Diemert's Defender

What a guy !

http://www.nfb.ca/film/defender/

http://wasabiairracing.blogspot.ie/2012/11/our-trip-to-see-defender.html


http://canadu.blogspot.com/2011/04/yet-another-alternative-to-buying.html

I feel it is necessary to point out that not ALL Canadians are this whacky.

Bill Walker said:

I feel it is necessary to point out that not ALL Canadians are this whacky.

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To be fair, the basic concept wasn't that bad, especially in the time before (relatively) low cost armed drones were widely available. Arguably a bit cold blooded, but workable. It seems to me that Bob Diemert was firmly in the Shallow Strike school of thought when it came to countering Soviet armored formations. When that is taken into account, the rationale behind the Defender becomes clearer.

The big problem with Deamart's (and others) concept of cheap throw away ground attack aircraft is finding a supply of trained, competent cheap throw away pilots.

Bill Walker said:

The big problem with Deamart's (and others) concept of cheap throw away ground attack aircraft is finding a supply of trained, competent cheap throw away pilots.

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"Competant" might be excessive. Flying one of these and trying to nail a T-72 with a gun is a lower order of challenge than being cabale of flying an F-18 on *all* of its missions.

I enjoyed the heck out of that video. Thanks for posting the link Topspeed3.

Bill Walker said:

I feel it is necessary to point out that not ALL Canadians are this whacky.

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You're right Bill, a small minority of them are quite sane.

Jeff Bird said:

I enjoyed the heck out of that video. Thanks for posting the link Topspeed3.

Bill Walker said:

I feel it is necessary to point out that not ALL Canadians are this whacky.

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You're right Bill, a small minority of them are quite sane.

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Yes, there are only a few of us.

My understanding from a warbirds forum is that he butchered and patched together a number of warbirds, like a 6 or 8 place Firefly, a 4 place Mustang and made numerous mods and repairs using hardware store and auto parts store parts and pieces. I think he also gave his treatment to a very rare Val.

From what can be found about Robert Diemert, his reputation amongst warbird enthusiasts is comparable to that
of Heinrich Schliemann amongst nowadays archeologists ! :-\

I find Bob Diemerts enthusiasm very attractive. He is honest what he is doing with the limits he has in availability.

His first canard did look a bit complicated and gear system in latter also complicated. As if he had not done enough research.

Then again it does look a bit like Rutan's SS1.

That movie is kind of like the "Red Green" show of Canadian aviation! All that was missing was duct tape.
The concept of overwhelming the enemy with thousands of aircraft is a bit cold blooded. Shows a bit of lack of value of a human life. How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?
The premise that a slower aircraft is a better for close ground support is a proven one, just read the after action reports from the Gulf wars where the A-10 proved its metal over the F-16s and F-18s that were supposed to replace it. But being in this hodge-podge of parts is a long way from being in a A-10!
And I liked the part of the permanent air bag in the nose so if you hit a mountain you could walk away from it?!? All that would do is drive the instrument panel through your body at a microsecond less than it would normally. The more I think of it, this was just like "Red Green" with very similar half-baked ideas.

ksimmelink said:

How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?

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Ask everybody ever up through WWI. Ask the Russians in WWII. Ask the Chinese in Korea. Ask the DOOP troopers under the command of Captain Branigan in the Octillian system.

And let's face it: if 5,000 of these planes could have stopped a massive Soviet tank invasion, but it cost the lives of every last one of the pilots... it'd be a bargain at twice the price. Not saying this clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk would have been the right plane for the job, but when faced with massed hordes of low-tech opponants, small numbers of precise and expensive weapons systems might not be the right tools for the job.

Orionblamblam said:

ksimmelink said:

How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?

Click to expand...

Ask everybody ever up through WWI. Ask the Russians in WWII. Ask the Chinese in Korea. Ask the DOOP troopers under the command of Captain Branigan in the Octillian system.

