Thank you Mover for translating some of the terminology and abbreviations for us knuckleheads out there, makes it much easier to follow along than having to stop and google a phrase every 2 minutes.
Aviators, Nice podcast, thanks. I am a 30 year "shoe" (ship driver) chasing the carrier in plane guard or HRU. Happy to clear that up. Most of the time the helo is the plane guard, very specific requirements for ability to pick someone up out of the water fast. There is a Horizon Reference Unit that is often separate, this is the light reference you spoke of out on the recovery radial but the ship might not be officially the Plan Guard there. Often there is debate about use of shooter to be in the light reference for LSO position. I like it and enjoyed it, I was the Air Defense Commander, but did not have missiles and drones flying around. Very Respectfully, Chuck
I was in Afghanistan in 2011 with 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines. One of our companies was attached to 1st (or 2nd) Recon Battalion. One of the platoons encountered a sniper and started to deal with it. That is, the platoon commander set one squad as a base of fire and the other two squads went to envelope the sniper. Meanwhile back at Battalion HQ, some idiot following the platoon’s actions called in a drone strike on the sniper and didn’t tell the lieutenant. Long story short, our $200,000 hellfire missile killed a Marine and a navy corpsman. The lieutenant was officially reprimanded and there was an investigation that concluded a lot of things but never seemed to question that a lonely sniper in lonely field in the middle of nowhere was considered a good target for a very expensive missile, shot from an unmanned aircraft, piloted and controlled by people in four distant parts of North America. If we keep using high cost weapons against really dirt cheap threats, we will lose through attrition.
@@SkylerinAmarillo I do understand. My son was the SS plt leader for the 3\8 in Al Anbar. One of his greatest worries was battalion management. He’s out now.
The problem is some people like blowing things up as big as possible without thinking about the cost to tax payers, then there are all the people benefiting from these contracts to supply these insanely expensive munitions. It got out of control with Iraq and Afghanistan. We burned through SO much money, and most of the end users didn’t care because we got nicer, newer things. We really need a culture change, especially with a complete generation of service members that only know the military during the heavy spending times. I try as best as I can to share to the younger folks what it was like before Sept 11th, but it hard when they are complaining about “low pay” and “terrible quality of life” when it’s actually pretty good now. I really think there needs to be more incentives for senior folks to stay around longer so it’s not just generals and E-9s that don’t interact with the core of the forces.
First off, friendly fire incidents are awful. It is terrible that a marine was lost to a friendly hellfire. We really need to get better at managing the battle-space. For what it is worth, we are WAY better at it today than we were in the Gulf War in 1991, so at least there is that, but it is awful to lose good people, even more so when it is avoidable. I imagine whoever made the call to fire probably thought it was lower risk to take the sniper out from afar, than to risk the lives of the guys on the ground, and it just horribly backfired. On the separate problem of the overkill and waste of weapons systems, I think this comes from a place of abundance. We have so much capability (when it comes to high end tech) that we haven't been forced to budget how we use it. And in most of the scraps we get involved with these days we don't have to. Munitions may be expensive, but they have shelf-lives. Use them before they expire, or lose them (and then you have to pay for ordnance disposal) . So most of the times, in the type of low intensity scraps we are used to it really doesn't matter. We need these high end expensive systems if the shit ever hits the fan with a near peer adversary, but they expire, so we might as well use them, even when they are overkill. It turns into a real problem when the shit actually does hit the fan against a near peer adversary, and we have to actually start budgeting these resources and we aren't used to it. If we don't prepare better, we are going to have to learn in a hurry.
It certainly CAN be appropriate to use an expensive thing to kill a cheap thing, it's more a question of what damage that enemy system can do/is doing the longer you let it live.
Outstanding conversation here guys and thanks to Mover for explaining the terminology to the 99.9% of us who otherwise wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about without constantly having another device open to reference the terms . So very , very good and I’m going to rewatch this a few more times . Love the passion , humor , seriousness and expertise…. And the bro code - that is very serious . Sure, we all want to know what’s going on out of curiosity, but that is not a good look for trust on whoever leaked this stuff out already .
You know there's a problem in this country when people have a problem with someone just because of their politics, real or perceived. It's a damn SHAME that people think we have to agree on everything and somehow the other side aren't also Americans who just want the best for the country. BTW, I've seen exact SAME ATTITUDE on the left. Ward served honorably, and he's still serving in a different capacity. If the sole reason you don't watch a guy is some political thing that's not even vaguely related to the subject, the problem isn't their politics.
The attack profile is very dependent on range, an SM-2 fired at 10-15 miles won't be lofting that much, too much energy too little time, it's a guaranteed kill regardless, not shaking that thing unless the missile is cut (make it blind, essentially turning off the ARH/SARH seeker) which they did on the second one.
@@kermittoad Yup, it sounds from the discussion as though they cut the SPG-62 illuminator on the second one. It's fortunate that the SM-2 IIIC hasn't hit the fleet in numbers yet, or else the second jet could have had a different outcome. Agree that there would be no lofting in a case like that.
Had they ejected and the missile was going elsewhere, they'd be getting sacked, but the decision making process and reasoning would be exactly the same.
My family member who was the Weapons and Combat Systems Officer as an O3 on the Gettysburg over 20 years ago explained to me they the command and crew are definately in the suck, an Army reference as I was Army. Happy New Years.
Marine Air Control Group guy here. We talk about the problems of identification and economical defense all the time. The fact is, the one doing the striking is always going to have an advantage over the defender. The enemy can throw a ham sandwich into your airspace but you still have to identify, track and potentially target it. That all takes time and resources. It’s always a losing proposition if the question is only better defenses. The thing being thrown into your airspace can always be simpler than the defending system. That’s the gist of it. Something will always get through. The answer, beyond better defenses, is employing these offensive weapons ourselves. Would it be unreasonable to use loitering one way munitions to strike these targets and spare expensive warships, planes and lives? The decision makers are ex pilots or ex ship captains. They view problems therefore through the eyes of a pilot or captain. It’s not to say there is no use for these ships and planes, but against an asymmetric threat you have to use an asymmetric response. Regardless, we will learn the hard way. It will take of bunch of people being killed first.
For 3 years we have forced Ukraine into a mostly DCA mode and we've seen the outcome. We already knew that a defensive strategy for air battle will lose and we've been observing it for 3 years but somehow we still seem to be focused on defeating incoming projectiles rather than defeating the launcher. The people who designed and executed "shock and awe" knew how to do it. How did their knowledge and the lessons from the Gulf War get lost?
@ I blame that mostly on political apprehensiveness. They believe that DCA is the moral and politically correct approach. They also believe it will not be seen as escalatory compared with supply of offensive capability. Certainly we have given offensive capability, but as a trickle. The amount actually needed would be enormous. It always amazes me when some country, including the US hands over a system numbering in the 10s or 100s. This is obviously insufficient to actually have decisive outcomes. It’s mostly a way of saving face. Then it’s possible to say “well of course we helped, remember those 12 armored vehicles we gave?” Absolutely absurd disconnect from reality.
@@erlgunslinger7344 I agree, I would just add that along with providing offensive capability we also imposed ridiculous restrictions on its use. Imagine if the Biden strategy was to use Ukraine to use up Russia. I think they would have provided the same capability in the same amount as they've actually have. I'm not a mind reader so i'll give Biden the benefit of the doubt and assume that his motivation has been to not provoke Russia to do something extreme. I think that outlook is backwards however from his point of view it may seem to be the right thing to do. I just can't ignore that if his motivation were something evil the actions would have been the same.
This is important warfighting insight. I'm a former army officer that spent a weird amount of time around marine leadership and almost always found myself wondering why this type of wisdom and innovation was so hard to find in big army
> against an asymmetric threat you have to use an asymmetric response. That is the nail you have to hit on the head. EMP and lasers were aired by the panel, ofc lasers would be OK for blinding IR guided threats, but unless you have high 100's of kW of laser beam power, probly not going to down the drone. But what about radio transmissions to spoof the radio fuse inside the drone, cause it to trigger several hundred metres out thinking the proximity threshold was reached.
So many things to be grateful for. Good to know if you punch out your parachute will separate when you land and your raft will deploy. And on top of that you will get picked up man lots went wrong but it’s like wombat said after that everything went right.
My dad was a Skyraider pilot in Vietnam. His squadron was based at Alameda and he was tasked with helping the Enterprise battle group do AA training working up for a WestPac deployment. They asked him to come out and make a simulated attack off of the coast of California to get the AA guys in the carrier battle group familiar with their equipment. After he rolled in nearly vertical on the boat, a destroyer shot a Terrier missile at him, which after 2 tours in Vietnam he was able to defeat. He said it took all he had not to shoot 20mm back at them. This blue on blue has been going on since…well…forever. You would think we’d have better control by this point. Apparently, he made such a stink about it, the Skipper was relieved, as he should have been. He got shot at lots of times in Vietnam and he said this was the closest he ever got to being shot down….. after two combat tours, nearly bea being killed within earshot of home was a real wake up call to him.
An hour in the water after ejecting? Did they have to install the rotors before they launched. What happened to a helo in the air on launch and recovery?
