₦airaland Forum

komekn:
This is very very worrisome trend in the NA where the long standing conventions regarding senior officers are being decimated.

I have noticed a politicisation of the NA and personalisation moving from management by policy, process and strategy too Charismatic management where the core focus is on the leader.

I watched combatants in training singing praise songs about Burutai as if they were in Aladura church.

We moved away from objectivity to subjectivity and the approval of the COAS that creates sycophancy and not measured outcome delivery in management.

Once you have this kind of charismatic management style, It's always followed by mediocrity and the quest to please the leader and what is best for him not the organisation.

I truly believe there are people here who are part of his Choir here, singing the same sings of undue praise.

VERY SAD

Watch them rain their vitriolic rhetoric against me now.

That is why service chiefs should be properly rotated out, after serving their term.The longer they stay the more politicised the forces become, even if they(the service chiefs) didn't intend it.

dudex82:
The A10 is a very dangerous assets but it’s fucking too expensive to maintain; its one of the most feared aircraft insurgents hate to see.
The war in the Middle East does not look like it’s going to end soon they needed an aircraft that would be easy to maintain and at the same time deliver deferent types of ammunition!

Depends on who you are talking about.
The USAF that hates the A10 think the freaking expensive F35 is the solution, but the special operations command wisely believe that prop planes will do the job in low threat insurgency situations.

komekn:
You are inadvertently supporting my position.

If the USA truly believed in the efficacy of the A29 why would they have only 3 of these aircraft according to you, that's SHOCKING. When the USAF procures it procurers in hundreds not even in units of 10.

It's common sense that seems to have evaded quite a few here. if the USAF has only three, that in itself tells the story.

The US airforce hates the A10 warthog which they have in 100s what makes you think they will like the A29? Read about it.
Meanwhile ground forces absolutely love the A10.It is obvious the USAF love fast jets. Since the A10 is the property of the airforce other ground force structures (apart from the army) in the US are finding their own solutions.
Apaches are too expensive for them so best cost effective platforms are the tucano and AT6. They ,if approved will definitely not go to the airforce but special forces.

komekn:
Very simple and short reply.

Go and ask Turkey about all this long baseless rhetoric. And then ask Assad and Haftar how the feel.

Finally, the A10 is being retired and no NATO country has bothered procuring it. I wonder why ❓ ❓

Don't mix things up,if you want to use drones for surveillance,am all for it.Go ahead. If it is for close air support, it's too slow and vulnerable to use based on our doctrine,which the alpha,tucano and mi35 m can fit perfectly.
If for interdiction,this is already being done very well by the alpha jets and would raise costs if introduced. The idea of a "hunting drone" is too expensive for us to implement when cheaper effective options are available. Simply,use the ISR platforms (e.g. beech craft) to find the target and call in the alphas to stafe them.
The idea of using missiles to kill low value targets when rockets can do it just doesn't make sense. When last did BH bring down a plane or helicopter?
Turkish drones use home made missiles to cheapen it,but we don't make missiles so we can't afford to waste it on low value targets.

Drones are not attack platforms.Look at drone designs, air platforms with large long perpendicular wing are designed for high altitude slow speed operations.This is far from what attack platform look like and is more suited for surveillance and taking out HVT ( high value targets) This is the function of these drones,this is what they do. when the US ground forces call in air strikes for CAS it is not Drones that arrives.Drone strikes require lots of preplanned Hummit because the pilots awareness is limited.
Attack aircraft are akin to the regular GI,while drones are to snipers.
Snipers take out high value targets and are deployed away from regulars.
If you are talking about drones for surveillance go ahead and buy, but for attack? please, they are not designed from the onset for attack on ground forces in a battle field, there are platform for that.
The U.S. airforce don't want Tucanos because they already have warthogs. Anyway,the US airforce don't like being called into battle by the army for CAS,they like to make their own decisions than being seen as second to army.
Again,drones are not ground attack platforms but surveillance with limited attack of HVT. If the US saw drones as attack platforms they will retire the Apache,warthog and blackhawk

It seems the doctrine of our Airforce has gone from reactionary to offensive, we are seeing more air interdiction work by our airforce on bokoharam in the south.The problems is that ISWAP in the north have their logistics in lake chad in Chadian territory. We have to make the "handshake" between the two difficult.We need to give ISWAP an "itch",that is, a super base that constantly harasses them with artillery, forcing them further away from our border thereby isolating BH.