And let's face it: if 5,000 of these planes could have stopped a massive Soviet tank invasion, but it cost the lives of every last one of the pilots... it'd be a bargain at twice the price. Not saying this clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk would have been the right plane for the job, but when faced with massed hordes of low-tech opponants, small numbers of precise and expensive weapons systems might not be the right tools for the job.

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Yes, but the Chinese, the Koreans, the Russians make my point for me! (I don't know about the DOOP troopers ) None of those societies are known for their value on a human life. The only life that is valuable to them are those who hold the power, (unless you are someone that wants to take the power away from them) and everyone else is expected to sacrifice for the privileged few. When we send a pilot up we at least give them a fighting chance through the equipment and training they receive. We don't ask them to commit suicide because they are viewed as cannon fodder. Life has a value, and when someone willingly gives up that life for his country, his loved ones, or his fellow soldiers it makes it heroic. To send someone up to perhaps be one of the 50% that won't be sacrificed so that someone at the back of the pack gets through when the weapons have been used up, kind of takes the heroism out of it and turns it into just a senseless waste.

I know what you say is sometimes true (read about Guadalcanal, the Japanese learned that throwing overwhelming numbers at a determined few doesn't always lead to victory. It can lead to a pile of dead, rotting, soldiers), but I think that as enlightened, or at least somewhat civilize society we need to give our troops the best equipment and training. If we are going into a situation with overwhelming numbers, I would like to think we would prepare for it. Probably bring the AIM-2 Genie back, take out a whole flock of them with one shot.

I do agree, I'm not so sure what this guy is coming up with is a viable answer. Taking a sledge hammer to the plane and saying, hey this is pretty strong, I would like to see you do this to a F-18, well, the last I checked people weren't firing sledge hammers at planes anywhere. Where his plane will be a sitting duck for an armor piercing round, the F-18 with its speed would at least make it challenging.

ksimmelink said:

Yes, but the Chinese, the Koreans, the Russians make my point for me! (I don't know about the DOOP troopers ) None of those societies are known for their value on a human life.

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Yeah, but they won (or at least in the case of the Chinese in Korea, didn't lose).

Life has a value

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Two dollars and fifteen cents!

and when someone willingly gives up that life for his country, his loved ones, or his fellow soldiers it makes it heroic. To send someone up to perhaps be one of the 50% that won't be sacrificed so that someone at the back of the pack gets through when the weapons have been used up, kind of takes the heroism out of it and turns it into just a senseless waste.

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It's not senseless if it gets the job one. Warefare is not, despite the movies, about honor and glory and heroism. It's about whomping the crap out of the enemy until they give up or are destroyed.

I think that as enlightened, or at least somewhat civilize society we need to give our troops the best equipment and training.

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Sure. The Iraq and Afghan wars would have been quite different if, instead of Marines and soliers, we'd sent in cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. A few hundred mushroom clouds would have certainly saved a bunch of American and allied lives, but boy howdy would the hippies have complained...

I think the point was, that if "as enlightened, or at least somewhat civilize society we need to give our troops the best equipment and training..." is insufficient to win the war, then it really is not the better option even if the alternative was losing 70% of our personnel fielded.
You may not remember the odds placed on a conventional conflict on the European continent, but those of us old enough to remember the bugaboos poised to rumble through the Fulda Gap also remember "the best equipment and training" was or can be insufficient. Most estimates had NATO rolled over in days or weeks in a purely conventional conflict.
If the alternative was losing 100% of these contraptions and their pilots while stopping the armor movement, he is absolutely right: it would be cheap at twice the price.

Orionblamblam said:

It's not senseless if it gets the job one. Warefare is not, despite the movies, about honor and glory and heroism. It's about whomping the crap out of the enemy until they give up or are destroyed.

I think that as enlightened, or at least somewhat civilize society we need to give our troops the best equipment and training.

Click to expand...

Sure. The Iraq and Afghan wars would have been quite different if, instead of Marines and soliers, we'd sent in cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. A few hundred mushroom clouds would have certainly saved a bunch of American and allied lives, but boy howdy would the hippies have complained...