@@fortusvictus8297 i think Baba is saying that the doctrine that he is familiar with would have had a helo already flying cover before landing recoveries even started. . as for me, i'm a bit baffled that the entire CSG doesn't get notified when carrier landing operations are going on. plus there's an obvious issue with IFF failure somehow.
3:29 - There is technically a distinction between "Plane Guard" and "Horizon Reference Unit (HRU)". HRU is to help with perspective/horizon, while plane guard is no kidding for aircraft/personnel recovery, where the stationing requirements are a lot looser than HRU. You really are referring to the fact that Gettysburg was performing HRU duties, not plane guard.
@@Atrahasis7 127mm prox fuze is already an awful expensive proposition for defeating dirt-cheap drones; guided cannon ammunition is more expensive per-shot than the drones themselves. Walter's right, lasers are the best solution to the cheap, low-capability drone threat
@@bronco5334 At last check - which may be out of date, were well aways from actual practical field use of lasers, let alone shoulder mounted and the question of cost per shot vs cost to produce. To say nothing of the fact that the wrong atmospheric conditions can actually impact the effectiveness of a laser. Wanna know the cheapest way to shoot down a drone - the same way the US shot down planes in the early days of WW2, a .30 or .50 cal MG and good aim. Maybe with todays tech or how slow the drones are - a .50 can shoot it down before it goes through 2-300 rounds of ammunition that would approximate the same cost as most of these drones based on the info I can find about them. Question is - do you wanna let the drones in that close. Further out you want to hit it, more it's gonna cost. Pretty sure the 5 inch AA shell is still cheaper than launching an F-18 or any other current age fighter to shoot it down even if they only use guns or jet wash. Do better building a new version of a WW2 era aircraft and a smaller carrier for them just to deal with drones and a cheap multi-role option for uncontested air spaces (like what they've been doing with the one prop plane).
Yeah, I read some promising stuff on that. Man, we must have tens of thousands of FFAR rockets in storage from the Cold War days. And how much was the laser guidance addon, like $20,000? Much better than spending a half-mil(sidewinder) or 1 mil (Fox 3) to take out a cheap drone. When Israel shot down hundreds of Iranian drones, yeah they got them, but it cost America and Israel nearly a billion dollars. That's just not sustainable. On average, in Afghanistan, I forget the exact number, but the US was spending a couple hundred grand per each IED they removed (salary, equipment, maintenance ect).
Thank you Mover. i'm a WP grad, UH-60L driver with 8 years served, completed deck landing quals on the USS Shenandoah (AD-44) in 1996 and I was left behind on a LOT of the discussion until you translated.
Ok you can’t just leave that last statement about the Bro code hanging out there. That requires some explanation. Truly great videos on this and the Jeju Air crash. Well done.
Yeah that last exchange was confusing. I guess I don't get notified of every video so I must have missed the context from their previous conversations.
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@@fortusvictus8297 Call signs should have been redacted. Not surprising that in the age of social media the story was going to be leaked. Too many people outside of the "bro network" get access.
@@mgregory3777 Yeah, and there's going to be further investigations and testimony over this incident - it's not something that would stay private for long regardless of circumstances. I think this is a bit of pearl clutching from our hosts...
As a career Army Apache pilot, we would leave passive ASE gear on but anything active was safed, just like weapons as part of the before landing checks. That was a major question I had for you guys about before landing checks. Obviously, carrier ops are completely different than what I did. Great videos guys!
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@@fortusvictus8297 Possible, but it's important to note that Ward and others were on the ship, and LSO platform for a number of days a month before this happened, and probably know the people involved. It probably wasn't a bro-code violation IMHO.
@@disturbthpce Let's be clear, pilot or not anyone who the pilot was talking to like that was someone he trusted to keep it close. That story was not for being put on blast across the internet. And even if the pilot was doped up out of his mind from his injuries, he should have had friends covering for him to make sure he wasn't put into that kind of situation talking like that to media.
During my career in the USN, backseaters in fighters were RIOs, not WSOs. Radar Intercept Officers were Navy. Maybe U.S. Marine aviators use the Air Force WSO, (pronounced WIZO) Weapon System Officer, but I'd be surprised. But I retired back in the 90s.
As a rsc(radar systems controller) on a destroyer. You welcome. Having to sector the radar over the carrier while they seemingly do donuts is a pain in the ass. Especially when they want a 10 degree sector instead of a 15 degree sector. Being a master helm during unreps was less of a pain.
I understand the hyperbole, but the drones the Houthi are using are closer in pricepoint to our weapons than you'd think. They're not $1,000 hobby drones that drop grenades, they're about the size of a cesna and have a several hundred pound warhead. In terms of dollar per unit cost, they're about as expensive as a 9x. Additionally, the Houthi are shooting balistic missiles, and cruise missiles at our ships. Those are cheaper than most of the intercepters fired at them, but not by much.
@@Toro_Da_Corsa In addition to the Hornet shootdown, they discussed the economics of shooting drones with missiles. My comment was addressing that specific topic.
EW or directed energy is the most cost efficient. Directed energy has higher initial costs but it is cheaper on a per engagement cost basis than kinetic systems. Jamming can be effective, but some recent advancements in terrain mapping or AI in the terminal phase will probably diminish the effectiveness long term as they become ever cheaper to employ. Radar guided systems queued by sound or uas to ground connection are probably the best short term solution. These already exist but probably caliber should be reduced for best cost efficiency. The problem with using the UAS own emissions for queuing or detection is that they may not need a ground connection at all, especially if it’s a long range one way attack. The inertial guidance plus GPS allows it to fly point to point. You can jam the gps but then you throw in terrain mapping and it’s negated. Also you can program the enemies own emissions, or even use civilian emitters as waypoints to establish a flight path if you don’t have GPS
And that hornet was awfully close to the carrier if it was a cruise missile the size of a hornet. Something the size of a hornet gets that close to the carrier it's worth $1 million.
@@erlgunslinger7344 > Jamming can be effective Ok, I see you partially addressed the comment I made minutes ago. But jamming has till now just been blinding the threat - my suggestion is triggering its proximity fuse using EW detection of its radio fuse transmission, then giving it the return it needs to detect proximity.
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@ Yes, I unsubscribed from Ward’s channel when I heard that. Publishing it makes him just as complicit as whoever leaked it, assuming it is real. The real problem is that the military tends to not be transparent about things like this and release them as part of the accident investigation. If that was done more transparently, there would be less incentive to leak. Not that I am condoning the leaks in any way.
The grim reapers channel did a reenactment of this incident and included information that hasn't been covered by this channel yet. If you watch that I think you understand the last comment...
14:04: "what are we doing?", that's the point. Mover, you raise here the most important and relevant question, standing back and not focusing only of the technical details of the incident. 👍
Another excellent example that you can't wait to punch out. Reminds me of the controversy concerning the MIG-23 crash in Michigan last year where the backseater made the decision to punch out when he did. 👍
Yeah so allmost 2 jets downed. What was going on that destroyer? In CIC? I mean i duno seems insane this happened. Lucky everyone survived. I hope this makes changes to policy cause of this stuff
Yeah, I'm sure they will get right on uninstalling that multi-year, multi-million dollar, electronics refit the Gettysburg just underwent prior to this deployment.
While that's true, it's clear that using $1M missiles to destroy $1K drones is not something that can be sustained very long, regardless of the value of the target.
"Value of the target protected" is fine for justifying system development costs, or why you didn't stop defending an asset, no matter the effort required. But it doesn't work when determining whether a defense strategy is sustainable. Don't think of it as just money. Think of it as time and resources. You can build 1,000 of the $1k things for the same time and stuff of 1 of the $1M thing. Even if you're willing to pay the cost ($1 billion), can you build, deploy, and expend the $1M thing fast enough to keep up?
Operating relatively close to shore is showing to be very risky. The Iranians are behind all of this and coordinating it. How are they doing this? Radar? One of their ships directly monitoring this? Why is this not being mitigated by this point?
Delousing is problematic but it will get worked out. Thank GOD our pilots were safe. A few stiches and back on the horse. They were dirty and vulnerable this shouldn't have happened but like all things it's a learning experience.
A good illuminating session. BTW As an ancient engineer, I’d guess that lasers wouldn’t work on tactical aircraft due to power needs which are really high. Also, high power beams from ships or low flying aircraft get really distorted when they have to punch through near sea level environments. NRL was looking at this in the 70’s when I was there.
Great discussion and talking with a lot of common sense. My biggest question is What was going on in CIC on the Gettysburg? A lot of scrutiny of its IFF system and human factors are in store. At those hours of the night, that's were bad things are most likely to happen due to crew fatigue,
Approx. Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IIIAZ - $1,200,000 This is the unit cost of the conversion kit to turn existing SM-2 Block IIIA missiles into to Block IIIAZ variant, which is specifically for the Navy’s Zumwalt class stealth destroyers. Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IIIC - $2,349,000 This unit price is the cost of the conversion kit to transform existing SM-2 Block IIIA and Block IIIB missiles into the Block IIIC configuration with active radar homing. Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IB - $11,830,000 Funding for these missiles come through the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) budget. Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IIA - $36,387,000 The funds for these missiles also come through the MDA budget. Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) - $4,318,632 This unit price is an average for the entire projected 2021 Fiscal Year order, which includes SM-6 Block I and Block IA variants. Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) - $1,795,000 This unit cost reflects an average for the entire projected Fiscal Year 2021 purchase, which includes ESSM Block I and Block II versions. Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) - $905,330 This unit price is an average across the full projected Fiscal Year 2021 order, which includes multiple RAM variants, including the Block II and IIA.
