Back Down to Earth..
SMARTILLERY[c]: Wooden Killer Bees: Affordable Drone Swarms?
Back Down to Earth...
Now the USAF fighter-bomber jocks are losing the farm (their comfy bureaucratic air bases operating planes to do AEC) to Precision Directed Munitions (PDMs) destroying on-the-ground their aircraft and cratering the runways they depend on (DOTG). The world is ga-ga about cutting out the Tom Cruise egotist entirely and just flying drone model planes into targets from ANYWHERE a catapult launch trailer towed ideally by a stealthy, light tracked tank like a M113A4 Super Gavin to avoid enemy C4ISR and potential PDM destruction. Not interested saith the USAF! The USAF will not even CONSIDER (think, talk is still cheap) FOLDING THE WINGS of their next generation fighter-bomber so it can be GROUND-MOBILE and operate away from vulnerable air bases like the smart Swede's BAS 90 system using civilian roads. Saying the USAF is FUBAR just isn't severe enough.
So somebody--not the USMIL DoD--not the USAF is going to do drone swarms. The difference between what we've been examining before with armed crop dusters (AT-802U Broadsword, IOMAX Archangel), and attack trainers (MFI-17 SAAB SUPPORTER, AT-29 Super Tucanos) and attack utility aircraft like PC-6 Turbo Porters are the HUNTER and KILLER functions; a large turboprop can do BOTH; find elusive enemies hiding in the terrain by under 2, 000 AGL investigation and then destroy them with enough on-board weaponry. The AeroCar at this point cannot certainly do the KILL function but it can do BOTH air and ground recon to find the enemies and if beyond their light armaments to destroy, can hand-off to large KILLERs.
What is enough to destroy targets?
The catapult-launched, small drone cannot carry the 2, 000 pound bomb which destroys everything not deeply hardened into the ground, nor even a 1, 000 pound bomb. The Germans insisted on at least 2, 000 pounds for their V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles as the minimum needed to do worthwhile destruction.
So because only large expensive fighter-bombers can drop these LARGE BOMBS with 500 plus speed and possibly radar stealth, the USAF's very existence hangs by a thin string that can be cut as soon as this AEC conveyance can be done cheaper--like by ballistic "hypersonic" missiles. How cheap? is the ultimate question.
An observation/attack/utility plane with 30 foot plus long wings and 500 horsepower engines can carry/drop 2, 000 lbs. bombs albeit at 300 mph and not now with radar stealth. If one built a 1-way drone with a 2, 000 pound explosive warhead with a 500 shp turboprop engine it'd be at least $1M each just for the PT6 engine. Owww. Even cavalier-to-cost DoD can't afford throw-away $1M drones to make swarms. They would have to be re-used dropping cheaper LARGE BOMB ordnance which at a minimum reuires a short (under 1, 00 feet) RHINO SNOT-hardened dirt runway. The aircraft coming back bothers everything-in-their-basket USAF ego but U.S. ARMY grasshopper STOL fixed-wing aircraft were owned & operated by FIELD ARTILLERY units until the FUBAR helicopter rotor-heads forced O-1 Bird Dogs into retirement instead of upgrading them--blocking all the technological and pilot skill eSTOL advances of BUSH PILOTS around the world from bettering us. The Army is degenerating into the technological dead end of helicopters because they are too pussy to put mere wings onto their aircraft! The USAF refuses to FOLD their wings and the ARMY refuses to have fixed wings at all.
How stupid can you get?
Don't answer that!
To clarify, the small aircraft that can be catapult-launched or TO from under 300 feet is a BEE. HUNTING no problem; KILLING is a problem as the HE power limit appears to be 500 pounds maximum; maybe 1, 000 if you ditch the pilot and direct-hit, kamikaze crash the KILLER BEE as a throw-away.
Is this enough to wipe-out oil refineries? industrial plants? power plants? In other words, can you strategically bomb foes into submission with small drone swarms?
No. Not enough HE power from the small KILLER BEE. If you rammed large planes aka large KILLER BEEs, WW2 Joe Kennedy-style copying the German MISTEL idea by parachute bail-out instead of a parasite escape plane on top,
Yes. Cost would be large--at least $10M which would imply only for very High Value Targets (HVTs).
