The British operated aircraft over the Middle East in the Twenties and Thirties because they were a much cheaper way of countering insurgents than battalions on the ground. Over the years, major air forces invested in new jet engines and swept wings, but there remained a place for old technology.
For example, from 1948 the RAF battled Communist insurgents in Malaya with a variety of piston-engine aircraft including Avro Lincolns. Come 1955 and the first RAF jet bomber squadron went on active duty overseas. Four Canberra B6s left Lincolnshire for Malaya to bomb insurgents in their jungle hide-outs. Hitting roughly-constructed bashas under dense jungle foliage with 1,000lb bombs as directed by Air Observation Post Austers, or against a six-figure map reference provided by a ground liaison officer, was asking a lot.
On one occasion a Canberra overshot the aiming datum by 3,000m. As the official historian of the Malayan Emergency put it, “Canberras carried half the bomb load of Lincolns and their cruising speed of 250kt at the optimum bombing height required more elaborate navigational aids and made map-reading impracticable and visual bomb-aiming difficult. The pilot had a poorer visibility than in a Lincoln and the Canberra could not be flown at night or in close formation, and could not be employed in a strafing role.
They suffered, in common with all jet aircraft in the tropics, from a serious limitation in their endurance at low level, which precluded postponing or delaying an air strike once they were airborne. This was a serious disadvantage in the uncertain weather conditions of Malaya, especially when Canberras were operating in the northern part of the country far from their parent base in Singapore.”
It was horses for courses and while the shiny B-52s and century-series fighters practised for a war of survival against the USSR, the USAF procured light warplanes for use over Korea and Vietnam. US airmen used armed versions of the piston-engined T-6 Texan trainers dubbed ‘Mosquitos’ for artillery spotting and forward air control over Korea.
In the early 1960s, the US Army tested armed versions of the Cessna YAT-37D Dragonfly (or Super Tweet), Douglas A4D-1 Skyhawk, and Fiat G.91. But the lessons of the Second World War had been forgotten by the USAF as unarmoured supersonic fighters with vulnerable fuel tanks and hydraulic control systems were knocked down or damaged by North Vietnamese peasants armed with automatic small arms with simple sights. About 43% of all the F-105 Thunderchiefs ever built were shot down over Vietnam because this tactical nuclear bomber was unmanoeuverable and vulnerable to antiaircraft fire.
The military helicopter came of age in Vietnam but whether fixed wing or rotary, rugged and simpler aircraft proved their worth for nations who had no need or use for Major League aircraft. The era of dedicated counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare had truly arrived and the ultimate COIN aircraft today is the Spectre AC-130 Gunship.
In the Maysan province of Iraq, Brigadier Richard Holmes noted that “the AC-130 effect on morale was palpable…some of the British soldiers undoubtedly owe their lives to the ability of the Spectre crews to understand the ground battle and weigh in with super-accurate fire at midnight in a burning town.” But only a super-power can afford this awe-inspiring capability.
Read more at: http://www.asianmilitaryreview.com/flip-that-coin/
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