On Ward Carroll’s channel, it was stated that the Gettysburg just underwent upgrades. I wonder if the ship acted autonomously (and erroneously) assessed the inbound SH’s as threats and fired on them without human input. Pure speculation on my part, but is the USN utilizing that level of automation to not require human permissives?
A year+ in the Red Sea shooting down drones and missiles. Tons of stuff in the air in a fairly narrow sea and everyone trying to keep track of what's what. Something was going to go wrong eventually.
warships are too far from shore. come closer, fight, and don’t create the illusion that you are fighting. And soon after that the first warship will go to the bottom.
copied from wikipedia, "Although the SM-2 effectively intercepted the threats, at a cost of roughly $2.4 million per missile, it is inefficient at shooting down drones, causing concerns about expending them against such cheap targets and depleting a ship's limited VLS capacity"
@@fortusvictus8297 Speculating on what might have happened, maybe someone didn't keep track of which ones were friendly and at the same time the automated system (Aegis?) was set to be very aggressive.
@@196cupcake There is an automated mode, a kind of 'fire when all boxes are checked' mode. And the Gettysburg had just been refit with new electronics package prior to this deployment. So yeah, the militarys hard on for AI is probably very much in play here.
@@fortusvictus8297 I don't think it has anything to do with AI, more like "rules of engagement." Like, "anything not positively confirmed to be friendly is assumed to be hostile, so automatically fire at it." Such a setting has real world applications, a saturation attack. Which, maybe you could make it work, but only if you carefully keep track of which things are friendly, which I'm guessing was the problem here.
@@fortusvictus8297 Yeah, people aren't really factoring how the database of threats are created, and what kind of classifiers are actually available for the threats they're expecting from Houthis. I'll bet very few if any the slow drones are in most US / NATO databases. After all, the database is going to be populated with known and expected threats accumulated over the last 80 years of signals intelligence. The recorded radar returns of intercepts that aviation and naval assets have collected and even spy-data used to construct analogs to synthesize data for weapons they expect to face but can't until actually engaged. And no one was thinking naval assets needed to create such an inventory of classifiers for hobby-crafts and toys. Still, you'd think that since we have the luxury of _not_ fighting against an adversary using F-16, Super Hornets and Eagles that our systems would have no problem recognizing _"friendly"_ hardware. It's not like Russia has to face, in which Ukraine is flying many of the same aircrafts that they are, in which all they have for classifying friendlies from aggressors is IFF, comms, and the use of corridors.
Five wet is four drop tanks and one centerline ARS pod. Five wet is also the most inefficient, too-draggy configuration to put a Super Hornet into. The typical load-out is/was three wet.
My civilian IP was a career cat guy, I asked him if he was ever an LSO, his exact words were" hell no!! My parents are actually married and I'm not legally blind!!"
18:37 Wombat is right on. You'll get punished more for leaving your computer accessible than leaving your weapon unattended! We are definitely far behind...in all services. I'm also curious why it took an hour to recover. Even if the helicopters weren't already airborne it doesn't take that long to launch (I'm a 60 driver).
@@ralgith The WSO was on the right frequency, as he told the pilot which one to change to. And they were both using strobes as soon as they hit the water. The hour delay still seems fishy.
"Help me Tom Cruise", "Don't shoot him down, I'm trying to grade him" 😂. Only in the armed forces can you joke around like this without offending anyone. BZ guys!!!
I think Rheinmetall has a working 30mm with AHEAD airburst ammo and a High Energy Laser hybrid C-RAM system that is explicitly also designed to deal with drones. I'd be surprised if the US would lag that much behind on that tech. Integrating it in existing tech it might be the problem here, since especially ships are around for a long time and integrating new systems that were never meant to be there can be rather tricky.
If either of those had been in play in this situation, do you think there would have been time to bail out? I don't think being engaged with an airburst gun or laser system was the issue here, it was being targeted and fired on by anything in the first place.
@@fortusvictus8297 if it were the gun, then nope. No chance that you'd see the burst coming at you. Best case you see some muzzle flashes, but those rounds don't have tracers. And worst case since their frangible ammunition, it could easily end with incapacitating the crew. The HEL is perhaps possible. While you won't see it coming, it doesn't have a fragmentation warhead, so the damage is most likely only to the airframe. Though you'd still have to realize that you've just been shot down and need to eject right now.
You shouldn't be "surprised"...we've wasted the past 20+ yrs. doing COIN ops and completely neglecting the modernization of our counter air capabilties. MDA despite their massive budget has failed to lead this effort, and instead continued to throw money at "ballistic missile" defense which no near peer adversary still flies. Etc., etc.
I’m glad you corrected the word “aircraft” as it is both singular and plural. So many, to include ALPA reps, are using the improper use of the word “aircraft.”
They should have had their IFF (identify friend or foe) transponder on. The ground unit sends a signal asking the aircraft if they are a good guy, if they don’t get the right coded response, it’s assumed to be enemy.
@@doughudgens9275 This happened just after midnight Zulu, which is the default time for codes to change over. I'd be surprised if modern systems can't switch that automatically, but it's an interesting note.
Didn’t know that’s how they’d do it but that was same on Rapier. You had your joystick guiding the missile in your right hand but it rested on the cancel switch so if the Sgt/Cpl said, “CANCEL!” you instantly pushed down. The missile exploded as soon as it lost link.
Hehe! Great vid. Just sud’d…nice info. Very much appreciate getting it from folks who have been there and know the drill. Thanks boys! Looking forward to more. 😎👍
Would an LSO benefit from wearing a helmet with a HUD that fed him position data on the plane that is approaching for a landing? Would a pilot benefit from being able to see the view the LSO has of his approach?
No... being former a LSO, too much other verbal communication going on with other personnel on the platform with you plus you are also listening to the engine sounds on the jet landing to see if pilot is responding to your calls for power or if the pilot has already applied power in a situation where he needs it during the approach.
The drone threat, basically cheap suicide craft, smaller and more numerous versions of the Kamikaze threat in WW2. As we all know, the Japanese weren't "crazy", they "Did the Math" and correctly determined that human guided missiles were more effect against a layered carrier defense than conventional tactics. Luckily, the US had a working CIC for the fleet. Later the Navy also fielded the radar controlled 3" AA gun that was originally designed to counter German Radio Controlled Guide bombs that the US Navy encountered in the Mediterranean earlier in the War. Today, the discarded experimental anti-missile Laser system that were bolted to the CWIS, likely need to come back. These systems likely aren't effective against a big, heavy and fast missile, but might be the perfect solution to close in small/medium sized drones. Firing lasers, like electronic warfare, means you have an unlimited magazine of ammunition, provided you have electrical power. Also, I can see many more 20mm CWIS (removed from a lot of ships) and more RIM-116 Rolling Airfare Frame Missiles being added to ships. I understand firing a SM-2 at a ballistic missile or an airplane, but shooting a drone is overkill and too expensive if other solutions are available. Also, don't let engineering officers command any ships, keep them below decks minding the "Kettle". Commanders of surface vessels need to be 100% career experts in Radars, Missile, ASW warfare and battlespace management. This is no place for an amateur surface officer to be in command.
Plane guard also provides quick response to pick up downed flight crew or even the occasional flight deck person that goes overboard. Thanks for the analysis on this event. Happy New Year!
I flew during the 80s and 90s and during all launch and recovery operations the SAR helo was flying starboard delta as the primary SAR asset - the smallboy behind mother was secondary. As the primary SAR asset, the helo was the first to launch and the last to recover, and always had a swimmer dressed out in wet gear. Has this changed? At 3:35 it was mentioned that the helo is no longer primary SAR.
Helo primary SAR, ship on horizon station is carrier plane guard shotgun cruiser/destroyer tasked with what wombat said and air defense. Gettysburg was probably outside 10nm to be free to shoot. A destroyer in trail with ready lifeboats could do recovery, but slower than helo. Helo primary SAR, these are our airwing brothers (sisters)
90s/00s former HS AW and only remember a smallboy covering PG duties a couple of times on deployments. Just need to find out who got the rescue (HSM or HSC), regardless good job in that nasty Red Sea water.
If they were on a certain EMCON they might have had certain emissions off. IFF can be fully active but every man and his dog in the world can see you. You can set it to only activate when interrogated. I was on SHORAD back in the early 90s so very likely tech has advanced a lot. To me this is a controller issue on the CV and air defence threat warning. You get Weapons HOLD, TIGHT and FREE (in my day) and if they were FREE in the dark then best you’re squawking the right IFF or if a lame duck (damaged) you fly the right speed, altitude and course or you die.