The small Killer/Hunter could with 500 pound HE effects destroy and at least 20-something-masturbation "disrupt" tactical forces by PDM direct-hitting targets like bunkers, vehicles etc. but the Terrain Firepower Saturation (TFS) needed to kill/suppress dispersed infantry is uantitatively lacking; actual FIELD ARTILLERY massive ballistic help will need to be directed.
If funds are low, the most bang-for-buck for the U.S. ARMY would be to obtain LARGE KILLER/ HUNTER "Eagles" like the PC-6 Turbo Porter--with folding wings for ground mobility since it can do both missions--able to lob in 2, 000 pounders from safe stand-offs if needed.
For a small, KILLER BEE swarms, the MFI-17 SAAB SUPPORTER with excellent downward pilot/observer eye visibility plus sensors--again with folding wings could be a manned HUNTER that if enemy air defenses are too dangerous, dived into HVTs as KILLERS--though if Hedo-Marxist traitors like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden were on board as VIP observers there'd be no loss. We are talking 200 horsepower for 500 pounds of HE or 200/500 compared to the PC-6's 500/2000. Even 200/500 would cost $500k. Owww. Anything smaller and smaller--does a RQ-21 ScanEagle dropping 1 pound hand grenades destroy the target?
If it's an unarmored rebel on foot, yes...so why doesn't U.S. ARMY 120mm heavy mortar units at battalion level not flying these KILLER BEES now?
This would be an excellent starting point for experience for DRONE SWARM units in the Army's Field Artillery 227mm rocket and guided MLRS units that can HUNT to find targets for them at long 60 km + ranges like enemy S400 SAM batteries to include diving into them drone kamikaze-style.
Those Germans Again...
What could be done to reduce the $500k cost of a small KILLER BEE?
How about making them of inexpensive WOOD--like the He-162 Salamander fighter jet of WW2? This way, America's wayward youth during their 2-years of National Service could help assemble SMARTILLERY drones.
The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (German, "People's Fighter"), the name of a project of the Emergency Fighter Program design competition, was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. It was designed and built quickly and made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply and prioritised for other aircraft. Volksjäger was the Reich Air Ministry's official name for the government design program competition won by the He 162 design. Other names given to the plane include Salamander, which was the codename of its construction program, and Spatz ("Sparrow"), which was the name given to the plane by Heinkel.
The second group pointed out that this would likely do little to address the problem; the Me 262 had notoriously unreliable powerplants and landing gear, and the existing logistics problems would mean there would merely be more of them on the ground waiting for parts that would never arrive, or for fuel that was not available. Instead, they suggested that a new design be built – one so inexpensive that if a machine was damaged or worn out, it could simply be discarded and replaced with a fresh plane straight off the assembly line. Thus was born the concept of the "throwaway fighter"
The main structure of the Volksjäger competing airframe designs would use cheap and unsophisticated parts made of wood and other non-strategic materials and, more importantly, could be assembled by semi- and non-skilled labor, including slave labor.[2] [EDITOR: today's 20-somethings could do this as their National Service! Sign me up!)Specifications included a weight of no more than 2,000 kg (4,400 lb),[3] with maximum speed specified as 750 km/h (470 mph) at sea level, operational endurance at least a half hour, and the takeoff run no more than 500 m (1,640 ft). Armament was specified as either two 20 mm (0.79 in) MG 151/20 cannons with 100 rounds each, or two 30 mm (1.2 in) MK 108 cannons with 50 rounds each. The Volksjäger needed to be easy-to- fly. Some suggested even glider or student pilots should be able to fly the jet effectively in combat, and indeed had the Volksjäger gone into full production, that is precisely what would have happened.
Various changes had raised the weight over the original 2,000 kg (4,410 lb) limit, but even at 2,800 kg (6,170 lb), the aircraft was still among the fastest aircraft in the air with a maximum airspeed of 790 km/h (427 kn; 491 mph) at sea level and 839 km/h (453 kn; 521 mph) at 6,000 m (20,000 ft),[14] but could reach 890 km/h (481 kn; 553 mph) at sea level and 905 km/h (489 kn; 562 mph) at 6,000 m (20,000 ft) using short burst extra thrust.[15]
The Mistel series of fighter/powered bomb composite ground-attack aircraft pre-dated the He 162 by over two years, and the Mistel 5 project study in early 1945 proposed the mating of an He 162A-2 to the Arado E.377A flying bomb. The fighter would sit atop the bomb, which would itself be equipped with two underwing-mounted BMW 003 turbojets. This ungainly combination would take off on a sprung trolley fitted with tandem wheels on each side for the "main gear" equivalent, derived from that used on the first eight Arado Ar 234 prototypes, with all three jets running. Immediately after take-off, the trolley would be jettisoned, and the Mistel would then fly to within strike range of the designated target. Upon reaching this point, the bomb would be aimed squarely at the target and then released, with the jet turning back for home. The Mistel 5 remained a "paper project", as the Arado bomb never progressed beyond the blueprint stage.