Concerning the borders I think we need a string of bases along the border, just like beads in prayer beads. Every 3 bases should have a super base after. Each base should have an observation mast that looks deep into our neighbours territory,it should be manned by snipers and have opto-electronic with FLIR remote sensors. The smaller bases should be defended with artillery from the super base and all should be within range of helio gunships.
My 2 kobo.

Ken006:
GH

The metal protective plate that lines the tyres is an interesting concept.

It seems as though aesa radar for the gripen C/D will be different from that of the new gripen E.


.....Integration of the AESA array – which features more than 500 gallium nitride transmit/receive modules – required no alteration to the Gripen’s power or cooling provision, Carp says. “We’re just changing the array itself, and using exactly the same back-end as the [PS-05/A] Mk4” with some software updates, he notes.

“We have the possibility now to get the full radar range to use [MBDA’s] Meteor or similar [air-to-air] missiles,” Carp notes of the enhancement.

The availability of an ITAR-free AESA array offers a potential upgrade path for existing Gripen C/D operators, which in addition to the Swedish air force include the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa and Thailand.....

....Saab’s AESA product will not compete with the Leonardo Raven ES-05 array installed on the airframer’s new-generation Gripen E, which is in production for Sweden and launch export buyer Brazil.
https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/saab-aesa-trial-offers-gripen-c/d-users-new-upgrade-path/138110.article

Some people are working a bit [too] hard to kill the thread that it is becoming obvious. If you know what people are posting is a lie prove it or remain quiet.

I would prefer we bought frigates than corvettes as our engineers are slowly building towards corvette size.Local corvette sized ships will reduce yearly navy maintenance budgets and free up foreign exchange to shop and maintain frigate sized ships while enlarging the navy with the local corvettes.

SDB 2/3 sized ships can be missile armed with about 2 missiles for coastal defence in future designs. What we need is more blue sea competence.

komekn:
Thank you very much



We are sending our sons , Fathers, brothers and Uncles into a killing zone with multiple threats in the back of soft skinned trucks, Big yellow 25 ton Dumpster trucks, soft skinned pick ups.

We do not have enough of anything we essentially need everything we do not even have a definitive IFV in our inventory. Our ability to project over distances is very limited our supply chain logistics is very poor, 3 c-130's and 5 utility heave lift helicopters MI-8.

Then in 2018 somebody has a brain wave a wonderful bright idea, lets buy 12 A29 turboprop aircraft that will not be delivered until in completion until 2024 indeed we will not get the first aircraft until 2020+. Meanwhile it is only going to cost the paltry sum of $600 million....


....Look at our peers when procurement is being made it is done in hundreds not pieces of ten that will make no impact. For instance we bought a number of Chinese MBT and light tanks , what is the total number from what i gather not more than 25, that is a drop in the ocean, it is simply not enough.

Finally, how much is a toyota light skinned gun truck and how much is a used eastern block BTR 80 APC, not particularly outstanding but a lot better than being in the back of a pick up truck in a kill zone.

Don't blame the Airforce for the army's problems. The Army has the Biggest budget of the three tiers and seems to even want drone helicopters.
Concerning acquisitions it is one thing to make aquisition it's another thing to run a competent airforce from those aquisitions. Each time you buy a ship,aircraft or weapons system you don't make yourself, you raise the recurrent expenditure astronomically,if care is not taken your army could become impotent from aquisition. Capacity is important but capability and competence is just as important.
In terms of recurrent expenditure a twin engine like an su27 is almost twice as expensive to run and train pilots competently as a single engine fighter. Where you have six competent pilots you could have had 12. There is a reason why our airforce has been flying thousands of sorties in the last 5 years while some African nations pilots are earth bound.
If you want better weapon systems for our armed forces,tell the House of assembly to cut their stupendous salaries.

Some are asking for million dollar drones to prevent ambushes but have forgotten we dont yet have the few thousand dollar MRAPs required by our soldiers to beat an ambush. The men on the ground want something to give them a fighting chance,Mraps, lots of grenades (both smoke and frag),mortar and proper training on beating ambushes with these weapons.If we can't furnish them with MRAP's what will drones do? If wishes were horses we will all ride. we deal with the budget we know not fantasize on "Giant of Africa".
We are talking about drones but here we have a recovery vehicle ambushed because there is not enough MRAPs to go round. Are we suggesting the Army cant move around against BH without the air-force saying it is safe, esp. in an uncontested airspace? Surely that is not possible!
I just laught at some suggestions,by the time you unload a few drone missiles you have bought ARA2 MRAP.
Concerning drones.
Again,we already have drones. If we wanted to do surveillance ahead of troop movement we can do it.If we wanted to use the beechcraft surveillance to give a heads up it can be done. However the running cost for each minor troop movement is too much in comparison with giving our troops proper protection and weapons to beat an ambush.

