A-6 Intruder, Any Weather, Any Time....
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Old Wizard
2nd Lieutenant
Good one!
It's kind of amazing that the infrared system the A-6 had seemed to have little trouble in fog, and our drones have trouble these days. It's also kind of amazing how the US Navy seemed to have the ability to fight wars ranging from small to total wars and the USAF largely geared itself for total war until basically Vietnam
fubar57
General
With the Navy, your logistics are already in place. The AF would need set up time no matter what size of war
Fubar57
My critique was that the USAF was designed largely around total war first, and post 1945, that raised the spectre of nuclear weapons; the USN was able to fight wars ranging from total war with nuclear bombs, to mid-sized wars, and small interventions of a conventional nature, and that made it a better tool of power projection.
Well, it requires the USAF to have logistics in place ahead of time. However, I should point out from Korea to modern day, from what I see, we had bases all over the place...
My critique was that the USAF was designed largely around total war first, and post 1945, that raised the spectre of nuclear weapons; the USN was able to fight wars ranging from total war with nuclear bombs, to mid-sized wars, and small interventions of a conventional nature, and that made it a better tool of power projection.
Not so amazing about the infrared system issues at all. Two experienced locally informed brains on the scene are guaranteed to better interpret an ambiguous infrared image in real time than a non-aviator enlisted guy on the far side of the world can do despite all the telemetry, algorithms, and artificial intelligence he has at his disposal. "Been there, done that, and I'm on the scene" experience beats all that technology any day.
As for the AF and total war, their single greatest institutional influence 1945 to Vietnam was bomber boy Curtis LeMay, the ultimate total warrior, honed in the crucible of WWII, and fixed in mindset for life. He established a "temple of the faith" cult within the AF very like the the one around Hyman Rickover and his nukes in the Navy. LeMay's disciples IMHO were directly responsible for the horrendous B-52 losses over Hanoi during the Christmas offensive of 1972 due to their insistence on nuclear style delivery tactics in a situation where they were clearly suicidal.
Cheers,
Wes
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In the jet age USN every pilot maintains a realtime "howgozit", or fuel ladder, with an eye to the bingo fuel number. When you hit bingo you break off your mission and establish a max range profile back to the boat or to a shore base. There are many variables in this constantly evolving equation such as atmospherics, present position, aircraft configuration and condition, and even available tankers.
When the only airborne tanker goes sour in the middle of a major nighttime recovery in dirty weather with high winds and a pitching deck, 400 miles from the nearest land base, your bingo fuel number just jumped way up. With 13 birds in the air, no tanker up, pilot vertigo becoming endemic, and no practical shoreside field, somebody's going swimming tonight.
Cheers,
Wes
When the only airborne tanker goes sour in the middle of a major nighttime recovery in dirty weather with high winds and a pitching deck, 400 miles from the nearest land base, your bingo fuel number just jumped way up. With 13 birds in the air, no tanker up, pilot vertigo becoming endemic, and no practical shoreside field, somebody's going swimming tonight.
Cheers,
Wes
But wouldn't the image be the same whether collected from 25,000 feet over the target by a plane or drone be the same whether viewed in the cockpit of a plane or a trailer 7000 miles away?
There was also Hap Arnold, and Carl Spaatz. LeMay admittedly had the biggest influence on the USAF through SAC. Mostly because SAC was dysfunctional prior to 1948.
From what I remember SAC was basically run by General George Kenney who was actually lobbying to make the USAAF into the USAF. You'd think he'd have delegated somebody to make sure everybody was trained. At least LeMay insisted on training, but he trained in a manner that was very procedural and lacked innovation; he also took away most of the power from the numbered air-force units and instead allocated them to Nebraska, which ensured that everything was hyper-centralized. This layout only works for nuclear war, and works like shit for anything else.
Temple of faith?
The post-target turns, you mean?
As for the aircraft's flying in cells in precisely timed spacing on the same flight path, that was done by SAC, but not as part of the nuclear war plan. The nuclear-war plan from 1958-1962 called for a shitload of dog-leg maneuvers flown by a shitload of different aircraft all at once, the idea being that the combination of all these airplanes criss-crossing the skies all at once combined with chaffing, on-board ECM, specialized electronic-warfare aircraft would just overwhelm the hell out of air-defenses, especially when you have low altitude penetration by B-47's, B-52's, and B-58's, and the destruction of air-defense sites 200-400nm from the border by USAF fighter bombers, USN fighter-bombers, and attack planes, not even counting ballistic missiles screaming towards cities and even distributed defense sites (the Polaris had single warheads on some variants, three on others which were shot-gunned off around the same point in space).
