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Romeos Vs. Sierras

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
AKA "The Batwings"

The EWS turns the Sierra into a light gunship along the lines of the Army DAP birds. 20mm, hydra rockets, & hellfire. As folks have alluded to, it's one of many missions as well as a new capability, so we're not Apaches or Cobras, nor do we have the resources to be. That being said, there's lots of room to grow with it.

I think people are trying to draw this "Apaches and Cobras" parallel/comparison with the Sierra WAY too much. No. We are DEFINITELY NOT Apaches or Cobras. I think we should be drawing the parallel between the H60 and newer Marine Hueys. After all, that IS what the 60 was designed to replace for the Army and the Marines employ their Hueys overland as gunships with CSW and the mini-guns and rockets.

So let's get away from the "Apache/Cobra" thing and start making it a fair comparison. Rolling off of a 20mm run into gun patterns with 2 GAU 21s with 2 experienced crewmen in the back is nothing to shake a stick at.

But like I said earlier, we have a community (and Navy for that matter) SLAP FULL of WTIs who've never actually done ANYTHING outside of heavily controlled shoots on ranges so our foresight and depth on how to effectively fight our helicopter is pretty freakin' shallow.
 

SynixMan

HKG Based Artificial Excrement Pilot
pilot
Contributor
But like I said earlier, we have a community (and Navy for that matter) SLAP FULL of WTIs who've never actually done ANYTHING outside of heavily controlled shoots on ranges so our foresight and depth on how to effectively fight our helicopter is pretty freakin' shallow.

Seriously, what WTI pissed in your wheaties? Like, fuck them for trying to give you the best synthetic training they can with limited resources? You can agree the merits of why we're doing things, but blasting the guys working hard to make something work seems like wasted effort to me.
 

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
Seriously, what WTI pissed in your wheaties? Like, fuck them for trying to give you the best synthetic training they can with limited resources? You can agree the merits of why we're doing things, but blasting the guys working hard to make something work seems like wasted effort to me.

I think you misinterpret what I'm getting at. I don't have a problem with synthetic training or trying to get the best out of limited resources. I realize all too well what those guys are trying to do. I'm arguing the merits of what they're pushing as the "standard" in our community and the structuring our SWTP in relation to the FRS and how it is implemented. It's a problem that is bigger the weapons schools. Although, you absolutely cannot deny the utter lack of REAL experience amongst our WTIs. All that I am saying in the above is that if the JOs that eventually become WTIs were guys with green time or more than one flying tour under their belts then the mindset at our weapons schools would change a lot.

That being said, I do feel like the training, experience, opportunities, and resources that our SWTIs get is something that all JOs should have available to them (minus the ass-pain of level 3 or 4 briefs/flights because I believe that stuff interferes with valuable learning rather than enforces it). I go to our SWTIs quite frequently with questions and RFIs for training. I just feel it's unfortunate that our most experienced people are, well, not actually all that experienced. It's not a knock on them personally. It's me trying to highlight another facet/point of view on the 'identity crisis' that is our community and the reasons behind it.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
Green time is not a prerequisite to being a tactical expert. None of the aviators in the fleet on 6DEC41 had any green time but they still developed the doctrine and tactics that were trained to in order to counter the expected threat.
 

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
Green time is not a prerequisite to being a tactical expert. None of the aviators in the fleet on 6DEC41 had any green time but they still developed the doctrine and tactics that were trained to in order to counter the expected threat.

Agreed. But the key word in your sentence was 'developed'. They weren't tactical experts on 6 DEC 41. They were JOs (and young enlisted back then) who had to learn fast because shit got real, real quick. For that matter, most of them had flight training that more or less was equal to that of a civilian PPL and Instrument Rating these days. And, if you go back and look at the MISHAPs and casualties of that war, developing said tactics and procedures cost the Navy a lot of brave young men. In other words: they became tactical experts by getting 'green time' the hard way. Not unlike how developing the helicopter and developing the basic understandings of RW aerodynamics cost Igor Sikorsky numerous injuries and prototypes and crashes.

I'm not saying Green Time should be a direct requirement to be a WTI. Nor am I solely picking on WTIs but they play a large role in every community in Naval Aviation because our job is ultimately to fight wars. I'm just saying that experience should be a driving factor in what we're pushing our community to become and what we're going around saying the "standard" is and what we're going around advertising as "our missions." That said, I've heard the same complaints from the HSM guys so it's not just HSC. Just the identity crisis part.
 

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
Which brings us back around (I think?) to the original topic - tactics being developed in a vacuum. We can train guys to perfection that we're going to fight our helos by leaning out the back with polo mallets, but without using combat experience, or failing that, realistic and brutally honest evaluation, to judge those tactics, we're just signing up to lose people and airplanes. All the aggression and training in the professionalism in the world isn't going to mean a damn thing.