Komekn

Finally, which would you rather have 50 Wing Loong II UAV with complete 24 hr over watch and 2000 fit for purpose assorted MBT, IFV, APC, MRAP, LAV, tracked and wheeled with a good 15% with RWS in the HERE & NOW. Or 12, A29 turboprop aircraft that will be delivered on or before 2024 projected.

Me.
We already have drones,why do you think we don't have more?. You want us to kill 3 terrorists in a technical with a 1 to 10 million naira missile when we can use cheap made in Nigeria rockets as effectively? Have you seen the attrition rate of drones? Go and ask turkey.

Komekn
We already have aircraft that can drop 500 pound bombs. Albeit not very accurately when you rely entirely on pilot ability it's not precision. It is well documented NAF dropping bombs on friendly and or wrong targets. That's not what you pay $600 million for.

Me.
That is why you don't need drones that can only fire expensive 25kg missiles, but rather an aircrat that can loiter like the drone but drop much larger munitions with much greater effect on the enemy.
Do you think repurposing a plane (pc-21)
built for simulation into a ground attack aircraft with actual weapon systems will be cheap?!

Komekn
The rockets we make are not precision guided do you know the effective cast range❓ . They are struggling to exceed 1.5 km. That puts the aircraft delivering such munitions in a position of weakness for AA fire.

Me.
This is what we use all the time from our helicopters and Alpha jets, what is the attrition rate of those platforms? If both can handle it why not the Tucano?and we build it, but the drone can't be armed with it because they are not meant for such.Even if we decided to buy the 8km range hydra rocket (which we are, I gave the link) it is far cheaper than missiles.

Modify,drones have killed civilians too

Komekn

Comparatively the South African Mwari was purpose built as a fighting light single engined turboprop aircraft. The approach has been modular. You said it has no identifiable weapon systems that's not true. It's stupendously adaptable to so many it has 24 hard points, the A29 has 5.

Me.
You said it was a comparatively cheap alternative to A29 ,I am saying the low price versions have no modules. Once you start adding the weapon systems the price goes up.
That is why the made it modular.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rsa/mwari.htm
The military variant of the plane called 'Mwari' was to be on market in 15 months. Cost set at $10 million in 2011, but no price given with systems in place.

Komekn.
Remind me why the NAF is spending $600 million package.

Me.
You are trolling.

komekn(m): 9:09pm On May 14

You miss the point completely, the embraer aircraft in its basic form is simply a turboprop aircraft everything is a retrofit to make it the A29. It was made not as fighter at its initiation. That attribute was added much later.

dragon2(m): 10:43pm On May 14
The tucano was built from day one as a military aircraft. The first aircraft was called tucano emb 301 and emb 311. The proposal was to the Brazilian AF.


komekn(m): 8:54pm On May 16
The Embraer was built as a military training aircraft, absolutely correct. What's the particular point in that❓

Don't confuse yourself.
Emb 311 and 312 was designed from day one for counter insurgency and was not a simple turboprop as you suggested to which I replied .

....komekn.
There are so many aircraft, indeed the Alpha Jet was instituted as a trainer. Buy today it's probably out most effective and dependable ground attack asset over the decades. Yet it was essentially a training aircraft at inception....

Alpha jet was designed to handle light attack none was a retrofit from basic.

Kabe2:
Who is that in our plane, do they just allow random clowns to seat in customer aircrafts and snap pictures?

Probably test pilot/engineer.

Yes indeed 2p60 is ours

BAE Systems was awarded a $225 million contract to produce almost 10,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System units for the United States, Nigeria and the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a release.

The $225,034,247 firm-fixed-price delivery order was issued against a 2017 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00019-17-D-5517) to procure 9,999 Lot 7, full-rate production APKWS II units, the Wednesday, February 6 release said.

Work is expected to be completed in September 2020.....

.....APKWS is a component of Nigeria’s purchase of 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft. A long-awaited contract for the sale of 12 aircraft was awarded last November, but it did not include weaponry.

However, when the proposed sale was approved by the U.S. State Department in August 2017, the notification delivered to the U.S. Congress included 5,000 Hydra 70 2.75-inch unguided rockets, 400 Laser Guided Rockets including APKWS, as well as 200 Paveway II laser-guided bomb tailkits and 2,000 MK-81 250-lb bombs, and practice rockets and machine gun ammunition.

