"Gunship" for SVO
Gunship aircraft firing on the ground
“I can see everything from above,
you know it!”
Solomon Fogelson "Heavenly slug", 1945
you know it!”
Solomon Fogelson "Heavenly slug", 1945
The experience of conducting a special operation has shown that the Russian army, for all its might, lacks something. What exactly - they already wrote on VO, and more than once. But one topic has not yet been touched upon. Namely: fire support from the air on an ongoing basis, which is carried out by special gunship aircraft. Today we will talk about them, both about those that were, and about those that may be ...
Experience is the fruit of difficult mistakes
The Americans first encountered the need for such support in 1964. It was then that the C-131 transport aircraft was converted into a gunship at an airbase in Florida. Moreover, in a very simple way and without any fuss: on the port side in the cargo door they placed a container with a 7,62-mm Minigun six-barreled machine gun, the rate of which was 3-000 rounds / min. The co-pilot received a sight that allows you to shoot away from the flight path - and that's it.
The plane acted as follows: having found a target on the ground, the pilot made turns, circled over the target, while machine gunners fired at it from above from different sides. The rest of the gunships were converted directly in Vietnam on the basis of the C-47 Dakota aircraft. After that, the letter “A” was added to the letter “C”: - from the word “etteker” - “attack aircraft”. Soon, these aircraft proved to be very good in battles, and the Vietnamese even called them dragons because of the fire trails of the "miniguns" that stretched from them to the ground.
Many aircraft of this type were made, but they also suffered very heavy losses. The fact is that the planes were old, they flew mainly at night in mountainous terrain, and their crews had to fire from machine guns from a height of no more than 1 m, which exposed them to anti-aircraft fire from the Vietnamese, who also used heavy machine guns, and anti-aircraft guns with a caliber of 000- and 37-mm.
The next "gunship" was converted to a twin-engine transport aircraft C-119G two-beam scheme. It was more modern, faster and could take on board up to 13 tons of payload. The crew was protected by ceramic armor, and in general, this machine turned out to be more efficient than the AC-47D by about 25%.
To perfection step by step...
Subsequently, this aircraft received a whole battery of two 20-mm Vulkan automatic cannons and four machine guns. The use of cannons increased the height of its use, that is, to get it with small arms fire weapons the Vietnamese now could no longer.
The generally successful use of "gunships" led to the fact that the completely modern C-130 Hercules transport aircraft was chosen as a new aircraft of this type, which received 4 machine-gun and 4 cannon mounts in special embrasures on the port side. For operations at night, it was equipped with an IR vision surveillance system, radars, 20 kW searchlights and a modern on-board fire control computer.
Further - more: in 1969, the aircraft immediately received two Bofors semi-automatic cannons of 40 mm caliber, which made it possible to hit targets from a height of 5 m at a distance of 400 m.
In 1971, the US Air Force received the AC-130E, which was equipped with a manually loaded 105-mm infantry howitzer. All "gunships" were actively used against the cargo transportation of the Vietnamese along the "Ho Chi Minh trail" and showed their best side.
Since 1972, Soviet Strela missiles began to hit them. To reduce their thermal signature, many AC-130s were equipped with coolers - ejectors that reduce the temperature of the exhaust gases. It did not help much, but nevertheless, despite the losses, "gunships" in Vietnam were used until the very end of the war.
Then they were used during the invasion of Grenada and Panama, as well as in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. It turned out that in the desert, the infrared systems of aircraft work very poorly. And besides, the presence of modern air defense makes their work extremely difficult.
"Flying Battleship"
Today, the US Air Force is armed with an AC-130U aircraft armed with a five-barreled 25 mm cannon (ammunition 3 rounds, rate of fire 000 rounds per minute), a 6 mm cannon (000 rounds) and a 40 mm gun (256 rounds). All of them are mobile, that is, the pilot does not need to accurately maintain the course for the required accuracy of fire.
Such powerful weapons, firstly, provide selective action on the target, which means saving ammunition, and secondly, the effective defeat of protected targets.
The aircraft is equipped with removable armor protection based on both metal and Kevlar armor. Well, it is clear that it is equipped with modern electronic sighting and navigation equipment.
Plane of a mirror design
Now let's see what we have in this regard.
And we have all sorts of modern and efficient aircraft, which, however, cannot hover over the same area for hours, but work on call. They called - flew in, hit and flew away again, and for some time the enemy’s head no longer hurts. You can, of course, organize sorties at intervals, but then the planes may simply ... not have enough targets. Yes, and it’s expensive to drive complex jet crews back and forth for the sake of, say, a column of buses that bring replenishment to the front line.
What could be such an aircraft for our Russian aviation?
The simplest thing is to take and re-equip some existing transporter for a "ganship". However, with an eye to the future (and for export!) It will be much more profitable to create a special aircraft, moreover, of a modular design.
What does this mean in practice?
In practice, we have a front line with a length of about 1 km, along which such aircraft will fly, first in one direction, then in the other. But their effectiveness should not decrease. This can be achieved in the following way: we create one aircraft, but in two versions - version "L" (left) and version "P" (right) - mirrored in relation to each other!
The aircraft, by the way, has an asymmetric profile, which is necessary to reduce its thermal visibility. That is, it has two vertically coupled turbojet engines on one wing or two turboprops in a tandem installation. At the same time, the wing and fuselage are designed in such a way that both engines and wing parts can be rearranged! We install the engines on the left - accordingly, an empty module is inserted into the right wing (which can be used as a fuel tank), and all weapons are mounted in the fuselage on the right, and vice versa: we mount the engines on the right wing - both weapons and engines are placed on the left!
Thus, we get two aircraft at once, capable of appearing over enemy positions exactly twice as often, and even (if they fly on a mission in pairs) - simultaneously bombarding him from two sides at once!
Armament: guns, machine guns, laser and… UAV!
Armament should consist of 100- and 30-mm BMP-3 twin artillery mounts and several machine gun mounts. The main thing is that the aircraft can fire from a height at which the same Stinger cannot reach it.
In addition, it should be provided for equipping it not only with passive means of protection like heat traps, but also with active ones - like a tank KAZ. After all, this is infantry, acting in concert with tanks, you have to be afraid of KAZ shells. And in the air it is quite possible to use them for the direct destruction of anti-aircraft missiles launched at the aircraft.
Moreover, large volumes inside the fuselage and powerful engines that produce a lot of energy are quite capable of providing power to a combat anti-missile laser!
And, of course, armor. Removable, like on the American AC-130, ceramic and made of Kevlar, so that it can be reinstalled from side to side, depending on the modification of the aircraft - “L” or “P”.
And the last. Such an aircraft today can be used as a carrier of inexpensive dronesmade literally from their packaging cardboard or foam to hit targets directly on the battlefield! The cheapest video camera, a cumulative warhead from an RPG grenade, an electric motor with a propeller and a power battery - that's practically all. After all, he does not have to take off on his own!
In fact, it will be a motor glider that can be dropped from the gunship to hit visible targets, which the 100-mm gun simply does not have enough range to shoot at, and it will be risky to enter enemy territory due to possible fire resistance.
This will really be a plane worthy of the Army of a great power.
And, of course, in the same capacity as a patrol aircraft for the border, it may well be purchased by many countries. After all, many people have extended and explosive borders.
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