IFF can fail. During one of the gulf wars a Dutch patriot battery stationed in Turkey shot down an Turkish f-4, because the IFF on the f-4 did go defective during flight.
@ my Rapier unit had a close call during ‘91 as their fire unit detected an incoming in the pitch dark. It had no IFF, they had just has a scud attack, the NBC alarms were still wailing and they were conducting tests themselves when the operator had, “Alarm narrow, Radar tracking, Hostile.” The Sgt said “Free to fire” but at that moment the generator ran out of fuel and the kit powered down. The operator even said he’d pushed the fire button. 👀 Turns out a Tornado returned full of holes from small arms and one shot had killed his IFF and another the radio. He was that badly damaged he hadn’t flown as a “Lame duck” but landed safely. Turned out HQ hadn’t been told about the jet so the unit would have been in the right to kill it….if the numpties hadn’t neglected the 30 min fuel check concentrating on the possible chemical attack. I met the pilot years later as he was a runner and we chatted about that night and he knew in his ears he was being painted then heard a brief launch warning but got cut off. He didn’t know the story at the Rapier end 🫣
Men, much respect for all three of you! With that said, so much insight brought to the table by you all, it was a little bit hard to follow y'all in the discourse. I was trying to listen to Gonky describe what happened but his discord was repeatedly interrupted. As a civilian and being a former military brat, I am very interested in it but can't seem to keep up with side comments. Please men understand. I have a tremendous respect for you but somehow think more (as much as you can) of your civilian audience. God's blessing to you all!!
Arm chair naval aviator here (AE2 troubleshooter/final checker). Crew sees the launch of missile and recognize it is tracking them and decide to eject. Why didn't the pilot pickle the 5 drop tanks and attempt to out maneuver the missile?
They're doing under 300kts and less than 1000ft off the water with RWR off, they punched out with seconds to spare. You need distance altitude and airspeed to counter a missile which they had none of.
Agree... I told my customer that we need more scalability. A bomber can't be scaled down to defend against a fighter. Likewise, we can't expect our Destroyers to scale down to defend against drones. This can get expensive fast--real fast.
I hear those postulating an error on the Gettysburg ... not updating IFF codes correctly (human or software or I suppose mechanical). Makes sense up to that point ... the Gettysburg info system didn't ID them as friendly. But the F-18's were within 15 miles, in a line, on an approach vector. - Gettysburg gets the hand-off from the E3 AWACS and immediately alarms go off, but no one questions it? - There's no one on Gettysburg looking at radar who can ID 3 F-18's on approach and distinguish them from drones (I appreciate the latter is or could appear as a small plane)? What am I missing here? Is "pulling the trigger on an SM-2" now fully automated and 100% IFF dependent? If that's the case, the logic needs updating, 'cause that'd be (to use the technical term) "insane".
"With Friends like this Who Needs Enemies." IFF systems were really fool proof more after USS Stark shot down that commercial airline... Old fart selling old technology who does not STEM degree, switchroo of weapons in inventory or sabotage.
Just wait till you find out that Full on nuclear war almost started several times over this exact thing and was only prevented because like one guy hesitated to pull the trigger.
IMO, no "postulating" of an "error" is required here! You don't shoot at "Blue Air", and there are a myriad of procedures in the published Rules of Engagement (ROE) and Special Instructions (SPINS) to keep such events from occurring. All crews deploying to OPS theaters world-wide are required to perform in work up exercises where the ROE is practiced, and crew competence demonstrated and evaluated. Factors causing the crew errors will probably come down to "fatigue", etc.; as seen a few years ago when the USN was running into freighters on a regular basis...
Your RWR will react to the AN/SPN-42 systems (they are ATC landing system radars that years back were derived from fire control radars.) We use to lock up the AGI periodically with the SPN when they were aft of the CV.
So has anything been revealed about the SPY1b radar mode? I mean there is a kinda "fail-deadly" mode... where if the operator does not intervene in the kill chain, then birds fly. Though AFAIK it is not used outside test ranges.
Question, I understand the cost difference in cost between our missiles and the enemies drones, but what is the cost of a drone getting through and possible killing people or damaging an expensive ship or aircraft on the ship?
It has different modes or did in my day. If you leave it on like an airliner with its transponder on the entire world can see you. Not good if on combat so you can set to interrogate. It sits passively until asked for the days code. It gets asked many times in moments just in case it didn’t get the whole request. Now if it’s not on, the fleet are on weapons free, they’ve maybe been constantly attacked or intel said watch out, it’s pitch dark, the system says hostile and the plane isn’t flying a “lame duck” flight path then….if it flies it dies. How the CIC didn’t just check on any friendly air on that bearing is beyond me but if you’re told to shoot, you shoot. Personally I don’t think the pilots did anything wrong. They were told to fly that course and altitude to prepare to land.
@@stevepirie8130 The IFF system was working prior to launching the tanker. Three theories. It broke in flight (doubtful), the tanker landed for gas during refueling ops and forgot to hold the code over and wasn't checked prior to subsequent launch or did not switch to the next day's code while airborne. In any case the ship should have had more SA and due diligence than shooting at one of our own with gear down coming in to land.
I would really like to hear your guys' thoughts on Air Canada Flight 759 in 2017. It feels a lot easier to talk about these things when, ultimately, no one was hurt. But it could easily have been the deadliest crash in aviation history.
It’s not only because WOMBAT is interesting to listen to, but it’s the chemistry between the 3 of you that makes the WOMBAT shows so popular. ❤
It's kinda like the 3 stooges.
I love when Wombat is on because he just sounds like he's done with everybody's sh*t. LMAO
@Wraith3Snpr
When you’re that close to leaving the service, you are definitely done with everyone’s crap!
Thank you Mover for translating some of the terminology and abbreviations for us knuckleheads out there, makes it much easier to follow along than having to stop and google a phrase every 2 minutes.
Aviators,
Nice podcast, thanks. I am a 30 year "shoe" (ship driver) chasing the carrier in plane guard or HRU. Happy to clear that up. Most of the time the helo is the plane guard, very specific requirements for ability to pick someone up out of the water fast. There is a Horizon Reference Unit that is often separate, this is the light reference you spoke of out on the recovery radial but the ship might not be officially the Plan Guard there. Often there is debate about use of shooter to be in the light reference for LSO position. I like it and enjoyed it, I was the Air Defense Commander, but did not have missiles and drones flying around. Very Respectfully, Chuck
The great majority of the time our (CV's) helo was the plane guard. But this was in the 70s and 80s. Maybe that duty is now mostly small boys?
Heck, as Crew Chiefs we used the Threat Warning Receiver on in our B-52s so we could see the supervisor approaching our plane. Worked pretty good.
So it was a boss buzzer....I'll see myself out.
I was in Afghanistan in 2011 with 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines. One of our companies was attached to 1st (or 2nd) Recon Battalion. One of the platoons encountered a sniper and started to deal with it. That is, the platoon commander set one squad as a base of fire and the other two squads went to envelope the sniper. Meanwhile back at Battalion HQ, some idiot following the platoon’s actions called in a drone strike on the sniper and didn’t tell the lieutenant. Long story short, our $200,000 hellfire missile killed a Marine and a navy corpsman. The lieutenant was officially reprimanded and there was an investigation that concluded a lot of things but never seemed to question that a lonely sniper in lonely field in the middle of nowhere was considered a good target for a very expensive missile, shot from an unmanned aircraft, piloted and controlled by people in four distant parts of North America.
If we keep using high cost weapons against really dirt cheap threats, we will lose through attrition.
@@SkylerinAmarillo I do understand. My son was the SS plt leader for the 3\8 in Al Anbar. One of his greatest worries was battalion management. He’s out now.
The problem is some people like blowing things up as big as possible without thinking about the cost to tax payers, then there are all the people benefiting from these contracts to supply these insanely expensive munitions. It got out of control with Iraq and Afghanistan. We burned through SO much money, and most of the end users didn’t care because we got nicer, newer things. We really need a culture change, especially with a complete generation of service members that only know the military during the heavy spending times. I try as best as I can to share to the younger folks what it was like before Sept 11th, but it hard when they are complaining about “low pay” and “terrible quality of life” when it’s actually pretty good now. I really think there needs to be more incentives for senior folks to stay around longer so it’s not just generals and E-9s that don’t interact with the core of the forces.
First off, friendly fire incidents are awful. It is terrible that a marine was lost to a friendly hellfire. We really need to get better at managing the battle-space. For what it is worth, we are WAY better at it today than we were in the Gulf War in 1991, so at least there is that, but it is awful to lose good people, even more so when it is avoidable. I imagine whoever made the call to fire probably thought it was lower risk to take the sniper out from afar, than to risk the lives of the guys on the ground, and it just horribly backfired.
On the separate problem of the overkill and waste of weapons systems, I think this comes from a place of abundance. We have so much capability (when it comes to high end tech) that we haven't been forced to budget how we use it. And in most of the scraps we get involved with these days we don't have to. Munitions may be expensive, but they have shelf-lives. Use them before they expire, or lose them (and then you have to pay for ordnance disposal) . So most of the times, in the type of low intensity scraps we are used to it really doesn't matter. We need these high end expensive systems if the shit ever hits the fan with a near peer adversary, but they expire, so we might as well use them, even when they are overkill.
