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  • #16
    Originally posted by GoneToTheCanner View Post
    The only way you are going to get a helicopter and associated ground and flight crew for ARW is if you physically pry one out of the Don and permanently assign it to ARW and station it in the Curragh for their exclusive use. This would have to burst several bubbles; that the Army can be trusted to run a single helicopter without AC support. This is entirely possible, of course but the Don will fight tooth and nail to prevent it, as any thing that reduces their establishment will not be tolerated; that the ARW might have the wit, skill and talent to run a single helicopter. Of course they do. If the ARW could considered to be the peak of soldiering, intellectually and physically, in the DF, then running a helicopter will be child's play for them; do what grown up Armies do and permanently assign a helicopter and manpower to the SF, so that they are not dependent on the humours and moods of another agency. I'm quite sure the ARW can be taught how to change an oil filter or a rotor blade without the earth tilting off it's axis...
    Or move the ARW to Baldonnel.

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    • #17
      Moving the duty team to Baldonnel is the obvious answer - firstly its easier than moving the positively glacier-esque AC to the Curragh, secondly it's closer to where the action is likely to be, and thirdly it would add weight to the concept of using Baldonnel as Ireland's designated 'hijack' destination, much like Stansted is in the UK.

      A more fundamental problem however remains, that with 6AW-139's, you simply don't, and can't, have enough helicopters at 10 mins NTM, 24/365, to move a CT team and its support (EOD), to where it needs to be.

      Beginning, middle, end. Without addressing that, there's an element of window dressing about where you put them...

      Comment


      • #18
        The fundamental issue is lack of AC personnel

        Comment


        • #19
          The issues being addressed would still have been relevent in the day when the AC had pretty much a full flying complement and 15 choppers Dev.

          Comment


          • #20
            Sorry, fat, cold fingers - that should have been a like.

            You're right - the AC could have 5 times as many people as it currently has, and with 6 139's it still couldn't do the task.

            The CT task needs bigger helicopters, and it needs more of them. Crewing the 139's and thinking they'll do the job is like giving a snowball a hat and thinking it can sit on a Greek beach in July.

            Waste. Of. Time.

            Comment


            • #21
              Lets be honest, 2 NH90 or equivalent Medium lift helis and 2 crews are far more capable than 6 AW139 requiring 6 crews - if you need to lift a platoon's worth of rangers.
              "He is an enemy officer taken in battle and entitled to fair treatment."
              "No, sir. He's a sergeant, and they don't deserve no respect at all, sir. I should know. They're cunning and artful, if they're any good. I wouldn't mind if he was an officer, sir. But sergeants are clever."

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              • #22
                Lets not get ahead of ourselves on the CT topic.

                The first responders will be the Gardaí, in Dublin the ERU and outside the Dublin region the RSUs. Once they have responded to an incident then and only then will they make the call that it is a Terrorist Incident. The ARW will only be called in if they cannot cope with the situation and need additional support. Having a helicopter lift from the Curragh is not going to make much of a difference and even if it is available there needs to be suitable landing sites near the incident. Not something you can find easily in the centre of Dublin or most Irish cities. If you want to see a good timeline look at the incidents in Paris, Brussels and Munich. The latter was an idiot on a shooting rampage in the city which started just before 18:00 on a summers evening (so plenty of light) and despite more than 2300 armed responders including SEK and GSG9 it took them until 20:30 to locate the shooter who then killed himself. The whole time it was live on TV and no-one knew just what was going on. That is the nature of such incidents.

                On a side note for comparison the Bavarian police have 8 H135 (EC135) helicopters which are supported by 100 personnel and they provide 24/7 coverage. One reason why the H135 is used is its small size meaning it does not need much room to land, a key factor in modern cities. Even the German SFs have the H135s bigger brother, the H145, again for the small footprint it has. With SFs we are not talking about moving large numbers of troops, it is about small teams. As long as we can fast rope from the EC135s they could be suitable for a response (the 2 AC and the 2 GASU together).

                This is not to saw that the airlift capacity of the AC should not be expanded but until some more fundamental organisational issues are sorted it would be a waste of resources.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by morpheus View Post
                  Lets be honest, 2 NH90 or equivalent Medium lift helis and 2 crews are far more capable than 6 AW139 requiring 6 crews - if you need to lift a platoon's worth of rangers.
                  Only if NHI can get the availability above the fleet average of 40%, it was even as low as 19% for the Finns!
                  Nice machine but could be better.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Tempest View Post
                    The issues being addressed would still have been relevent in the day when the AC had pretty much a full flying complement and 15 choppers Dev.
                    Originally posted by ropebag View Post
                    Sorry, fat, cold fingers - that should have been a like.

                    You're right - the AC could have 5 times as many people as it currently has, and with 6 139's it still couldn't do the task.

                    The CT task needs bigger helicopters, and it needs more of them. Crewing the 139's and thinking they'll do the job is like giving a snowball a hat and thinking it can sit on a Greek beach in July.

                    Waste. Of. Time.
                    Originally posted by morpheus View Post
                    Lets be honest, 2 NH90 or equivalent Medium lift helis and 2 crews are far more capable than 6 AW139 requiring 6 crews - if you need to lift a platoon's worth of rangers.
                    Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
                    Lets not get ahead of ourselves on the CT topic.

