Guns a GoGo and the Twilight War

[pmulcahy11b]

You seem to be right Paul. I should have researched first. Clutter from ground heat seems to confuse the seeker. In "CotK" Clancy rectified that by having it be night and winter as well as having having the targets be heated and above ground. The scenarios where they would be useful would be few, but I still see commanders holding on to them.

Such a target might be good for a Stinger. In the book And Kill MiGs, Randy Cunningham related the story of how he nailed a North Vietnamese truck with a Sidewinder -- he was very surprised to get a tone, but since he was headed back out to his ship anyway and had no MiGs to shoot at, he decided to take the shot anyway. Sometimes weapons exceed their design parameters!

[copeab]

If they are functional I cannot see a commander abandoning them.

A commander, probably not. And individual soldier likely. By 2000, there are few aircraft flying. A SAM launcher and spare missiles are heavy. A SAM team is likely to drop it as soon as they have to start moving on foot through the countryside.

(Also remember that the soldiers of 2000 are of overall lower quality than those who started the war in 1996 and are much more liekly to do such a thing).

[Raellus]

Brian S., yeah, I read your thread starter but I didn't click the links.

No, modern air defense networks wouldn't exist by 2000. Missiles would be scarce to extremely rare. But, guns- there would be loads of AA guns still around. Whereas a complicated SAM system would be next to useless (ADATS and a couple of others being exceptions) in the absense of sufficient air targets and would probably be abandoned, AA guns can be still extremely effective against ground targets. The Russians used ZU-23-4 Shilka's against mutli-story buildings in Grozny. They had the elevation that tank and IFV guns didn't and their quad 23mm guns could pulverize point targets. A Shilka would make short work of a Chinook gunship.

Couldn't ATGMs be used against low-flying helicopters I seem to remember reading about a ground-based Israeli-operated TOW being used to shoot down a Syrian heli. More modern laser guided and fire-and-forget missiles would probably be able to do it. There would still be plenty of these in 2000.

Gunships rely on speed, small size (look at a Cobra head on) and armor protection for survival over the battlefield. The Chinook has little of the above. A couple of DShKs or NSVs could knock one down.

Hey, but if you like 'em, figure out a way to incorporate one into your T2K world. The above is just one man's opinion.

[Targan]

Couldn't ATGMs be used against low-flying helicopters

I know for sure that Javelins could and in my T2K campaigns I've always considered the Tankbreaker to be the Javelin, just on a faster development path than IRL because the Cold War never ended in T2K.