All Things Air Defence/AA (merged)

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Regardless of what Artillery wanted to do, who was at the top while this happened?

I understand that at times the individual trades are going to try to stuff like this, but the guy at the top has to be responsible for maintaining a big picture view of what's going on.

Especially with how long it appears to take us to procure anything and re-develop a competency, to have allowed the army as a whole to have lost the entire GBAD capability while pursuing other areas of interest, is negligent.

A quick clarification....

I don't understand how air assets could be deemed the best solution for countering opposing UAS assets?  With many of opposing uas assets being COTS toys costing only hundreds of dollars, it seems like a less expensive and more immediate solution would be more appropriate - something like MANTIS in combination with just about any MANPAD-based system that we could buy off the shelf?


Thanks in advance, Matthew. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

What they could have done is tasked 2-3 Reserve units as AD and given them some light guns, task one Reg force artillery unit to support a Troop of Manpads and a troop of the same guns as the Reserves, using whatever Manpads are used by our allies. Their job is to maintain some expertise in this field. Because we know things fall apart and procurement fails, plus we never have enough air assets to go around. 

 

[daftandbarmy]

Coincidentally, they're making a movie about what happens to an Army that has no adequate anti-air defence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRtZUkAR2u4

 

[FJAG]

I don't understand how air assets could be deemed the best solution for countering opposing UAS assets? 

Welcome to the better part of my artillery career in the 60s and 70s when we had zero air defence assets except our C2s and 30 cals and every exercise scenario started with the stupid phrase "we have air superiority".

As I was leaving in the early eighties we were just starting to rebuild our AD and locating capabilities but it's not hard to understand where a decade of darkness followed by a decade of fighting an insurgency which had no air resources has led to the situation we're in now.

I do agree with the question about who are the senior leaders responsible for this state of being? Leaving it up to the infantry and the artillery to sort out their own organizations within the limited permissible PYs seems to me an abrogation of responsibility within the senior army and CF leadership to develop sound doctrine and overall force structures.

:cheers:

 

[dapaterson]

Gee, who commanded the Army in 2006?

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Regardless of what Artillery wanted to do, who was at the top while this happened?

I understand that at times the individual trades are going to try to stuff like this, but the guy at the top has to be responsible for maintaining a big picture view of what's going on.

Especially with how long it appears to take us to procure anything and re-develop a competency, to have allowed the army as a whole to have lost the entire GBAD capability while pursuing other areas of interest, is negligent.

A quick clarification....

I don't understand how air assets could be deemed the best solution for countering opposing UAS assets?  With many of opposing uas assets being COTS toys costing only hundreds of dollars, it seems like a less expensive and more immediate solution would be more appropriate - something like MANTIS in combination with just about any MANPAD-based system that we could buy off the shelf?


Thanks in advance, Matthew. 

Ahhh yes, that's the part of the story that was left out. The artillery branch advisor pushed the plan based on his preference for HIMARS to the then Army Commander, LGen Leslie, who conveniently also hated the Air Defence (he said as much at a town hall in Gagetown) and advised as such. The decision to maintain a capability gap was then decided upon for 2 key reasons:

1. The push at the time was for a Counter Rocket, Mortar, and Artillery (C-RAM) system since it was believed that an air threat outside of C-RAM didn't exist; and
2. The GBAMD project was in swing with an anticipated completion date of 2021 at that time and it was believed that it was better to wait for a more modern solution than to rush something.

There were attempts from 2012 to today to procure an interim GBAD system, including staff checks in DLR for Stinger/RBS-90 missiles and the request from 2 VP for a MANPAD system last year. The first one was rejected as it was believed that the threat was only C-RAM and UAS in nature, which are not systems that can be readily or easily engaged by a MANPAD system. The second is still in the ringer.

Air assets ARE NOT optimal for counter UAS, particularly at the SUAS and MUAS levels. For something at the HALE/MALE level an aircraft could certainly do it, but the others are too small and slow for easy identification and generally work in the close fight.

 

[Infanteer]

I guess this is where 1% of the GDP gets us.... :-\

 

[MilEME09]

Funny how changing how assets are allocated for the airforce creates a capability gap. However not having AD for almost 10 years is not a capability gap.