                    The first responders will be the Gardaí, in Dublin the ERU and outside the Dublin region the RSUs. Once they have responded to an incident then and only then will they make the call that it is a Terrorist Incident. The ARW will only be called in if they cannot cope with the situation and need additional support. Having a helicopter lift from the Curragh is not going to make much of a difference and even if it is available there needs to be suitable landing sites near the incident. Not something you can find easily in the centre of Dublin or most Irish cities. If you want to see a good timeline look at the incidents in Paris, Brussels and Munich. The latter was an idiot on a shooting rampage in the city which started just before 18:00 on a summers evening (so plenty of light) and despite more than 2300 armed responders including SEK and GSG9 it took them until 20:30 to locate the shooter who then killed himself. The whole time it was live on TV and no-one knew just what was going on. That is the nature of such incidents.

                    On a side note for comparison the Bavarian police have 8 H135 (EC135) helicopters which are supported by 100 personnel and they provide 24/7 coverage. One reason why the H135 is used is its small size meaning it does not need much room to land, a key factor in modern cities. Even the German SFs have the H135s bigger brother, the H145, again for the small footprint it has. With SFs we are not talking about moving large numbers of troops, it is about small teams. As long as we can fast rope from the EC135s they could be suitable for a response (the 2 AC and the 2 GASU together).

                    This is not to saw that the airlift capacity of the AC should not be expanded but until some more fundamental organisational issues are sorted it would be a waste of resources.
                    +1 EU fighter

                    The first responders will likely be unarmed Gardai. The next will be RSU (ASU in Dublin). Then the ERU (possibility the ERU could respond quicker if in the area).

                    Where ARW would fit into the mix would depend on the Gardai.

                    There is a need for (proper) medium lift helos but no point until manning in AC is sorted

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Would it not make more sense for the garda to replace the defender with a EC145, that way they could at least deploy an ERU team by air outside Dublin.
                      As for the ARW, how long did it take SAS "Blue Thunder" to land on London Bridge after the attack
                      It was the year of fire...the year of destruction...the year we took back what was ours.
                      It was the year of rebirth...the year of great sadness...the year of pain...and the year of joy.
                      It was a new age...It was the end of history.
                      It was the year everything changed.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        They need a dedicated helicopter just for training alone, regardless of actual operational use. They should have a 135 on their own pad, ready to go, at their timetable, not the Don's. All it would take is to rotate a handful of pilots and engineers on a shift basis, without breastfeeding on the Don's bureaucracy. As for manpower, all you have to do is look at the GASU operation; the aircraft are serviced by civvies (invariably exers) and have a higher availability than Don aircraft. If you strip out the Military bureacracy, you can run an aircraft with a few people and deliver a good service and this knowledge is not new to the Don. You don't need an organisation top heavy with Flight Sergeants and duty drivers and all sorts of bottle washers. This is not new or original thinking; as long as Special Forces have existed, it has been shown that they should have their own integral airlift/road vehicles/sealift instead of having to depend on a main force. that's the whole point of being able to react fast when needed.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by CTU View Post
                          Would it not make more sense for the garda to replace the defender with a EC145, that way they could at least deploy an ERU team by air outside Dublin.
                          As for the ARW, how long did it take SAS "Blue Thunder" to land on London Bridge after the attack
                          Possibly but the Defenders role is more covert. The Defender replacement is looking at tactical team transport as a possibility (which to me doesn’t make a lot of sense unless an incident is very close to an airport.

                          GASU need smaller cheaper to operate helos (ie EC135) for the vast majority of their work. If they need a team transported they can call on a AW139. And then we are back to square one, either way it is going to be AC piloted.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by DeV View Post
                            Possibly but the Defenders role is more covert. The Defender replacement is looking at tactical team transport as a possibility (which to me doesn’t make a lot of sense unless an incident is very close to an airport.

                            GASU need smaller cheaper to operate helos (ie EC135) for the vast majority of their work. If they need a team transported they can call on a AW139. And then we are back to square one, either way it is going to be AC piloted.
                            Yet the Met replaced their three Squirrels with EC145s to give them the option of deploying a SFO team by helicopter, of course they did have the Olympics in mind, but then again the PSNI also use two EC145 as well as one EC135.
                            It was the year of fire...the year of destruction...the year we took back what was ours.
                            It was the year of rebirth...the year of great sadness...the year of pain...and the year of joy.
                            It was a new age...It was the end of history.
                            It was the year everything changed.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              PSNI needed a troop lifting capability for the border.

                              Cause there's peace and all that.

                              Re the Defender...i was never in the Garda but I'd imagine it's role requires it to loiter for hours on end facilitating downlinks for various types of electronic gadgetry.
                              'History is a vast early warning system'. Norman Cousins

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by morpheus View Post
                                Lets be honest, 2 NH90 or equivalent Medium lift helis and 2 crews are far more capable than 6 AW139 requiring 6 crews - if you need to lift a platoon's worth of rangers.
                                A missed opportunity I believe was not purchasing the 9 Cougars the Dutch had surplus, I believe possibly Chile got them for €81 million. Medium lift, proven and capable.

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