Sea Story For Woody

Mike Kanze wrote:
Pugs,


Not to disclose anything but IIRC the Cheeze-wiz radar is way up beyond the
ECM reception range in the 'truder (and certainly the other fighitng
drumstick the Prowler)


Wouldn't surprise me.

Add to my list of rhetoricals:

* Can we effectively counter our OWN weapons in a training situation - or
otherwise?

Not an idle question, given the propensity for our stuff to wind up in other
folks' hands - like A-4s to the Argentines (the Brits must have loved us for
that one), Stingers to the Afghan guerillas or F-14s to the Shah.

Example: During the VN war, a barely feet-dry A-6B pickled a Shrike at a
NVN SAM site. The Shrike made for the juiciest emitter it could detect -
which was NOT the FanSong but the PIRAZ small boy sitting out in the Gulf of
Tonkin. Only the quick action of RED CROWN shutting down all its radars
saved it. This incident led to the "no turn shots" rule which the A-6Bs
followed from thereafter. (The passage of time has made me fuzzy on the
precise details of this one. Better info invited.)

Too bad CIWS is not optically-guided. The Intruder's sheer ugliness would
have frustrated acquisition by the R2D2-san. g

Hmm, I thought I saw som kind of optronic device on recent pictures of
one of the latest blocks; A recent addition I'm sure, but is that for
the gunners mate, or autonomus-mode operation?

/Morten
Harpoon 4 boardgame affectionado, no real experience whatsoever

On 9/9/04 5:50 PM, in article ,
"Morten Lund" wrote:

Mike Kanze wrote:
Pugs,
SNIP

Too bad CIWS is not optically-guided. The Intruder's sheer ugliness would
have frustrated acquisition by the R2D2-san. g

Hmm, I thought I saw som kind of optronic device on recent pictures of
one of the latest blocks; A recent addition I'm sure, but is that for
the gunners mate, or autonomus-mode operation?

/Morten
Harpoon 4 boardgame affectionado, no real experience whatsoever

I've never seen one with a lens on it.

--Woody

Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal wrote:

On 9/9/04 5:50 PM, in article ,
"Morten Lund" wrote:


Mike Kanze wrote:

Pugs,

SNIP

Too bad CIWS is not optically-guided. The Intruder's sheer ugliness would
have frustrated acquisition by the R2D2-san. g

Hmm, I thought I saw som kind of optronic device on recent pictures of
one of the latest blocks; A recent addition I'm sure, but is that for
the gunners mate, or autonomus-mode operation?

/Morten
Harpoon 4 boardgame affectionado, no real experience whatsoever


I've never seen one with a lens on it.

--Woody


I found one at this Loc; At least I *think* its some kind of optronic
device, could be laser for all I know

http://www.jenswilly.dk/graphics/jaas_imgs/phalanx.gif

(never mind the content of the parent page, its a spoof on a fictious
nuclear powercompany - long story, but extremely funny)

Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal wrote:
On 9/9/04 5:50 PM, in article ,
"Morten Lund" wrote:


Mike Kanze wrote:

Pugs,

SNIP

Too bad CIWS is not optically-guided. The Intruder's sheer ugliness would
have frustrated acquisition by the R2D2-san. g

Hmm, I thought I saw som kind of optronic device on recent pictures of
one of the latest blocks; A recent addition I'm sure, but is that for
the gunners mate, or autonomus-mode operation?

/Morten
Harpoon 4 boardgame affectionado, no real experience whatsoever


I've never seen one with a lens on it.

A few of them have a FLIR mod, I suppose the plan is for all of them
eventually.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../wep-phal.html

I think the first time I saw one with this was only a couple years ago.

On 9/10/04 1:54 AM, in article , "Jim
Carriere" wrote:

Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal wrote:
On 9/9/04 5:50 PM, in article ,
"Morten Lund" wrote:


Mike Kanze wrote:

Pugs,

SNIP

Too bad CIWS is not optically-guided. The Intruder's sheer ugliness would
have frustrated acquisition by the R2D2-san. g

Hmm, I thought I saw som kind of optronic device on recent pictures of
one of the latest blocks; A recent addition I'm sure, but is that for
the gunners mate, or autonomus-mode operation?

/Morten
Harpoon 4 boardgame affectionado, no real experience whatsoever


I've never seen one with a lens on it.