It turns into a real problem when the shit actually does hit the fan against a near peer adversary, and we have to actually start budgeting these resources and we aren't used to it. If we don't prepare better, we are going to have to learn in a hurry.
It's probably like a lot of things in the government. If they don't use them they lose them when the next budget rolls around.
It certainly CAN be appropriate to use an expensive thing to kill a cheap thing, it's more a question of what damage that enemy system can do/is doing the longer you let it live.
Outstanding conversation here guys and thanks to Mover for explaining the terminology to the 99.9% of us who otherwise wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about without constantly having another device open to reference the terms .
So very , very good and I’m going to rewatch this a few more times .
Love the passion , humor , seriousness and expertise…. And the bro code - that is very serious . Sure, we all want to know what’s going on out of curiosity, but that is not a good look for trust on whoever leaked this stuff out already .
This time Mover and gonky were going on a tangent and Wombat was keeping it focused and on point near the end.
This was an all-time top tier segment from the show. Great discussion, hilarious one-liners, angels in white shirts.
You guys and Ward Carroll are my favorite channels for this stuff! "Nooo, that can't be right" LOL So many good lines
Used to watch Ward until his content got to ridiculously politically biased. Can't stand the dude now.
@@mountedpatrolman Has it!? I've not been watching religiously, only here and there.
@@mountedpatrolman Concur
IMOH Ward has always leaned left. It is very subtle, but it is there.
@@mountedpatrolman Same
You know there's a problem in this country when people have a problem with someone just because of their politics, real or perceived. It's a damn SHAME that people think we have to agree on everything and somehow the other side aren't also Americans who just want the best for the country. BTW, I've seen exact SAME ATTITUDE on the left. Ward served honorably, and he's still serving in a different capacity. If the sole reason you don't watch a guy is some political thing that's not even vaguely related to the subject, the problem isn't their politics.
If the crew had not ejected they would not be here. The SM-2 attacks from above and uses a proximity fuse.
For real! The second jet felt the missile come down beside from 100 feet away before it hit the water
The attack profile is very dependent on range, an SM-2 fired at 10-15 miles won't be lofting that much, too much energy too little time, it's a guaranteed kill regardless, not shaking that thing unless the missile is cut (make it blind, essentially turning off the ARH/SARH seeker) which they did on the second one.
@@kermittoad Yup, it sounds from the discussion as though they cut the SPG-62 illuminator on the second one. It's fortunate that the SM-2 IIIC hasn't hit the fleet in numbers yet, or else the second jet could have had a different outcome.
Agree that there would be no lofting in a case like that.
Had they ejected and the missile was going elsewhere, they'd be getting sacked, but the decision making process and reasoning would be exactly the same.
😮
What an awesome show guys. Also like to add, as someone who is NOT a pilot, I really appreciate Mover explaining what the acronyms are.
Thank you, Mover, for defining the anagrams and abbreviations! This is how we learn!
You mean antonyms... no wait, acronyms!!
My family member who was the Weapons and Combat Systems Officer as an O3 on the Gettysburg over 20 years ago explained to me they the command and crew are definately in the suck, an Army reference as I was Army. Happy New Years.
Marine Air Control Group guy here. We talk about the problems of identification and economical defense all the time.
The fact is, the one doing the striking is always going to have an advantage over the defender. The enemy can throw a ham sandwich into your airspace but you still have to identify, track and potentially target it. That all takes time and resources. It’s always a losing proposition if the question is only better defenses.
The thing being thrown into your airspace can always be simpler than the defending system. That’s the gist of it. Something will always get through.
The answer, beyond better defenses, is employing these offensive weapons ourselves. Would it be unreasonable to use loitering one way munitions to strike these targets and spare expensive warships, planes and lives?
The decision makers are ex pilots or ex ship captains. They view problems therefore through the eyes of a pilot or captain. It’s not to say there is no use for these ships and planes, but against an asymmetric threat you have to use an asymmetric response.
Regardless, we will learn the hard way. It will take of bunch of people being killed first.
For 3 years we have forced Ukraine into a mostly DCA mode and we've seen the outcome. We already knew that a defensive strategy for air battle will lose and we've been observing it for 3 years but somehow we still seem to be focused on defeating incoming projectiles rather than defeating the launcher.
The people who designed and executed "shock and awe" knew how to do it. How did their knowledge and the lessons from the Gulf War get lost?
@ I blame that mostly on political apprehensiveness. They believe that DCA is the moral and politically correct approach. They also believe it will not be seen as escalatory compared with supply of offensive capability.
Certainly we have given offensive capability, but as a trickle. The amount actually needed would be enormous. It always amazes me when some country, including the US hands over a system numbering in the 10s or 100s. This is obviously insufficient to actually have decisive outcomes.
It’s mostly a way of saving face. Then it’s possible to say “well of course we helped, remember those 12 armored vehicles we gave?”
Absolutely absurd disconnect from reality.
@@erlgunslinger7344
I agree, I would just add that along with providing offensive capability we also imposed ridiculous restrictions on its use.
Imagine if the Biden strategy was to use Ukraine to use up Russia. I think they would have provided the same capability in the same amount as they've actually have.
I'm not a mind reader so i'll give Biden the benefit of the doubt and assume that his motivation has been to not provoke Russia to do something extreme.
I think that outlook is backwards however from his point of view it may seem to be the right thing to do.
I just can't ignore that if his motivation were something evil the actions would have been the same.
This is important warfighting insight. I'm a former army officer that spent a weird amount of time around marine leadership and almost always found myself wondering why this type of wisdom and innovation was so hard to find in big army
> against an asymmetric threat you have to use an asymmetric response.
That is the nail you have to hit on the head.
EMP and lasers were aired by the panel, ofc lasers would be OK for blinding IR guided threats, but unless you have high 100's of kW of laser beam power, probly not going to down the drone.
But what about radio transmissions to spoof the radio fuse inside the drone, cause it to trigger several hundred metres out thinking the proximity threshold was reached.
So many things to be grateful for. Good to know if you punch out your parachute will separate when you land and your raft will deploy. And on top of that you will get picked up man lots went wrong but it’s like wombat said after that everything went right.
Thanks!
Former A6/BN here, really enjoy listening to the three of you.
My dad was a Skyraider pilot in Vietnam. His squadron was based at Alameda and he was tasked with helping the Enterprise battle group do AA training working up for a WestPac deployment. They asked him to come out and make a simulated attack off of the coast of California to get the AA guys in the carrier battle group familiar with their equipment. After he rolled in nearly vertical on the boat, a destroyer shot a Terrier missile at him, which after 2 tours in Vietnam he was able to defeat. He said it took all he had not to shoot 20mm back at them.
This blue on blue has been going on since…well…forever.
You would think we’d have better control by this point.
Apparently, he made such a stink about it, the Skipper was relieved, as he should have been.
He got shot at lots of times in Vietnam and he said this was the closest he ever got to being shot down….. after two combat tours, nearly bea being killed within earshot of home was a real wake up call to him.
An hour in the water after ejecting? Did they have to install the rotors before they launched. What happened to a helo in the air on launch and recovery?
There was probably more than a little concern of putting anything else up in the air after that. Helo pilots a crews cannot bail out.
It seems these SAR ops arent as quick and efficient as the Navy would want us to believe.
@@fortusvictus8297
i think Baba is saying that the doctrine that he is familiar with would have had a helo already flying cover before landing recoveries even started.
.
as for me, i'm a bit baffled that the entire CSG doesn't get notified when carrier landing operations are going on. plus there's an obvious issue with IFF failure somehow.
10 min prep, 5 min launch, 20 min trip, 5 min search, 10 min recovery. Adds up quick
Remember this was at around 0200 - 0300. They use a ship for plane guard at night, as they talked about.
3:29 - There is technically a distinction between "Plane Guard" and "Horizon Reference Unit (HRU)". HRU is to help with perspective/horizon, while plane guard is no kidding for aircraft/personnel recovery, where the stationing requirements are a lot looser than HRU. You really are referring to the fact that Gettysburg was performing HRU duties, not plane guard.
Agreed. Dash 2 coming back around after a slightly unorthodox 1st pass would be just a tad difficult…
Drone defense: 127 mm from the DDs and APKWS from airborne assets. Laser eventually as a shoulder mount cheap per shot option on CIWS and RAM.
The Strales 76mm system with DART guided ammunition also seems promising.
@@Atrahasis7 127mm prox fuze is already an awful expensive proposition for defeating dirt-cheap drones; guided cannon ammunition is more expensive per-shot than the drones themselves. Walter's right, lasers are the best solution to the cheap, low-capability drone threat
The problem with using bullets is that our fighters on final approach won't see them coming...
@@bronco5334 At last check - which may be out of date, were well aways from actual practical field use of lasers, let alone shoulder mounted and the question of cost per shot vs cost to produce. To say nothing of the fact that the wrong atmospheric conditions can actually impact the effectiveness of a laser.
