Article

2014-07-21 Government

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Posted by Besoeker 2014-07-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 A development idea that a Pentagon bureaucrat can love. We're going to hunt SAM sites, so let's take the slowest moving fixed wing aircraft we got; take everything on it that works (and is cheap to use) off of it; put million dollar a pop missles on it, because the previous version doesn't allow for the building of a spending & R&D kingdom.
That's the ticket. All that's missing is stealth and VTOL; I'm sure they're trying to fit that in somewhere.

Posted by ed in texas 2014-07-21 07:30|| 2014-07-21 07:30|| Front Page Top

#2 The AC130 can carry SBDs which can be effective against mobile missile launchers as well as other things. The GBU-39 can be launched as far away as 50 miles and it can glide to the target. GBU-39.

Posted by JohnQC 2014-07-21 08:44|| 2014-07-21 08:44|| Front Page Top

#3 It glides less if the plane is slow.

Posted by Zorba Fleresh4606 2014-07-21 11:01|| 2014-07-21 11:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Actually not a bad upgrade to the AC-130 mission. Before it had to wait for the target area to be free from AAA and SAMs before going in. Now it can take down some before going in and providing close air support or targeted dumb munition deployment.

Not a super expensive upgrade or development either.

I like it.

Posted by DarthVader 2014-07-21 12:00|| 2014-07-21 12:00|| Front Page Top

#5 Just to endorse what Zorba said, here is the quote from the article:

a GBU-39 launched by a fighter aircraft at high-subsonic speed and at higher altitude can glide over fifty miles to its target.

Posted by Frozen Al 2014-07-21 12:02|| 2014-07-21 12:02|| Front Page Top

#6 Lockheed taking a page from the one size fits all Hornet playbook.

Seriously, if all you want is a bomb truck, and you don't care about stealth, you could reactivate a bunch of plastic winged INtruders and hang all this ordnance on them. they move fast enough to give that 50 mile glide range, have laser designators on them and if you ran them from the beach you wouldn't need to worry about cat and trap wear and tear and you could even leave the wings down and locked.....
plus you could hang a buddy store on them for more tanker support.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2014-07-21 15:13|| 2014-07-21 15:13|| Front Page Top

#7 Given that the cost of a kitted-out AC-130-family frame is less than a fourth that of a modern strategic bomber, it makes sense to use them as standoff smartbomb trucks if you can. But I'm still waiting for someone to try to convert a squadron of them into mobile carriers for high-performance air-supremacy UAV drones. Seriously, the moment someone figures out how to remove a pilot from the killing high-G environment of a cockpit, will be the end of crazy-expensive air-superiority fighters and the jocks that fly them.

The manned aerial warcraft of the future are going to be boxcars flying deep in a swarm of specialized defensive UAVs, stood just far enough off to keep them out of the killrange of enemy ground-to-air resources while close enough to maintain networked control of their own offensive weaponry and attack drones.

Posted by Mitch H. 2014-07-21 15:26|| 2014-07-21 15:26|| Front Page Top

#8 C-130s were used in Vietnam to launch Firebee reconnaissance drones over North Vietnam and Laos. Putting other types of drones on the airframe would be pretty simple, I think.

Posted by Old Patriot 2014-07-21 15:57|| 2014-07-21 15:57|| Front Page Top

#9 If you want to do SEAD missions, send an F-18G.

If you want a bomb truck, then go buy cargo 747-800's. Put in avionics and some racks that use the existing loading ramp as the bomb bay doors.

If you want to loiter over a target and blast it to smithereens, then use the AC130's.

Sending AC130's on a SEAD mission is about as dumb as making a cabbage, tuna, and orange salad for dinner.

Posted by rammer 2014-07-21 21:52|| 2014-07-21 21:52|| Front Page Top

#10 I think the USAF is thinking the same thing, #7, as I've read the service desires a potent, stealth-skinned "mothership" platform that can not only penetrate through oppos waves of combat-armed enemy UAVS but also destroy the same AMAP while doing so in support of Army-Marine ground forces.

The Pentagon is expecting US Grunts in the future to be "swarmed" by massive numbers of cheap-but-deadly Combat Drones in all combat dimensions, to include those belonging to the armed forces of Lessor or Minor Powers, not just OWG Co-Superpowers.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2014-07-21 22:55|| 2014-07-21 22:55|| Front Page Top

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