Das Helos
Yesterday we went to visit the German CH-53 pilots. Three of these helos are operating out of Ndolo with the Eufor so it seemed a good idea that we talk to the crews so we would have an idea of how they operate.
It was a very pleasant experience. We drove up to their ramp area and asked a Polish soldier on guard if we could talk to some of the pilots and a few minutes later we were talking to half a dozen pilots and an air traffic controller.
They were as you would expect, very well educated, well spoken and friendly. These guys know what they are about. They briefed us on how they are going to fly and we told them what we do so each knows what to expect from the other. Safer skies over Kinshasa.
They have operated their machines in Iraq and Afghanistan but this is the first time they've operated in the tropics. It surprised me to learn that their helicopters, and these are great big expensive contraptions, don't have weather radar. That is not worrisome now, they are hanging around Kinshasa and it is the dry season; but if they are here for the six months they expect, and they deploy into the interior, it will be very worrisome.
The rainy season is coming, and with it big thunderstorms. Thick, deep haze will still cover a lot of the country and it will prevent them from seeing more than 5 or 6 kilometers. Without a weather radar the only way they can detect the storms is to bump into them. That, is not a good thing.
Lack of weather radar aside, if the quality of all the Eufor troops is that of the German helo crews, it should be a quite capable force indeed.
(One thing I did notice; the Eufor humvees with externally mounted weapons, .50 cal. machine guns and grenade launchers, had no shields or cupolas for the gunners. Long time ago, more than 40 years, in Vietnam, it was discovered that unless the gunners are protected, they get killed a lot. Photos from that period show the externally mounted weapons with protection for the gunners. We forgot that lesson, removed the shields, and had to re-learn it in Iraq. I hope the Eufor doesn't have learn things the hard way.)
It was a very pleasant experience. We drove up to their ramp area and asked a Polish soldier on guard if we could talk to some of the pilots and a few minutes later we were talking to half a dozen pilots and an air traffic controller.
They were as you would expect, very well educated, well spoken and friendly. These guys know what they are about. They briefed us on how they are going to fly and we told them what we do so each knows what to expect from the other. Safer skies over Kinshasa.
They have operated their machines in Iraq and Afghanistan but this is the first time they've operated in the tropics. It surprised me to learn that their helicopters, and these are great big expensive contraptions, don't have weather radar. That is not worrisome now, they are hanging around Kinshasa and it is the dry season; but if they are here for the six months they expect, and they deploy into the interior, it will be very worrisome.
The rainy season is coming, and with it big thunderstorms. Thick, deep haze will still cover a lot of the country and it will prevent them from seeing more than 5 or 6 kilometers. Without a weather radar the only way they can detect the storms is to bump into them. That, is not a good thing.
Lack of weather radar aside, if the quality of all the Eufor troops is that of the German helo crews, it should be a quite capable force indeed.
(One thing I did notice; the Eufor humvees with externally mounted weapons, .50 cal. machine guns and grenade launchers, had no shields or cupolas for the gunners. Long time ago, more than 40 years, in Vietnam, it was discovered that unless the gunners are protected, they get killed a lot. Photos from that period show the externally mounted weapons with protection for the gunners. We forgot that lesson, removed the shields, and had to re-learn it in Iraq. I hope the Eufor doesn't have learn things the hard way.)
posted by Carl at 6:44 AM
5 Comments:
It seems that most generations of military seem to forget the lessons that previous generations taught them. I just finished a book about the uboat war in WWII, and not only did the Allies forget the lessons learned in WWI, but the Americans forgot the lessons learned only a few years earliet by the Brits. I dont think it is an issue of forgetting, rather an issue of youthful arrogance.
Nothing breeds ignorance like success. There have been many studies of successful business that it can be proven, are the result of luck and timing but when you interview the biz mgt in charge at the time, they absolutely believe they are the reason for the success.
It is a matter of arrogance, but youth doesn't have much to do with it. Ernie King was the guy most responsible for the slaughter along the American Atlantic coast in the first 6 months of WWII, and he was no "yut" at the time.
The current prize display of mature, invincible arrogance is our man Rumsfeld.
The history of the those gun shields would be a good subject for a monograph.
brother: and somebody or bad luck is the reason for failure.
i forgot to say i don't think arrogance had much to do with eliminating the shields. i don't know what it was. it was probably just forgetting what happens when the bullets fly.
i talked to a armor guy once about this. he said they were going to swoop around Germany in great armored thrusts and you didn't need gun shields for that. this 4 eyed, 4-F, pencil neck civilian geek remembered thinking to himself "yea but aren't there still going to be people shooting rifles and machine guns at you?"
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