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Old January 19th, 2010, 10:35 PM
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Suhiir Suhiir is offline
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Default Re: Suhiir's Revised USMC OOB #13

thatguy96,

As early as spring of 1949 the Corps had conceived of using helos firing rockets in an anti-tank role, and by 1951 HMX-1 had tested the mounting and firing of machine guns and 2.75 inch rockets from an HTL-4.

The instability and limited development of armed helicopters was not stopped, neither did it become a front burner project. It was to be a long and winding road from these early efforts to the Corps' first fully capable and deadly gunship.

Contrary to opinions which became popular among early gunship advocates, there were valid, practical reasons for this delay. Instability and limited lift capability were engineering problems more easily solved than other issues. The combination of budget limitations and force structure provided CMC with more difficult choices. The budget limited the number of squadrons and airframes. If you want two squadrons of gunships, give up two squadrons of attack aircraft. The Corps had to be prepared to respond to a variety of threats all over the world, and the inter-related issues of force structure and doctrine were based on this. It was not at all obvious that swapping attack aircraft for the gunships which could be developed at that time would be a smart action to take.

You might want to try to find a copy of "Whirlybirds, U.S. Marine Corps Helicopters in Korea" by LtCol Ronald J. Brown.
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