Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
Mientras [los drones] estén limitados a hellfire y demás munición guiada cara, la generalización o su uso continuado tienen límites.
Sin negar sus obvias ventajas, de momento [los drones] siguen siendo armas para ricos.
Y veremos si algún proveedor los entrega realmente llave en mano para todos los elementos del sistema. USA no, claramente
Orel escribió:Y veremos si algún proveedor los entrega realmente llave en mano para todos los elementos del sistema. USA no, claramente
USA a sus aliados, y Rusia a los suyos, y China a los suyos, etc. El caso es que en menos plazo que en más, todo el mundo los adquiere, sea a uno o a otro y si no desarrollos propios.
Hoy por hoy el mercado de los UAVs esta en manos de USA e Israel. La industria china apenas ha empezado a dar algunos mordiscos, y la rusa brilla por su ausencia.
Por cierto, Irán, que ha invertido mucho en su industria domestica de drones, ha exportado un par de modelos sencillos
El general David Goldfein, jefe de estado mayor de la USAF, ha informado de que la Fuerza Aérea de EEUU (USAF) llevará a cabo experimentos con un avión de combate de bajo coste. El plan es empezar en primavera, y utilizar un modelo con equipos ya diseñados (off-the-self). Según Goldfein el avión debe estar disponible ya y también será utilizado por aliados. Un ejemplo podría ser el A-29 Super Tucano, adquirido por Líbano y Afganistán.
EEUU ya ha conducido varios experimentos. En 2013 el US Special Operations alquiló 2 OV-10G+ y la US Navy los modificó, instalando una aviónica moderna y armas guiadas por láser. El año pasado la US Navy utilizó 2 Bronco en la operación Inherent Resolve.
Paramount%2Bmwari-weaponised-2.jpg
Mwari (Paramount Group).
La decisión no sorprende, y algunos fabricantes se han anticipado desarrollando aviones baratos de operar. Las operaciones en Irak, Afganistán, Libia y Siria seguramente seguirán varios años más, y utilizar aviones como el F-35 supone un gran gasto. Tampoco pueden ser transferidos con facilidad a aliados. Actualmente hay varios modelos que podrían ser candidatos: Textron Scorpion, Super Tucano, Paramount Group Mwari...
Fuentes y enlaces de interés
- https://www.flightglobal.com/usaf-reque ... ghter-test
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/with-agi ... -air-force
US Air Force to hold light attack experiment this summer
03 MARCH, 2017 SOURCE: FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM BY: LEIGH GIANGRECO WASHINGTON DC
The US Air Force is planning a light attack aircraft experiment at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico this summer, marking the service’s first step to introduce a new, low-cost fighter.
The USAF chief and acting secretary will direct the experiment this week, which would continue work from a previous US Special Operations Command effort known as Combat Dragon. While Combat Dragon I operated low-cost aircraft at Fallon Naval Air Station, Nevada, the second Combat Dragon exercise demonstrated OV-10 Broncos in the Middle East.
The air force will invite industry to demonstrate off-the-shelf aircraft at Holloman, which will determine whether the service should transition to a second phase with demonstrations in the Middle East, USAF chief Gen David Goldfein told reporters 3 March at the annual Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida.
USAF acting secretary Lisa Disbrow also made a significant push for the OA-X concept during her address at the annual Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida this week. Today, much of the air force’s demand comes from permissive environments, she told reporters.
"When you look at the cost of flying hours that we could potentially save is there a part of the mission that could be serviced by this part of the fleet," Disbrow says. "Then that frees up the more complex assets to allow pilots to train for the full spectrum threat to be ready."
Are Low-Cost “COIN” Air Forces the Future of Tactical Air Power?
Mar 20 2017 - 0 Comments
By Tom Demerly
For Nations Without Big Defense Budgets, Small Tactical Air Forces are the Trend.
Small, inexpensive, easy to operate combat aircraft with precision strike capability and long loiter times to provide close air support.
Versatile, scalable rotary wing assets that do double duty as gunships and utility/rescue helicopters.
Aircraft that can be disbursed to unimproved airfields and operated from roadways or even fields while being concealed on the ground.
In the era of the multi-billion dollar Gen 5+ superfighter and hundred-million dollar stealth bombers, is the low-cost counterinsurgency or “COIN” air force the next big defense trend? Many aircraft and systems manufacturers, along with their nation-clients, are betting “yes”.
