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<b>"I thought you established that the H-60 will do as an H-46 replacement. So, a combination of CH-53E's and MH-60's would be satisfactory? I always thought so."</b>

Yes, i would agree with that statement, but the USMC is currently not under contract to purchase a large fleet of MH-60s(at least as far as i know), so in reality my statement that the CH-46 still needs replacing is true.

MH-60s are a fine replacement IMO, but the USMC has yet to place any orders.

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<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>

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Stress if the CH-53K ends up costing 100 million per or more i will annoit you with the custom screen title

"Smartest guy here".

That's a promise.

That's also a PERFECT example of why if i'm the USMC i simply put the 53Echo back into production with only minimal neccesary changes.

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<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>

<b>And perhaps some expert on helo stability and control could explain to me why only pitch control is lost when a tamdem rotor goes into VRS. If the front rotor loses lift (collective) won't it lose roll (cyclic) too?</b>

It sure seems like it should lose both, yes.

Of course IMO using tandem rotor helos for air assault is extremely unwise unless it's completely unavoidable.

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<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>

<b>It replaces nothing one for one. It seems to do a credible, albeit inefficient for its size, job at what used to be medium lift, while providing other options that are attractive to the customer.</b>

All kidding aside it is my 100% honest opinion that Osprey was attractive only to a Senior US Senator from the great state of Pennsylvania and a few of his cohorts who were/are a lot more concerned about protecting high paying jobs for their <b>registered voting</b> constituents then they are about the wants or needs of the US military.

If DoD had it's way Osprey would've been DOA 17 years ago.

<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b343/m21sniper/OnTheJobEnhanced.jpg" border=0>
<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>

[quote]
<b>And perhaps some expert on helo stability and control could explain to me why only pitch control is lost when a tamdem rotor goes into VRS. If the front rotor loses lift (collective) won't it lose roll (cyclic) too?</b>

It sure seems like it should lose both, yes.

Of course IMO using tandem rotor helos for air assault is extremely unwise unless it's completely unavoidable. [quote]

With twin rotor helos playing on the edge of VRS, ONE rotor has to go into VRS first ( if the pilot is dumb enough to get that close to the VRS limit ) on the 46 and 47 that will be the front one since it is mounted below the rear rotor disc and is already operating in a harsher environment. Kinda like those twin-wing kit built planes with the huge canard. The canard has a heavier wing loading and will always stall first to automatically drop the nose and increase forward speed.



A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>For the air assault MISSION the MH-60 is IMO clearly superior. Much smaller, packing respectible defensive firepower, and a far safer overall design in the face of enemy fire.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

Ok, fine. Please stop doing air assaults. Nothing is survivable doing that. I am skeptical that the defensive firepower from a dodging and weaving helicopter can hit anything it is aiming at. I like the chances of the guy on the ground winning that shootout.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>And none of the helos cost 107 million dollars a piece(nor anywhere even remotely close).<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

A new build CH-53 would be close, maybe more, since the empty weight is the same and it has three engines.

<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>Stop doing air assault? I'm sure the Army would do so just as soon as all the bad guys in the world lay down their arms. And as far as putting guns on helicopters for self defense, try and float that one as well by the Army and see what kind of reaction you receive - you mean they don't need all of those weapons on their H-60's and H-47's?

If your going to force the Marines to ride into "the storm" with defenseless Ospreys, your moving one step closer to negating their mission all together which would result in the standown of the entire Marine Corps.

And as far as price is concered, the sad bit about the Osprey is that it uses the same engines as the new KC-130J's that the Corps is buying and yet while only using half as many engines at roughly half the size, the Osprey is still more expensive?! Sounds like something is wee-bit overpriced to me.

<b>I am skeptical that the defensive firepower from a dodging and weaving helicopter can hit anything it is aiming at. I like the chances of the guy on the ground winning that shootout.</b>

I dont suppose you saw "GI Factory" on the military channel tonight? The host went to the factory where they build the M134D mini-gun. In the video segment the host of the show hoses down(ie completely destroys) several cars while firing from a moving/sideslipping helo at low altitude.

If you consider that a typical company sized assault element of UH-60s is about 20 aircraft in size, and they approach in a typical double trail formation(a side by side single file if you will)or combat wedge <b>you have 10 mini-guns each firing both to the left and the right of the formation</b>, for a combined total output of 30,000rpm per side(or 500rds per second per side), and four guns with forward or rear firing arcs providing 12000rpm of suppressive forward or rearward fire.

Conversely, in a staggered line abreast or wedge formation those 20 UH-60s can focus the combined firepower of 40 7.62 miniguns forward, pumping 1000rounds per second into the LZ during the final mile of approach.

I would definitely define that as highly effective supressing fire.

When talking suppressive fire it is important to consider the firepower of the unit, not the individual platform.

Of course used in onesies and twosies even minigun armed slicks are highly vulnerable to enemy fire. Flying in a huge mutually supporting formation is actually far safer for everyone involved.

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<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>

Snipe do you have any effective range numbers for the minigun? Cause I know the heavy lifters were going to the 50cal on the "door guns" to get better range than the minigun could offer.

A 45 has a muzzle.
A 9mm has a bullet vent.

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

The following ranges are "basic guidelines" for all US crew-served machineguns(sea level from a stationary firing position):

Max effective range point target: 1000 meters
Max effective range area target: 1500 meters
Max effective range(point suppression): 1500 meters
Max effective range (area suppression): 2000 meters

In reality max effective range is determined by the sighting/aiming system of the weapons themselves system rather than the actual caliber(within reason, of course).
With both weapons using iron sights there is precious little effective range difference between an M-2 and an M-240(for instance)
The .50 will hit/penetrate about 300% harder/deeper at any given range, but the actual distance where you can get rounds on target with iron sights is about the same for both.

With PNVS/thermal/Day optics or an integrated weapons mount(ie, an armored vehicle's stabilized co-ax for example) the .50 would offer a huge advantadge in range vs the 7.62, but on a swiveling hand-held mount(like a door gunner or vehicle TC uses) you have about the same chance of scoring a hit with either caliber round for round, so the advantadge WRT suppressive fire would go to the weapon with a greater ammunition capacity and higher <b>practical rate of fire<1></b>. In this particular case that would be the M134D vs the GECAL.50
Where larger calibers offer a significant advantadge is in dealing with armored vehicles, bunkers, and aircraft.
Therefore if you were to put either weapon into an integrated weapons mount/system, the GECAL would be the much better all-around weapon.

Of course any multi-barrel MG will be more effective than a single bbl weapon almost irrespective of caliber when it comes to suppressive fire, so the GECAL would still be a huge improvement for a door gunner over an M-2, M-85, M-60D, etc.

In single barrel weapons the new M60E4 is BY FAR the best MG on the market, with an almost 200% higher practical rate of fire then the next closest competitor(Russian RPK), and a 400% higher sustained ROF than the next best MG(Russian PK).
(Since i'm pretty sure there are a lot of folks here that will be interested i'll post some info on the new M60E4 in the firearms section(with video)).

<b><1>Practical rate of fire</b> is a term that is not often discussed(or even known), but it is a very important rating. Practical rate of fire is the <b>maximum number of rounds that can be fired in one minute.</b> This differs significantly from the more well known term of <b>sustained rate of fire</b>, which is the maximum rate of fire per minute that is sustainable <i>indefinitely</i>.

<img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b343/m21sniper/OnTheJobEnhanced.jpg" border=0>
<b>"One post, One Kill".</b>