-Caveat Lector-
>From SeattleTimes
<<Now, I realise "Kosovo", the virtual movie, is now becoming an
older topic. However, one of the elements of warfare is that of
'surprise'. What this whole exercise seems to have demonstrated is
how we would use what we have. Of course, any potential adversary
had to promise to avert their eyes from the news during the 78 days.
Ike and Patton and LeMay must be spinning in their resting places.
A<>E<>R >>
> Posted at 10:14 p.m. PDT; Saturday, June 19, 1999
>
>
>
> U.S. calls its copters and pilots not ready in Kosovo
>
>
> by George C. Wilson
> Legi-Slate News Service
>
> Pilots sent to fly Apache helicopters against Serb forces were
> undertrained and underequipped to fight the war they never fought in
> Kosovo, the Army itself acknowledged in an internal memo.
>
> "We are placing them and their unit at risk when we have to ramp up
> for a real world crisis" because of the shortcomings in aviation
> training, Army Brig. Gen. Dick Cody recently told Gen. Eric Shinseki,
> incoming Army chief of staff, in the internal memo.
>
> "We are not growing our young aviation leaders well enough in the
> first three years after flight school," Cody wrote, listing lessons
> learned from deploying Apache helicopters to Albania. "The results are
> young captains emerging from the Advanced Course of helicopter
> training with little experience and little aviation savvy on what
> right looks like."
>
> Gen. Wesley Clark, commander of NATO'S war against Yugoslav President
> Slobodan Milosevic, requested the 24 Apache helicopters to deploy
> against Serbian troops and tanks in Kosovo, a province of Serbia,
> Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
>
> But when the Apaches arrived April 21 in Tirana, Albania, their crews
> and equipment were deemed not ready for combat. The crews underwent
> training exercises in which two helicopters crashed, killing two
> aviators. Without the training in Albania, Cody said, there would have
> been even worse accidents.
>
> "Over 65 percent of the assigned aviators had less than 500 hours" of
> flying time in the Apaches, and no one was qualified to fly certain
> missions wearing night-vision goggles, he said.
>
> Cody decried the lack of proper equipment on the Apaches and other
> shortcomings in Army aviation, including these findings:
>
>
>
> �The helicopters' radios had inadequate range for "deep raids and
> attacks."
>
> �Using only FLIR - forward looking infrared radar, which senses heat
> and etches its source, such as a soldier or a tank, on the cockpit
> console - was inadequate, Cody said. FLIR could be better used when
> combined with night-vision devices.
>
> �To fly long distances and cross Kosovo's high mountains, the Apaches
> would have had to have Hellfire missiles from one of their two wing
> mounts removed to make room for auxiliary fuel tanks. Cody recommended
> that the Army buy a 150-gallon tank that could be hung from the
> helicopter's belly, where it would not replace firepower.
>
> �A primary worry - one that likely kept Clark from sending the Apaches
> into action - was that Serbian gunners would shoot down the expensive,
> high-tech helicopters. Apaches rely heavily on maneuver and jamming
> equipment to foil enemy gunners, but "the current suite of
> aircraft-survivability equipment is not reliable enough and sometimes
> ineffective," Cody said.
>
>
>
> "Most of our adversaries" have developed air-defense systems "to
> defeat our helicopters," he said, calling for modernization of jamming
> gear.
>
>
>
>
>
> Copyright � 1999 Seattle Times Company
A<>E<>R
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