Gunfire Support Options
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 11:24:28 -0800
>From: TMOliver
>Organization: Kestrel/SWRC/Oliver
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win16; I)
>Newsgroups: sci.military.naval
>CC: mahan@microwrks.com
>Subject: Gunfire Support Options
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>AN AFFORDABLE FIRE SUPPORT OPTION
>(A request for comment and debate)
>
>
>In recent months the smn debate, on occasion acrimonious, over the value
>and contributions of NGFS has waxed and waned.
>
>
>The “Battleship Admirals” (AKA Crusty Curmudgeons, Cro-Magnons,etc.)
>offer the simplest alternative (if not the most cost effective or
>forward looking), recommissioning one or more of the great gray ships of
>song and legend.
>
>Like old sailors, huddled around slow-sipped pints in the smoky fug of a
>snug, they are best left alone, to snarl occasionally, rapping one
>another and unsuspecting visitors with assorted crutches and peglegs.
>
>
>More dangerous are their children who read and believe the stuff of
>publicity handouts and home-consumption propaganda. How soon they
>forget that for all the talk of “furrin” propaganda, it was in the US
>which the practice of “puffery” was raised to high art. Hell, by the
>time Vietnam rolled around, the US military had more folks writing press
>releases than it did in combat, our claims of enemy casualties exceeded
>in rash exaggeration even our claims of Japanese a/c shot down in the
>days of WWII (of which the notorious 20 or 26 in one day by South Dakota
>is one which even a PIO must have had to hold his nose and roll up his
>britches before sending down to MAINCOMM), and the marvelous
>accomplishments of our weapons and sensors guaranteed that the famed
>”Light at the end of the tunnel” was but moments away from plain view.
>All records of the accomplishments of the Iowas should be viewed with a
>perspective which appreciates that authors of those records may have
>utilized no little dramatic license.
>
>Young and credulous, these, mere boys as yet unweaned, not salt-cured by
>harsh sea duty and too many Saturday messdecks breakfasts of beans,
>cornbread and hardboiled eggs, view the old BBs and their mighty guns as
>did the public of the WWI era, glorious guarantors of naval supremacy.
>On the other hand, some of us remember the twilight years of crusty old
>”31 Knot” Burke who now and again would claim that any admiral with good
>sense would have traded all the battleships afloat for an extra 200
>Fletchers, Gearings and Summers with which to prosecute the war.
>
>
>The gunners, major and sub caliber, summon forth dreams of great new
>guns (a failing of gunners since time immemorial – it comes from
>breathing powder smoke, a known halucogen) of every bore diameter from
>114mm/4.5″ up to the 203mm/8″ of yesteryear, abandoned now by even the
>USArmy, but once big enough to lob “nuke” warheads out into the
>tank-infested fields of the Fulda gap.
>
>They are lost in a world of old-style mechanical technology, battling it
>out at long range on the local bowling green, tossing twin mounts,
>autoloaders, shell hoists and fixed or semi-fixed ammunition at each
>other with reckless abandon.
>
>
>A sub-genre, the RPV targeteers, fresh from the amusing but less than
>totally convincing anecdote of Iraqi troops attempting to surrender to
>an unmanned drone, place great faith in small a/c flying above the
>battlefield, their electronic eyes available to call down fire and
>deadly rain upon the poor chumps below. The ill-trained Iraqi
>conscripts, fed on bad propaganda and short rations, more likely felt
>that was a real a/c up there, or would have surrendered to a Red Cross
>girl with a handful of doughnuts (Yes, there were Iraqis surrendering to
>ambulance crews also, but we don’t make ambulances principal weapons
>systems.)
>
>Methinks the “poor chumps below” (as have their predeccessors over time)
>might soon find slow buzzing RPVs (even the ghostly silent ones) to be
>like helos, observation balloons, mounted observors, and guys up in
>trees, church steeples, etc., attractive targets at which to squeeze off
>a few rounds. While no pilots will be lost, astute analysts might
>predict a shortage of RPVs along about Day 2 in the operation, as the
>skies are filled with the smoke trails of Cold War surplus, obsolete
>MANPADS searching for them.
>
>
>And then there is another related family of strange international
>gitanos, the vertical shooters, who by subtracting point and train, the
>only evolutions gun crews have ever been judged fully capable of in the
>eyes of more sophisticated deck rates, and adding long barrels pointing
>skyward, rocket boosters, “base bleeders” (Now, there’s a quaint
>euphenism!), etc. to the equation, promise range beyond the farthest
>horizons.
>
>Methinks, the vertical gunners and “Bull-ites” (adherents to the
>accomplishments of Gerald of that name, departed this vale of tears)
>miss a part of the equation, that a vertical gun offers the worst of all
>potential alternatives, combining slow rate of fire with a small,
>expensive projectile, subject to all the downside of conventional guns,
>the need to protect boosters, charge, fuzing and guidance from pressure
>and velocity, then having hurled it skyward to capture its attention for
>guidance to a far away target at which some hitherto unidentified asset
>must be looking in order to provide terminal guidance or spot the fall
>of shot (likely to be in the next county). All this, and the “Go bang”
>part, along with guidance system, range boosters, fuzing, “bomblets” (if
>employed), etc. must be packed in a small hole through the middle of a
>8″ dia. chunk of metal about 2′ long. and built to resist bumps and
>shocks.