The reasoning for Linebacker II's layout was that the B-52's were out of production, and thus irreplaceable; had nuclear-commitments in addition to this "little Vietnam thing", and they didn't want to risk mid-air collisions using multiple entry corridors with constant course-changes. Not that I want to trivialize mid-air collisions by friendly aircraft, but mid-air collisions with SAM's are much more lethal, and they are much more intentional, which generally makes them statistically more likely to occur...
Ironically the 8th Air Force did want to implement multiple entry/exit corridors even before Linebacker, but SAC refused it.
Other problems had to do with the cells themselves, for the following reasons
- Everything was predicated on a 3-ship cell: They never thought of doing four or five ship arrangements, which could be useful to implement provided a formation broke up and could re-unite with another
- Station keeping was needed using radar, and jammers make that difficult to do
First off, congratulations, Zipper, you've done your homework on SAC and the AF.
As for IR imagery, no the picture won't be the same. The Intruder crew will be looking at a raw image with a minimum of data processing, but with the ability to fine tune the sensors in accordance with local atmospheric conditions, and interpreting it in local context. They also likely will be at a much lower altitude, looking through less atmospheric moisture. The drone "pilot", most likely an enlisted non-aviator, will be viewing an image which has been passed through several interfaces and filters to "enhance" it's resolution, but can also obscure certain features of the image that the algorithm doesn't consider important. He/she probably has not had the experience of "groping around in the murk" at the controls of an actual airplane, and interpreting the visual cues from the cockpit, as well as not having the field of view the aircrew do. The drone driver is "viewing the world through a straw" and likely unaware of SAMs, flak bursts, or holes or thin spots in the undercast that aren't in the camera's field of view.
Hanoi, December 1972: why the repetitive predictable "bomber stream" if they had the doctrine and training for the multifaceted coordinated attack of the 1958-1962 war plan? They truly believed in flight safety over combat survival? The TAC boys who had been doing Hanoi for years tried to tell them how to survive that environment, but to no avail.
Temple of THE faith. The faith was true belief in the omnipotence of strategic bombardment, its prophet and idol of worship was Curtis LeMay, and the temple of the faith was Strategic Air Command.
There was a similar cult in the Navy around nuclear propulsion and Hyman Rickover.
Cheers,
Wes
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canaanchamp
Airman
I guess giving your average college graduate a stick, rudder, throttle, and a shiny piece of metal to pin on their cover makes him / her automatically more qualified than a trained enlisted man. Thankfully, I served and flew with very few officers that thought like that. Most that did didn't last long.
In addition to a stick, rudder, throttle, and a fancy hat, those "average" college graduates got 300-400 hours of ACTUAL INFLIGHT experience and hundreds of hours of additional training in simulator and classroom. Two years from Indoc to fleet squadron. Plus at the time in question they accumulated combat experience at a rapid rate and were mentored and trained by veteran crews in the squadron who'd danced that dance before.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a case of officer vs enlisted; it's more a matter of flier vs non-flier. The man on the scene vs the guy at the far end of 10,000 miles of electronics. Some of the gutsiest aviators out there were Army sergeant and warrant officer helo pilots. I know. I was an enlisted guy training officers how to intercept bad guys and how to fox their radars.
Cheers,
Wes
Don't get me wrong, it's not a case of officer vs enlisted; it's more a matter of flier vs non-flier. The man on the scene vs the guy at the far end of 10,000 miles of electronics. Some of the gutsiest aviators out there were Army sergeant and warrant officer helo pilots. I know. I was an enlisted guy training officers how to intercept bad guys and how to fox their radars.
Cheers,
Wes
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Thanks
I would have figured the image would have been sent without any modification, much in the same way that when I sent an image over the web from one person to another: It looks the same to everybody generally
So the image quality is affected by the atmosphere
They were obsessed with safety: I think that predilection started when jet-aircraft entered the arena
- B-47: Would bounce if you landed a little bit too nose-up, the high incidence also resulted in you either landing nose level or slightly nose-down.
