practicing flying intercontinental distances and then parachuting in. the idea that you have to stage in theater and then do an airdrop is plain false. oh and since you're enjoying USA bashing what country are you from.
DeleteOh please, there's a difference between bashing and ribbing, and nothing I did even compares to how you ripped huge stripes off your own government and USMC higher command.
ReplyDeleteMost of the people from the US I met are good folks, great to joke with. Unfortunately, there are also some that can't take jokes. I'm sure nOt is taking my comments in stride and with a grain of salt the size of the Red Sea. I hope... :)
Airborne forcible entry with armor is a pipe dream. It's a nice pipe dream but still a pipe dream. Tactically you are much better off dropping turtle shell HMMWV's with TOWs, M2s, and Mk19s mounted, Javelins dismounted, and towed 120mm mortar systems. Even then, you can't drop enough HMMWVs to give everyone a ride unless you also start dropping FMTVs. But every vehicle you drop is another planes worth of capacity that isn't filled with pissed off paratroopers.
ReplyDeleteAs far as "halfway decent artillery" goes, until you get some fire finding radars set up you have a hard time finding enemy artillery emplacements to destroy (unless you can read impact craters, which is a bit of a dying art). Which means you need air cover. Which means that you can't have the Army doing "forced entry" without Navy or Air Force birds in assistance, at least not with an airborne option. Watching an SF team call down airstrikes on an Iraqi Armored column is a pretty good illustration of what airborne light infantry has to do against mechanized/armored forces.
The airmobile option could be done "Army only" but that isn't a long range option, and you need a staging base within a helicopter round trip of the objective.
and that is why the publication is called joint forcible entry! i sometimes think that the USMC is trying to develop some type of system that is capable of doing it all solo or keep it confined to the support found in an amphibious ready group.
DeleteAdd that to the fun fact that it is not illegal to shoot descending paratroopers, popular belief to the contrary, parachuting anyone near an enemy is a good recipe to get your men filled with holes for absolutely no gain.
DeleteWith all the limitations, unfortunately, paradrops then become a rather limited use ability.
Irony of it all Sol is when I try to design a parachute "intervention" force, the closest structure that it resembles is a Marine unit with some equipment swapped out. Not to mention the "lightly defended objective" limitations both methods of entry have. So if you have really bored Marines who think their day is not busy enough, there is a chance that dual role is possible. Not likely, just.. possible. Like "hit by a golf ball on your way to work" possible. :)
A side-note on the C-17 in USAF service. USAF needs a broader scope of airframes as I mentioned above C-27, C-130J, C-17, C-5.... And I would still recommend a C-400 for taking up some of the workload. We have to use C-17 hours for only things the C-17 can do. Every time you see those photos taken from the rear of the aircrew deck that shows the cargo bay and it shows a bunch of troops that are not paras... you are wasting that C-17 capability. It should only be doing roll-on-roll-off and para. In total we don't have the C-17 flying hours to spend on doing work other aircraft can do. Also starting with the wars of 2001 up to now, C-17 hours have been expended at a much higher rate....yet...we ...are...ending its production. Bad move. With that I would also suggest we need some Boeing 777-200LRs (off the shelf as a combi-pax-pallet cargo)... no air refueling capability ... to move troops from the CONUS to theater hubs. This would also save hours on the C-17. Remember too that C-17 is doing some of the partial work of the C-5. So in spite of what you read in some USAF report that we have a balanced airlift capability, we do not. The 2020s are going to have some bad things in the area of total fleet mission capability due to age and the ability to do the mission with no full balance of medium and heavy ( I consider C-5 heavy) roll-on, roll-off cargo jets in production. We would have to get A400s just to pick up some of the slack.
ReplyDeleteI believe the KC-46 is intended to have a transport role similar to RAF Voyager MRTTs to reduce the demand on C-17 flight hours.
DeleteIt will help. But need much more. Example, Even today, KC-135s and KC-10s do that. Every little bit helps.And we will see the tanker force reduce in size. KC-135 fleet is only one surprise catastrophic-failure event away from total grounding.
Delete