Low, Slow, & Deadly

The A (for Attack) C-130 gunship is low, slow, and ever so deadly. You use them when you own the sky. They carry a 25-mm Gatling Gun capable of firing 1,800 rounds per minute, as well as 40-mm and 105-mm cannons — all side-firing. Out of a crew of 13, there are five gunners on board. The aircraft carry sensors (infrared, low-light TV, and radar) that allow them to find, fix, track, target, and kill at night — and in "all weather." No building, garrison, armored vehicle, or artillery site can survive an attack from one of these aircraft. Two AC-130s are now flying missions, reportedly out of Oman, on a daily (nightly) basis over Afghanistan. They only go about 300 miles per hour, but they have an un-refueled range of 1,300 miles.

AC-130s are routinely used to support special forces on the ground, but the Defense Department reports that has not yet been the case. The aircraft have been used "on their own," attacking a variety of Taliban targets — the so-called fielded forces. It should not be long before we see some video of their work — there is a spectacular stream of fire when they open up, always followed by explosions.

The AC-130s soon may be supporting special-operations forces reported to be aboard the Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier (that's the one we saw on TV leaving Japanese waters with no aircraft on board). Today, the Kitty Hawk is likely carrying a large contingent of special-forces soldiers, Navy SEALs, attack and transport helicopters, and supporting gear.

It has also been reported that the U.S. has established two "engagement" zones in Afghanistan — one near Kabul and one near Kandahar (headquarters of the Taliban). In these kill zones, pilots can fire at emerging military targets under fairly flexible rules of engagement, but they likely are not free-fire zones. There are procedures for confirming targets ("Yes, that's a tank, not a bus."), for controlling the strikes ("Come from the north, turn to west, watch out for other aircraft to the east."), and for allocating resources, as when you have three aircraft and five targets. The establishment of kill boxes is another bad sign for the Taliban and the al Qaeda. It means that the U.S. will routinely sweep the landscape for targets, day and night.

The U.S. is preparing to build a sophisticated reconnaissance-strike complex in the skies of Afghanistan that will allow it near-real-time strikes of targets within five minutes of identification. The system will include E-8 JSTARS aircraft with airborne radars for ground surveillance, RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft, U-2 manned reconnaissance, and other unmanned reconnaissance aircraft — all contributing to finding and identifying targets.

Next, the targets will be turned over to F-15Es, F-117s, and attack helicopters for quick-strikes from established orbits. Press reports say that an Air Force general will be airborne in a command aircraft so as to command and control (direct and enable) these operations. This system, or one similar to it, can be set up and the kinks worked out, and the pilots can gain situational familiarity and confidence flying over Afghanistan, all the while attacking Taliban forces. Once the system is in place, it will be a pretty-well-oiled machine when fast reactions are needed against al Qaeda targets.

All of this firepower for what? For destroying the Taliban military and isolating the al Qaeda from the Afghan peoples. Once that's achived, it will be time to dig them out. Recall the formula General Colin Powell used for the defeat of the Iraqis: first cut them off, then kill them.

Could you please give a sentence or two on defensive capabilities? Why is low and slow not vulnerable to a raghead with a Stinger? I worry.

Four problems with the concept of bringing a Spectre down with a Stinger occur to me.

First, instead of having one or two closely-spaced turbojet engines, like a fighter would have, the Spectre has four widely-spaced turboprop engines. This means that the image of the exhaust in infrared is not sharp and bright, but rather dim and smeared-out. It's likely that a Stinger's seeker head would have trouble locking on to such a picture: the missileer would probably be forced to stay exposed to give the missile a long, long look at the target. See Problem Four below.

Secondly, the small, low-tech seeker head on a Stinger missile would be completely overwhelmed by the three IR decoy-flare ejectors on an AC-130 (same with the Marines' MC-130). When somebody mashes his thumb down on the flare button, those three huge ejectors start launching (a guess, based on a video clip I saw) between ten and twenty big magnesium flares per second: to the right, to the left, and straight down. (You can see a couple of still examples in Stand Watch Listen's photographs.) Each of those hundreds of flares would be a much juicier target to the Stinger's seeker head than the big, cool, washed-out signature of the Spectre's engines.

Third, the Spectre carries quite a bit of Kevlar armor, as well as a little of the steel kind. Man-portable missiles have to be lightweight, and the Stinger's warhead is only about two pounds, if I remember correctly. If the missile locked on, made it through the defenses, and struck, the crew would notice, but catastrophic failure would be unlikely. Remember, the Spectre has four engines.

And fourth, the Spectre travels with escort aircraft that spend their time doing nothing but wheeling around it using night-vision equipment to look for missileers trying to get a lock.

A possible fifth is that it's likely the enemy already knows about Problems 1 through 4, and is therefore unlikely to waste missiles and missileers attacking Spectres. There are only so many Stingers in Afghanistan, and when they run out of stock and reorder, there's likely to be something of a restocking delay. If I were them, I'd save the missiles for a more realistic target: for example, a slow-moving AH-1 Cobra gunship or a UH-60 Blackhawk troop transport with a nice tight turboshaft exhaust signature. 300mph may be slow for a fixed-wing military aircraft, but it's nothing but a pipe dream for most helicopters--and besides, helicopters are what Afghan missileers are trained to engage.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.