SMA Dragoon

eshelon

unconventional solutions
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Any more info about Small Military Aircraft "Dragoon"?

from Wiki ("Swarming (military)"):
"A 1987 proposal.
In the 1980s, the Soviets developed an 'Operational Maneuver Group' (OMG) for a fast armored thrust deep into NATO defences east of the Rhine River. An OMG was expected to exploit strategic surprise with a force equal or greater than an armored division, featuring up to 700 tanks, 500 IFVs, and a substantial number of helicopters. As a countermeasure, NATO considered neutron bombs but their use was politically controversial. NATO instead devised a plan to slow the thrust with a swarming counterattack, called Dynamic Density, which used single-seat Small Military Aircraft (SMAs) operating autonomously in pairs with infantry ATGWs such as Milan, their pilots being infantry. One aircraft would carry the Milan post and four missiles, the other the night-vision sight and four missiles (two of which might be anti-helicopter), and the tactics would be shoot and scoot. The SMA, known as the Dragoon, was evaluated and highly praised by the MoD's test pilots at Boscombe Down, its STOL performance and ease of handling making it ideal for this role. Large numbers would be needed and 5,000 was suggested as sufficient to ensure that swarming would be successful against a force as large as an OMG. Once it was recognized that success could be claimed with a significant deceleration, other novelties were introduced, among which was Synthetic Density which required the SMAs to distribute pneumatic models (fitted with radar reflectors) of tanks and artillery along the OMG's MLA, these requiring the room to be put down and time to be lost before progress could be resumed."


web.mac.com/banneret/iWeb/Defence/Papers_files/Dynamic%20Density-1.pdf is dead
 
Sounds like a What-If / alternative history to me . . . ;)

cheers,
Robin.
 
The OMG concept was a bit more general than that write-up. Any Russian army (roughly a NATO corps) was supposed to be able to generate one, and in essence it's not too different to the ways set-piece attacks have always been intended to work - blow the enemy's front open with a set-piece attack, and then inject the second wave through the gap.

Countering this kind of breakthrough was why the UK created 24 Airmobile Brigade, with 3 battalions of airmobile infantry and an enhanced issue of Milan - 24 firing posts per battalion IIRC. The brigade's attack helicopter element was 9 Rgt, Army Air Corps.
 
Interesting, but it's fairly easy to see that using SMAs in Helmand would have rapidly led to them becoming a priority target for the Taliban, and an ultralight has even lower protection than a Snatch Landrover.
 

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