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That might be what "warefare" is about. Warfare OTOH is about achieving a politic end with the lowest casualties possible. As Sun Tzu, et al advised in their various works on Strategy. Clausewitz summed it up best when he suggested that, "war is but politics by another means," in "On Strategy". That political end is invariably not only about defeating the enemy, its about killing the smallest number of men and now women on both sides and gaining control of the territory/resources being fought over. Kill large numbers on either side and resentment sets in and grudges created. Only amateurs believe is all about a war of attrition. That failed dismally in WWI and in Vietnam.

ksimmelink said:

That movie is kind of like the "Red Green" show of Canadian aviation! All that was missing was duct tape.
The concept of overwhelming the enemy with thousands of aircraft is a bit cold blooded. Shows a bit of lack of value of a human life. How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?
The premise that a slower aircraft is a better for close ground support is a proven one, just read the after action reports from the Gulf wars where the A-10 proved its metal over the F-16s and F-18s that were supposed to replace it. But being in this hodge-podge of parts is a long way from being in a A-10!
And I liked the part of the permanent air bag in the nose so if you hit a mountain you could walk away from it?!? All that would do is drive the instrument panel through your body at a microsecond less than it would normally. The more I think of it, this was just like "Red Green" with very similar half-baked ideas.

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Maybe he was trying to get folks in Canada to buy A-10s with this show ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II

Scaled Composites Ares was a similar try as was Defender...possibly tad more successful and faster.

In fact ARES may be influenced by the Defender since it was introduced 2 years later/after.

The french who well know the secret weapons of the Third Reich decided to build one of their wunderwaffe to break the soviets operational manoeuvre groups.
It is a plane for special missions (tokkô) propelled by a powerful engine of 52 HP with a devastating armament composed of 4 LRAC 89 infantry antitank rockets.
They currently search kamikaze for kikusui operations but, unfortunately they doesn't find nobody.

As long as this thread is apparently about Bob Diemert, could one of the mods correct the spelling of his name in the title?

Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

Avimimus said:

ksimmelink said:

That movie is kind of like the "Red Green" show of Canadian aviation! All that was missing was duct tape.
The concept of overwhelming the enemy with thousands of aircraft is a bit cold blooded. Shows a bit of lack of value of a human life. How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?

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We're Canadians - shock troops and accepting casualties for King and Country has a long tradition

So far as can be ascertained, 22 officers and 758 other ranks were directly involved in the advance.[25] Of these, all the officers and slightly under 658 other ranks became casualties.[25] Of the 780 men who went forward only about 110 survived unscathed, of whom only 68 were available for roll call the following day.[25] For all intents and purposes the Newfoundland Regiment had been wiped out, the unit as a whole having suffered a casualty rate of approximately 90 percent. The only unit to suffer greater casualties during the attack was the 10th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, attacking west of Fricourt village.[26]

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The losses at Dieppe were claimed to be a necessary evil.[30] Mountbatten later justified the raid by arguing that lessons learned at Dieppe in 1942 were put to good use later in the war. He later claimed, “I have no doubt that the Battle of Normandy was won on the beaches of Dieppe. For every man who died in Dieppe, at least 10 more must have been spared in Normandy in 1944." In direct response to the raid on Dieppe, Winston Churchill remarked that, “My Impression of 'Jubilee' is that the results fully justified the heavy cost” and that it “was a Canadian contribution of the greatest significance to final victory.”[31][...]Of the nearly 5,000-strong Canadian contingent, 3,367 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner, an exceptional casualty rate of 68%.[29] The 1,000 British Commandos lost 247 men. The Royal Navy lost one destroyer (HMS Berkeley) and 33 landing craft, suffering 550 dead and wounded. The RAF lost 106 aircraft to the 48 lost by the Luftwaffe. The German Army had 591 casualties.[9]

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That aside - the idea of deploying large numbers of maneuverable aircraft at low speed and extremely low altitude is somewhat viable. They wouldn't be that much less effective than helicopters and most of the strain but on both skill and avionics would be removed. Time delayed bombs delivered at point-blank can be almost as accurate as smart-bombs. If the aircraft is expendable than the risk of premature detonations doesn't matter as much. It would work in many third-world conflicts. Not that I'm advocating such horrors.

