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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Parsely]

AC-130's are for Third World curb-stomping, and would get shot down instantaneously by a "near-peer adversary" in a total war.  No matter how many guns and countermeasures you stick on low-flying a cargo-plane, it's still an easy target for anything with a shred of AA capability, as well as ground fire.

Fixed wing gunships were used in the Gulf War for anti-air defense missions to take out early warning radars, a war where the enemy was equipped with man-portable and vehicle borne anti-air missiles as well as fixed SAMs. Obviously they just need protection from combat air patrols just like any other bomber or rotary gunship where you'd take the same considerations with estimating enemy air defense before committing that resource, instead of saying "well the enemy has air defense I guess no more CAS forever y'all".

AAM is still a better idea when we have no AAM, but the assumption that gunships can't be used in a fight against enemies with technological parity is wrong, especially if we had a SEAD aircraft that was equipped to destroy radar-guided AAA and AAM emplacements.

E: Anti-radiation missiles in general would be awesome because you know what happens when enemy radar crews figure out we have missiles that home in on them? They start recognizing anti-radiation signals and then turn their radar off to avoid getting blown up, which means they can't fire their missiles. This tactic was used a lot in, for example, Vietnam (they had lots of fixed SAMs provided by Russia in that war) and air forces can took advantage of this suppression effect to accomplish another mission.

[Kot]

AAM is still a better idea when we have no AAM, but the assumption that gunships can't be used in a fight against enemies with technological parity is wrong, especially if we had a SEAD aircraft that was equipped to destroy radar-guided AAA and AAM emplacements.

AC-130s got shot down in Vietnam by fucking 37mm WW2 anti-air cannons by goddamn rice farmers without radar. During the Gulf War the AC-130 was used REALLY fucking carefully, mostly at night (considering their night vision is really fucking good, and out of us two, Cannalans have a lot better night vision, because we don't have any), and the one time they slipped up a lone dude with a Strela took it down. Do not ever use a gunship in a fight against enemies with technological parity, unless you have ways to protect it and/or some other edge over the enemy, which we don't.

SEAD aircraft are an enterietly different story, and I actually see a possibility for one being used during this war.

[Madman198237]

[words]

Apologies, I got tired of arguing with the Cannalans today already.

What a *huge* surprise. It's all right man, I get that I try and out-salt the Canners sometimes too.

AAM is still a better idea when we have no AAM, but the assumption that gunships can't be used in a fight against enemies with technological parity is wrong, especially if we had a SEAD aircraft that was equipped to destroy radar-guided AAA and AAM emplacements.

AC-130s got shot down in Vietnam by fucking 37mm WW2 anti-air cannons by goddamn rice farmers without radar. During the Gulf War the AC-130 was used REALLY fucking carefully, mostly at night (considering their night vision is really fucking good, and out of us two, Cannalans have a lot better night vision, because we don't have any), and the one time they slipped up a lone dude with a Strela took it down. Do not ever use a gunship in a fight against enemies with technological parity, unless you have ways to protect it and/or some other edge over the enemy, which we don't.

SEAD aircraft are an enterietly different story, and I actually see a possibility for one being used during this war.

Dude, the NVA had radar pretty much everywhere, as mentioned. And yes, you can get shot down by 37mm cannons if you hang out within their range and they get lucky. The Reckless, however, is noted as extremely survivable, and can just start by using the tank cannon on anything chucking antiaircraft fire at it. Or, you know, it can just use all its weapons from just outside hostile range, because an elevated position increases range MASSIVELY. And as Parsely mentioned, they're far from useless, sitting ducks even with hostile antiaircraft capability. They'd be following VVF and Haast strikes on the enemy, which can cripple the major air defenses. Anything left is not going to manage more than a few potshots at our probably-still-Cheap gunships before getting shot down.

A neat idea might be a design that takes, say, the Thunderbird (Cheap and jet-propelled) and our ASM and turn the missile into a HARM (simplify the radar guidance system from the ASM so it just tracks radar emissions) and the Thunderbird a SEAD aircraft (so basically sprucing up the engines and adding a new, de-[Complex]'d, VVF-sized radar). Might be capable of crippling Cannalan warships and ground-based radar stations.

[Kot]

"Garlic" is essentially an infrared image converter tube similar to those "Cannalans" use with their Aswang night vision, and related to the infrared sensors we are using in missiles. Unlike Cannalan design however, ours doesn't include active lamps that illuminate the battlefield in infrared, which would mean that they're essentially useless, except, we are counting on Cannalans doing it for us - "Garlic" will enable our soldiers to see enemy sources of infrared light, while remaining relatively unseen themselves. This will enable us to kill Cannalan night vision users, or at least force them to stop using their night vision, at a fraction of cost of a full night vision device.

The "Garlic" should come as a scope that fits the old mounts, including the vehicle ones, and a set of binoculars that are essentially two scopes bolted together. The power for the converter is supplied by a small battery pack that can be worn in one of our many pockets.

