FMA IA-58 Pucara COIN aircraft.

Hey man, don't feel obligated. I was just interested that's all. All good stuff though.

My dad told me about the Rapiers, Glider. They would hit the enemy aircraft, explode and not do a single thing or they would just bounce off. The warhead was too small on the missile.

Plan D.
I don't want to upset anyone but the Rapier used in the Falklands didn't have a warhead, it relied on hitting the plane directly. A missile of that size (45kg), going at the speed it does (Mach 2.5) will not, I promise you, bounce off anything.
In the armed forces they prefer to nickname it a hittile not a missile as it has to hit the target.
A fragmentation warhead with a laser proximity fuse was developed and is in use in the Mark 2 which is compatible with earlier launchers. Most countries have now upgraded their systems to cater for this.

Do you want to tell my dad that the Rapiers didn't bounce off the aircraft? Being that he and a lot of lads there either saw it or spoke to the Rocks and Grunts firin' 'em and seeing them hit the aircraft and not do ANYTHING.

Simple maths and Physics. Put it another way, a car roof is probably as thick as a planes skin. So if a 100lb rock falling from a cliff with a terminal velocity of around 120mph, wouldn't bounce off your car roof. Why would a streamlined missile going roughly 18 times faster bounce off the same roof?

It's not though, is it? Because if the Rapier operators witnessed their own missiles bouncing off the target and not even bringing it down, there's obviously something that's happening with the missiles that the piece of paper isn't telling you.

I'm sorry but I'm going to believe the people who saw it more than a piece of paper.

Your call. My guess is that the people involved saw near misses. With the smoke of the missile, fog of war, tension and understandable confusion, plus a missile that only has to miss by an inch not to do any damage it is understandable.

There is one fact that cannot be argued about and that was that the AA defences were very effective. The AA defences around the shipping are point defence weapons and the most important aspect is that not one ship in the defended area was hit by an attacking plane. The navy took a bashing outside protecting the harbour area but nothing inside was damaged.
The survival of the Canberra is the proof of that point.

Well, I won't disagree that the AA defences were excellent on the Royal Navy.

Well, I won't disagree that the AA defences were excellent on the Royal Navy

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Hmmm...are you sure about that sure about that..? The Royal navy was desperately needed for some point defence sistem, like the 20 mm Gatling or the 30mm Goalkeeper.

I'm pretty sure about that, since the AAF was getting dropped by the Royal Navy's AA defences just as much as they were by the Sea Harriers.

The Sea Dart was probably the best naval medium range AA missile at the time anywhere and those ships with the Seawolf had the best point defence weapon.
I think nearly all the others had the Seacat which was as good as most navies had but was a bit long in the tooth by the early 80's.
A point defence gun such as the Phoenix would have been invaluble but at the time the RN was selecting one. The Phoenix wasn't the favourite as the 20mm was seen as being lacking the range and a larger 30mm was preferred. It was just a matter of timing that we didn't have one.

Plan D is correct in that what we had was effective and I seriously doubt if any other navy in the world with similar forces would have done any better.

I suspect that the USN wouldn't have gone near the area without at least three carrier groups.

And the fact that Britain organised it's task-force to re-take the islands in three days just adds praise to the skill and organisation of the British forces.

All right... is seem that the topic "anti-aircraft defences of the Royal Navy in the 1982 war" is out right now, so let me continue with my beloved little aircraft.

From the COIN to the CAS, the proyected Pucara A-58: Part 1:

The Close air support are defined as:

Air action by fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and that require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces.
A study of the USAF of years 60 determined the following characteristics of an airplane for operations CAS ( close air support):

1-Aptitud to operate from short and primitive aerodromes

2-Confiable and easy to maintain in land.

3-Capable to transport a great amount of armament and specifically to destroy infantry and armored vehicles.

4-Sufficient autonomy to find the objective to identify it like enemy and to destroy it.

5-Max speed at least 600 Km/h, but must be the sufficiently maneuverable in order to turn on the place battle of way of not breaking away from the visual enemy with the target.

6-Aptitud for the survival, with capacity of absorber the fire from earth and that allows returns out of danger to the base with the pilot.

7-Un low price relative to the modern supersonic reactors.

From these armored concepts and the threat of in Europe, the A-10 and Ah-64 were developed, and before, the Ah-1 during the war of Vietnam.

