barundus

The 5200 lb limitation was instituted via an ISAQ (Interim Statement of Airworthiness Qualification) in the 90s. Eventually it made its way into the operator's manual. I don't have the ISAQs any more. You'll just have to take my word for it. Sent from my SM-X710 using Tapatalk

MGTOW for the OH-58D is limited to 5200lbs.

I'm curious how you'd compare the two (admittedly an apples/oranges comparison) to support the statement? By weight? Volume? How many menu pages? Buttons?

@NeedzWD40 Great work. Particularly the history, use-cases, and characteristics of the Hydra and rockets in general. Clearly you've done some good research, and you put together a more comprehensive summary than a lot of real-world users know about the program. Kudos and gold stars.

Interesting standpoint, considering it's literally the entire reason the Apache Longbow was conceived and fielded.

A bit of a departure in the Apache forum, but perhaps a good place to talk about the design philosophy differences between the GE engines that went into the Blackhawk and Apache, and the Rolls Royce/Allison engine that powered the KW. I've always had real heartburn about the "save the engine" design philosophy in the GE. Limiting RPMs when TGTs are approaching limits (acknowledged mostly due to pilot error to end up in the situations in the first-place), or limiting performance in truly life-threating dynamic situations, is such an "engineer-centric" versus "pilot-centric" design approach. Contrasted with this, the FADEC in the Rolls Royce/Allison in the 58D featured "limit override logic", which, when triggered, opened the flood-gates and removed all the normal nannies and performance-limiting algorithms and replaced them with absolute engine-limit gates that torched the engine, but the pilot got everything those little gerbils in the hot-section could crank out. In normal operation, FADEC provides all the same goodies the DECU/EDECU does on the GE 701s. But when that "oh shit" moment comes, the designers provided a life-saving mechanism I appreciated from the pilot standpoint. Limit override required a number of criteria to be matched to trigger (Nr drooped below 93% or even *approaching* 93% at a certain rate, collective moving at a certain rate, etc), which then removed the normal inhibitors and allowed the pilot to tap-into more juice to get out of that sticky situation. Limit-override was only available in the AUTO mode, so if the FADEC failed, the pilot still had to go to MANUAL mode, which is essentially the same as placing the 701s in LOCKOUT. Anyhoo, interesting discussion.

It generally took a day and a half of the FIST truck parked in our hangar, with an aircraft plugged into wall power next to it, and the FISTers and a couple nerd pilots fiddle-fucking the TACFIRE to try and figure out how to get them to talk to each other. Six months later those guys would be gone, and we'd have to learn it all over again for the next gunnery. Neither the canon-cockers, nor the aviators were very proficient. I always took an interest in the digital side of things, and tried to make it work. There aren't many of us left that have actually conducted TACFIRE digital missions, much less fired real Copperheads. Things have progressed radically in the last twenty years, but to my knowledge no-one has ever conducted a digital fire mission *in combat*. We'll get there. I would very much like to see it in DCS though.

Ya, man. I wasn't discounting your points. In fact I was corroborating them. You're absolutely correct it was cludgy and difficult. No need to get defensive. Read the description on the vid. If you've actually conducted a digital fire mission with live rounds, I'd love to know about your experiences.

A little blast from the past:

And then in the same thread a few posts later... Strange way to establish your bona fides...

I dug around a bit and found an old vid in my archives showing some test footage of Hydra shots on a closed range. Here's two vids; one shows the payload deploy, and a tree happened to be in the way right after the darts deployed. The other vid shows the perspective in the impact area.

The darts in the M255A1 (the current use type) are 60 grains. About 1200 of them. At 5000 meters they're still going about 225m/s. The old M255 used 28 grain darts. About 2500 of them.

Hard to know whether the darts tumble initially on fuze-function. My "educated speculation" is no; they don't tumble drastically, but probably a bit. From a pilot's perspective, I don't care. When the expulsion charge actuates, the packed darts are forced out the front of the cargo tube, much like a shotgun. When ranged properly, the fuze is supposed to function at a certain distance from the target, with the standoff calculated to produce the desired "beaten zone" I mentioned above, enough time to stabilize, and arrive with the velocity to retain kinetic energy equal to a 5.56 round. The M255 is intended for soft targets, and light skin penetration. No reason to assume they're not effective, based on a YT video shooting darts from a shotgun.

Ballistically, each nail in the M255A1 is roughly equivalent to a 5.56mm round at its effective range (this is reliant on correct firing procedures, proper ranging and fuzing, and the fuze function at the proper distance). As designed, the beaten-zone of a M255A1 deployment is roughly a 30m square, with roughly one nail per square meter.

Gross. That's sounds about as much fun as a virtual fuel sample before every flight.

