Future of helo land

[skidkid]

The 60 guys on our ESG didnt go feet dry because of a few equiptment shortfalls that may hvae been adressed now. When I was doing MEU work ups as a FAC I was told at one point that 60s would pick up a gap that was in the R/W CAS plan. I said great excpet noone had a chance to train with them to that role at all. The nice thing a MEU is I knew all the CAS players, I knew who I wanted shooting close to my guys and who I needed to send a little deeper. I had not seen the 60 guys shoot at all and wasnt sure about how they operated, I realize that we are all preofessionals but even sitting down with them and talking through would have paid dividends.

My advice to the 60 guys who head off on ESGs is get with the MEU and or BLT air shops and talk CAS, come out to shoot for one of the TACP shoots and build that working realtionship so they can request you. Not sure if you would get to leave the ships if they get shore based but you never know.
VBSS should be your baby be agressive about getting those missions wiht the MEU. Not a lot I can do as a Cobra guy for VBSS either I blow the sh!t out of it or I dont, you guiys can bring more proportiananlity to it and augment the Hueys.

 

[Chubby]

What exactly is NSW? And besides that and the potential of Air Ambulance missions what all do the HC bubba's do, mission wise, etc.?

 

[Pags]

NSW=Naval Special Warfare...flying the SEALs around.

And HC is now HSC (with the possible exception of the 53 squadrons) and they do a lot of VERTREP right now. But they're expanding to do NSW stuff and getting the armed helo in the future. I think they were supposed to get the HM mission as well, but I've heard that that has gone by the wayside because the 60 just doesn't have the pull that the 53 had for the sled.

 

[Crowbar]

When was the last time a Rotary Wing Naval Aviator was awarded a personal award for valor?

Don't know about the Navy, but the Marine Corps has had a couple win them in Iraq (Silver Stars I believe).

The unit's air combat element participated in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan's Shah-e-kot Valley to flush out and kill or capture enemy fighters via the air. A detachment supporting Anaconda, HMM-165 (Rein), garnered 14 awards for its service, including a Bronze Star for the commander, Air Medals for six Cobra pilots and Army Commendation Medals for seven support Marines.

Serving as a FAC, but technically still a RW aviator...

I can't find more details right now...I do remember reading the citations on the TBS quarterdeck last time I was on duty. When I find more, I'll post it...

 

[Gatordev]

Part of the problem on the Navy side, at least for the HSL guys, is funding. They keep increasing all the stuff we're supposed to train for, but limit hours and barely give us any ammo to train w/. Before the last two dets that are going out w/ ESGs and CSGs in my squadron, I was one of about 3 JOs who had actually fired a hellfire. That's abysmall, especially when HSL is supposed to be the bread and butter (along w/ the Army) for defending certain asian countries from another certain asian country.

And Chuck, I totally agree. It's a point I even brought up at my last ARP prior to deployment, and one that wasn't all that well received by the head SWTI, since I was basically saying the emperor had no clothes. Another problem during OIF was that the planners really didn't know what LAMPS can bring to the table, which is sad. I had a couple of buddies that were over there, watching SH's yacht, fingers on their pickles. The next day, they came back out, and it was destroyed by AC-130s, because they didn't want to risk it.

As for HC, the HC (now HSC) Sig guys are heading over already, and are starting to do some overland missions. Apparently the other services have had enough and are pressuring the Navy to finally play.

 

[Pags]

So the 53 guys are the ones doing the overland stuff?

 

[Pags]

Also, for more on the future of Naval Helos, the Fleet Fly In is scheduled for 25-27OCT at beautiful South Whiting, or so says the NHA page.

 

[HH-60H]

But from what I understand, if you're not flying a CSAR/TURF mission (and isn't that only a few guys who actually fly those operationally?), then it's Starbord D, w/ occaisional ASW or log flights.