- Century-Series Fighters: Many of them had handling characteristics that were unforgiving (if not unforgivable) for designs that were built in the WWII & Korean War era; the F-100, F-101, and F-104 had violent pitch-up characteristics (the F-100 would pitch up and yaw/roll left and right all over the place while the lip of the engine intake would also stall; the F-101 would pitch up, and if you could break that with full down elevator, it'd usually tumble all over the place; the F-104 would lock-up in that attitude, and while it could be powered out of, you'd sometimes go into a spin which had little prospect of recovery and you'd lose 15000 feet which happened to be the right altitude for combat and too low to reliably use the ejection seat early on)
And what they were going through in SEA would be something they'd experience potentially when carrying out a strike into the Warsaw Pact Countries and the Soviet Union. Admittedly, the AAA wouldn't be as well placed (in an effort supposedly to convince the Vietnamese we wouldn't attack population centers, government officials told the Vietnamese the targets we were going to attack), though it would have been greatly more accurate (using more sophisticated radar direction systems which the Vietnamese didn't appear to have most of the time), and the Soviet Union itself had a greater variety of missiles that were more dangerous to our aircraft.
In a way, some doctrines are kind of similar to cults actually...
Yeah, I could see the advantage of nuclear power in submarines for obvious reasons: On aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and stuff, my view is a bit mixed
- Carriers: In many cases the nuclear propulsion system not only provided greater power, but it also had greater endurance and required little fuel to be carried aboard for the ship itself, which lead to the ability to carry more fuel for the aircraft embarked; the problem is that while it could carry more fuel for aircraft, and run at full throttle longer: When it ran out of fuel, you had to cut through or disassemble huge portions of the ship; then remove or refuel the reactor; then rebuild all the stuff you took apart: It took years to do this in peace time, though in wartime I'd assume it'd be faster, but things happen faster in wars; having half your carrier force tied up in dock is kind of counterproductive. Refueling can normally be done at sea
- Cruisers: They're big vessels often required to protect the carriers, and expected to maintain a continuous endurance, which nuclear power allows. One can run for years without stopping, but if for one reason or another, you run out, you're going to end up spending a considerable amount of time having the ship in port disassembled, refueled, and re-assembled. As I said before, refueling can be done on the high-seas.
- Destroyers: They're fairly small vessels that don't seem to really depend on this, and the cost of the nuclear power system would reduce the total number of vessels available.
- Cost: Has to be measured not just in the vessels, but the fact that down-time is so extreme, that you need a supernumerary amount of vessels to cover those undergoing refueling. The fact that quantity has a value all it's own, there's a problem when cost limits the number you can build.
Yeah, truthfully I don't see the major issue: In WWII there were lots of pilots (even aircraft commanders) who were enlisted men and did their job with excellent skill. As for operating complex systems, submarines have sonar operators who have a remarkably hard job to do and are all enlisted men.
Zipper, I can't get my (un)smartphone to copy and paste properly today, so I'll just reference your comments.
You wondered why an unmodified image wasn't sent by the Intruder's IR system. There was no way to send it; the technology of data-linking through satellites was in its infancy and certainly not yet weapons-grade. The system wasn't intended for informing headquarters, it was intended to help flight crews groping around in the dark to find their targets. The degree of accuracy we have become accustomed to in the GPS age didn't exist back then. The best they had was inertial, which could get them in the vicinity, but not guarantee hits on target. IR combined with one of the first good ground mapping radars was what did the trick.
IR image affected by the atmosphere?
Didn't your science teacher teach you anything? An InfraRed image is a THERMAL image formed by mapping tiny differences in heat between all the objects in its field of view. Now how well do you think an IR sensor will be able to discern those tiny differences if it's looking through layers of tiny condensed water droplets(clouds)?
AF obsessed with safety?