Nigeria was one of the countries listed in U.S. Department of Defense contract notifications for Hydra rockets in June and September, although it was unclear if this equipment is related to the aircraft sale.....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thedefensepost.com/2019/02/07/bae-contract-apkws-rocket-guidance-nigeria-netherlands-225-million/amp/

komekn:
You miss the point completely, the embraer aircraft in its basic form is simply a turboprop aircraft everything is a retrofit to make it the A29. It was made not as fighter at its initiation. That attribute was added much later.

The pertinent question is what other single engine turboprop aircraft of similar capabilities are available and can be retrofitted that includes up armoured . etc. Then how much will it cost. That includes the PC-21.

Once an air frame moves from civil use and is given military attributes you can essentially make it ten times more expensive, that is why military inflation for its products rises exponentially.

The South Africans have a unconventional single engine turboprop clearly with the role of close support in mind, expect it too now be quite expensive as they try to break into this market. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21305/mwari-south-african-prop-plane/

Just discovered the USAF have adopted the Pilatus PC-9 to retrofit into attack aircaft https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/pilatus_when-the-us-adopted-a-swiss-war-plane-s-twin/44219834 This particular air frame is much cheaper than the the more advanced PC-21.

My observation are to challenge us to think more strategically and look at ways to improve and increase capacity and best practice. I really do not see why NAF Engineers some with PHd cannot retrofit a single engine turboprop aircraft for our purposes at a fraction of the cost. If a Chinese Wing Loong 2 UAV costs $1 million, then why cant we procure the components from the individual manufactures again at a fraction of the cost.

The arms race is motivated by extreme profits and the procurement process creates a huge avenue for individuals to get huge payments in thier offshore accounts.

The tucano was built from day one as a military aircraft. The first aircraft was called tucano emb 301 and emb 311. The proposal was to the Brazilian AF.
There is a reason millitary weapon systems are expensive....tolerance. For e.g. microprocessors on millitary electronics is completely different from commercial chips. Military components and platforms must be able to tolerate high gforce, large temperature swings,pressures,e.m.p. radiation,impact force/ shock. e.t.c. If you use civilian components or platforms they will fail. You don't do 8g's with a civil class plane.
That is why millitary tech is more expensive.
Inflated budgets is heavily censured in the U.S. what is possible is expensive un-required weapon systems.
The South African Nwari is not cheap at baseline $10M
(2011) with no known weapon system attached.

As for drones,
Which is cheaper? An expensive 50kg missile that has a small blast radius fired from a drone or a cheap 500lb dumb bomb dropped by an experienced pilot with a tremendous blast radius.

Edit. Don't forget, we make our own rockets now?which is as effective as missiles in blast range,can be used by tucanos but not drones.

komekn:
That's a very well articulated view by the former USAF Col. from his perspective but as an intellectual document of proven fact it falls short of the mark without substantiation of the assumptions he makes on cost and low altitude flight risk. Further alternative options are not looked at particularly the impact of UAV's in Close Air Support Capability.

But its context is not relevant to the Nigerian situation as the USAF had entirely different cost parameters and air combat strategies to Nigeria, it is really an irrelevance. Nonetheless, maybe we can learn something from the Col. entirely USAF related position and deduction.

This is what i prefer an intellectual approach as opposed to wild assumption birthed from our own prejudices and or preferences.

There is considerable commissioned research the US by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the USAF in this area that is far more substantive than that of a singular USAF colonel. I have read quite a few 40+ page documents many of them.

In some regards it becomes the more you know the less you you understand to make a decision.

Majority is not necessarily right, but what is established beyond all doubt is that light attack turboprop air frames constitute less than 1% of all NATO attack aircraft. That in itself says something.

A key issue is cost, particularly in the context of Nigeria What is high cost and what is low cost how are we coming to that conclusion by assumption or by comparison analysis.

For instance a brand new comparable single engine turboprop aircraft of similar capacity and or even higher performance such as the Swiss PC21 which costs under $4.5 million per unit. Indeed the Spanish air force bought 24 military spec. for under $185 million or thereabouts. Quite shockingly pilots have transited from the PC-21 straight to the F18. What will it cost to retrofit additional weapon systems ISTAR Capabilities not a huge amount IMO.

This is food for thought for those who want to have a solution led approach and a red flag to angry bulls who find questioning and or even appraising NAF procurement decisions an act of high treason. The choice is yours is this best value or not.

The PC21 is a trainer aircraft,it's look and parameters show that is is meant primarily as a fighter trainer not attack.It is not armoured, all its weapon suite are simulated i.e. no weapon system.Its hard points are for smoke(during display) and fuel.