Wanna know the cheapest way to shoot down a drone - the same way the US shot down planes in the early days of WW2, a .30 or .50 cal MG and good aim. Maybe with todays tech or how slow the drones are - a .50 can shoot it down before it goes through 2-300 rounds of ammunition that would approximate the same cost as most of these drones based on the info I can find about them. Question is - do you wanna let the drones in that close. Further out you want to hit it, more it's gonna cost. Pretty sure the 5 inch AA shell is still cheaper than launching an F-18 or any other current age fighter to shoot it down even if they only use guns or jet wash. Do better building a new version of a WW2 era aircraft and a smaller carrier for them just to deal with drones and a cheap multi-role option for uncontested air spaces (like what they've been doing with the one prop plane).
Yeah, I read some promising stuff on that. Man, we must have tens of thousands of FFAR rockets in storage from the Cold War days. And how much was the laser guidance addon, like $20,000? Much better than spending a half-mil(sidewinder) or 1 mil (Fox 3) to take out a cheap drone.
When Israel shot down hundreds of Iranian drones, yeah they got them, but it cost America and Israel nearly a billion dollars. That's just not sustainable. On average, in Afghanistan, I forget the exact number, but the US was spending a couple hundred grand per each IED they removed (salary, equipment, maintenance ect).
Thank you Mover. i'm a WP grad, UH-60L driver with 8 years served, completed deck landing quals on the USS Shenandoah (AD-44) in 1996 and I was left behind on a LOT of the discussion until you translated.
Ok you can’t just leave that last statement about the Bro code hanging out there. That requires some explanation.
Truly great videos on this and the Jeju Air crash. Well done.
Yeah that last exchange was confusing. I guess I don't get notified of every video so I must have missed the context from their previous conversations.
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@fortusvictus8297 thanks!
@@fortusvictus8297 Call signs should have been redacted. Not surprising that in the age of social media the story was going to be leaked. Too many people outside of the "bro network" get access.
@@mgregory3777 Yeah, and there's going to be further investigations and testimony over this incident - it's not something that would stay private for long regardless of circumstances. I think this is a bit of pearl clutching from our hosts...
As a career Army Apache pilot, we would leave passive ASE gear on but anything active was safed, just like weapons as part of the before landing checks. That was a major question I had for you guys about before landing checks. Obviously, carrier ops are completely different than what I did. Great videos guys!
The last statement by Wombat what does he mean. What Bro code was broken.
The text message maybe?
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@@fortusvictus8297 Possible, but it's important to note that Ward and others were on the ship, and LSO platform for a number of days a month before this happened, and probably know the people involved. It probably wasn't a bro-code violation IMHO.
@@disturbthpce Let's be clear, pilot or not anyone who the pilot was talking to like that was someone he trusted to keep it close. That story was not for being put on blast across the internet. And even if the pilot was doped up out of his mind from his injuries, he should have had friends covering for him to make sure he wasn't put into that kind of situation talking like that to media.
@@fortusvictus8297 It'd end up in Approach one day anyway ...
If you're grading someone and they get shot down, is that a bad score?
I guess it can't be a good score 🤔
During my career in the USN, backseaters in fighters were RIOs, not WSOs. Radar Intercept Officers were Navy. Maybe U.S. Marine aviators use the Air Force WSO, (pronounced WIZO) Weapon System Officer, but I'd be surprised. But I retired back in the 90s.
Back seaters in F-18's are referred to as WSO's now cause they do a lot more than operate radar. RIO is no longer used.
I appreciate the attempt to explain all the jargon.
Great episode!
Happy New Year
As a rsc(radar systems controller) on a destroyer. You welcome. Having to sector the radar over the carrier while they seemingly do donuts is a pain in the ass. Especially when they want a 10 degree sector instead of a 15 degree sector. Being a master helm during unreps was less of a pain.
I understand the hyperbole, but the drones the Houthi are using are closer in pricepoint to our weapons than you'd think. They're not $1,000 hobby drones that drop grenades, they're about the size of a cesna and have a several hundred pound warhead.
In terms of dollar per unit cost, they're about as expensive as a 9x. Additionally, the Houthi are shooting balistic missiles, and cruise missiles at our ships. Those are cheaper than most of the intercepters fired at them, but not by much.
Yeah. The hornet was downed by a Houthie projectile
@@Toro_Da_Corsa
In addition to the Hornet shootdown, they discussed the economics of shooting drones with missiles. My comment was addressing that specific topic.
EW or directed energy is the most cost efficient.
Directed energy has higher initial costs but it is cheaper on a per engagement cost basis than kinetic systems.
Jamming can be effective, but some recent advancements in terrain mapping or AI in the terminal phase will probably diminish the effectiveness long term as they become ever cheaper to employ.
Radar guided systems queued by sound or uas to ground connection are probably the best short term solution. These already exist but probably caliber should be reduced for best cost efficiency.
The problem with using the UAS own emissions for queuing or detection is that they may not need a ground connection at all, especially if it’s a long range one way attack. The inertial guidance plus GPS allows it to fly point to point. You can jam the gps but then you throw in terrain mapping and it’s negated.
Also you can program the enemies own emissions, or even use civilian emitters as waypoints to establish a flight path if you don’t have GPS
And that hornet was awfully close to the carrier if it was a cruise missile the size of a hornet. Something the size of a hornet gets that close to the carrier it's worth $1 million.
@@erlgunslinger7344 > Jamming can be effective
Ok, I see you partially addressed the comment I made minutes ago.
But jamming has till now just been blinding the threat - my suggestion is triggering its proximity fuse using EW detection of its radio fuse transmission, then giving it the return it needs to detect proximity.
Gotta explain Gonky’s last statement.
Ward Carrol posted a transcript of a conversation from the pilot of the F18 that was shot down. Pretty obvious it was taken in a bar or under meds talking to other pilots he was very comfortable with. The fact it was recorded and leaked is what he is talking about. Ward Carrol even put it to AI to 'make it neutral' but it is something that belongs in bar story territory not on the internet.
@ Yes, I unsubscribed from Ward’s channel when I heard that. Publishing it makes him just as complicit as whoever leaked it, assuming it is real. The real problem is that the military tends to not be transparent about things like this and release them as part of the accident investigation. If that was done more transparently, there would be less incentive to leak. Not that I am condoning the leaks in any way.
@@LTVoyager
Ward Carrol is insufferable.
The grim reapers channel did a reenactment of this incident and included information that hasn't been covered by this channel yet.
If you watch that I think you understand the last comment...
@@SkylerinAmarillo i can see that 😆
I will bet pilots are now thinking "I hope I don't get shot down by theat cruiser"
14:04: "what are we doing?", that's the point. Mover, you raise here the most important and relevant question, standing back and not focusing only of the technical details of the incident. 👍
Another excellent example that you can't wait to punch out. Reminds me of the controversy concerning the MIG-23 crash in Michigan last year where the backseater made the decision to punch out when he did. 👍
Yeah so allmost 2 jets downed. What was going on that destroyer? In CIC? I mean i duno seems insane this happened. Lucky everyone survived. I hope this makes changes to policy cause of this stuff
Oprah was visiting. "And YOU get a missile! And YOU!"
Yeah, I'm sure they will get right on uninstalling that multi-year, multi-million dollar, electronics refit the Gettysburg just underwent prior to this deployment.
2 fighter jets on two different days. Sounds too fishy to believe they both were friendly fires
@@ayo-v1pyeah, sounds sus
Bring back **BATTLESHIPS** and their anti air fragment shells
So does the Gettysburg get to paint an F-18 silhouette on its bridge?
There is no clear anti-drone doctrine. Good point.
Gonky to Wombat at 00:42 - "That's why you're here." Nice ... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Love listening to you guys! Great Segment as always!
Thanks, good discussion. Many thanks for decoding acronyms and lingo during discussion for us civilians!
Don’t think of it as $1m missile to kill $1k drone. It is $1m missile to prevent damage to whatever the target is.
Doesnt sound as good to the GAO bean counters.
The only place you see "prevented millions in damage" is in generously written awards citations
While that's true, it's clear that using $1M missiles to destroy $1K drones is not something that can be sustained very long, regardless of the value of the target.
"Value of the target protected" is fine for justifying system development costs, or why you didn't stop defending an asset, no matter the effort required. But it doesn't work when determining whether a defense strategy is sustainable. Don't think of it as just money. Think of it as time and resources. You can build 1,000 of the $1k things for the same time and stuff of 1 of the $1M thing. Even if you're willing to pay the cost ($1 billion), can you build, deploy, and expend the $1M thing fast enough to keep up?
Operating relatively close to shore is showing to be very risky. The Iranians are behind all of this and coordinating it. How are they doing this? Radar? One of their ships directly monitoring this? Why is this not being mitigated by this point?
Delousing is problematic but it will get worked out. Thank GOD our pilots were safe. A few stiches and back on the horse. They were dirty and vulnerable this shouldn't have happened but like all things it's a learning experience.