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I am also a bit annoyed about the fact that there is no possibility for a soldier to die hororably in the battle field left in the war doctrines. I recall Rudell was shot down 9 times in his Stuka.

---

Anyway here is the other Diemerts machine the first one..which sufferd from short coupling.

Re: Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

Avimimus said:

That aside - the idea of deploying large numbers of maneuverable aircraft at low speed and extremely low altitude is somewhat viable. They wouldn't be that much less effective than helicopters and most of the strain but on both skill and avionics would be removed. Time delayed bombs delivered at point-blank can be almost as accurate as smart-bombs. If the aircraft is expendable than the risk of premature detonations doesn't matter as much. It would work in many third-world conflicts. Not that I'm advocating such horrors.

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Also, the Defender could (in theory at least) use FASCAM munitions, which would not only have increased it's survivability, but also improved it's usefulness against infantry. And that's not mentioning the options that Defender would otherwise had with the use of Tactical Munitions Dispensers, e.g. SUU-65/B.

Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

tround said:

The french who well know the secret weapons of the Third Reich decided to build one of their wunderwaffe to break the soviets operational manoeuvre groups.
It is a plane for special missions (tokkô) propelled by a powerful engine of 52 HP with a devastating armament composed of 4 LRAC 89 infantry antitank rockets.
They currently search kamikaze for kikusui operations but, unfortunately they doesn't find nobody.

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Is this for real ? Any further info available ?

Re: Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

Yes it ‘s real, its name is Aeronautic (Zenit aviation) Baroudeur M.
It was evaluated in 1983 by the French Army ( not to break the Soviet OMG ) .
It has 3 hours of autonomy .
Austin Hawk can also carry anti-tank rockets, grenades launcher and machine-guns .

From : “ Warplanes of the future ”

Those posts not dealing with the Defender, but with a very interesting political debate about
history of wars and the acceptance of casualties in a war by different nations can now be found
here: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,19681.0.html
Please, no more posts here, that not even deal with aviation in general, not to mention "Diemert's Defender" ... :

Re: Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

tround said:

Yes it ‘s real, its name is Aeronautic (Zenit aviation) Baroudeur M.
It was evaluated in 1983 by the French Army ( not to break the Soviet OMG ) .
It has 3 hours of autonomy .
Austin Hawk can also carry anti-tank rockets, grenades launcher and machine-guns .

From : “ Warplanes of the future ”

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It is even bolder effort than this MFI-9 that Biafrans used against Nigerian AF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6_MFI-9
Robert Diemert might also have been influenced by this MFI-9 ?
Personally I think ARES and A-10 speeds are better against ground troops and tanks; you have still sorta some speed advantage.

Re: Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

tround said:

Yes it ‘s real, its name is Aeronautic (Zenit aviation) Baroudeur M.
It was evaluated in 1983 by the French Army ( not to break the Soviet OMG ) .
It has 3 hours of autonomy .
Austin Hawk can also carry anti-tank rockets, grenades launcher and machine-guns .

From : “ Warplanes of the future ”

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These two answering posts got moved over to the 'Warfare and the acceptance of casualties' thread by mistake.

Grey Havoc said:

For bush wars and police actions in other words.

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tround said:

Even not, with a maximum speed of 160kmh, they are easy to shoot down .

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And shouldn't this thread have stayed in Postwar Projects?

Re: Re: Re: Diemert's Defender

Grey Havoc said:

tround said:

Yes it ‘s real, its name is Aeronautic (Zenit aviation) Baroudeur M.
It was evaluated in 1983 by the French Army ( not to break the Soviet OMG ) .
It has 3 hours of autonomy .
Austin Hawk can also carry anti-tank rockets, grenades launcher and machine-guns .

From : “ Warplanes of the future ”

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These two answering posts got moved over to the 'Warfare and the acceptance of casualties' thread by mistake.

Grey Havoc said:

For bush wars and police actions in other words.