I feel like this should be decently easy as a revision, since we have infrared sensors from missiles, and could steal Cannalan shit partially, or something? "Garlic" because apparently Aswangs are some form of knockoff vampires, so we're using Garlic to ward them off.

[Powder Miner]

UFAF-AGS-44 'Endless Vigil' [with research credit]: (1) Madman
UF-GAM-44 "Noose" [with research credit]: (5) Kot, Cnidaros, NAV, ConscriptFive, Powder Miner

I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that the SAM is worthy of a RC design, has the best potential to shift the paradigm of battle like a great RC design should do (look at the Chupa), and is reasonably independent of dynamic advantages in its functionality.

[Madman198237]

I've got one problem with the Noose: How is it tracking a selected target? We don't have computers or any such things, and what allows it to detonate only when it reaches its "selected target"? And what general method is it using to home in on targets? Radar reflection from a ground-based radar station (i.e., located with the battery?), or does it carry its own small radar set?

[RAM]

UFAF-AGS-44 'Endless Vigil' [with research credit]: (1) Madman
UF-GAM-44 "Noose" [with research credit]: (5) Kot, Cnidaros, NAV, ConscriptFive, Powder Miner
Transistors [insert credit here]: 1 RAM

[Parsely]

AAM is still a better idea when we have no AAM, but the assumption that gunships can't be used in a fight against enemies with technological parity is wrong, especially if we had a SEAD aircraft that was equipped to destroy radar-guided AAA and AAM emplacements.

AC-130s got shot down in Vietnam by fucking 37mm WW2 anti-air cannons by goddamn rice farmers without radar. During the Gulf War the AC-130 was used REALLY fucking carefully, mostly at night (considering their night vision is really fucking good, and out of us two, Cannalans have a lot better night vision, because we don't have any), and the one time they slipped up a lone dude with a Strela took it down. Do not ever use a gunship in a fight against enemies with technological parity, unless you have ways to protect it and/or some other edge over the enemy, which we don't.

And yet the demand for fixed-wing gunships remained high throughout the war and they developed the AC-119 and AC-130 in response to this demand during Vietnam because of their excellent response time, accuracy, stamina, and firepower compared to any other CAS option, and a similar demand remained throughout Desert Storm and other operations. If we're going to be cherry picking events I could also cite Grim 31, an AC-130 which survived a Shilka in 2002.

Besides that, anything that threatens a gunship would threaten our other ground attack aircraft almost equally. Is there really a situation where you need a gunship to destroy something, and some other aircraft we had would be any safer doing the job while being just as effective?

[Madman198237]

If you like the gunship idea so much then please vote for it? 

[Parsely]

I already said that I think the AAM is a better choice at this time.

AAM is still a better idea when we have no AAM, but the assumption that gunships can't be used in a fight against enemies with technological parity is wrong, especially if we had a SEAD aircraft that was equipped to destroy radar-guided AAA and AAM emplacements.

I'm arguing with Kot's assessment of a gunship's utility in this climate of air defense, I'm not voting right now.

[Madman198237]

Right, forgot about that.

Maybe the AAM is the right choice, but I'd worry about friendly-fire incidents. We'd have to get sufficient radar and tracking range on these missiles to fire all the missiles before the enemy reaches the ground-combat lines. Otherwise the missiles become useless as the air battle takes place above them and they can't engage anything for fear of shooting down friendlies.

[NAV]

If there are friendly aircraft in the sky to shoot then we have already won the air battle.

[Kot]

And yet the demand for fixed-wing gunships remained high throughout the war and they developed the AC-119 and AC-130 in response to this demand during Vietnam because of their excellent response time, accuracy, stamina, and firepower compared to any other CAS option, and a similar demand remained throughout Desert Storm and other operations.

Because America keeps fighting against people with inferior firepower. While Madman would be led to believe, Vietnamese did not posses huge amounts of SAMs or even active conventional anti-air weaponry where the actual fighting was taking place for the most of the war, keeping it around the Northern Vietnam. The gunships were capable of operating relatively un-bothered until they weren't, and that's when the trouble started.

If we're going to be cherry picking events I could also cite Grim 31, an AC-130 which survived a Shilka in 2002.

I mean, I am sure that more of those gunships have survived near-death incidents, but the problem is that they have to get lucky to do so, while the enemy needs to be really unlucky to not shoot them down. If anything, taking in account Cannalan and Forenian luck, we're the unlucky party.
Also, consider this, there were multiple AC-130s shoot down by 37mm cannons. 37MM CANNONS FROM WORLD FUCKING WAR TWO. If American's newest magical air toy dies to what is essentially a slight upgrade over a squad of dudes with Mosins shooting at the sky, that probably could be bought for ten cows in some back-ass African country nowadays, there is a slight problem of cost effectiveness.