....The PC-21 is equipped with underwing hardpoints, which allow the carriage of external fuel tanks and smoke pods (for aerial displays) but, unlike Embraer or Beechcraft, Pilatus does not support any of the other external stores which would be required to use the aircraft in a light attack role.....
...The embedded simulation and training suite comprises tactical navigation and moving map, stores management, simulated air-to-air and air-to-ground radar and electronic countermeasures (ECM), radar target simulation through data link, air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons parameters simulation, and a no-drop bomb-scoring system (NDBS)....
....The electronic warfare (EW) suite includes simulated radar warning receiver (RWR), chaff and flares.....
https://militarysimulation.training/articles/variations-on-the-trainer-theme-pilatus-pc-21/

Simulated radar,chaff,flare and weapons.

https://www.flightglobal.com/flight-test-pilatus-pc-21-fast-learner/84147.article

The aircraft is simply made for flying not fighting.

About the tucano's usefulness.

Throwback. Backwards. Illogical. Three words used recently to describe an emerging U.S. Air Force initiative to field light attack aircraft of a type not operated by U.S. forces since Vietnam. Aircraft that are compact, lethal, relatively inexpensive and easy to support in the field. Powered by a turboprop engine, looking remarkably like their forebears from the Second World War, they often inspire an emotional reaction that equates the design features negatively with older concepts, now long past.

To some of the combat aviators who have been deeply embroiled in continuous conflict since 9/11, they’re a no-brainer.

This discussion of options for new airplanes is no longer academic. This summer, the Air Force will engage in a light attack experiment at Holloman AFB, which may be followed by a combat demonstration the likes of which has not been carried out by the Air Force since Vietnam.

If you’re prepared to take advice from individuals with no aviation background at all, this should worry you deeply. But if you’re prepared to concede, maybe, that professional aviators with extensive combat experience haven’t suddenly lost their minds, then it should become immediately obvious that there might be some utility in light attack. Certainly it has historical roots – The Navy, Marines and Air Force all used light attack aircraft in Vietnam. But just using the term doesn’t adequately describe the aircraft, or the reasons to consider them. Why a light attack aircraft?

Light attack aircraft were just that – smaller attack aircraft like the A-37 Dragonfly or Navy OV-10, with significant weapons loads but not designed to stand up in the front of the apocalyptic Soviet/NATO battlefield. For the Air Force, the long path to considering a new attack aircraft started in 2008. Faced with increasing airpower demand in Iraq and Afghanistan, the existing fighters were being wrung out. For the kind of air support we were providing for U.S. ground forces, the existing F-16, F-15E and Navy / Marine F-18 were a ridiculous overmatch. Recall that by 2008, the Air Force and Naval aviation had been in continuous combat since January 16, 1991, and a decade and a half later the strain was showing. Meeting airpower demand with expensive, high end aircraft was the only option we had, and we were flying their wings off. We still are.


First, we had to define the aircraft. At Air Combat Command, a handful of aviators wrote the concept for OA-X, OA meaning observation/attack, and X meaning something we didn’t have a number for yet (not meaning experimental, as some have written). We started with historical examples – the aircraft we used to fight an insurgency in the jungles of Vietnam. The first example was the A-1 Skyraider, a hulking behemoth of an airplane with a massive, 18-cylinder radial engine designed as a carrier aircraft and transferred to the Air Force in 1964 after the Navy retired them. Alongside, the OV-10. The OV-10 Bronco, a new-build, twin-turboprop observation aircraft used as a forward air controller by the Air Force and as an attack aircraft by the Navy and Marines. What the authors envisioned with OA-X was a modern turboprop aircraft with advanced sensors and precision weapons just like a modern fast jet. But we also wanted aircraft that could be forward deployed to austere airfields, fueled from 55-gallon drums, and supplied from the back of a pickup truck – none of which a jet can easily do. And we needed it to be relatively cheap to buy and to operate. In short, we envisioned an aircraft that looked like earlier designs, with the weapons and sensors of a modern jet.

These aircraft existed. I had seen the A-29 Super Tucano in Colombia in 2007. Raytheon had a conversion of their T-6 trainer (the AT-6) that included a weapons capability. What we were looking for was off the shelf stuff, not needing a long development period. For combat operations in the Middle East, this seemed like a good match. The aircraft that existed were two-seaters with light armor, good day/night electro-optical sensors, guns, and precision munitions. Unrefeueled, they had twice the loiter time of the fast jets. They sipped fuel – the fuel they burned in an hour of flight approximated the fuel an F-15E used taxiing from parking to the runway. We were looking at traditional attack aircraft – combat aircraft that could be used for a wide array of missions from Close Air Support to interdiction to combat search & rescue. In 2009 these aircraft could have flown from a dozen US-operated airfields in Afghanistan that could not have supported fast jets.

