Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
That based on your CAS and COIN experience?
Two Libyan Mirage F1 fighters defect to Malta
- Thread starter bunk22
- Start date
That based on your CAS and COIN experience?
TUCKnTRUCK
That guy
No.
If you had to launch against a large crowd of people dispersed amongst multiple streets, and you don't want to destroy/ damage you buildings, what would you honestly pick to send up? Would want to use rocket pods?
i'm just saying I'm not sure it all adds up. If I wanted the job done, i would have used different tools.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
There's actually a fairly complicated strategy to COIN (COunter INsurgency) air operations. Remember, you want to kill bad people without killing friendly people or destroying infrastructure. You also have to weigh what the possible threat is -- do the insurgents have small arms, AAA, or MANPAD systems?
All of that is going to be worked into the hardware and strategy that is employed. Sometimes that requires a slow mover like a helo, sometimes that requires a heavy hitter with big bombs, sometimes that requires a fast mover that can hit and scoot out of the area. Sometimes you just want something loud and imposing as a show of force.
Since we don't really know what the Libyan strategy is, it's impossible to tell if the rocket load on the Mirages is consistent with CAS/COIN ops. We don't know if they had GP bombs on board in addition to the rockets. We only have one small piece of the picture. Since there's a media blackout there, we don't know if there WERE any helos or other types of aircraft used (or asked to be used).
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
You are thinking like a typical westerner, not like a meglomaniac dictator from a third world country.
To them overkill is SOP. Why use riot police with less lethal weapons to restore order when a supersonic fighter with heavy ordance will kill everyone in the vicinity.
Orange Anchor
New Member
This is, according to some, the pods, the Matra 155 with 18 rockets per pod.
Note: the rocket is just the delivery system. One can put a lot of different warheads on the rockets and you can single fire or ripple fire. If the target is near the airfield, you can have lots of 'play time' before being winchester or bingo. And with a group of people in a benign target area, who says you have to move fast? I delivered a lot of 2.75 rockets at no more than 190kts but it was definitely not in a Mirage.
Flechettes.
Orange Anchor
New Member
I never delivered any flechettes and um... because there was some question about them being illegal per the Geneva Convention, I don't know of anyone that used them. Allllllllllllllthough one night the bad guys tried to overrun a fire base that had -105 howitzers with those little boogers and to make things more difficult, a room mate got some Cobras on station as well as some F-100s with CBUs. It was a costly mistake for the bad guys. The terrain around the firebase where the attack started looked like someone had mowed the vegetation.
Same here.....never got to use flechette warheads. I mainly employed WP as a FAC, with the occasional 7-shot pod of HE thrown in for surprise.
The Libyans could use some CBU-19/30 if they want to play aerial cops.
105s with flechette rounds. I could only imagine the arty guys lowering the tubes for direct-fire and letting those loose....
seagull
Well-Known Member
From my cousin:
This was just received by someone very close to me from an acquaintance in Libya. I am posting it here, with the name removed, so as to avoid any possible repercussions to the person. It was originally in French, but I translated it. Please help get this message around. THIS IS NOT A HOAX...
"By chance I have internet tonight. Ghadafi has cut all communication, no cell phones, no internet, what is happening in Libya is a real massacre, hundreds dead in Benghazi, and since the day before yesterday in Tripoli, they shot real bullets at us and 61 people are dead..!! In one night..!! And the next day about 250 dead in Tripoli..maybe more, no one is certain..
Ghadafi bombards Tripoli with the airforce, and black african mercenaries are going through Tripoli with machine guns shooting real bullets at anything that moves..!! We can't sleep at night, we try to protect our houses, yesterday, my neighbor of 25 years got a bullet to the head, we burried him only a few hours ago,
The Ghadafi regime is falling, but with many deaths among us, I hope to be able to stay alive until the Liberation, the world doesn't know what is happening in Libya..but it is truly terrible..!! Dead and injured are thrown into the streets, no one can help them because the mercenaries and snipers shoot at them..!!
Ghadafi is crazy, but he has never been as crazy as now, he wants to kill all Libyans before he leaves..
No one can imagine what we are going through..!!
I hope to see you again, if I survive..!
