Study details ways to protect combat aircraft - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Study details ways to protect combat aircraft

Defense Department officials say the military can limit ground threats to aircraft operating in hostile areas by giving commanders authority to act quickly using a variety of tactics.

Those tactics can include traditional methods, such as deploying chaff and flares, but also less traditional methods, including naval gunfire, mortar and artillery fire, more nighttime flying, commando operations, and directed energy pulses to destroy or disable missile sites, according to a report released by the Pentagon on Feb. 5.

The report, “Countering Air and Missile Threats,” is updated every two years, according to Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Tallman.

Most of the 189-page report addresses threats from ballistic missiles and aircraft, but portions discuss the threat that surface-to-air missiles can pose to American aircraft and what measures can limit that threat.

“The detection capabilities, engagement ranges, mobility and lethality of surface to air missile systems have significantly increased,” it says, adding that these weapons systems — many of which are portable — are available to an increasing number of foreign forces.

“Realizing that the window to engage highly mobile targets may be fleeting, concern should be given to establishing rules of engagement and detailed planning that will allow the rapid prosecution of threats before they have had the opportunity to move and conceal themselves again,” the report says.

The report was released two days before a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed northwest of Baghdad, killing two hospital corpsmen and five Marines.

And that crash came at the end of a two-week period that saw at least five other military helicopters in Iraq crash or forced down because of enemy fire.

Military officials initially said the most recent crash was caused by a mechanical failure, but admitted later that it was caused by “anti-aircraft munitions.”

An insurgent group claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter and posted a video on the Internet showing a twin rotor helicopter hit by a surface-to-air missile, but Defense Department officials expressed doubts about the video’s authenticity.

A defense analyst said the recent spate of shoot downs does not necessarily mean insurgents are becoming more skilled at bringing down aircraft or that they have access to better weapons.

“[Shoot downs] could be a sign that we are using [helicopters] more aggressively. It may be that we’re doing more combat missions in more intense environments,” said Daniel Toure, of the Lexington Institute.

Toure said there were limits to what can be done to protect helicopters.

“The reason helicopters get hit is we are using them tactically in a combat zone,” he said. “You’re either transporting troops or providing close air support. In either case you’re close to the ground.”

Most protections for helicopters will come from improving the aircraft, he said.

Armor plating, redundant systems and counter gunfire can be used to protect helicopters from gunfire, Toure said.

Systems that blind or trick surface to air missiles by using flares, chaff, or electronic jamming can be improved, he added.

But the weight these improvements add could make helicopters less maneuverable and end up making them more vulnerable to enemy fire. Moreover, the cost of installing them might be better spent on other improvements, such as adding armor to ground vehicles, because those improvements would protect more troops.

“At some point you hit the knee in the curb,” he said. “The downside of what it takes to protect helicopters wouldn’t make sense to do it,” he said. He added that in the previous four years in Iraq, only 26 helicopters had been brought down by enemy fire and another 30 have crashed because of mechanical problems.

“We’ve lost 30 helicopters in four years while flying tens of thousands of sorties and millions of hours of flying time,” he said. “I would suggest that flying a helicopter in Iraq is probably safer than driving your car in Washington, D.C.

“In Iraq and Afghanistan, helicopters are a safer mode than road vehicles, I am not sure that we are not doing just fine.”

Toure said many less-traditional methods of protecting aircraft would be impractical.

Helicopters or convoys would be required to insert special operations troops, meaning that helicopters could be shot down on the way to insertion points.

“Now what you are doing is running an operation that protects the helicopter. That’s ass backwards,” he said.

Flying aircraft at night could provide added protection from gunfire, but at the cost of increasing the chance of accidents and decreasing the utility of the aircraft to ground troops, who are often forced to operate in daylight hours.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.