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tround said:

Even not, with a maximum speed of 160kmh, they are easy to shoot down .

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And shouldn't this thread have stayed in Postwar Projects?

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I agree this was just a project...or 2 tries at a project...without funding he sought.
Obviously he can build and repair aeroplanes, but I think his design skills leave some room for improvement.

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=47027

Sorry, but this seems to fall into the "delusional ravings" category. There is an expectation that any aircraft design in Postwar Secret Projects was a study by an actual aircraft manufacturer. Otherwise, any random fictional drawing on deviantart would be fair game.

Orionblamblam said:

ksimmelink said:

How would you like to go into battle knowing that "they just don't have enough guns and missiles to shoot us all down" but also knowing that many of you are going to die?

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Ask everybody ever up through WWI.

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In the main, no. The "winners" would tend to disagree with your assumption. Of course historical variances occur, initially the Zulu would "agree" given an uprepared and out-manuvered opposition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana

However, the ensuing action at Rorke's Drift shows the overall fallacy of numbers vs well-armed, prepared and stubborn resistance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift

Both the French and British learned quite well during WWI that number do NOT assure victory.

Ask the Russians in WWII. Ask the Chinese in Korea.

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Actually the Russians would have lost WWII had they simply continued the ORIGINAL attack tactics of human wave assualt. They knew it wasn't a long term solution and they also knew how ineffective it was. As it was they barely held their ground until they managed to reinforce, re-equip, and re-arm their military at which point their loss ratio changed significantly and they managed to overwhelm the Germans with only SLIGHTLY inferior, but massed weapons. In Korea the Chinese originally found themselves in the same position as the afore-mentioned Zulu in facing and unprepared and out-manuvered enemy. Once the UN forces got back on their feet they rolled the Chinese back to the 38th parallel despite the use of "human-wave" tactics. Though they were managing to "hold" the UN forces there they quickly forced the North Koreans to the peace table so that they could withdraw their forces which were heavily over-committed and in danger of starvation and/or freezing to death.

"Politically" they didn't "lose" but they were very much on the verge of loosing militaryily had not a settlement been made.

And let's face it: if 5,000 of these planes could have stopped a massive Soviet tank invasion, but it cost the lives of every last one of the pilots... it'd be a bargain at twice the price.

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You've got nothing supporting this I'm afraid because if it HAD stopped a 'massive Soviet tank invasion' and cost all the aircraft and pilots who would have stopped the reserve wave? The infantry? The Soviet Air Forces? You have no more "Defenders", no more pilots, nothing more to throw into the NEXT assault. That is hardly a bargin, at any price.

Not saying this clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk would have been the right plane for the job, but when faced with massed hordes of low-tech opponants, small numbers of precise and expensive weapons systems might not be the right tools for the job.

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Which is great as long as your opponants ARE "low-tech" but if they are not... This "clinking, clanking, clattering collection of junk" would be vulnerable to rifle fire let alone any decent ant-aircraft weapons. Then there is the enemy air cover to consider. How much of a "bargin" is 5,000 "aircraft" and pilots who don't even get within response range of the enemy before they are shot down?

No sometimes a small number of highly expensive, precise weapons systems MIGHT not be the right answer, but a large number of useless weapons systems that have little or no chance of attacking the enemy and surviving to be used again are definatly NOT the right answer either...

Orionblamblam said:

ksimmelink said:

and when someone willingly gives up that life for his country, his loved ones, or his fellow soldiers it makes it heroic. To send someone up to perhaps be one of the 50% that won't be sacrificed so that someone at the back of the pack gets through when the weapons have been used up, kind of takes the heroism out of it and turns it into just a senseless waste.

Click to expand...

It's not senseless if it gets the job one. Warefare is not, despite the movies, about honor and glory and heroism. It's about whomping the crap out of the enemy until they give up or are destroyed.

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While true in general in specific it is more complicated than that. IF it gets the job done but doesn't leave you with enough of a reserver to fend off the NEXT attack it was not only senseless, but useless as well. Patton said it best: "You're job is NOT to die for your country but to force some other poor bastard to die for HIS!" One for one rarely works out for the best in real world military situations.

