via DEFESA...
There is no doubt about it. The Super Tucano is a beautiful plane. Angola is beefing up its attack capability on the cheap...Brazil´s Embraer Defense and Security has delivered today 31 January the first three A-29 Super Tucano light attack and advanced training aircraft (also known as EMB 314 Super Tucano) to the National Air Force of Angola (Força Aérea Nacional de Angola).A total of six aircraft were purchased for border surveillance missions.
It's kind of neat how other militaries see the utility in small ground attack planes while the Air Farce dithers about and can't even get a contract downselect correct.
ReplyDeleteI disagree Paralus...
ReplyDeleteIn this moment, France need something like Super Tucanos, to blow terrorist with AK rifles in hands... They're using a 45k dollars (or Euros, i dont know) per flight hour jet fighter to do this...
Maybe USAF didn't need it, because their Drones can do this. I dont know the flight hour of a drone...
Imagine Super Tucanos in Afghanistan...
Argentina deployed the Pucara to the Falklands Islands.
ReplyDeleteThree were destroyed when their airfield was bombed
Six more were destroyed when their airfield was raided by the SAS,
Another was lost in the air to a harrier, a second to a Stinger, and a third to small arms fire.
The only air to air success I can find for the Pucara is when two shot down a Medivac helicopter, one of which rammed a hill shortly afterwards.
I cant find ANY ground attack success.
Light Ground Attack Aircraft achieved so much during the second world war because there so many of them, and so many targets.
Neither of which is going to be the case in a future war.
That Typhoons, Rafales and Raptors are the wrong tool to blow up goat herders with Martini Henris is not in doubt, but that doesnt mean Tuccano is the right tool.
An artillery piece, with laser guided rounds, supported by a grey eagle with a designator, or even dumb rounds and a grey eagle as to spot shot fall, for example.
Even at just two rounds a minute sustained, a 155mm howitzer can put two thousand eight hundred pounds of high explosives down field.
We are talking about a light attack aircraft, not a fighter ...
DeleteArgentina's mistake was to use a light attack aircraft in a scenario where we had no air superiority ensured ...
The use of Tucano is a scenario like Afghanistan, Iraq (post 2003) ... and now Mali.
About the comparison between artillery and attack aircraft there. I will not even stick to that subject ...
"We are talking about a light attack aircraft, not a fighter ..."
DeleteThe Puccara is a spiritual prequel to the Tuccano, fighter it was not, COIN aircraft it was.
"Argentina's mistake was to use a light attack aircraft in a scenario where we had no air superiority ensured ..."
How many SAMs made it out of Libya?
Thats before you consider "just" 50 cal machine guns, which will chew up Tuccanos and are available in massive quantities.
"About the comparison between artillery and attack aircraft there. I will not even stick to that subject ..."
Why not, guns are even less logistically heavy, deliver more ordnance, but are shorter ranged.
I'm not sure you can argue you dont need a Typhoon but cant tolerate a gun...
"How many SAMs made it out of Libya?"
DeleteTucano has flares and chaffs... and his engine emits much less heat than a jet... It dificult to one soviet missile of 70's decade engage him...
And aboult .50, the Tucano can carry SDB and Paveway guided by laser... It dont need to flight at much low altitudes...
Remember of Colombia...
They use Tucanos against the FARCS guerrilla. This guerrilla has a lot of tube weapons... And never a Tucano was shot down...
Let me say that when I use the term Air Farce I am referring to the moronic brass who refuse to see anything that doesn't move at 600 knots and is piloted by some dude with a white scarf.
ReplyDelete"Maybe USAF didn't need it, because their Drones can do this. I don't know the flight hour of a drone..."
It isn't a question of whether the Air Farce needs them, it's a question of whether the grunts need them.
The Air Farce also doesn't need C-27J Spartans, the Army needed them to re-supply their outposts since the Air Farce didn't prioritize re-supplying Army bases for C-130s.
Of course the Air Farce doesn't need it NOR do they want it since it represents forcing them to accept that not every scenario can be served by a Hellfire from a Drone or a JDAM dropped by a fast mover.
But sometimes the Air Farce needs to be forced to do things because the brass don't have all the answers and are too dumb to know better. Look at the A-10. Look at the F-16. Neither of them were wanted by the Air Farce, but others disagreed and proved that they were of critical importance to grunts and that this was the whole reason behind their being an Air Force.
And in the case of the Super Tucano, many saw the need for an aircraft that was faster than a helicopter, slower than a fighter and could provide close air support with something besides a 30mm Gau-8 strafing run or 500lb bomb or a Hellfire.
With weapons like the APKWS, a laser-guided 70mm HYDRA rocket, and integral .50 cal HMGs in the wings, an aircraft like the Super Tucano might have been able to provide a different kind of close air support and operate from an airstrip that wasn't paved or 5000ft long.
We'll never know because the Air Farce got in the way of the Air Force being able to provide better CAS to grunts.
As for whether a Super Tucano might be helpful in Mali, I'm betting either it or something that needs a smaller logistical footprint like an Air Tractor AT-802u might be just the thing to fly high and take out Technicals armed with AA guns.
Artillery is an important asset, but it lacks the range of a small CAS aircraft.