Gunship ideas

[LemonJello]

LJ,

Your gunship is obviously superb, but Sentinel Chicken did some P-3 gunship profiles back in '07.

Regards,

Mav

Well, shoot.  Figures it was too good an idea not to have been done before.  I'll have to go check those out. 

Lots of possibilities with CH-46s, -47s or -53s...like the Guns-a-go-go from Vietnam.  Supression of the enemy at the LZ while the battle taxis unload...

[Maverick]

LJ,

To be honest, Guns-a-go-go as a concept was dead in the water.  Large transport helos didn't have the agility to be effective gunships over the LZ and in all actuality just gave Charlie something larger to shoot at.  Hueys and later Cobras were a much more effective platform for the mission.

Even now, something like the Merlin or NH-90 would be a bad choice over Apache or Tiger to perform an LZ suppression role.

Regards,

Mav

[Mossie]

Which I guess comes back to helicopter gunships & why smaller craft have developed into the gunship role, although some mid sized helicopters like the Mi-8 & Cougar, even the Hind have taken this up to some extent.  As far purpose designed helicopter gunships go, they tend to be relatively small & light.

Take the recent rescue mission in Afghanistan by Royal Marines.  Chinooks & Pumas would have been available in time, but they decided to hang on tight to the stub wings of an Apache as it was available immediately & offered them the best chance in a hot engagement.

[Maverick]

Simon,

The Apache's rescue was daring, brave & everything else, but it wasn't tactically sound in my opinion.  With guys hanging off the aircraft, it's mobility would have been severely impaired and it's vulnerability to groundfire increased exponentially.  As a 'best chance', I honestly doubt it.

I think Lynx would have been a better option rather than a Chook or Puma or an Apache for that matter.

It was done as an emergency response, quite simply, not as a tactically sound, well considered option.  Luckily for the men aboard, it was successful, but I really doubt that it would be considered an intelligent choice for the future.

Regards,

Mav

[Mossie]

I agree with you their Mav.  I vaguely remember hearing that a Chinook would have been available quite quickly, & my thought was, why didn't you follow the Apaches up in that?  But, I wasn't on the ground & I've got a feeling they just wanted to get their mate back in a hurry before things unmentionable happened.

[Maverick]

Most definitely Simon, I think it was exactly that.  It was amazingly done, to be sure, but the risks were trememndous.

Regards,

Mav

[jcf]

Most definitely Simon, I think it was exactly that.  It was amazingly done, to be sure, but the risks were trememndous.

Regards,

Mav

But it made great headlines and no doubt a cinematic treatment is in the works. 

[LemonJello]

Well, I did whip up this little beauty as an escort for the V-22 from a 1/48 OV-1 Mohawk and a 1/72 V-22:



The protors do have a limiting effect on where you can hang stuff that goes "boom" so I had to go with a limited number of stations clustered near the centerline.  You could still hang bombs from under the wings, but most missiles would be out.

Could a S-3 Viking or C-2 Greyhound have possibility for gunship-ization?  Carrier landings would offer up some additional problems for the weapons hanging out the side of the airframe, I suppose...

[Shasper]

Yeah thats a possibility . . .

Shas

[Archangel]

What about the CASA C-295/C-27J?

I think there was a profile or a mention of using P2V Neptunes like they did in Vietnam and there are the models of the B-25 and A-26 used in WWII. You could do up a few B-24s I suppose using .50 cals and 20mm guns.

[jcf]

Spanish Civil War Ju 52 3/m with 12.7mm T.u.F. MG and 20mm Oerlikon FF.

The T.u.F. was a late WWI German development and was basically a scaled up Maxim 08, the T.u.F. influenced the post-war development of the Browning M2 .50 HMG, the cartridge for the US weapon being a copy of the German round.


Jon

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Spanish Civil War Ju 52 3/m with 12.7mm T.u.F. MG and 20mm Oerlikon FF.

The T.u.F. was a late WWI German development and was basically a scaled up Maxim 08, the T.u.F. influenced the post-war development of the Browning M2 .50 HMG, the cartridge for the US weapon being a copy of the German round.

Bet they were really regretting that when it came back to bite them in the a$$ during WWII where the Browning weapon was responsible for destroying so many Kraut targets. 

[jcf]

Brit airship with 2lbdr Pom-Poms for colonial duties, AKA the WOG-Walloper. 

Jon

[kitnut617]

Later on I'm going to have a bash at this.  But I think that as it's a brand new design, a proper gunship version could be designed into it before any are built and I think that it should have turrets,  this is so that a predictable orbit (like in any other gunship today) would be eliminated, plus it would have the added 'surprise' factor of a head on attack.  It's interesting to note that the V-22 is getting a ventral turret installed for it's CSAR role, made by BAE of all people.

[LemonJello]

Later on I'm going to have a bash at this.  But I think that as it's a brand new design, a proper gunship version could be designed into it before any are built and I think that it should have turrets,  this is so that a predictable orbit (like in any other gunship today) would be eliminated, plus it would have the added 'surprise' factor of a head on attack.  It's interesting to note that the V-22 is getting a ventral turret installed for it's CSAR role, made by BAE of all people.

Now, THAT is cool.  I had been mulling over the possibility of making a 4-engine tiltrotor, but never really thought about a gunship variant (that sound is me smacking my forehead).  That is a brilliant idea!  If I can find a C-123 or Transall in 1/48, it just may be the basis for something along these lines.  I think I'd have to try and cast the nacelles and protors instead of bashing 2 V-22 kits.