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U/MCAV SMARTILLERY[c] : Meet the Amerijager!
How radar stealthy would a nearly all-wood Amerijager Unmanned/Manned Combat Air Vehicle (U/MCAV) be?
Hmmmm.
Make its wings fold for ground mobility evasion proven effective by German V-2 ballistic missiles on launch trailers in WW2 and Iraqi SCUD missiles on TELs in Gulf War 1.
Here, sexy Nazi pilot Hannah Reitsch tes-pilots a V-1 Buzz
Bomb--and survives!
They adapted the V-1 flying bomb into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg including a two-seater and a single-seater with and without the mechanisms to land.[27] The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed."[28]
In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that after two initial crashes with the Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the prototype Fi 103R. She made several successful test flights before training the instructors. "Though an average pilot could fly the V1 without difficulty once it was in the air, to land it called for exceptional skill, in that it had a very high landing speed and, moreover, in training it was the glider model, without engine, that was usually employed."[29]
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JAMES BOND IS REAL SIDE BAR: Did she fly Hitler out of Berlin leaving his doppelganger aka decoy to take a bullet for the FATHERLAND.
During the last days of the war, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed Reitsch's lover, von Greim, to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April as the Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin.[31] Reitsch and von Greim had flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke Wulf 190, escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Hauptmann Hans Dortenmann.[32] In Berlin, Reitsch landed a Fi 156 Storch on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.[33] Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim.[34] She accepted the capsule.[35]
During the evening of 28 April, Reitsch flew von Greim out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 from the same improvised airstrip. This was the last plane out of Berlin.[36] Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Heinrich Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies so as to surrender.[Note 1] Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully.[37][38]
Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers.[Note 2] When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 28 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch also said: "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland." When the interviewers asked what she meant by "Altar of the Fatherland" she answered, "Why, the Führer's bunker in Berlin ..." [39] She was held for eighteen months.[40] Von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.
Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg.[41] During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in the Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sister[42] and her sister's three children before killing himself.[43]
Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at the age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had never married.[Note 3] She is buried in the Reitsch family grave in Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.
Former British test pilot and Royal Navy officer Eric Brown said he received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 in which she said, "It began in the bunker, there it shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated that Reitsch had taken the cyanide capsule Hitler had given her in the bunker, and that she had taken it as part of a suicide pact with Greim.[citation needed] No autopsy was performed, or at least no such report is available.[57]
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Manned-only, aka "Meatbag" systems cannot be employed with impunity because they cannot be LOST WITH IMPUNITY. A million $$$ dollars for a large munition which needs no B-52 or anything else to deliver it is cheap and the U.S. (if invested with focus) costs can be reduced with economies of scale.
Drone Smartillery[c] Amerijagers could handle many the short range tasks and longer range systems work at any distance.
"Is this enough to wipe-out oil refineries? industrial plants? power plants? In other words, can you strategically bomb foes into submission with small drone swarms? "
Abqaig proved small groups of U/MCAV Amerijager drones can temporarily stop oil infrastructure and other targets without the absurd ordnance (and aircraft and aircrew, the 8th AF lost more Airmen than the USMC lost marines in the entire war) saturation inaccuracy mandated in wars past. It would likewise be easy for the unprecedented accuracy (and ability to maneuver without meatbag G limits, GLOC and spatial disorientation kill many a fighter pilot even today) of drone groups/swarms to take out substations, pipeline etc. then take out repair crews. Amerijager Drones can attack like army ants. They don't need to destroy a power plant (which may be desirable to retain after victory) when they can continuously cut every power line and do so at multiple points too dispersed for effective air defense. The objective of destruction being to deprive the enemy of X asset, appropriate destruction may deprive without destroying the asset by amputating its connections!