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I don't understand how air assets could be deemed the best solution for countering opposing UAS assets?  With many of opposing uas assets being COTS toys costing only hundreds of dollars, it seems like a less expensive and more immediate solution would be more appropriate - something like MANTIS in combination with just about any MANPAD-based system that we could buy off the shelf?

The systems are out there, we just are hoping someone else buys and deploys them.  This is the way we do business, its called piggy-backing.  Hell, we don't even do SFA for Christmas for the troops deployed on IMPACT, just let the USAF and DFAC do all the real lifting.  It seems to be our SOP, and our second SOP is to make excuses about why we do the first SOP.

Other people, of course, are spending money to counter the UAV/UAS/RPA threat...http://www.janes.com/article/67118/auds-achieves-trl-9-deploys-with-us-forces

The new cam and concealment on the battle field could be the IR spectrum, etc in the near future.  If you are out there, and not under cover, and someone is above you with IR or EO...good luck hiding.  Paint yourself green, scrim up...not going to matter much if someone has an IR lens on you from above.

 

[Loachman]

Funny how changing how assets are allocated for the airforce creates a capability gap.

That had nothing to do with a capability gap. Somebody needed an excuse to buy anything-but-an-F35 in order to fulfill a campaign promise, no matter how ridiculous that campaign promise was.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

The systems are out there, we just are hoping someone else buys and deploys them.  This is the way we do business, its called piggy-backing.  Hell, we don't even do SFA for Christmas for the troops deployed on IMPACT, just let the USAF and DFAC do all the real lifting.  It seems to be our SOP, and our second SOP is to make excuses about why we do the first SOP.

Other people, of course, are spending money to counter the UAV/UAS/RPA threat...http://www.janes.com/article/67118/auds-achieves-trl-9-deploys-with-us-forces

The new cam and concealment on the battle field could be the IR spectrum, etc in the near future.  If you are out there, and not under cover, and someone is above you with IR or EO...good luck hiding.  Paint yourself green, scrim up...not going to matter much if someone has an IR lens on you from above.

It's sad but true in this case.... when they divested the ADATS the Army commander simply said that "the US would provide any AD we needed". When he was asked why, by the same logic, we needed field artillery, armour, aircraft, or HIMARs he was less than impressed.

 

[Rifleman62]

As stated in another thread, Moochers.

Thou shalt not take moochers into thy hut?
Homer

Sooner or later Pres Trump is going to lay down the law.

https://army.ca/forums/threads/82898.1650.html

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (President's National Security Advisor) on foreign policy. 30 Apr 17 Extract from Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace transcript.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

According to Wiki
20mm guns would give us coverage to 1600m-2600m
35mm Skysweeper was 13,600m
Mistral SAM was a 6km range

The 20mm would be good for the reserves, smallish footprints and good for a lot of the smaller UAV/drones

The 35mm bigger footprint but better for the larger UAV's and the Mistral (or similar) would give us enough presence to deter ground attack aircraft.

 

[Journeyman]

When he was asked why, by the same logic, we needed field artillery, armour, aircraft, or HIMARs he was less than impressed.

He wasn't used to being questioned by his closest advisor -- his mirror.


But thank you for these posts; it's always awesome seeing informed input.  :nod:

 

[NavyShooter]

The 20mm would be a good start, we probably still have a pile of Oerlikon's in the system from WWII that we can put back in service, maybe not even needing to hit museums this time?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

and we could hire Achmed to make a Portee mount for it, if we left it to the military we would take 20 years to design a mount and then have no money left to buy them.

 

[Kirkhill]

Why not just portee the 25mm?  Parts and ammo are already in the system.

https://youtu.be/w-9yDsaZjGo

 

[Kirkhill]

Or, related.

The M230 Link Fed Bushmaster Chain Gun was integrated on to weapons stations from Kongsberg and EOS. The remote weapons stations were installed on both the Oshkosh JLTV and a Land Cruiser – showing the flexibility of a lightweight but capable chain gun on differing vehicles.

30mm RWS on a pick up truck.

http://www.orbitalatk.com/News-Room/PrinterFriendly.asp?prid=215

 

[NavyShooter]

In thinking about this....I think the US Secret Service probably has more AA defense capability than the CAF does....at least based on RUMINT.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I don't think that I'd want to be in the cab of that pickup while the gun is overhead like that and firing.