A good illuminating session. BTW As an ancient engineer, I’d guess that lasers wouldn’t work on tactical aircraft due to power needs which are really high. Also, high power beams from ships or low flying aircraft get really distorted when they have to punch through near sea level environments. NRL was looking at this in the 70’s when I was there.
Great discussion and talking with a lot of common sense. My biggest question is What was going on in CIC on the Gettysburg? A lot of scrutiny of its IFF system and human factors are in store. At those hours of the night, that's were bad things are most likely to happen due to crew fatigue,
Approx.
Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IIIAZ - $1,200,000
This is the unit cost of the conversion kit to turn existing SM-2 Block IIIA missiles into to Block IIIAZ variant, which is specifically for the Navy’s Zumwalt class stealth destroyers.
Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Block IIIC - $2,349,000
This unit price is the cost of the conversion kit to transform existing SM-2 Block IIIA and Block IIIB missiles into the Block IIIC configuration with active radar homing.
Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IB - $11,830,000
Funding for these missiles come through the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) budget.
Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IIA - $36,387,000
The funds for these missiles also come through the MDA budget.
Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) - $4,318,632
This unit price is an average for the entire projected 2021 Fiscal Year order, which includes SM-6 Block I and Block IA variants.
Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) - $1,795,000
This unit cost reflects an average for the entire projected Fiscal Year 2021 purchase, which includes ESSM Block I and Block II versions.
Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) - $905,330
This unit price is an average across the full projected Fiscal Year 2021 order, which includes multiple RAM variants, including the Block II and IIA.
NEW CALSIGN:PUNCHY. I’m not a pilot just a mil av enthusiast. Thanks for the professional breakdown of the incident.
You guys are so knowledgeable. Amazing!
The pilot's new call sign is Big Mad
Scary times. You are 100/100 correct in that tactics need to change. Drone warfare is real, and we are lagging.
On Ward Carroll’s channel, it was stated that the Gettysburg just underwent upgrades. I wonder if the ship acted autonomously (and erroneously) assessed the inbound SH’s as threats and fired on them without human input. Pure speculation on my part, but is the USN utilizing that level of automation to not require human permissives?
Mover, in an earlier show you argued that while the weapon that shot down the cheap drone was very expensive, what is the value of target?
As always, great presentation of the info available!
A year+ in the Red Sea shooting down drones and missiles. Tons of stuff in the air in a fairly narrow sea and everyone trying to keep track of what's what. Something was going to go wrong eventually.
warships are too far from shore. come closer, fight, and don’t create the illusion that you are fighting. And soon after that the first warship will go to the bottom.
copied from wikipedia, "Although the SM-2 effectively intercepted the threats, at a cost of roughly $2.4 million per missile, it is inefficient at shooting down drones, causing concerns about expending them against such cheap targets and depleting a ship's limited VLS capacity"
The SM2 is generally not used for small drones, but large anti-ship drones and cruise missiles. Both of which were engaged on the same day by this TF.
@@fortusvictus8297 Speculating on what might have happened, maybe someone didn't keep track of which ones were friendly and at the same time the automated system (Aegis?) was set to be very aggressive.
@@196cupcake There is an automated mode, a kind of 'fire when all boxes are checked' mode. And the Gettysburg had just been refit with new electronics package prior to this deployment. So yeah, the militarys hard on for AI is probably very much in play here.
@@fortusvictus8297 I don't think it has anything to do with AI, more like "rules of engagement." Like, "anything not positively confirmed to be friendly is assumed to be hostile, so automatically fire at it." Such a setting has real world applications, a saturation attack. Which, maybe you could make it work, but only if you carefully keep track of which things are friendly, which I'm guessing was the problem here.
@@fortusvictus8297 Yeah, people aren't really factoring how the database of threats are created, and what kind of classifiers are actually available for the threats they're expecting from Houthis. I'll bet very few if any the slow drones are in most US / NATO databases. After all, the database is going to be populated with known and expected threats accumulated over the last 80 years of signals intelligence. The recorded radar returns of intercepts that aviation and naval assets have collected and even spy-data used to construct analogs to synthesize data for weapons they expect to face but can't until actually engaged. And no one was thinking naval assets needed to create such an inventory of classifiers for hobby-crafts and toys.
Still, you'd think that since we have the luxury of _not_ fighting against an adversary using F-16, Super Hornets and Eagles that our systems would have no problem recognizing _"friendly"_ hardware. It's not like Russia has to face, in which Ukraine is flying many of the same aircrafts that they are, in which all they have for classifying friendlies from aggressors is IFF, comms, and the use of corridors.
Really enjoyed this discussion.
Our mission as a SAR swimmer and AW in HS-6 was often plane guard. Tons of those missions in Starboard/Delta during recoveries on Enterprise.
This channel is rad, by the way. But you knew that 😎
Keep it up!
I love this group! Awesome analysis guys
Five wet is four drop tanks and one centerline ARS pod. Five wet is also the most inefficient, too-draggy configuration to put a Super Hornet into.
The typical load-out is/was three wet.
My civilian IP was a career cat guy, I asked him if he was ever an LSO, his exact words were" hell no!! My parents are actually married and I'm not legally blind!!"
18:37 Wombat is right on. You'll get punished more for leaving your computer accessible than leaving your weapon unattended! We are definitely far behind...in all services. I'm also curious why it took an hour to recover. Even if the helicopters weren't already airborne it doesn't take that long to launch (I'm a 60 driver).
The pilot was using the wrong radio freq on his emergency handheld, so they didn't know where the guys were at right away.
@@ralgith The WSO was on the right frequency, as he told the pilot which one to change to. And they were both using strobes as soon as they hit the water. The hour delay still seems fishy.
"Help me Tom Cruise", "Don't shoot him down, I'm trying to grade him" 😂. Only in the armed forces can you joke around like this without offending anyone. BZ guys!!!
burned-out F15 crew chief here. Lol…I really enjoyed this conversation. Thx!
I think Rheinmetall has a working 30mm with AHEAD airburst ammo and a High Energy Laser hybrid C-RAM system that is explicitly also designed to deal with drones. I'd be surprised if the US would lag that much behind on that tech.
Integrating it in existing tech it might be the problem here, since especially ships are around for a long time and integrating new systems that were never meant to be there can be rather tricky.
Check out Helios and ODIN, the Navy has been working on it for a while
If either of those had been in play in this situation, do you think there would have been time to bail out?
I don't think being engaged with an airburst gun or laser system was the issue here, it was being targeted and fired on by anything in the first place.
@@fortusvictus8297 if it were the gun, then nope. No chance that you'd see the burst coming at you. Best case you see some muzzle flashes, but those rounds don't have tracers. And worst case since their frangible ammunition, it could easily end with incapacitating the crew.
The HEL is perhaps possible. While you won't see it coming, it doesn't have a fragmentation warhead, so the damage is most likely only to the airframe. Though you'd still have to realize that you've just been shot down and need to eject right now.
@@fortusvictus8297 IF they were being engaged by a LASER weapon, erm no, by definition, you are talking speed of light.
You shouldn't be "surprised"...we've wasted the past 20+ yrs. doing COIN ops and completely neglecting the modernization of our counter air capabilties. MDA despite their massive budget has failed to lead this effort, and instead continued to throw money at "ballistic missile" defense which no near peer adversary still flies. Etc., etc.
I’m glad you corrected the word “aircraft” as it is both singular and plural. So many, to include ALPA reps, are using the improper use of the word “aircraft.”
This is a question from a non military person. Would they not have a transponder when approaching the carrier?
They should have had their IFF (identify friend or foe) transponder on. The ground unit sends a signal asking the aircraft if they are a good guy, if they don’t get the right coded response, it’s assumed to be enemy.
@@doughudgens9275 This happened just after midnight Zulu, which is the default time for codes to change over. I'd be surprised if modern systems can't switch that automatically, but it's an interesting note.
Supposedly, the "missile team" turned guidance off on the second missile, which is why it missed
Didn’t know that’s how they’d do it but that was same on Rapier. You had your joystick guiding the missile in your right hand but it rested on the cancel switch so if the Sgt/Cpl said, “CANCEL!” you instantly pushed down. The missile exploded as soon as it lost link.
Hehe!
Great vid.
Just sud’d…nice info.
Very much appreciate getting it from folks who have been there and know the drill.
Thanks boys!
Looking forward to more.
😎👍
Would an LSO benefit from wearing a helmet with a HUD that fed him position data on the plane that is approaching for a landing? Would a pilot benefit from being able to see the view the LSO has of his approach?
No... being former a LSO, too much other verbal communication going on with other personnel on the platform with you plus you are also listening to the engine sounds on the jet landing to see if pilot is responding to your calls for power or if the pilot has already applied power in a situation where he needs it during the approach.
Thanks guys.
