This has been an issue for some time (at least two years) now and has
not made it to the front burner - but now with the USAF SOF looking at
COIN aircraft and people admitting to the vulnerability of the
helicopters and the fact that even the A-10's 30mm has become too big a
weapon for the ROE there is an attitude change. You would think at first
this all should not be interrelated but it has come down to the fact
that the ground forces fighting an insurgency can not get a jump on the
enemy without some help from the third dimension and everything tried
now has been too big weapon wise, too late in getting to where it is
needed, or too clumsy for small unit operations in urban environments.
So now it is realized that when the fighters are up their 20mm guns and
their accurate gunsights can make a difference especially if the ammo is
basic ball.

Visualize a 20/23/25 mm gun with a constantly chambered round
(side-by-side twin for instance) that can get off quicker and a
"spit-burst" of 6 to 10 rounds every trigger pull and combine that with
a laser-sight. If the platform was survivable then you can see from the
grunts poiunt of view it would become a very popular machine. It is not
yet possible as a UAV although it should be put into the go-do locker
for sure, yet a manned platform gives the grunt-air relationship a
chance to exploit the combat situation as it always has and yet has been
denied from this war for too long.

In Vietnam as you talk to the Thud pilots, which still represents an
enormously proud and daring group of can-do people ("there is a way"
right!) and what you see time and time again is their courage and
airmanship being thrown up against incompetence in command and the whole
targeting cycle and perceived purpose of air power in the war. If they
would have been let loose, with people like Olds at the helm, they would
have ripped North Vietnam a new asshole in a few months. If we honor
their courage and dismiss the incompetence that sent them on their
missions that only added to their risk, then we have failed both them
and ourselves. This "gun" strafe issue in Iraq and again in Afghanistan
is the same script being played in a different theater. Incompetence at
the top, apathy at the midsection, and dead heroes at the bottom. Could
or would we ever face off with the retired generals who we praise so
much over and over, like Meyers - nice guy, hard worker but totally
irrelevant to any path in this war to victory. When you read those
words about how important a fighter strafing was to a ground unit, can
you understand for a minute how just about everything else we have been
doing has not added up to a hill of beans.

We as a nation have accomplished this in five years of war - 100 dead a
month / 1500 wounded / $30 billion spent - that's it, it does not get
better then that and the thousands of troops that go out in small units,
patrols, convoys, etc., all rarely get the chance to have real air
assist and protection. In Afghanistan now the UK is concerned because
their casualties are taking four hours to get to hospital, there are no
spare helicopters, and those there are too vulnerable. We are looking at
sling configured ultra-lights now.

All of you in this group have enormous distinction in combat and in the
aviation disciplines - you must not let this incompetence go on and on
when you can see in a micro-seconds solutions that have yet to be even
put on the table in the Pentagon and the commands. Politics aside - we
are doing this to ourselves and we (you and I) are not doing enough to
honor the Thud spirit for one, to get ride of the incompetence and bring
back the warriors placing the network managers aside for a while until
business with the al Qaeda can be finished.




"John Carrier" wrote in message
. ..

wrote in message
oups.com...
The article at:

http://www.afa.org/magazine/July2007/0707strafing.asp

includes the following:

"We're using the gun quite a bit in the Iraq and Afghanistan
operations.
The fighters are using lots of 20 mm off F-15Es and F-16s and 30 mm
off A-10s to hit ground targets. Why is that? For individuals, the
gun
is
probably one of the most accurate weapons, with the least collateral
damage. That 20 mm will end the bad guy's life, but stray rounds will
just drive into the ground, and that's it.

In Iraq, the adversary uses both road networks and riverine networks.
There have been a number of occasions where boats have been
identified
carrying insurgents on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and we've
used
20 mm and 30 mm guns to destroy those boats. A moving target is hard
to hit with a bomb. With a gun, it's no big deal. In one instance,
the
enemy
was getting ready to move people somewhere to do something later that
night, but we removed them from the fight.

The same thing happened in Balad, where we found people going to get
roadside bomb supplies. We have been using the gun against single
persons
who have been planting improvised exposive devices. You'll have an
individual
with a truck, and a couple of other individuals; you'll see them get
out and
move around, trying to dig a hole, and you'll bring in an F-16 or an
F-15E, or
maybe an A-10, and you'll use 20 or 30 mm and go kill them. If you
have troops
in contact, or you have individuals in buildings, you do the same
thing."


Discussions about aircraft guns usually center on air-to-air usage,
but
nowadays, that's a secondary mission. With the primary usage of
aircraft guns being strafing. For how long has this been true?

Strafe can be a worthwhile employment of the gun, evidently done with
much success in the ongoing pair of conflicts. Can be somewhat
hazardous in the daytime if the bad guys have the capability to shoot
back (a risk/reward thing). Pretty functional at night with goggles,
etc.

R / John