Besides that, anything that threatens a gunship would threaten our other ground attack aircraft almost equally. Is there really a situation where you need a gunship to destroy something, and some other aircraft we had would be any safer doing the job while being just as effective?

Other ground attack doesn't fucking circle somewhat slowly around the enemy position. It's showing giant fucking target, and it's flight path is predictable to extreme. The advantage of a gunship is easy time shooting things due to predictable trajectories, but the same applies in reverse - the enemy anti-aircraft is going to have field-fucking-day.

Right, forgot about that.

Maybe the AAM is the right choice, but I'd worry about friendly-fire incidents. We'd have to get sufficient radar and tracking range on these missiles to fire all the missiles before the enemy reaches the ground-combat lines. Otherwise the missiles become useless as the air battle takes place above them and they can't engage anything for fear of shooting down friendlies.

That's actually somewhat of a real problem, but I think this could be solved somehow. In reality the missiles lock down on a one target, so there would probably be someone aiming the missile at the planes he believes are enemy. There might still be a regular "just hit whatever" option when you're shooting with no friendles in the air, but I think that's roughly how it should be done. I might try to figure out some actual "tech" behind the guidance, even if I am extremly annoyed by it.

[Light forger]

We could just reuse the guidance system from our ASM. Which if we set the contrast setting really high would also let us use the missile at near ground level without it deciding to randomly annihilate shurbs. For the proxy fuse just reuse the range finder from the ASM and set to for the missile’s kill radius rather then 1000m.

Also you don’t use SAMs with allied planes in the air. You use them so you don’t have to call in fighters from an airfield an wait half an hour every time a copter shows up.

[Parsely]

If the missile locks on to a target's radar emissions then you might have to worry about friendly fire if the aircraft are practically on top of each other or a friendly aircraft is literally between the launcher and the target? But if the missile is command guided (a ground radar is gathering info and telling the missile how to move by radio) then you don't need to worry about that because a radar operator is picking the correct target. Unless the aircraft are like freaking dogfighting and they're 500m away from each other then you shouldn't have to worry about this.

Because America keeps fighting against people with inferior firepower. While Madman would be led to believe, Vietnamese did not posses huge amounts of SAMs or even active conventional anti-air weaponry where the actual fighting was taking place for the most of the war, keeping it around the Northern Vietnam. The gunships were capable of operating relatively un-bothered until they weren't, and that's when the trouble started.

I mean, I am sure that more of those gunships have survived near-death incidents, but the problem is that they have to get lucky to do so, while the enemy needs to be really unlucky to not shoot them down. If anything, taking in account Cannalan and Forenian luck, we're the unlucky party.
Also, consider this, there were multiple AC-130s shoot down by 37mm cannons. 37MM CANNONS FROM WORLD FUCKING WAR TWO. If American's newest magical air toy dies to what is essentially a slight upgrade over a squad of dudes with Mosins shooting at the sky, that probably could be bought for ten cows in some back-ass African country nowadays, there is a slight problem of cost effectiveness.

Other ground attack doesn't fucking circle somewhat slowly around the enemy position. It's showing giant fucking target, and it's flight path is predictable to extreme. The advantage of a gunship is easy time shooting things due to predictable trajectories, but the same applies in reverse - the enemy anti-aircraft is going to have field-fucking-day.

Sure, but this doesn't make the gunships less useful, it just means that they need support, just like any situation where you used CAS in more conventional wars such as WW2 or the Korean war. It doesn't diminish the utility of a gunship.

Helicopters also orbit in the exact same way because it's safer than flying directly over the target, it's really hard to hit an aircraft that is constantly changing it's direction by moving in a circle, and to anything that's in its killzone it's moving left to right which is a very favorable condition (aircraft get shot down when they're hovering or they're flying straight towards something that's firing at them which is why attacking ships on water in WW2 was so dangerous). And yet we have examples of gunships doing exactly that and surviving, usually because their mission was considered so important and their contribution so valuable that casualties were acceptable, and because gunship crews are expecting to be shot at while they're performing a pylon turn and train to exit that maneuver in the safest way possible when things do get too dangerous. The fact that an aircraft has been shot down before by AAA isn't proof that it's not a useful or survivable platform, not only do you have to show that an orbiting aircraft is more likely to be shot down than a strafing aircraft, you also need to show that this supposed loss in survivability outweighs it's effectiveness as CAS.

Based on one incident which you haven't formally cited you argue that unguided 37mm cannons frequently shot down fixed wing gunships, based on one incident I show evidence that a gunship can survive being targeted by radar-guided AAA, yet in your example the outcome was inevitable and in my example the gunship was lucky. Why?

---

E: More about friendly fire:
All our aircraft have radios already, if friendly fire does become an issue then you just install IFF transponders. It's just a radio code that the radio is constantly spitting out and SAM sites will interrogate the target before engaging. Easy solution.

Also here's a diagram I made:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)