Ksimmelink: War and military thinking in general is that it is not game and despite a couple of centuries of people trying to glamorize it going out to kill or be killed still sucks rocks. Military members happen to KNOW we might be called upon to give up our lives in what seems to be a meaningless and senseless way and for the most part we're willing to accept that as long as we can tell outselves that in the end "our-side" will still end up winning. Entire squads will charge a machine gun nest or pill box in the hope that one person will get within range to throw a grenade, or get into position to take out the threat. Pretty much everyone who leaps up and charges is sure THEY won't be killed but the terrible truth is they probably will. That isnt' going to stop them from doing so because "winning" requires it.

On the other hand you'd be hard pressed to get anyone from a modern western military to jump up and charge a machine gun nest with a spear or sword because neither of those will get the job done and it WILL be senseless and a waste.

I think that as enlightened, or at least somewhat civilize society we need to give our troops the best equipment and training.

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Sure. The Iraq and Afghan wars would have been quite different if, instead of Marines and soliers, we'd sent in cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. A few hundred mushroom clouds would have certainly saved a bunch of American and allied lives, but boy howdy would the hippies have complained...

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Actually OBB you're wrong in both cases that would never have been a MILITARY option because it would not have "won" the goals required. In the case of Afghanistan for example we didnt' want to destroy the country or it's people we wanted to destroy the Taliban as a base of support and sanctuary for Al-Quida. Nuking the country would not have achieved this as they would still be spread out in the mountains and hills. Worse it would have turned EVER muslim nation fully against the Allies AS well as a majority of out own citizens. The military fully accepted and understood that in order to achieve the "goals" required that boots would have to be put onto the ground. In the case of Iraq nuking the nation MIGHT have gotten Saddam but it would again have turned the majorty of muslim nations and ALL muslims against the United States in a show of solidarity and rage that would have made 9/11 look pale. The military is well aware of the consequnces of using nuclear weapons and they are NEVER suggested lightly.

"Nuking" the middle east is never going to be a viable 'option' short of some very, very specific circumstances and if its ever done it will be a very limited and very specific strike. We have quite enough trouble from that area and we don't need to make thing worse than they are.

Randy

RanulfC said:

"Nuking" the middle east is never going to be a viable 'option' short of some very, very specific circumstances and if its ever done it will be a very limited and very specific strike.

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Replace "the middle east" with any other city, nation or region and the statement still works. And yet there are plans in place to nuke probably every square inch of land on Earth. Even Canada.

Orionblamblam said:

Replace "the middle east" with any other city, nation or region and the statement still works. And yet there are plans in place to nuke probably every square inch of land on Earth. Even Canada.

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Actually there are "plans" for nuking every square inch of the Earth, period. As well as plans that involve everything from a zombie outbreak to alien invasion. "Viable" was the key word, along with "very, very specific circumstances" as well. We of course have "plans" for many types of conflict up to and including making every attempt to "take-the-rest-of-humanity-with-us-if-we-go" type scenerios. As above they are all pretty much tied to a specific set of circumstances and requirements.

Back on-topic I take it I made my point about the Defender?

Randy

RanulfC said:

Back on-topic I take it I made my point about the Defender?

Randy

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No you did not say a word about it.

RanulfC said:

Back on-topic I take it I made my point about the Defender?

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About the specific aircraft, or the general concept? Agreed that the specific aircraft seems a hunk of junk. If, however, some sort of cheap aircraft could be made both reliable *and* actually capable of taking out Soviet armor, I'm not really sure what the arguement against it would be.

Assume this hypothetical, based on a Soviet invasion of Europe in, say, 1995 (alternate history, of course): a relatively dirt-cheap drone aircraft built by Canada is deployed to the tune of 5,000 units. These 5,000 drone fly into battle, and each drone takes out one Soviet armored vehicle, and is itself taken out. Assuming that each drone costs 1/500 that of an F-18, would this be a cost effective trade?