Right on, man!! Look at the early years of military jet aviation; it was a bloodbath! Pilots ingrained with the behaviour and procedures of "high performance" recip aircraft, jets with some (as you noted) vicious vices, not the least of which was inexorable thirst and limited tankage. Add to that a (by today's standards) casual attitude about training, qalifications, and procedures, and a lack of really effective egress systems, plus the ever-present pressure of the cold war Soviet attack threat, and you have the recipe. ("Kick the tires, light the fires, first one off is lead, and we'll brief on guard channel!") The AF learned early on that the way to appropriations was to show Congress a low accident rate and a high (on paper) aircraft mission readiness rate. "Make'em feel like they're getting their money's worth." This of course became gospel.
Hanoi as a "warm up" for TAC to do USSR?
In some ways Hanoi may have been better defended than Moscow. Though Moscow (Leningrad, Stalingrad, etc) might have had some higher tech, they were in peacetime mode and not facing daily attacks. A sudden surprise strike would likely have exposed a lot of loopholes in their armor, as that German kid in his Cessna 172 did a few years later. Remember, the Soviet system relied on teenage two-year conscripts, most of whom had limited technical training.
Nuclear propulsion?
The amount of "cutaway" required to refuel a carrier isn't as bad as all that. Carriers, like any complex machine operated in a hostile environment, require overhauls to keep the machinery running and updated. That's when they get refueled. The Navy knows better than to stretch nuclear fuel to the "must do now!" limit. The extra tankage freed up by the nuclear fuel is often used to extend the endurance of the carrier's escorts (many of whom are gas turbine powered and thrive on JP), thus reducing the risk exposure of the fleet's precious supply ships. "Amateurs think tactics, dilettantes think strategy, professionals think logistics."
Enlisted pilots in WWII?
In 1974, I was sent out to the ops flight line to fuel a DC-9 that belonged to a Navy composite squadron, and was astounded to discover the aircraft commander was an E-9 Master Chief Aviation Pilot (a rate I had thought was long since abolished) with 36 years worth of hash marks on his sleeve. And flying in the copilot seat was a newly-frocked Navy Captain, the squadron commander. They both laughed at my obvious astonishment, and the Chief said "I flew Hellcats in the war with the Captain's dad, and he grew up with my kids. The lad's turned out alright." Later the Captain told me that the Chief was one of a select group of people including Hyman Rickover, Grace Hopper, Curtis LeMay, Chesty Puller, and a few others who were granted a Congressional Resolution each year allowing them to stay on active duty beyond normal retirement. He said: "On the ground I'm boss. In the air he's boss. He's type-rated in the aircraft; I'm not. He's Command Master Chief for the squadron and together we make it work." Apparently his composite squadron was a large organization operating many different aircraft types. Sounds like a major training and currency challenge, not to mention maintenance.
Cheers,
Wes
You wondered why an unmodified image wasn't sent by the Intruder's IR system. There was no way to send it; the technology of data-linking through satellites was in its infancy and certainly not yet weapons-grade. The system wasn't intended for informing headquarters, it was intended to help flight crews groping around in the dark to find their targets. The degree of accuracy we have become accustomed to in the GPS age didn't exist back then. The best they had was inertial, which could get them in the vicinity, but not guarantee hits on target. IR combined with one of the first good ground mapping radars was what did the trick.
IR image affected by the atmosphere?
Didn't your science teacher teach you anything? An InfraRed image is a THERMAL image formed by mapping tiny differences in heat between all the objects in its field of view. Now how well do you think an IR sensor will be able to discern those tiny differences if it's looking through layers of tiny condensed water droplets(clouds)?
AF obsessed with safety?
Right on, man!! Look at the early years of military jet aviation; it was a bloodbath! Pilots ingrained with the behaviour and procedures of "high performance" recip aircraft, jets with some (as you noted) vicious vices, not the least of which was inexorable thirst and limited tankage. Add to that a (by today's standards) casual attitude about training, qalifications, and procedures, and a lack of really effective egress systems, plus the ever-present pressure of the cold war Soviet attack threat, and you have the recipe. ("Kick the tires, light the fires, first one off is lead, and we'll brief on guard channel!") The AF learned early on that the way to appropriations was to show Congress a low accident rate and a high (on paper) aircraft mission readiness rate. "Make'em feel like they're getting their money's worth." This of course became gospel.
Hanoi as a "warm up" for TAC to do USSR?
