Humphrey Bogart said:
I disagree that 24 AH's would be too few, it's probably just right for our size.
Of those twenty-four, how many would you expect to deploy for a sustained operation?
Humphrey Bogart said:
Edit: I understand your point about serviceability; however, we should base the entire AH fleet in a Petawawa, re-roll 2CMBG in to an Air-Mobile Brigade.
I agree with that concept in general. It would not affect serviceability, however, or any other factor. And we should think in terms of tactical units rather than rectally-extracted numbers.
Coincidentally, but I doubt that the Senate scoured any doctrinal publications, a standard US Army Attack Reconnaissance Battalion has three companies of eight AH64, which equates to a Canadian Squadron of three Flights of eight. I would accept that model, as it's been proven and would allow one flight preparing, one deployed, and one recovering. Additional machines would still be required for an Operational Training Flight (aircrew and groundcrew conversions-to-type) and some to account for the number in major inspections. That twenty-four machine Squadron is, after all, a tactical unit, and taking out a quarter or so continually has an effect, especially when it comes to deployments. Presuming that we were to deploy a Flight of eight, the six (presuming 25%) out of the picture for a couple of months each for major inspections drops the number left in Canada to ten, of which a couple more would be down for regular unserviceabilities. And once losses due to combat and accident start to happen...
I'd prefer to see two such Squadrons for sustainability, or at least a Squadron-and-a-half, with one affiliated with your proposed 2 CABG, as we would be hard-pressed to keep one Flight fully manned and equipped for an extended period. We had 11% of our Griffon fleet in Kandahar for a little over two years (I'm not counting the non-flying "ready reserve" as stripping as much weight off as possible and adding some essential gear would not be required) and were hard-pressed to sustain that. Trying to keep 33% of an AH fleet deployed is a bit more of a challenge.
We did, yes, add six Chinooks into theatre with no extra bodies, so that skews the numbers a bit. The total deployed, both types, still only equated to 19% of our total fleet, both types, and the smaller fleet was not acquired for long-term use and we did not run an OTF.
On the plus side, AHs are not likely to be tasked with domestic VIP trips and flood relief...
MilEME09 said:
it should be noted the number 24 was picked as it would mean one AH for every chinook, idea the senate having is that one to escort every chinook
Escorts work in sections of two, for mutual support. We flew the ring routes (administrative aerial bus routes) with one Chinook and two Griffon escorts. For larger, tactical, missions this ratio would change, but properly capable utility helicopters are better than a Chinook-exclusive/Chinook-heavy fleet for insertions and extractions. Chinook become the helicopter of choice in Afghanistan because heat and elevation sucked performance (helicopters are more efficient at sea level in low temperatures) and it had lift capacity to spare, and it was a relatively permissive environment.
We should not base our assumptions and resultant purchases on
the last war, but war in general. The next one could be a more conventional slugfest in a cooler, lower, rainier place, in which case we would find ourselves oversubscribed with Chinook and undersubscribed with UHs and AHs, and Griffon would be a lot less useful as an escort with door guns only.
How much of that fancy essential-for-the-time route clearance equipment did we retain?