>
>Every time I read of vertical guns, I always am reminded of another
>super weapon, a marvel of its time, the USN’s notorious “Dynamite
>Cruisers”, small cheap ships designed to hurl mighty warheads with
>impunity. Hurl they did, but hit rarely.
>
>And then there are the “Data Dogs”, for whom naval history, strategy and
>tactics can be triced up into neat tubes of statistics and numbers.
>Captained by “Merry Andrew”, a man wise beyond his years but haughtier
>than Louis XV, this group, appropriately known as “Toppanites”, base
>their culture upon the reduction of all questions to table entries. If
>the cruiser “Duc de Maurepas” was credited with 17.754 kts on speed
>trials, she obviously could steam at 17.754 kts upwind into 15 ft. head
>sea 42 years later. If one ship hit another with a single round at
>26,432 yds, then (a) hits will always occur at 26,432 yds and (b) firing
>beyond that range is pointless. Luck or the famous theory of “It’s just
>not our day!” are not within their cognizance-capacity.
>
>Their fate is simple….Port and Starboard Foc’sle watches on dark days
>and night when the jackstaff’s not visible from the Bridge, the radar’s
>down for EMCON, the SOA’s 20 kts, and the CO’s a crazed Queeg-like being
>who brigs on bread and water any lookout who fails to identify an
>unlighted fishing smack at 8 miles, it’s sleeting, the Porkchops have
>stolen all the foul weather gear, and their are no MIDRATS.
>
>But too wind up this Sunday AM perambulation/circumlocution…..
>
>Recently, Andrew dismissed the concept of a shipboard MLRS system on the
>grounds that “stability” could not be provided for firing/targeting.
>
>Stabilizing mounts has been the principal goal of gunner since the first
>culverin was hauled aboard. Readers of naval fiction cut their teeth on
>”Fire on the up roll!”
>
>For most of this century, naval guns (and directors) have benefited from
>stabilization in elevation and azimuth while almost every basic fire
>control device corrects for pitch and roll.
>
>A number of weapons, some of them effective, including fixed Hedgehog
>and some ASW mortars, offered no more stabilization than “seaman’s eye”.
>
>Back before WWII, although it was a major technological challenge and
>its benefits did not match cost and complexity, Germany developed DP
>directors and gun mounts stabilized in 3 axes, theoretically improving
>targetting by removing another factor of ship’s movement from the fire
>control solution.
>
>The provision of stabilization is no real barrier to the mounting of
>mounts for multiple, reloadable self-propelled missiles abpoard naval
>vessels. While they are “Bombardment” type weapons, current accuracy
>levels seem more than acceptable to US and European armies.
>
>While only “under fire” for a fortunately brief (but absolutely
>terrifying) moment in my life, I’ve spoken to many men who have spent
>longer periods being the subject of the unwelcome ballistics
>intentions/attentions of others. Their observations share a common
>thread….
>
>One spends little time attempting to identify that which is the source
>of the shit falling all about one’s self. From rounds from tiny 2″
>infantry mortars or man portable grenade launchers up to and including
>giant blockbusters dropped from a/c, the reactions are amazingly
>similar, acute and immediate discomfort and a desire to be elsewhere.
>
>Because of their volume and intensity of fire, barrage rockets, from
>Congreve thru Katushya and LSMRs up to MLRS provide particulary
>uncomfortable venues for those, their equipment and vehicles in the
>target area. As one friend, a veteran of several off-target fire
>missions said, “It don’t matter what they’re shooting at, but how close
>to your ass they’re hitting is damned important!”
>
>The existence of well-developed warheads (inc. multiple munitions),
>stable durable missile motors, a cost effective launch system not unlike
>the box launchers used for earlier naval weapons (ASROC, Sea Sparrow,
>etc.), adequate accuracy, minimal recoil (improves adaptability to
>smaller hulls), and reasonable capability to be adapted to existing or
>modified fire control equipment to provide “Stability” makes plans to
>install MLRS or similar weapons on naval vessels to assist in the
>provision of NGFS or such missions as mine clearing/area sanitization an
>interesting and attractive alternative.
>
>As for the “hardened targets” objection, it’s easy to forget that any
>potential enemy is likely to be aware of your capacity to attack them,
>and equally likely to adopt traditional methods of rendering you weapons
>less effective. Concealment and camouflage are almost as good as
>concrete (except for coastal guns, rare anachronisms, which pretty
>muchly need to be close to the beach and facing out to sea or toward
>waters which they are empleced to control).
>
>Argument solicitied.
>
>–
>War….
>A desperate venture in which, preceded by bugle and drum,
>amidst cannonade and the rattle of musketry,
>the vain glories of the old are purchased with the blood of the young.
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Today’s retrospect is considerably clearer than yesterday’s foresight!
>
>TMOliver/8225 Shadow Wood/Woodway/TX/76712/254-772-2859/254-776-3332