Now, further assume that these drones are actually piloted. Each plane is still shot down. Further stipulate that all 5,000 pilots are lost in the process. Is the lost of 5,000 low-training pilots worth taking out 5,000 armored vehicles? Would military leaders see that as a trade worth making?

Further stipulate that behind those 5,000 armored vehicles are a second wave, and you've blown all 5,000 of your Defenders. Oh, noes! No more Canadians in the Fulda Gap!! Does... does NATO have any *other* forces that might come into play here? Or is the entire defense of the West based on what the Canadians have?


In short: does anyone have any numbers as to what NATO was expecting as far as "this many soldiers/pilots will die to take out this many Soviet armored vehicles?" Was it anywhere near 1:1? More? Less?

Orionblamblam said:

RanulfC said:

"Nuking" the middle east is never going to be a viable 'option' short of some very, very specific circumstances and if its ever done it will be a very limited and very specific strike.

Click to expand...

Replace "the middle east" with any other city, nation or region and the statement still works. And yet there are plans in place to nuke probably every square inch of land on Earth. Even Canada.

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One word - "restraint". A very important word in politics and military theory, particularly since the creation of the nuclear weapons.

Orionblamblam said:

In short: does anyone have any numbers as to what NATO was expecting as far as "this many soldiers/pilots will die to take out this many Soviet armored vehicles?" Was it anywhere near 1:1? More? Less?

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For the A-10 units, they were anticipating around a seven percent attrition rate per 100 sorties flown.

Orionblamblam said:

Further stipulate that behind those 5,000 armored vehicles are a second wave, and you've blown all 5,000 of your Defenders. Oh, noes! No more Canadians in the Fulda Gap!! Does... does NATO have any *other* forces that might come into play here? Or is the entire defense of the West based on what the Canadians have?

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I don't think he was worried about Canada's forces in Europe but if the Soviets sneaked on them via Alaska ( while their FA-18 stike elite is in European theater ) I assume with ekranoplanes aka Kaspian Seamonsters and with AN-225s etc ?

Orionblamblam said:

RanulfC said:

Back on-topic I take it I made my point about the Defender?

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About the specific aircraft, or the general concept? Agreed that the specific aircraft seems a hunk of junk. If, however, some sort of cheap aircraft could be made both reliable *and* actually capable of taking out Soviet armor, I'm not really sure what the arguement against it would be.

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Specific aircraft really, but even if a low cost reliable aircraft actually capable of taking out a Soviet tank were available you want survivability to be a priority as well.

Assume this hypothetical, based on a Soviet invasion of Europe in, say, 1995 (alternate history, of course): a relatively dirt-cheap drone aircraft built by Canada is deployed to the tune of 5,000 units. These 5,000 drone fly into battle, and each drone takes out one Soviet armored vehicle, and is itself taken out. Assuming that each drone costs 1/500 that of an F-18, would this be a cost effective trade?

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Actually that's less a drone than a missile. Drones for the most part at not meant to be or designed to be a "one-shot" weapon which is why they are more expensive. There are other factors involved as well but even going on "just" a cost basis the comparision breaks down in that WHICH Soviet armored vehicle did each drone take out? Is a BMP worth more than a T-82? How about a 3A gun? Mobile artillery?

$114,000 dollars a "unit" isn't really that bad for a one-shot weapon, but instead of drones it would probably be much more cost effective to load up an aircraft with multiple missiles such as Hellfires (@$58,000 per) Macricks (@$250,000 per) or the British Brimstone (@$170,000 per) but if you can design and manufacture a long-range missile capable of doing the mission you suggest for around $114,000 dollars I'd say you've got a pretty good sales pitch.

Now, further assume that these drones are actually piloted. Each plane is still shot down. Further stipulate that all 5,000 pilots are lost in the process. Is the lost of 5,000 low-training pilots worth taking out 5,000 armored vehicles? Would military leaders see that as a trade worth making?