I allow myself to add:

8-Capable to fight attack helicopters (type Ah-1, Ah-64, Mi-24, etc).

9-High capacity for self-defense AA against airplanes of attack of inferior rank, originated basically in trainers to reacción(A-36, Hawk100/200, Alpha Jet, etc).

10-Equipment to operate in bad weather and at night.

11-Integrated sistem of communications AA and AS to coordinate the operations. (Action of forward air controllers in earth and airplanes type Ov/rc-1, Rc-12, AEW, etc in the air).

12-Suit integrated of sensors of alert radar (RWR), laser and TO GO Countermeasures TO GO, integrated dipoles and disturbers. (dramatic Increase of portable and movable threat AAA and SAMs from aims of 70s).
Friend or foe (IFF), due to the variety of threats and targets AA y SA


In order to adapt the IA-58 to this operation and taking as starting point the IA-58C , is in development the A-58 version.

IA-58C


Proyected attack version Pucara A-58:


This version deleted completely the rifle calibre and medium calibre machineguns and introduced an all cannon armament.

The fixed armament:

The 20 mm guns in study to replace the already old HS-804 are:

Vektor GA1 ( 20x83mm)



Pontiac M-39 ( 20x102)



GIAT M621 ( 20x102)



In also in consideration to increase the calibre to 30 mm, in this case the only razonable gun is the Giat-Defa 554:




Bombs and missiles:

The A-58 should use some of the especial purpose bombs alredy in service with the AAF.

FAS-280



High explosive 34 Kg fragmentation bomb, the blast effect is increased with the adittion of 3500 9 mm diameter steel balls with are capable to penetrate 10 to 20 mm of armour in a 100 meters radius.

FAS-800



250 kg anti Anti personal bomb, it use a proximity fuze with detonate the bomb about 20 -30 meters over the ground delivering 38.000 steel balls at supersonic speed, also caused a very nasty effect againt parked aircrafts and unarmoured vehicles. There is a 125 kg model called FAS-800B.

FAS-250


Parachute drag retarded bomb, it can be dropped safely even to altitudes of 30 meters to 0,95 Mach.

FAS-300



This is a very adaptable cluster bomb, it can be filled with 220 bomlets, or 88 mines. The mines can cover 58.500 square metes and his delayed time fuse could be set from 0,5 seconds to 54 hours.

FAS-850



Stand-Off bomb. It is rocket assisted and it can reach about 20 km range dropped from a 35000 feet altitude.

CITEFA Martin Pescador:



Air-to-ground subsonic missile, it carry a shaped charge warhead and could be equipped with a IR or laser guidance.

thats a neat twin engine plane.

A little more pics of the "new-old" IA-58 Delta, good against guerrilla, and Anti-war, anti-globalization, and anti-everything protesters 8):





In flight:






Pictures extracted from: http://www.saorbats.com.ar/GaleriaSaorbats/Reynolds05/index.htm

Very Cool!

Nice pics Charles!

reminds me of the alpha jet


( the 2 seat verion ofcourse )


but i really like the look of that aircraft. and..looks like it performed really well too.

reminds me of the alpha jet

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You mean that the AT-63 remind you the Alpha Jet.

The only german thing that carry this aircraft is the Dornier supercritical profile wing, wich gave to it a very good handling and aerobatic capabilities at low speed, but is nor designed for high Mach numbers.

Off course it share the general fuselage layout but those and different in shape and measures ( remember that the Alpha is twin engined and swept wing, the Pampa single engine and have standar wing)

I suspect that the USN wouldn't have gone near the area without at least three carrier groups

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Eh, that I doubt. In the past, the US has deployed one carrier and its support ships and done pretty well. I'm not positive, but from all the records I remember seeing, there was only one carrier of the USN involved in GW:1. Also, if what you're saying is that Royal Navy carriers carry 20 Sea Harriers, I can assure you that USN carriers have quite a few more planes to throw around. Added to the normal task force of missle cruisers, destroyers, and assault ships (which have their own aircraft, usually Harriers as well), and there is a pretty significant force contending the take over of anything. Would it win a war battle with, say, Soviet Russia? Questionable, but the USN tries to limit the amount major forces in one single combat zone (like the old saying, don't put all your ranking officers in one boat). Still, I have to admire those pilots, especially if they were aware that they had no replacements readily available. I also admire the Argentinians, although not for what they were going to do, but rather for keeping up the fight, even with some out-dated units.