We do other things too, but not quite in the same capacity as you. Since we report to CAG, the kind of stuff he has us do day to day is STARBOARD D and so forth. But when other WC's get to use us, then it is a whole different story. When we work for the SCC then he tries to get us to do all that same kind of crap that you do, always forgetting that we don't have a radar.
And then when something big goes down the Admiral will let us do a CSAR det, go do some MIO with NSW, the really cool stuff, etc. It is a common misperception that only some of us fly certain missions. It really depends on the skipper. In my squadron all JO's (who were capable) qual'd lvl 3 in all missions. Now if the S*** hits the fan, then sure they start at the top using the most experienced pilots and work their way down. But if we were doing some cool ops that lasted awhile, all the qual'd JO's would get in on it. I have seen JO's do actual ship take downs and stand CSAR strip alerts in Pakistan. In fact is often smarter to pair a senior JO up with the Skipper/XO/DH so atleast someone in the cockpit knows how to do all the button crunching, systems, etc.
Along those lines, yes, most HS pilots I know want to go HSC and keep doing/training the overland stuff.

 

[HH-60H]

When was the last time a Rotary Wing Naval Aviator was awarded a personal award for valor?

Quite possibly very recently, on the Navy side. HCS-4 or 5 (I forget which, the east coast one) had a det in Iraq, where they did some very down in the weeds stuff with some operators.

Again - where did the culture of high risk, mission dedicated, war fighting mentality go (a la HC-7 or HS in the 60's) go? When will it ever come back?

Well you are little off target with this. Conducting ASW, especially in the 70's and 80's was/is no less important or a mission dedicated war fighting mentality than anything else. However, I know what you are saying, and in HS some people try to keep that alive. However, it is more of a textbook high risk, mission dedicated, war fighting mentality, because no one has any green time. We only know about what we have read from Vietnam, and more recent other service experiences. And it has not been a lack of willing aircrew and capable platforms, but just a subjugation of Navy helos in general.

You guys/gals have earned your seat at the table as far as combat operations go - so why won't Navy Flag level allow you to prove your abilities in combat?

I believe I addressed that in an earlier post, it is a lack of assets.

 

[HH-60H]

So the 53 guys are the ones doing the overland stuff?

I don't believe Navy 53's do overland stuff, and I know atleast one of the 53 sqdns does not use NVG's.

If that is what you are looking for, go HS. We do overland/water NSW support and CSAR. We also use Hellfire in ASU, and supposedly CAS. :spin_125: Of course we also do ASW, but day to day we do Starboard D.

If that is not enough for you, then go USMC.

 

[HH-60H]

Hopefully, this means that Navy helos will be allowed to prove their abilities (and hopefully sometime in the next 5yrs).

Hahaha, Navy Helos have been looking for that since atleast Desert Storm.
I feel that when there are two helo sqdn's on the carrier, and they both report to CAG and then the Admiral, everyone will see that there are enough helo assets to go around, and we will start going inland. AND helos will get more representation, and do a whole lot better job of advertising. The biggest problem of all is that no one knows what everyone else can do.
In an airwing, all the FW sqdns know what each other can do (to a point), because they all fly together and do strike packages together. In RW we don't even know what our sister communities can do. Navy RW sqdns rarely do anything together, where FW starts working together in Fallon over 6 months before deployment.

 

[Chubby]

What's the deal with the air ambulance mission? Is the Navy picking that up as a viable mission for some of the RW communities, or is that just the rumor mill again? If so, which communities would be getting the nod, and what all would that entail? Stripping the helo of weapons and painting a big red cross on the side, or what?

 

[skidkid]

You dont have to be stupid and strip weapons and paint crosses to be an air ambulance. I dont know why the Army does that, the savages we fight in this day and age dont honor it anyway. Why not have all the medical gear and a couple of door guns? You dont have the "protection" of the Geneva convention but that doesnt do much good anyway, I think the protection of two GAUs would be more effective and satisfying

 

[Gatordev]

I don't know if it's "-53s" or Sierras that is actually doing the mission, but HC-whatever from Sig is the one going overland. They, at least used to, have the non-minehunting -53s. That's straight from a friend of a friend, so I think it's fairly reliable.

 

[HH-60H]

In RW we don't even know what our sister communities can do.

gatordev- Our discussion about 53's proves my point exactly. The two of us an HS pilot and an HSL pilot, barely even know what an HC sqdn is doing. When we get assigned to some joint staff somehwere and we are the Navy helo "expert" (because we are the only Navy helo guy around) we can't even tell the Admiral/General what Navy RW can bring to the table.