In some ways Hanoi may have been better defended than Moscow. Though Moscow (Leningrad, Stalingrad, etc) might have had some higher tech, they were in peacetime mode and not facing daily attacks. A sudden surprise strike would likely have exposed a lot of loopholes in their armor, as that German kid in his Cessna 172 did a few years later. Remember, the Soviet system relied on teenage two-year conscripts, most of whom had limited technical training.
Nuclear propulsion?
The amount of "cutaway" required to refuel a carrier isn't as bad as all that. Carriers, like any complex machine operated in a hostile environment, require overhauls to keep the machinery running and updated. That's when they get refueled. The Navy knows better than to stretch nuclear fuel to the "must do now!" limit. The extra tankage freed up by the nuclear fuel is often used to extend the endurance of the carrier's escorts (many of whom are gas turbine powered and thrive on JP), thus reducing the risk exposure of the fleet's precious supply ships. "Amateurs think tactics, dilettantes think strategy, professionals think logistics."
Enlisted pilots in WWII?
In 1974, I was sent out to the ops flight line to fuel a DC-9 that belonged to a Navy composite squadron, and was astounded to discover the aircraft commander was an E-9 Master Chief Aviation Pilot (a rate I had thought was long since abolished) with 36 years worth of hash marks on his sleeve. And flying in the copilot seat was a newly-frocked Navy Captain, the squadron commander. They both laughed at my obvious astonishment, and the Chief said "I flew Hellcats in the war with the Captain's dad, and he grew up with my kids. The lad's turned out alright." Later the Captain told me that the Chief was one of a select group of people including Hyman Rickover, Grace Hopper, Curtis LeMay, Chesty Puller, and a few others who were granted a Congressional Resolution each year allowing them to stay on active duty beyond normal retirement. He said: "On the ground I'm boss. In the air he's boss. He's type-rated in the aircraft; I'm not. He's Command Master Chief for the squadron and together we make it work." Apparently his composite squadron was a large organization operating many different aircraft types. Sounds like a major training and currency challenge, not to mention maintenance.
Cheers,
Wes
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No problem, to err is human: To really (expletive) things up requires a computer...
No, I meant drones modern day...
What I meant was that you'd think a screen-shot taken in one location then sent by satellite to another would work fine.
Yeah, that is kind of laid back...
It's strange how the US Navy didn't seem to go as extreme...
That's a good point
Actually, they had the guy on radar for some time: They didn't want to have a KAL007 again, so they basically did little to nothing.
I didn't know that...
I didn't expect them to run until they were dead in the middle of the ocean... hell I usually would refuel my car when it reached about 1/2 to 1/4. It's preferable also to never go below 1/4 due to sediments or something...
LOL
They tried real hard: NATOPS, angled decks, optical landing systems, strenuous training regimes. But it all boils down to the inescapable fact that carrier aviation is an inherently riskier business, and the sea a more hostile environment than what the AF deals with. More wear and tear and corrosion on the equipment and higher standards of performance required of crews, leading to more opportunities for pilot error. All these "excuses" don't swing much weight with Congress, it seems.
The "Red Square Skyhawk"?
You're right, they did nothing; that's exactly the point. What if the kid had been carrying a small tactical nuke? He taxiied right up to the steps of the Kremlin. Do you think he would have got away with that in Hanoi in 1972? That whole episode was an exercise in ineptitude by supposedly one of the most potent defense systems in the world. Jets vectored to intercept him failed to see him. SAM sites couldn't get a launchable target return off him. He was too slow for their Moving Target Indicators, just like the Cuban AN-2 that gave us a surprise visit one morning at the Naval Air Station.
Cheers,
Wes
True, but nonetheless they seemed to have more common sense about the need for safety, yet doing so in a way that allowed for combat effectiveness.
That might be the reason, plus the US Navy seemed to have an attitude that favored a "think on your feet" culture. They seemed to come up with a favorable compromise.
I'm surprised the USAF didn't realize with combat operations being what they were, that one had to be able to compromise between the need for improvisational thinking with the need for safety procedures in certain cases.
Moscow would have suffered a crater, some serious blast-forces and a decent firestorm that would have burned up a sizeable portion of the city.
No, if they could track him: They'd have shot him out of the sky as quickly as they could have.
I thought they were tracking him but didn't fire because they didn't want a KAL007 all over again...
Holy cow
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fubar57
General
.....seriously?
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