Hey! Someone interested in the most bad-assed unit structure in the Army! (RIP). First off; "1st CAV" is really a division, and retained it's lineage as per the explanations above. But it's not really an entire division-sized force of "cavalry". It's a heavy armor division, named after a historical cavalry unit. Per doctrine, the "Cavalry is the eyes and ears of the division commander" With COIN and the first ARI in 2005 timeframe, when the Div-Cavs consisting of mixed ground and air equipment went away (the heavy divisions lost their KWs in the DivCav squadrons, aviation created the "CAB" as aviation-pure echelons, and the ARS, ARB, AHB were created), the concept of fighting the "Division Fight" on the maneuver battlefield lost focus. Nowadays, it's coming back, and we may see some new reorganization to reflect combat power tailored to the Division maneuver fight. Anyhoo- to your question; The DivCav was owned by the division commander, and technically worked directly for him. The DivCav squadron was commanded by an O-5 LTC. The mission of the DivCav was recon and security operations for the division (the entire squadron screening for the division, for example). In the heavy divisions (1st CAV, 1ID, 1AD, 2ID, 3ID, 4ID etc), the DivCav squadron consisted of: 1x HHT (huge) with various M1 and M2 and support command tracks, refuelers, maintenance, command structure, support platoon, etc. 3x (A, B, C) Ground Troops consisting of 2xM1 and 2x M3 platoons, plus a fire support platoon consisting of 2x 120mm M113 tracks each 2x (D, E) Air Troops consisting of 8 KWs in two platoons of 4 ea 1x (F) Air-Maintenance Troop In the light divisions (10th MTN, 82nd ABN, 101st ABN, 25 ID) the DivCav squadron consisted of: 1x HHT with various HMMWV command vehicles, refuelers, maintenance, command structure, etc. 1x (A) Ground Troop equipped with HMMWVs gun-trucks equiped with Mk19, and TOW missile launchers. 2x (B, C) Air Troops consisting of 8x KWs in two platoons of 4 ea 1x (D) Air-Maintenance Troop You can see the heavy-division DivCav was a monster of a combat unit, and that commander had incredible combat power at his command. The idea of DivCav (and all Cavalry in general), is to be self-contained maneuver units equipped with its own fire support, maintenance, and logistics (fuel/oil) capability). The heavy DivCav had this, the light DivCav not so much. In those days, to further muddy the water, there were also two "Armored Cavalry Regiments" (3rd ACR and 2nd ACR). which were completely self-contained maneuver forces reliant on no external support. Their mission would be to fight the Corps reconnaissance fight, and worked directly for the Corps commander. An ACR is commanded by an O-6 COL, and is essentially a mini-division. An ACR is organized around 3 squadrons, plus a fires battalion, a maintenance battalion, engineer battalion, and support battalions. 3rd ACR was "heavy", (M1, M3, M109 Paladin 155mm SP, Grizzlies, Apache and KW, and a bunch of other heavy equipment. 2nd ACR was "light", (HMMWV, Stryker, I forget what kind of fires battalions, etc. You get the idea) "Cavalry" in light of the last twenty years of COIN operations isn't really cavalry at all. In name only, really. "Cavalry" implies doctrinal warfighting tasks such as reconnaissance and security, and providing a specific capability to the maneuver commander. COIN is really just flying around looking for shit and waiting for something to happen.

Hah. I promise, it would only take one time!

Couple items: 1) The Apache doesn't provide a 10-digit grid. 1a) High-precision grid really doesn't matter for a Copperhead, as it's laser-guided. And, like you stated; retired/out of inventory 2) While (one of) the Apache digital systems had limited capability to do so (with A LOT of fiddle-fucking); No one ever called for a digital call-for-fire in combat. Never happened.

Why on earth would you want to simulate this?

Thanks for your thoughtful clarification! Agreed on all! I was attempting a "one-sentence" explanation to draw a simple differentiation between the two lines. 407 borrows much of it's dynamic components from the 58D, hence I connected the two in simplest terms. Same goes for the 206 to the OH58A/C - in simplest terms, I view 206/58A-C more similar in capability/dynamic components than to 407. As to the "406", acknowledged it was never type-classified as such. I referenced that, again, to attempt to describe linkage between the lines. Sure wish we'd had the C47 in the KW! (transmission limitations aside). And the dual-FADEC, light-weight sensor, etc....

Please explain.

You may need to provide some context for "TACOPS types"...

They're super outdated, but should serve purposes okay.

The 1999 and 2001 versions of the Operator's Manual floating around the web have Distribution Statements "Approved for Public Release"

No, the Bell 206 is essentially the OH-58 A/C The Bell 406 is the OH-58D, and the 407 grew out of that.