A few of them have a FLIR mod, I suppose the plan is for all of them
eventually.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../wep-phal.html

I think the first time I saw one with this was only a couple years ago.


A little internet research suggests that the reason I haven't seen it is
because it's not on CV's yet. Looks like the FLIR/optics are for surface
targets and that as of about a year ago, it's only been on small boys.

--Woody

Mike Kanze wrote:

Pugs,

Not to disclose anything but IIRC the Cheeze-wiz radar is way up beyond the
ECM reception range in the 'truder (and certainly the other fighitng
drumstick the Prowler)

Wouldn't surprise me.

Add to my list of rhetoricals:

* Can we effectively counter our OWN weapons in a training situation - or
otherwise?

Not an idle question, given the propensity for our stuff to wind up in other
folks' hands - like A-4s to the Argentines (the Brits must have loved us for
that one), Stingers to the Afghan guerillas or F-14s to the Shah.

Example: During the VN war, a barely feet-dry A-6B pickled a Shrike at a
NVN SAM site. The Shrike made for the juiciest emitter it could detect -
which was NOT the FanSong but the PIRAZ small boy sitting out in the Gulf of
Tonkin. Only the quick action of RED CROWN shutting down all its radars
saved it. This incident led to the "no turn shots" rule which the A-6Bs
followed from thereafter. (The passage of time has made me fuzzy on the
precise details of this one. Better info invited.)

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same incident, but Worden was nailed by
a Shrike in the GoT in 1972. Mission-killed her but good; I think it took her
several hours to get a radar up. Some years back I was taking a tour of her
during SF Fleet Week. The tour guide happened to be a radar ET whose job was
maintaining the SPG-55s. I'd read about the incident before this so asked him
if anyone on the ship was aware of it. He said, oh sure, it was part of the
ship's history, and there were still dents in the back of some of the SPG-55
housings from the attack.

I've always wondered if the Shrike was going for the S-band SPS-48 or the C-band
SPS-10 or SPG-55. Guess it depends what flavor of Fansong was in the area.

Guy

I learned to Tow the TDU in VC-12 while TAD in the early 80's.
Then some one learned that I had this "skill" in my VA-196 I became the
airwing TGT expert. The deal was that there was no way a reel could be repaired
on the ship so once we birdcaged the 35,000 feet of wire on the reel we were
done for at least 3 months while the reels wer shipped back to Cubi for I lever
repairs. So I got to tow for the Connies Cheez Wiz as well as the small boys.
For the c-wiz we ran out only 10,000 feet of wire. The presentation had to be
pretty close since the radar/computer had to evaluate the TGT as a threat
otherwise it wouldn't shoot. On a perpendicular run you would actualy fly over
the bow of the ship at about 3k and hope the TDU was in the less than 500'
altitude but above the bridge hight.And would pass just aft of the ship, (lots
of kentucky windage used to figure that out!) It was a real bad deal to drag
the tgt through the ship as people had been killed in the past and needless to
say a carreer ender for the flight crews regardless of the damage inflicted.
I prefered the parallel presentation safer for all involved, ( I don't think
the black shoes had any clue how much more difficult the perp presentation was)
anyway on this particulaer run it was for the Connie.We made several cold runs
and the gunners made sure everthing was working. It was my understanding that
they had some one standing behind the Cwiz that would actually look to see were
the thing was aiming before they gave a cleared to fire to avoid the drumstick
attack. Anyway the first hot pass they fired but didn't get any hits so I set
up for a second pass. I waited til I was about 1.5 dme outbound gave a cleared
to fire the first 5 rounds went right through the TDU it did a split s into the
water with a tug on the wire felt in the plane. The radar was so good it
started to track and shoot up the wire scoreing several hit on the wire itself
! It also birdcagged the wire so the Cag gunner was happy since that was one
more that was going off the ship on the next unrep.
In the wardroom that evening I saw the gun boss and chidded him about taking 2
runs to bag the tgt. apparently it was the first time in over 5 years that it
had taken 2 runs and they were pretty much all bummed out over the situation.

I'm glad I never had to fly against the cwiz because if it worked it was
deadly.


Any way regardless of the outcome of the Cwiz shoot if there was any rounds
shot at the Tgt it was SOP to cut the wire and jettison the TDU since it may
have DU smeared all over it.


As an aside, I know that the CIWS was a really good shot. I never reeled a
target back in.

Then there was the A-A missle shoots with 30,000' feet of wire out being
dragged.

Sparky