As countries like Iraq and Afghanistan emerge from the long Global War on Terror and develop their own indigenous air forces the trend for local area defense and simple tactical air solutions is growing quickly. At the same time, strategic air combat capabilities, such as long-range heavy bombing, low observable long-range precision strike and long-range intelligence gathering have fallen to nations with much larger economies like the United States, Russia, England, France and China.
The emerging industry in light, inexpensive, adaptable, scalable and integrated tactical air arsenals is booming, while massively expensive projects like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are under constant criticism and scrutiny from budget concerns.
Noted strategist, author and think-tank contributor Thomas PM Barnett, formerly a member of the Center for Naval Analyses and author of “The Pentagon’s New Map” opined, “a Leviathan force, used in a Leviathan manner, will rarely work.” Barnett was writing about the Global War on Terror and the use of global force to oppose and defeat a local insurgency. It is often like trying to remove a small tumor with a chainsaw.
Another key aspect of the growing trend in light tactical air power is that it empowers nation states with their own air force. The value of this is as much socio-psychological as it is tactical. Nations can fight their own wars, their own way, without the imposing presence of an aircraft carrier battle group off their coast.
Perhaps one of the best examples of a light, inexpensive counterinsurgency air force is Afghanistan. The Afghan Air Force operates two strike platforms, the Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, a Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68C turboprop powered, low wing, two-seat attack airplane and the MD Helicopters MD-530F Cayuse Warrior light utility/attack helicopter powered by Rolls Royce’s 650 shp 250-C30 engine. The two aircraft are well suited for ease of training and close air support.
Afghan Air Force MD-530F Cayuse Warrior helicopter fires its two FN M3P .50 Cal machine guns during a media demonstration, April 9, 2015, at a training range outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Perry Aston/Released)
Some reports suggest the aircraft may be a little “too” effective and easy to use. A February 8, 2017 story by Shawn Snow and Andrew DeGrandpre published in Military Times reports that, “the loss of innocent life caused by Afghan-initiated airstrikes doubled to 252 [in 2016], according to the U.N.” from the same period in the prior 2015 year. The report went on to say, “Afghanistan’s primary attack pilots are firing their weapons during four of every 10 combat missions, a rate more than three times greater than that of their U.S. Air Force counterparts.”
As a partial response to the frequency of airstrikes by Afghan assets and the exposure of civilians to collateral damage American officials working with the Afghan Air Force have begun to accelerate training for indigenous Afghan forward air controllers.
Regardless of the potential for reduced discretion when prosecuting ground targets (or, perhaps, because of it…) the demand for inexpensive counterinsurgency air support aircraft is booming. It has created heated contract competitions between manufacturers like Embraer and Beechcraft and introduced new brands into the marketplace like IOMAX and their highly capable, purpose-built Archangel counter-insurgency, close air support and precision strike aircraft.
The IOMAX Archangel is completely re-engineered from a basic agricultural (crop dusting) aircraft configuration. Instead of carrying pesticides or fertilizer it carries a full complement of precision guided air-to-ground weapons and highly effective countermeasures with a two-person crew. While the direct comparison is not at all fair, a country can purchase almost 20 of the IOMAX Archangel tactical aircraft with maintenance spares for the cost of one F-35A joint strike fighter. That is the size of the entire proposed acquisition of Embraer A-29 Super Tucanos for the Afghan Air Force. The IOMAX Archangel is already in service with the Royal Jordanian Air Force in the border patrol and interdiction role.
IOMAX Archangel (credit: IOMAX)
The conversation about low-cost, “bush-plane” style counter insurgency aircraft fitted with sophisticated data sharing, intelligence collecting and precision targeting capability is a fascinating one. For many countries that don’t need a strategic, long range, stealth air asset and can’t afford one, but do have to manage a persistent guerilla or insurgent threat, this new generation of “smart” light attack aircraft may just be the “Gen 5.25” combat aircraft of the next decade and beyond.
The report went on to say, “Afghanistan’s primary attack pilots are firing their weapons during four of every 10 combat missions, a rate more than three times greater than that of their U.S. Air Force counterparts.”
Y atención a lo que subrayo: afirma que sólo 1.5 de cad 10 misiones del contingente afgano hace uso de la fuerza. El resto... gasta 14k por hora de misión
Some reports suggest the aircraft may be a little “too” effective and easy to use. A February 8, 2017 story by Shawn Snow and Andrew DeGrandpre published in Military Times reports that, “the loss of innocent life caused by Afghan-initiated airstrikes doubled to 252 [in 2016], according to the U.N.” from the same period in the prior 2015 year.
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