Pioneer you’ve summed it up brilliantly. Thanks so much everybody, I’m really getting a lot of perspective that I am going to store away and revisit in my head over this next coming year 😀

Golden Dragon has brought in another argument and one place where my thoughts could be clearer would be CAS aircraft is fixed wing vs attack helicopters. I’d love a point by point argument for either. The following are some points that I believe without much backup so I’d like someone to either shoot them down or back them up:

1. Why did countries prefer to use attack helicopters rather than build an aircraft capable of flying slow? >>> For me the problem started with the US Army / USAF split – it was ordained that the US Army cannot operate fixed wing aircraft and that the USAF was given exclusive authority to do operate those. This resulted in operational split that was creating havoc for unified and cohesive CAS operations. Resulting in someone making the decision to build attack helicopters and thereby escewing that bureaucratic deadend.

From the Vietnam war onwards – the US being the predominant power, everyone else attempted to copy this trend of attack helicopters before considering the pros and cons.

2. Except for very specific situations, aeroplanes are far more ideally suited for flight – particularly in terms of endurance. They are also far less complex and require far less money / technology to build than an equally performing helicopter. The bottom line is that aeroplanes are far more efficient aerodynamic machines than helicopters.

There are however, two scenarios where attack helicopters can be better – mountainous terrain and jungle terrain, where landing zones for aeroplanes become problematic (no matter how short the short take off is). As a result, it is not that attack helicopters do not have any role, but for terrains other than these two extremes they can operate far better than any helicopter. The fact that helicopters can hover amounts to near zilch – in real combat situations there is very little difference in having an aircraft hover and having it move at 5mph. And in any case, you don’t want your CAS aircraft doing this in most circumstances.

3. Once a trend is established people will follow it blindly, whether it makes sense or not – a psychological effect that is well documented in various academic papers. Thus we still have people who live in CAS fixed wing effectiveness denial 😀 This particular desease needs further study and a non-lethal cure. 😀

(PS: don’t take it to heart anyone, this is just banter)

From an Infantryman’s perspective, the ideal CAS aircraft design would need to have plenty on endurance, so as to loiter over or close to the troop that are either in contact with the enemy or contact is expected.
A good weapons capability, including the number of rounds for the onboard and built in cannon, to mach the aircrafts endurance.
It would also need to be able to take plenty of punishment from small arms fire (basic enemy infantry!).
Have good rough-field performance, so as it can be armed and refueled from forward airstrips.
A good passive and active decoy arrangement, to counter man-portable SAM’s
And the all important – ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’

Regards
Pioneer

That’s exactly how I see it!

Endurance of 5-6 hours
STOL from road strips / fields – possible by large low aspect ratio wings and fixed tilt of 10 degrees for the props and the wings.

Protection against small arms fire – with vital areas able to take a burst of even a 12.7mm, lightweight kevlar panels used.

Basic technologies used, nothing fancy other than the cockpit
5 hardpoints for weapons, a total of upto 600lbs

Single cannon 23mm (Garry B), or 0.5 Cal (me)

However, I want a really modern cockpit, an FLIR probe in the nose, full night mission capability, RWR and flare and chaff arrangement (this could be problematic on a small turboprop)

Diesel fuel use – this plane won’t fly high enough to have problems with freezing, and its not exactly designed for Sweden or Canada either.

I’m looking at something like a a squadron of 12 per brigade

Hey Andy Merry Xmas to you and a Happy New Year! Wow I haven’t heard of this UAV before. Sounds really interesting although I wish there were more details – on how it hovers and what kind of weapons load it has, its endurance etc. Sounds interesting because its designed to be used at the company level. I guess I have to google up and read up about this fascinating little UAV!

Some days ago I watched a new serie on TV, here in Norway called something
like “Bermuda Triangel?”. Anyway, on one of the episodes some people was
out in the seas with their boat in an millitary restricted area, and were attacked by armed V-22 “Osprey”. That was kinda cool…
How`s that for your new “CAS” platform??
Maybe it`s a bit of an easy target, and to large and sophisticated for your
logistics needs… Any thoughts, PLA??

Hey Andy, its really really unconventional and costs its weight in gold. Its way too sophisticated for anyone other than the US and perhaps a choice few.
I like thinking of it as the bridge between an aeroplane and a helicopter. If you see my diagrams I have my design built on a tilt of the props at about 10 degrees. I thought that would be the best compromise.

I think the Osprey looks really really superb – like something out a sci fi movie. I can just imagine a whole troop of Spartans from Halo dropping down from the back.

I don’t know what kind of war you have in mind, but contributing so much money for single-purpose weapons is big risk-taking. Your opponents read the newspaper, too. They know where you strongpoints are, and where are your weakspots. And they will exactly attack where you are weak.

Just don’t have weakspots? Sure, that would be the trillion dollar army, even the mighty US army cannot afford that. So you need platforms that suit multiple roles because you don’t know what awaits you in 5 years. Artillery has made a good stand in the last 100 years, is easy to procure and technology is easy to gain. Surely some missions are not covered well, but there are always times where soldiers have to fight (= die in larger numbers because equipment doesn’t fit perfectly, as I said, it’s war not fun we are talking about).

I haven’t really designed any of it yet, just the CAS platform, knock me out when I bring in a writeup with my next platform 😀 In any case, the single chassis platform I was talking about would be exactly what you said – multipurpose with a completely modular design. But I can’t decide on a million points on it yet except that I’d call it the Beweglicher Wohnwagen 😀

Also lets not discount how few platforms are actually available to the average platoon in most countries. Even with the US Army you see kids being sent to patrol hot zones in Humvees. Imagine what the extent of the problem must be with third world powers. Your average foot soldier either walks or sits at the back of a truck, or exposed on top of a tank. But as I said, thats another discussion…