This was just received by someone very close to me from an acquaintance in Libya. I am posting it here, with the name removed, so as to avoid any possible repercussions to the person. It was originally in French, but I translated it. Please help get this message around. THIS IS NOT A HOAX...
"By chance I have internet tonight. Ghadafi has cut all communication, no cell phones, no internet, what is happening in Libya is a real massacre, hundreds dead in Benghazi, and since the day before yesterday in Tripoli, they shot real bullets at us and 61 people are dead..!! In one night..!! And the next day about 250 dead in Tripoli..maybe more, no one is certain..
Ghadafi bombards Tripoli with the airforce, and black african mercenaries are going through Tripoli with machine guns shooting real bullets at anything that moves..!! We can't sleep at night, we try to protect our houses, yesterday, my neighbor of 25 years got a bullet to the head, we burried him only a few hours ago,
The Ghadafi regime is falling, but with many deaths among us, I hope to be able to stay alive until the Liberation, the world doesn't know what is happening in Libya..but it is truly terrible..!! Dead and injured are thrown into the streets, no one can help them because the mercenaries and snipers shoot at them..!!
Ghadafi is crazy, but he has never been as crazy as now, he wants to kill all Libyans before he leaves..
No one can imagine what we are going through..!!
I hope to see you again, if I survive..!
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
I read that durring the battle of Falujia, the prefered method of destroying an enemy strong point was not an airstrike, but a 120MM canister round from a tank. Since most of the fighting was in such close quarters, air or arty was not accurate enough to use.
Basicly a 120MM track mounted shotgun with 1000 3/8 tungsten balls. That'll knock down a brick house nicely, while not hitting any friendlys next door.
Very nice. A good use for armor in an urban area.......
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
It's plenty accurate...but (at that time) made too big of a boom.
I know of F-15Es that were flying at that time with 500-pounder inert bombs for use in high collateral damage areas, but I have to wonder what effect that really had when it hit.
Now Strike Eagles can sport the 250-pound GBU-39, which packs a much smaller punch and is specifically for destroying one floor of one small building, and not touching the surrounding stuff.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
That was my thought as well.
Acording to what I read, one of the advantages of the canister shell over air or artywas that the frag pattern was directional, vs 360 degrees with a 500-lb or arty round. The grunts could be VERY close to the target as long as they were off axis to the line of fire.
I imagine a 500lb inert bomb would do about the same damage as a car driving into a building.
Orange Anchor
New Member
I would love to hear the comments of the pilots after the briefing about the ord on the pylons. "Today you're carrying six inert Mk.82s."
Makes about as much sense at McNamara's Whiz Kids having the Navy head into the north with empty pylons. This way it took more sorties to carry the ord and sortie count was a BIG measurement of what was going on. (The other one was where for a period of time in Vietnam, we ran out of bombs and had to buy bombs back from the Japanese. We had sold them as surplus. And too, because we had not given the French the nuke at Dien Bien Phu, the French cut up the A-1s we had given them rather than let us buy them back)
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
I remember reading that those old obsolete bombs were a factor in the USS Forestal fire. Their cook off time was much shorter which didn't give the fire crews enough time to put out the fire.
Orange Anchor
New Member
I had F-100s bringing down new Mk.82s sometimes and old Mk.117s. First strike I worked was with Mk.117s. The Mk.80 series was the Navy's newer low-drag bombs.
This is a -117. You can see the guys in the background fusing the -117 on the inboard station.
TUCKnTRUCK
That guy
To go back to my original point, nearly every reprt/article has said helicopter gunships were set on the protesters, not air fighters.
I agree that the pilots prob didn't agree with what was going on.. but I kinda feel those fighters were just stolen and sold (that's not a bad thing)
I agree that the pilots prob didn't agree with what was going on.. but I kinda feel those fighters were just stolen and sold (that's not a bad thing)
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Probably the same reaction my squadron had when we were informed that we'd be carrying SUU-20s with BDU-33s to use as marking devices in OIF!!
YGBSM.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
...and that feeling is still a massive conjecture.
http://content.usatoday.com/communi...eir-fighter-jet-rather-than-attack-benghazi/1
What?!?!?!
No FAC-As available in any other platform???
Jesus.....at LEAST use the 4 x 2.75 slots in the darn SUU-20 rather than BDU-33s...