But making the case to an Air Force that had always been able to afford very high-end aircraft took time. The Air National Guard tested the AT-6 from 2010 to 2014 and judged it “operationally suitable and operationally effective.” Ironically, it wasn’t the combat capabilities of the aircraft that made the strongest case – it was the health of the rest of the fighter / attack enterprise. A quarter century of continuous operations was wrecking the force – readiness was the worst ever measured, aircraft sustainment costs were climbing, and the Air Force had long since run out of the cockpits we needed to turn freshly-graduated aviators into seasoned fighter pilots. The F-35, as capable as it is, could only provide a limited number of cockpits, and those not enough to “absorb” the new pilots to keep the force healthy. By 2016 we were short almost a thousand experienced fighter pilots, and the shortage was getting worse. The Air Force was buying fighter aircraft at a rate so slow that it was going to take us 200 years to recapitalize even the shrunken, post-drawdown force. We needed to return to a healthy balance – and that meant buying more aircraft. As the concept moved forward into a planned flying experiment in the summer of 2017, resistance mounted.

Some objections were emotional. Turboprops were old, and suitable only for people too poor to afford jets. The objections to a turboprop were perhaps the most irrational, and the easiest to dispel with data. A modern turboprop is a computer-controlled marvel of engineering, and is the most efficient aircraft powerplant for the performance regime that we needed to operate in. It is easy to maintain and very resistant to ingested debris to be expected at forward airfields. Other objections were financial. Cost is always an issue, and under sequestration, the Air Force already has too much mission and not enough Air Force. But with the possibility of ending this self-destructive budget cap came the opportunity to buy new aircraft without taking the money from some other portion of an under-resourced service. The most pernicious objections came from industry, focused on what companies wanted to sell, rather than what the Air Force was looking for. In a flashback to the bad old days of acquisition, we heard over and over that a light jet was the solution – fuel demand, debris resistance, cost and maintenance requirements be damned. Jets were new, turboprops were old. But no jet had the characteristics we actually needed in a powerplant.

Other resistance relied on a panicked notion of the air defense threat. Suddenly, the widespread proliferation of “wish-you-were-dead” air defense weapons would end the usefulness of light attack aircraft. Except that such a proliferation isn’t happening, and if it did it would spell the end of a worldwide aviation enterprise. Really good air defenses are expensive and have to be sustained, and very few people can afford to buy the radar-guided threats, much less operate them. There really are places and scenarios where airpower is going to have a hard time operating, but those places are not ubiquitous. It’s not reasonable to expect that there will be a sudden surge of radar threats in the places where violent extremists are the most firmly entrenched – unless there are Russian or Chinese units nearby. So you can be assured that light attack aircraft are not intended for a radar threat environment. Not are they intended for an environment dominated by hostile fighters. Because that would be stupid.

That last issue deserves attention. Turboprop light attack aircraft are intended for lightly contested airspace, where the primary threats are guns and shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missiles, commonly known as MANPADS. This is the environment that has dominated the threat airspace over Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and almost the entire African continent. In fact, in the last 25 years, U.S. combat operations have involved 176 days spent in contested airspace – and over 9400 calendar days outside it. Counting simultaneous operations like the no-fly zones as separate events, the total count of permissive days exceeds 17,000. That’s the environment in which we have been using up our highly capable legacy fighter / attack fleet, and it’s not going away.

In the most likely environment, OA-X would have three key survivability advantages over legacy jets.

They are quiet. It may not be obvious, but most gunners in an irregular warfare environment have to hear or see an aircraft to find it. They have no early warning system to feed them information. Our experience with AT-6 and A-29 on our training ranges are that they are very hard to hear. By the time you hear them, you’re in range of their weapons.
They are cool. Heat-seeking missiles rely on signatures from exhaust or hot metal, caused by friction with the air they fly through. The exhaust of the A-29s turboprop (the same as the AT-6C) is mixed with a strong propwash, and isn’t even hot enough to boil water by the time it reaches the trailing edge of the wing. The fastest moving part of the aircraft is the prop, which has to have special equipment built in to prevent ice from forming – the exact opposite of a heating problem. Add in the ability to detect missile launches and dispense flares, and the aircraft may well be less susceptible to the heat-seeking threat than any other fighter or attack aircraft in the inventory.
They’re small. Worst case, the AT-6 has less than half the exposed area of the A-10 when looking straight up at it. Best case, looking at it nose on, it presents an even smaller target. The A-29 is only a little bit larger that the AT-6 and I can attest that it’s hard to keep sight of your own wingman at distances where the larger jets maintain a visual formation. Small size makes an aircraft much harder to hit with gunfire, particularly with the obsolescent, aimed-by-eye, ex-Soviet antiaircraft guns fielded by insurgent groups worldwide. Joint experience with more than 15 years of warfare against violent extremists shows that fixed-wing aircraft moving faster than a helicopter only rarely get hit by small-arms fire, and they are not downed.

