Navy Helos and support to Special Operations

[Uncle Fester]

Um the W cobra was just hitting the fleet in the late 80s. First squadron around 86. Reserves were flying Js in Desert Storm. I don't think there was much talk of Whiskeys on their last legs, there still isn't by the way.

Right, let me rephrase: the Cobra had been around for 20-ish years by that point, and this was back in the halcyon days when we replaced airplane designs periodically instead of just making things Super. It was widely assumed that adapting the (newer) Apache would be easier than a from-scratch design for a new gunship. It never went anywhere because with the end of the Cold War and the Iran-Iraq War and the advent of the Peace Dividend, the Navy didn't see the need to have dedicated gunships (plus, as mentioned, no ASW or SAR capability). The Marines, as you say, were fine with the Cobra for the time being; and, they didn't want to get into another big acquisition project solo.

Delete the gun .... from a Gunship. I would been screaming and throwing things at the engineer that proposed that revision. 30mm is about the most useful weapon on the Apache. Yeah big missiles are great but you cant shoot a hellfire at everything.

This was the Navy version; having the nose enclosure allowed for use of the APG-65. The Marine version would put a smaller radar back on top of the mast (a la the Longbow) and restored the gun to the nose.

 

[BACONATOR]

Don't hold your breath on that one. Reality check: You're gonna be delivering palets of pre-wilted lettuce and stale bread.

Brett

Apparently you and kbay missed the parenthetical statement tacked on to the end of that motard claim of mine.

Howewver, to play devil's advocate, I believe HSC-25 was THE, if not one of the first to employ the armed helo package on the MH-60S and has been doing a lot of NSW stuff. Perhaps I'm making shit up trying to motivate myself here, but it seems like if anyone is likely to shoot something off of one of those spinny things Navy side, it's gonna be an exp. HSC det.

EDIT: And from what I've been told, VERTREP has been largely outsourced to civilian contractors.