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Special times for special ops.
The term "special operations" appears to have taken on several meanings in recent years--depending on where it is used around the world. In the past, those almost defying two words had a tendency to describe covert, commando, penetration or sabotage missions--a good example being the British SAS infiltration behind the Iraqi lines in 1991 to settle the future of a few Scud launchers with Milan anti-armour missiles.
The above-mentioned SAS missions took place during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Today, an operation like Desert Storm itself would be regarded as a special operation. A number of people in defence circles now tend to regard all overseas deployments as special operations. They might be, but the equipment involved is of course entirely different, or rather encompasses a much wider range. The consequence is that it has become increasingly difficult to draw a line between "special ops" dedicated equipment and plain military equipment. From the Blue When parachuting is not possible, the use of helicopters becomes an obvious alternative Depending on the number of commando members and size of equipment to be dropped, the required machines can be fairly large. For landing large armoured vehicles, though, there is no alternative an aeroplane is mandatory. Typical candidates here are the Eurocopter Cougar, the Sikorsky Black Hawk and the Boeing Chinook. Europe will soon have a suitable helicopter in the larger category with the NHI NH90, particularly with its rear cargo ramp. Of course, the ideal machine will come from the United States in the form of the Osprey once this unusual machine has got ridden of its teething trouble. The V-22 has taken a lot of flak, mostly from people who are first concerned with budgets and secondly, from those who simply cannot understand that complicated things do not always work under the first strike of a whip (in fact, a number of these people often comfortably fit in both categories). After all, and in spite of war films showing the contrary, helicopters did not operationally exist during the Second World War and it took quite some time after this to see them becoming reliable and of any use as transport and armed aircraft. Memories can be very volatile indeed. Special operations, though, have a strong propensity to be required in hostile environments, such as deserts or cold, snowy regions. Thus, quite apart from the sophisticated navigation and mapping equipment, such helicopters need additional equipment to protect their engine air intakes. These, unfortunately tend to deplete the available power by quite a few kilowatts. At long last, things appear to be looking up for the at one time seemingly ill fated Osprey. It recently performed a VIP flight and even more recently aircraft No. 10 operated by the V-22 Integrated Test Team landed on the, USS Iwo Jima. In the Western World, the Hercules and the Globemaster III have become synonymous with airlift. The Boeing C-17, being a later design, has demonstrated its phenomenal one-man loading/unloading capability time and again in Bosnia. The Europeans, for their part, are still trying to put their budgets into unison to acquire the so much needed Military Airbus A400M. Buggies to Battlebusses ... Today's special operations forces have a...See the full content of this document
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