The alarmist among us can postulate about the proliferation of MANPADS but the reality is that comparable aircraft that stand out more in infrared would then be far more vulnerable that OA-X. That kind of air defense proliferation that would render OA-X unusable is extremely unlikely for the same reason that not everybody owns a new Lexus (cost, shortage of dealerships, supply limits, poor credit, etc). Yes, there are plenty of missiles and guns, but gunners able to hit moving targets, maneuvering in three dimensions, with countermeasures – those are hard to find.

The Air Force could make excellent use of light attack aircraft. We are experimenting with them for a reason – because we already wish to confirm that their attributes (precision, firepower, low footprint, low cost of ownership, low logistical burden) are exactly what we need to provide responsive, deployable and effective airpower against violent extremists worldwide – an expectation that the Joint Force continues to have. We need more cockpits to alleviate our shortage of fighter pilots and to improve readiness. There are objections to light attack, the most telling being that the Air Force cannot afford any new aircraft without additional funding from Congress to buy them. Other objections fall by the wayside when we look at the available data, and we intend to capture more, and soon.

Col. Mike “Starbaby” Pietrucha is a serving officer who was an instructor electronic warfare officer in the F-4G Wild Weasel and the F-15E Strike Eagle, amassing 156 combat missions and taking part in 2.5 SAM kills over 10 combat deployments. As an irregular warfare operations officer, Colonel Pietrucha has two additional combat deployments in the company of US Army infantry, combat engineer, and military police units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2017/05/03/back-to-the-future-why-the-u-s-needs-a-light-turboprop-attack-aircraft/#6e45ff2a267d

It should be called an "X" program.To build an experimental sub,or technological platform for capacity/capability building.It doesn't matter how crude, it should be a development project that could one day turn into a training sub.A few hundred million naira for a sub that can taken down maybe a crew of 6-10.

Toju200:
I'm glad my page is reaching people across the world..
Here's what a Pakistani commented https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=857724608069495&id=563565107485448
From Nigeria to the world...

If you look at the images carefully you will spot body work on aradu is ongoing. I think our navy engineers are getting more confident in their ship building and repair abilities.

GabrielYulaw:
It like you have not been following the posts here. The Tucano will be mainly using its bombs and missiles and these are American made and expensive as sin. For the price of one of these missiles I could build several estates and have enough left over to make Shakira divorce her hubby and marry me.
On the other hand, its hourly running cost and ease of maintenance is great. I hope you know that a Tucano using its machine guns will place it in range of enemy return fire. It only has .50 cal machine guns, while ISWAP has access to 20-23mm auto cannons on its gun trucks. They might even have MANPADS, but no one is in a hurry to find out. If a pilot gets shot down over there na big trouble he go fall into, cos I don't really see the NAF dispatching a search and rescue chopper to bail him out.

As regards loiter time, I am really afraid you don't know what you are talking about. The Tucano can at best stay in the air for maybe 5 hours. Most combat drones on the market can stay aloft for 24 hours and there are even some that can stay up there for almost a week. Algeria has some of these if I remember correctly.

I am not much an expert in the air, but I believe pilots get most of their training on jet-propelled trainer aircraft, like the Alpha jet, L-39 or the YAK-130. If you think prop aircrafts are good for this, we have Mushaks from Pakistan for that. Or all on this forum can make a contribution and buy Piper Cubs from the abroad.

You said drones don't have the speed to make kinetically accurate hits? Do you think they are firing anti-tank sabot rounds?

As for remote targeting and control, the best thing by far would have been for the NAF to pay for a military satellite or buy space on same and be free to control their drones at any range.

As for this war not ending anytime soon, all of us here know why, but few will admit it publicly.