One beauty of Field Artillery is it needs no airheads long runways for aircraft to gain aerodynamic life. Smartillery can be everywhere in all weathers with zero risk to aircrew. FA could launch Smartillery[c] killer-spotters, follow up with conventional ordnance (cheap, plentiful, increasingly accurate) and the spotter can kill instead of RTB. (No need to fly home means long one-way range instead of a daring Doolittle Raid moral-building, low damage throwaway mission.) Field Artillery with the right systems would reduce decision lag vs. cockpit meat parasites with limited attention spans. Systems can see as a group vs the pathetic human field of vision which requires CAVU conditions not to suck badly.
Ground-launched missiles in much greater quantity can attack with impunity too. Imagine spending the cost of one B-2 on Amerikanski Strategic Rocket Forces! Iran just blew up an U.S. base with impunity using conventional theater ballistic missiles. Everyone else is building them but the U.S. Brave meatbags doing SEAD missions are far less necessary when you can deliver warheads with impunity. Of course this would commit the mortal sin of returning power to Army ground forces.
FA and Naval Smartillery[c] could replace wasteful meat airpower with organic, expendable assets including Smartillery[c] which can attack with the impunity vital to modern gunboat diplomacy and Small Fast Boats (SFBs) can use many similar systems including anti-ship missiles.
A Recon Strike Group (RSG) with these assets could conduct punitive raids with 24/7 coverage without reliance on distant tacair. A needle through the enemy's brain is as lethal as flattening his town to get him and creates less collateral damage thus recruiting fewer replacements. Smartillery[c] submunitions can become ever more sophisticated and "flying hand grenades" could land and wait for enemy to advance then slaughter his infantry while phoning home. Smartillery with expendable pickets can kill by pickets who call in a barrage on their location because they need not survive and can themselves join the fun.
Mixed "barrages" can replenish pickets while killing the enemy. Airborne spotter can draw fire for ground-loitering and air-loitering killers to react and the entire system could perform Time On Target attacks beyond previous imagination.
"Everybody fights" can apply to everything the FA fires. If enemy drops a bugsmasher with a MANPAD that's pure loss. If enemy drops a drone that's a gift!
A small example could be a group of elusively-camouflaged & cross-country-mobile, M113A4 Super Gavins with a mix of cannon, U/MCAVs, mortars and anything else you'd like added to the mix. Forward Super Gavins could be remotely operated. UAVs can observe and draw fire while shoot-on-the-move, Smartillery [c] react without presenting a fixed target. CRAM cannon can defend the group and kill ground targets with (smart) APS as the last resort. Autoloading mortars could strike from above augmented by UAVs hunter spotters.
Consider how you would build a unit that could move without stopping with Smartillery [c] added. We figured out underway refuelling and jettisoning trailers. Trailers need not be limited to fuel and munitions storage and could store muns ready-to-shoot. Multiple launch Smartillery[c] could fire from the trailer and once fuel and muns are depleted, the trailer could be jettisoned. The expensive electronics could reusably live in the track. (Aircraft weapons systems perfected expendable umbilicals long ago, the Cannon or Amphenol connector is released by a tug on the cable connected to the connector backshell.)
EveryTHING fights, everyTHING works; FA is the Queen of Battle against whom the only hope is digging so deep that sealing the exits buries the problem. "Smart wings on every bomb" is a matter of building enough of them.
USAF Desperately Wants to Defend its BS Comfy Air Bases!
QUOTE:
THOR uses high-powered microwaves to shoot swarms of small unmanned aerial vehicles out of the sky. It was designed in-house by AFRL for the service’s high-priority base defense mission. As Breaking D readers are aware, enabling “logistics under attack,” including figuring out how to protect bases, is one of the Air Force’s top-four priorities for the future.
“We looked at a use case for a forward air base — a FOB — something like you might find in the Middle East,” Hammett said, and for protection of “a global strike, or a nuclear base, mission” to create the requirements for THOR.
The Air Force is still grappling with its base-protection requirements and plans, Hammett said, with Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) developing an acquisition strategy. But the Army is perhaps the most keen among the services to get its hands on microwave drone-killing capabilities.
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Notice the Air Farcesters ignore ALL the myriad of threats coming at their BS vulnerable, obvious FOBs---how will microwaves stop enemy GROUND ATTACKS (remember "The Empire Strikes Back"?)...heat-up the enemy's MREs?
Semper Airborne!
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