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No they would not. Forget how much the "drone-plane" cost the Pilots themselves have cost you several million dollars to get into the air in the first place. (No no modern military will put a "low-training" pilot into the air if given any choice because the "odds" that the pilot will even managed to reach the mission area, let alone carry out the mission is extermly low) As soon as you put a human pilot into the vehicle instead of a robot brain the mission parameters and cost-effectiveness outcomes change drasticly.

Further stipulate that behind those 5,000 armored vehicles are a second wave, and you've blown all 5,000 of your Defenders. Oh, noes! No more Canadians in the Fulda Gap!! Does... does NATO have any *other* forces that might come into play here? Or is the entire defense of the West based on what the Canadians have?

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Oh no is quite correct because as of "now" the Canadians can no longer contribute to the defenses, they have "shot-their-wad" and are now combat ineffective. The "defense of the West" has been dependent on strength in depth because we were going to be outguned, and out-manned from the start. We are now one-quarter less effective than we were at the begining throwing even MORE operational missions onto the rest of the NATO in-theater forces. Now someone who WAS doing something ELSE to stop the Soviets in another segment of the front has to be reassigned to cover the "gap" left by the loss of the Canadian forces. In other words the Canadians aren't just 'screwed' so is everyone else.

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In short: does anyone have any numbers as to what NATO was expecting as far as "this many soldiers/pilots will die to take out this many Soviet armored vehicles?" Was it anywhere near 1:1? More? Less?

Air power was expected to be the big "force multiplier" for the war. NATO ground forces would be looking at around 10-to-1 odds against them and air-power was supposed to pound the front lines as well as provide air cover and tactical support. A 4-to-1 kill/loss ratio was the MINIMUM we could afford but the "expected" ratio was closer to 8-to-1.

The Air Force had been arguing up until the Gulf War that the A-10 was going to "only" be able to meet the minimum ratio of 4-to-1 and might not even be survivable in a modern theater of war. In every exercise the ratio would exceed 10-to-1 and operations in Desert Storm were far higher than that.

No, no military commander thinks that a ratio of 1 plane/pilot is worth 1 armored vehicle, and while they might accept if they had to one solider for one tank the lowest "unit" sense they use for planning is the squad and one squad is not tradable for one tank either.

On topic of the Defender my POINT was if you want a light-weight, easy to manufacture and deploy weapon with a loss ratio of 1-to1 for an armored vehicle you want a missile not a piloted aircraft. Light weight, "cheap" combat aircraft are available just look at the F5. Others that could have been pursued but were not are the Ares and the 1980s concept of the turboprop powered "Mud-fighter" which would have been less expensive but still capable of surviving the modern battle field environment.

Randy

I think Diemert is right about his thinking in many cases.
It is hard to see a tank from F-18....it might be hard from an A-10 if the tank is dug in.
Soviets also had SU-25 developed and like A-10 they both carry also AAMs with AGMs.
Also Robert Diemert was not saying he could make 5000 planes with price of 135 FA-18s, but he claims he could have made 150 000 of them, but he assumes 5000 are enuf and billions will be saved.
What Robert Diemerts plane does not have is redundancy...ie two engines for instance...nor 4 cm thick armour.
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About the plane itself...it seems to hop 30-50 feet at times..but since he uses a green pasture as runway he needs big wheels and since they are not retractable he cannot get it airborne. Also his only engine is a big Lycoming apparently and self carved 4 blade prop....it just too small/inefficient to do the job anyway ( limited budget ). Had he gone for carbonbird he may have succeeded ( like Burt Rutan to an extent ), but he don't seem to know the techniques for fibers.

topspeed3 said:

I don't think he was worried about Canada's forces in Europe but if the Soviets sneaked on them via Alaska ( while their FA-18 strike elite is in European theater ) I assume with ekranoplanes aka Kaspian Seamonsters and with AN-225s etc ?

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No, the Diemert was primarily intended to take on Soviet armor in Central Europe, although in the event some squadrons might have possibly ended up being detached to Norway to support what ever would have succeeded the Canadian Air-Sea Transportable Brigade Group in the '90s had the Warsaw Pact not collapsed.