Any chance you could get max afterburner or habitual line crosser on the show
The drone threat, basically cheap suicide craft, smaller and more numerous versions of the Kamikaze threat in WW2. As we all know, the Japanese weren't "crazy", they "Did the Math" and correctly determined that human guided missiles were more effect against a layered carrier defense than conventional tactics. Luckily, the US had a working CIC for the fleet. Later the Navy also fielded the radar controlled 3" AA gun that was originally designed to counter German Radio Controlled Guide bombs that the US Navy encountered in the Mediterranean earlier in the War. Today, the discarded experimental anti-missile Laser system that were bolted to the CWIS, likely need to come back. These systems likely aren't effective against a big, heavy and fast missile, but might be the perfect solution to close in small/medium sized drones. Firing lasers, like electronic warfare, means you have an unlimited magazine of ammunition, provided you have electrical power. Also, I can see many more 20mm CWIS (removed from a lot of ships) and more RIM-116 Rolling Airfare Frame Missiles being added to ships. I understand firing a SM-2 at a ballistic missile or an airplane, but shooting a drone is overkill and too expensive if other solutions are available. Also, don't let engineering officers command any ships, keep them below decks minding the "Kettle". Commanders of surface vessels need to be 100% career experts in Radars, Missile, ASW warfare and battlespace management. This is no place for an amateur surface officer to be in command.
@12:33 "Saved me from a No-Grade" Gonky HAHAHAA
WOMBAT is awesome! I love when you guys have him on... I always learn something from that guy
Plane guard also provides quick response to pick up downed flight crew or even the occasional flight deck person that goes overboard. Thanks for the analysis on this event. Happy New Year!
I flew during the 80s and 90s and during all launch and recovery operations the SAR helo was flying starboard delta as the primary SAR asset - the smallboy behind mother was secondary. As the primary SAR asset, the helo was the first to launch and the last to recover, and always had a swimmer dressed out in wet gear. Has this changed? At 3:35 it was mentioned that the helo is no longer primary SAR.
Helo primary SAR, ship on horizon station is carrier plane guard shotgun cruiser/destroyer tasked with what wombat said and air defense. Gettysburg was probably outside 10nm to be free to shoot. A destroyer in trail with ready lifeboats could do recovery, but slower than helo. Helo primary SAR, these are our airwing brothers (sisters)
90s/00s former HS AW and only remember a smallboy covering PG duties a couple of times on deployments. Just need to find out who got the rescue (HSM or HSC), regardless good job in that nasty Red Sea water.
Concur 100% with your assessment regarding utilizing a costly missile to neutralize a small drone!
Does anything like IFF system still exist?
Yup
Yes. WTF happened (with IFF etc) has to be investigated by the official Navy report.
If they were on a certain EMCON they might have had certain emissions off. IFF can be fully active but every man and his dog in the world can see you. You can set it to only activate when interrogated.
I was on SHORAD back in the early 90s so very likely tech has advanced a lot. To me this is a controller issue on the CV and air defence threat warning. You get Weapons HOLD, TIGHT and FREE (in my day) and if they were FREE in the dark then best you’re squawking the right IFF or if a lame duck (damaged) you fly the right speed, altitude and course or you die.
IFF can fail. During one of the gulf wars a Dutch patriot battery stationed in Turkey shot down an Turkish f-4, because the IFF on the f-4 did go defective during flight.
@ my Rapier unit had a close call during ‘91 as their fire unit detected an incoming in the pitch dark. It had no IFF, they had just has a scud attack, the NBC alarms were still wailing and they were conducting tests themselves when the operator had, “Alarm narrow, Radar tracking, Hostile.”
The Sgt said “Free to fire” but at that moment the generator ran out of fuel and the kit powered down. The operator even said he’d pushed the fire button. 👀
Turns out a Tornado returned full of holes from small arms and one shot had killed his IFF and another the radio. He was that badly damaged he hadn’t flown as a “Lame duck” but landed safely. Turned out HQ hadn’t been told about the jet so the unit would have been in the right to kill it….if the numpties hadn’t neglected the 30 min fuel check concentrating on the possible chemical attack.
I met the pilot years later as he was a runner and we chatted about that night and he knew in his ears he was being painted then heard a brief launch warning but got cut off. He didn’t know the story at the Rapier end 🫣
Men, much respect for all three of you! With that said, so much insight brought to the table by you all, it was a little bit hard to follow y'all in the discourse. I was trying to listen to Gonky describe what happened but his discord was repeatedly interrupted. As a civilian and being a former military brat, I am very interested in it but can't seem to keep up with side comments. Please men understand. I have a tremendous respect for you but somehow think more (as much as you can) of your civilian audience. God's blessing to you all!!
Arm chair naval aviator here (AE2 troubleshooter/final checker). Crew sees the launch of missile and recognize it is tracking them and decide to eject. Why didn't the pilot pickle the 5 drop tanks and attempt to out maneuver the missile?
They're doing under 300kts and less than 1000ft off the water with RWR off, they punched out with seconds to spare. You need distance altitude and airspeed to counter a missile which they had none of.
That only works in movies.
What happened to the end? I wanted to hear the rest
Appreciate ya. Thanks for sharing.
I see the top,left guy tried to explain some terms, but I still had trouble following the acronyms and understanding what is standard OPs.
Agree... I told my customer that we need more scalability. A bomber can't be scaled down to defend against a fighter. Likewise, we can't expect our Destroyers to scale down to defend against drones. This can get expensive fast--real fast.
As a civilian listening to your story and others. It sounds like the system checks used to make sure of a friend or foe need some minor adjustments
I think Mover covered it in one word "Quality"
I hear those postulating an error on the Gettysburg ... not updating IFF codes correctly (human or software or I suppose mechanical). Makes sense up to that point ... the Gettysburg info system didn't ID them as friendly. But the F-18's were within 15 miles, in a line, on an approach vector.
- Gettysburg gets the hand-off from the E3 AWACS and immediately alarms go off, but no one questions it?
- There's no one on Gettysburg looking at radar who can ID 3 F-18's on approach and distinguish them from drones (I appreciate the latter is or could appear as a small plane)?
What am I missing here? Is "pulling the trigger on an SM-2" now fully automated and 100% IFF dependent? If that's the case, the logic needs updating, 'cause that'd be (to use the technical term) "insane".
"With Friends like this Who Needs Enemies." IFF systems were really fool proof more after USS Stark shot down that commercial airline... Old fart selling old technology who does not STEM degree, switchroo of weapons in inventory or sabotage.
Just wait till you find out that Full on nuclear war almost started several times over this exact thing and was only prevented because like one guy hesitated to pull the trigger.
IMO, no "postulating" of an "error" is required here! You don't shoot at "Blue Air", and there are a myriad of procedures in the published Rules of Engagement (ROE) and Special Instructions (SPINS) to keep such events from occurring. All crews deploying to OPS theaters world-wide are required to perform in work up exercises where the ROE is practiced, and crew competence demonstrated and evaluated. Factors causing the crew errors will probably come down to "fatigue", etc.; as seen a few years ago when the USN was running into freighters on a regular basis...
Maybe SecDef Hegseth needs to watch this episode. Great points.
Your RWR will react to the AN/SPN-42 systems (they are ATC landing system radars that years back were derived from fire control radars.) We use to lock up the AGI periodically with the SPN when they were aft of the CV.
So has anything been revealed about the SPY1b radar mode? I mean there is a kinda "fail-deadly" mode... where if the operator does not intervene in the kill chain, then birds fly. Though AFAIK it is not used outside test ranges.
Question, I understand the cost difference in cost between our missiles and the enemies drones, but what is the cost of a drone getting through and possible killing people or damaging an expensive ship or aircraft on the ship?
Mover: "If I'm doing it, we're getting lasers!"
Let's GOOOOOOOO!!
The sea already has the sharks, so we need lasers to outfit them so they can protect the ships from drones.
At least the Hornet wasn't NAVY ONE, Willy D's rep is safe for not only firing on friendlies but the Commander in Chief and Flag Officers.
Could a COIN turboprop with guns be put aboard the carrier to do the inclose mission without spending a mil on a missile? Turbo Tucano or something?
Can anyone explain why IFF didn't stop this from happening? Is that turned off before recovery or something?
It has different modes or did in my day. If you leave it on like an airliner with its transponder on the entire world can see you. Not good if on combat so you can set to interrogate. It sits passively until asked for the days code. It gets asked many times in moments just in case it didn’t get the whole request.
Now if it’s not on, the fleet are on weapons free, they’ve maybe been constantly attacked or intel said watch out, it’s pitch dark, the system says hostile and the plane isn’t flying a “lame duck” flight path then….if it flies it dies. How the CIC didn’t just check on any friendly air on that bearing is beyond me but if you’re told to shoot, you shoot.
Personally I don’t think the pilots did anything wrong. They were told to fly that course and altitude to prepare to land.
@@stevepirie8130 The IFF system was working prior to launching the tanker. Three theories. It broke in flight (doubtful), the tanker landed for gas during refueling ops and forgot to hold the code over and wasn't checked prior to subsequent launch or did not switch to the next day's code while airborne. In any case the ship should have had more SA and due diligence than shooting at one of our own with gear down coming in to land.
I would really like to hear your guys' thoughts on Air Canada Flight 759 in 2017. It feels a lot easier to talk about these things when, ultimately, no one was hurt. But it could easily have been the deadliest crash in aviation history.
How many seconds do you estimate between missile launch and the ejection?