Assault lander philosophy

After last weeks debate on assault landers and should they be dual role
(attack
and transport alal aliens) or single role I thought I'd ask two buddies,
both
are currently serving pilots one an attack pilot (scrump) flying cobras
in the
USMC the other magic a coast guard SAR pilot/former 82d slick pilot.
Thought
I'd pass this along.

What I wrote them:
Anyway we are talking about conducting assault landings on planets from
orbit.
We had two issues. One was whether to go with bn or company or platoon
sized
landing vehicles. I maintained that we should stick with platoon
(chinook
sized) landers or smaller since you don't want to lose a whole company
or bn in
one shot. I think we've reached consensus on that one. The second is
whether
the assault landers should be dual role (attack/transport) or single
role
dedicated transport and dedicated attack assets. I'm strongly for
dedicated
assets sort of like it is now in the USMC primarily due to mission
requirements, training etc more so than the technical ability to
construct such
craft.	I also got an opinion from a slick pilot (you remember Bob
Makowsky) so
I figured it only fair that I get one from an attack pilot too. Your
thoughts
please? Thanks...

>From Magic:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This is exactly true.  Look at the marines again.  They have dedicated
ground
attack aircraft.  Dedicated attack helos and dedicated troop carriers. 
The
skills for all of them are not mutually exclusive but it would be the
rare
pilot who could excel at all without extensive (and expensive in time/$
crosstraining).

The other thing about it is that you want your Assault lander pilots
concentrating on getting their cargo to the ground.  If you give them
ground
attack ordinance they are going to start thinking they are fighters and
forget
the primary goal is to get troops on deck.  All pilots would be glad
to take ordinance but only the attack guys should have it.  They can
concentrate on destroying things that the grunts ask them too.	(And
help
defend the landers).

The landers should be armed for self defense but only with arms that the
crew
can use.  This is another thing that was not shown in Aliens.  You
ALWAYS have
a Flight Mechanic/Loadmaster that is in charge of everything aft of the
pilot
seats.	These guys are the ones that will suppress as you go into a hot
LZ and
they will tell you where the threat is.  (Generally the pilots do not
have alot
of choice if they are going in in an assault.  The LZ is prolly full and
you
have to mostly hold your place in line and land where you are expected
to.  You
can displace a little to avoid junk on the ground but if you displace
across
the LZ you are going to cause a midair.). I like the idea of assault
landers
but they are dedicated for getting things on the ground not destroying
things.
That is the job of attack.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
And now from Scrumpy our resident attack chopper expert:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Gotta have dedicated attack assets.  No two ways about it.  Your 
dissertation
is correct.  A pilot could be trained to excel at both, however  the
concern is
that not so much of the pilots competence/leadership within 
multimission
roles, it is the fact that each AIRCRAFT is designed to conduct  a
single type
of mission at any single time.	Example, the AH-1W+ is a  multimission
aircraft, we are trained in many type missions, escort, fac(a),  close
air
support, TRAP, TAC(a), etc.  However, we only do one mission at any 
given
time.  Also I have no knowledge of any multimission aircraft that share 
a
transport AND attack role, except MAYBE the AC-130 and that's stretching
it.
I really think that your concern right now is that of an airframe
limitation
vice a aviator limitation.  Hopefully I have answered your question.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Hope you guys found that interesting. Cheers...

Los