There's something to be said for investing in your pilots too. Training is all good and well but having 1) actually fired the weapons numerous times and 2) perhaps actually having fired them at bad guys is where you go from book knowledge to real knowledge of how to employ them. What good is a 20mm when the only pilots that actually shoot it more than once are the CO, XO, and certain O-4s and even they only shoot it a few times? What good are hellfires on the rails when no one in the helo has ever actually shot one?
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
Which brings us back around (I think?) to the original topic - tactics being developed in a vacuum. We can train guys to perfection that we're going to fight our helos by leaning out the back with polo mallets, but without using combat experience, or failing that, realistic and brutally honest evaluation, to judge those tactics, we're just signing up to lose people and airplanes. All the aggression and training in the professionalism in the world isn't going to mean a damn thing.
I think the original topic was WTIs with no tactical experience teaching tactics. And my point remains: there's no place to get relevant experience short of a war. Accurately assessing our tactics would require accurate knowledge of enemy capability, doctrine, and tactics; and it's not easy to paint the full picture of your potential foes strengths, weaknesses, etc.

I get what you're saying in that our tactics need to be tested. I just don't know how that could happen in a truly operationally realistic sense.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
I think the original topic was WTIs with no tactical experience teaching tactics. And my point remains: there's no place to get relevant experience short of a war...I get what you're saying in that our tactics need to be tested. I just don't know how that could happen in a truly operationally realistic sense.

Well...we've got a couple of those going on at the moment. If the idea is for HSC to be capable of going in hot, and if you don't want to commit the squadrons to the overland mission, why not at least start embedding WTIs with guys who are going over the beach?
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
There's something to be said for investing in your pilots too. Training is all good and well but having 1) actually fired the weapons numerous times and 2) perhaps actually having fired them at bad guys is where you go from book knowledge to real knowledge of how to employ them. What good is a 20mm when the only pilots that actually shoot it more than once are the CO, XO, and certain O-4s and even they only shoot it a few times? What good are hellfires on the rails when no one in the helo has ever actually shot one?
That's where you need to train to a goal such as CEP vice number of shots (which was a discussion at work the other day, oddly enough). Pilots should train to being able to hit a threat representative target within such and such a CEP so many times to say they're qualified. I'll let the stats nerds figure out the actual numbers, but you'd essentially train to a confidence level. Or you could use the data another way and be able to show that Unit X shot so many times with a CEP of so much while Unit Y got a different lower score. Unit Y would get more resources for improvement while Unit X would get enough resources to sustain.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
Well...we've got a couple of those going on at the moment. If the idea is for HSC to be capable of going in hot, and if you don't want to commit the squadrons to the overland mission, why not at least start embedding WTIs with guys who are going over the beach?
I'd agree that that would be a good idea for the SOF/PR mission set. But where do we send WTIs to get experience in the mission sets that truly matter for the Navy: SUW and ASW? MIW is at least a passive activity whereby you can set up a fake minefield and send the HM guys against it. ASW is almost easier to come by than SUW. We can get own subs for excercises. Where do you get the required threats for SUW?
 

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
I'd agree that that would be a good idea for the SOF/PR mission set. But where do we send WTIs to get experience in the mission sets that truly matter for the Navy: SUW and ASW? MIW is at least a passive activity whereby you can set up a fake minefield and send the HM guys against it. ASW is almost easier to come by than SUW. We can get own subs for excercises. Where do you get the required threats for SUW?

The 160th to fly the Army DAP 60s? Or maybe do some MEDEVAC with the normal Army 60 guys or fly little birds? Just a thought. Exchange tours aren't a bad thing. Maybe we could send our WTIs before or after they get their patch.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
The 160th to fly the Army DAP 60s? Or maybe do some MEDEVAC with the normal Army 60 guys or fly little birds? Just a thought. Exchange tours aren't a bad thing. Maybe we could send our WTIs before or after they get their patch.
I guess at the 160th you'd shoot a lot in a 60, which is better than nothing. It wouldn't be against maritime targets, so the skills wouldn't crosswalk perfectly but I could see the value there. Or just send some guys to marine skid squadrons or to fly apaches. I know when VX-1 developed the tactics for the 20mm guys flew with Huey bubbas and USAF Jolly guys. I'm not sure what MEDEVAC would do for you though.
 

jtmedli

Well-Known Member
pilot
I guess at the 160th you'd shoot a lot in a 60, which is better than nothing. It wouldn't be against maritime targets, so the skills wouldn't crosswalk perfectly but I could see the value there. Or just send some guys to marine skid squadrons or to fly apaches. I know when VX-1 developed the tactics for the 20mm guys flew with Huey bubbas and USAF Jolly guys. I'm not sure what MEDEVAC would do for you though.

MEDEVAC would give you a little related insight into the PR/SOF MEDEVAC/CASEVAC roles. The other branches don't do business the way we do (units tend to be specialized since they sort of have that luxury) so it would be difficult to get the 'all-encompassing' exchange tour but getting a slice of the pie will give you a pretty good idea of how the rest of it tastes.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
I tried to clean up the thread as best I could while keeping the WTI discussion here and the WWII stuff in the Military Aviation in General section.

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