I can guarantee you we won't be using missiles,if that was so our ch3 drones would be flying at will. During the Liberia war our alphas were flying constantly into AAA fire and going home.This shocked the Europeans that built it.
Secondly,if you have noticed our primary munitions are rocket and bombs.The rockets are our standoff munitions against triple A fire. That's why our attack helicopters survive BH, the same will be for the Tucano.The rockets are tactical while the bombs are strategic. If we are afraid of Manpads them how come we do not have high attrition from helicopters?
Tucanos as trainers is because we don't have mission computer on any platform as modern as those on the tucano and Jf17.
As for kinetic kill by drones am talking about the dumb bombs. Drones use missile only ,we don't. Drones can't strike an accurate kill with dumb bombs due to lack of kinetics.This is what is done by the alpha jets. If you think we are firing missiles from the alpha jets you are wrong,only about 2-5% of strikes is missile.
In conclusion,we don't do remote killing because we can't afford missiles,hence few drones.The alphas loiter times is max 1 HR and at high altitude.The tucanos can engage AAA beyond range with rockets at a range further off than helicopters due to its kinetic energy,loiter long,give ground troops live intelligence and is cheap to maintain and weaponise.It is smack in-between the jet and the helicopter and is not as expensive to weaponise as the drone,while being relatively safe.

blacKDalia:
IIRC in one of your replies to a poster( I think jphillips) you alluded that using guns on planes for CAS is obsolete, even pointing that it was a ww2 thing. The last sentence on my last post was in reply to that ; the F-35 is a replacement to the A10 and also uses a 25mm gun.
In reply to your best value, I would say so many people have pointed out to you that the contract involves so many things. Training pilots and technicians, building and upgrade of airbase, ammunitions etc In reply to your fit for purpose, Each wing of the wing long 2 has 3 hard points for carrying bombs and air to surface missiles, that makes it 6 bombs or 6 air to surface missiles in total. The A29 has 5 hard points to carry various ordinance and two.50 cal internal mounted guns. On YouTube the difference that the A10 makes to the Soldiers on the ground is using its GAU-8 Avenger guns, not it's "precision bombs". General Adeniyi said not less than 15 gun trucks. In situations like this, which would you prefer overhead, a wing long2 having 6 bombs to expend or an A29 having 5bombs to expend and could go on several staffing runs?

There is a reason why we do not use our drones often..cost of munitions.The tucanos is a balance between loiter time and cost of maintenance and munitions.
We cannot pretend to think that the war with bokoharam will end anytime soon.
Also,whenever the tucanos come in,it will be valuable for transition into the Jf17 for recruits,counter insurgency and border patrol. Drones don't have the speed to make a kinetically accurate hit with a dumb bomb,and targeting remotely with such is tasking.

That video shows up what i have been talking about. None of our boys had grenades,really?!No under slung grenade launchers or smoke grenades. No indirect fire possible from a pinned down position,no drones, no mortar. I don't understand. we seem to be so horizontal on our dependence on RPG for shock effect.

China's state-owned NORINCO delivered 17 armored vehicles including artillery trucks, VT4 main battle tanks and ST1 tank destroyers to the Nigerian Army (NA) on Wednesday. The company won the $152 million military equipment and training package last year reportedly owing to its flexible maintenance policies and durability of equipment. The West African country is the first in the world to own these armored vehicles, which are built to carry a minimum of 12 armed personnel.


The brand new Chinese weapons are in different categories- heavy tanks, light tanks and two types of artillery weapons. The first set of 15 40-foot containers that were offloaded before today were made up of spareparts and accessories of all these equipment," Armys Chief of Policy and Plans (CPPLANS) Lieutenant General Lamidi Adeosun said. “Those who will operate them have been trained in China. If not for the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19, we expected some of their trainers to join us here to train more people," Adeosun added.

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/26694/Nigeria_Receives_Chinese_Artillery__VT4_MBT___STI_Tank_Destroyer#.Xo7eDIHTWNw

Does the VT4 have an RWS ( remote weapon station)? I don't see it. lts on the Chinese and Thai variant. The RWS is for anti- infantry which we need.

kabe1:
SDB 3 also incorporates a really modern design. The progression is remarkable.

I hope they get to build a 65 meters vessel very soon enough.

Its very important that the Government continues to fund the Navy's ship-building program,and that the Navy gets equally more adventurous ship size wise so that a step by step growth in ship size is maintained. I wish the air-force had such a programme, even if it was for trainers.
By now, naval engineers dont see any magic in ship building any more and are hungry to scale up.

kabe1:
SDB 3

Some of the civillian fallouts of SDB3 is the shipbuilding of Trawlers and yachts/pleasure boats. This is what happens when Governments invest in developing specific industries. One day these engineers will be building ocean going civillian ships, once the shipbuilding know-how is solidly entrenched.