In 2006, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment "Nightstalkers" at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, set up a new battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington, to serve special operations units based on the West Coast for operations in the Pacific. Equipped with the advanced MH-47G Chinook, the unit approached the veterans of the 53rd "Guns A-Go-Go" for permission to resurrect the unit designation, patch, and "Guns A-Go-Go" call sign- which of course was agreed to with enthusiasm!
That'll do pig.
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
In 2006, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment "Nightstalkers" at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, set up a new battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington, to serve special operations units based on the West Coast for operations in the Pacific. Equipped with the advanced MH-47G Chinook, the unit approached the veterans of the 53rd "Guns A-Go-Go" for permission to resurrect the unit designation, patch, and "Guns A-Go-Go" call sign- which of course was agreed to with enthusiasm!
That'll do pig.
We don't talk about the Chinooks at that end of the field....
Both the OV-1 Mohawk and the OV-10 were the shiznit, and both were well able to mount CAS hardware.
The Mohawks were institutionally forbidden to do so, the OV-10s were used primarily for FAC duties, so a couple of 7X 2.75 WP rocket pods for marking targets were all they bothered to hang on them. (Notably, the A-10 configured as an OA-10 is/was supposed to be the next FAC(now JTAC) plane until they get around to wanting another one.
Turboprop or not, the point of the Skyraider, which was an awesome CAS machine, is that you get a smaller footprint than the A-10, everything off it but the 30mm gun you'd like to hang there, and the designed-in-from-the-get-go ability to launch and recover from carriers in a less complex package. I don't recall where the Douglas logo ended up as we've whittled ourselves down to three primary aircraft companies, but Northrup-Grumman would probably be able to refurb every one you'd need.
If throwing in a modern turboprop gets you even more benefits, they should do it.
Along with upgrading 1950s and 1970s-era cockpits and avionics to 2015 standards, which would hurt nobody's feelings, least of all the pilots'.
The USAF would never ever again have to piss, whine, and moan about air-to-ground missions (the AF CSAR guys would actually want to poach some of those assets on a regular basis), and nobody on the ground would have to wonder WTF happened to his air support, or why the wing left it at home in their other pants.
And if you told Marine aviation that the F-35 was cancelled, and they were going to get refurbed A-1s and A-10s for air-to-mud support instead, the line to sign up for them would be out the base gate.
All of this making sense and saving money over the gold-plated abortion, the F-35 Thunderjug, means we're about as likely to hang weapons pods off of flying pigs and unicorns first. But it's nice to dream once in awhile.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Aesop wrote:I don't recall where the Douglas logo ended up as we've whittled ourselves down to three primary aircraft companies, but Northrup-Grumman would probably be able to refurb every one you'd need.
They're Boeing now. The A-1 would be a decent starting point on paper, but the required modernization, and few enough airframes left in existence around the world, would necessitate starting production of new airframes anyway.
But since Boeing has pitched building new OV-10s anyway, I think they could be sold on it.
They would be nice in a COIN or low intensity conflict, but an updated OV10 would not have a very good survivability in a high intensity conflict.
Their get home rate in Vietnam was not very good either for that matter. 63 lost in VN, the total built was only like 350 and less than 200 of them actually made it to VN, that makes a best case loss rate of more than 30%. I'm sure they are fun to fly, but that is not something I would sign up for.
I'd rather they make a semi-stealthy (most bang for the least buck) new two seat A-10-ish type of aircraft with the big gun removable so you can load other payload for other missions.
Slow speed, big payload, long loiter time, short landing capability - sell it to the Navy too as a dual mission ASW and CAS airframe.
Had a friend who was shot down twice in an OV-10 in VN. He was an E-7 teaching at Ft Eustis on his twilight tour when I met him in the early 80' (I was at the RAG at NAS Norfolk). He and his wife took us newlyweds in a strange town, on a stranger coast, like we were family. He was gone shortly after retirement. Classic military retiree early death. His wife remarried another OV-10 guy (retired E-9) who lived in Coronado and worked on Customs birds at NASNI. She'd have my wife over every Sunday without fail when I was at sea. Yeah, that hospitality thing has nothing to do with this thread but whenever I hear "OV-10" I think about those good folk.
Not sure either of those old guys would share the sentiment in this thread about OV-10's. More likely they'd be voting for something with enough lift to armor up a bit and still carry extra eyeballs, a significant bit of ordnance, some sensors and command/control/comms. Like say, ohh.... an E-2 or C-2. Bethpage Ironworks has the answer for this thread.
Last edited by blackeagle603 on Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
That'll do pig.
Bethpage Ironworks has the answer for this thread.