Like the Osprey? We'll you're gonna love Hot Eagle...

[Commander 598]

THE US military is planning a Thunderbirds-style space-plane designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within two hours.

At a recent secret meeting at the Pentagon, engineers working on the craft, codenamed Hot Eagle, were told to draw up blueprints for a prototype, which the generals want to have in the air within 11 years.

Pentagon planners have been encouraged by technical breakthroughs from Burt Rutan, chief designer on Richard Branson's White Knight spaceship, which is due to begin test flights next year and to carry tourists on sub-orbital journeys from 2010.

Mr Rutan, 65, who built the first privately funded craft to reach space in 2004, last week gave his blessing to Hot Eagle, which could be based on White Knight's technology. Mr Rutan said it would be an expensive way to transport troops "but it could be done. It is feasible".

Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, which is funding White Knight, recently predicted the craft it could be used to airlift emergency supplies into disaster zones.

"It could be like Thunderbirds, like International Rescue," he said. A passenger version would be capable of flying from London to Sydney in four hours. The two-stage Hot Eagle would be launched from an aircraft carrier.

A large booster rocket would carry a smaller spacecraft containing 13 "space troopers" 80km into space, far above hostile radar, before landing in enemy territory.

The marines first called for a space-plane in 2002 after the US military failed to capture Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan.

The project was known as the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion program (Sustain). Its advocates said it took too long on foot to reach the caves where bin Laden was said to be hiding, and helicopters were too visible.

General James Mattis, leading the marines' central command at the time, said he wanted the space-plane in the air by 2019.

He was recently promoted to be one of the most senior officers in the US military establishment, and Sustain has since become a top priority.

A US Air Force spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Brown, confirmed last week that NASA and Pentagon officers had met for two days of talks to draw up plans for Hot Eagle.

Invitations to the meeting said participants would be discussing a "potential revolutionary step in getting combat power to any point in the world in a timeframe unbelievable today".

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24 ... 01,00.html

[Knife]

Wow, this is old.

[Commander 598]

Wow, this is old.

October 20, 2008 07:11am

Yeah, seriously.

[MKSheppard]

I love how it's a Marine Corps idea. All the stupid fucking ideas come from them.

[Phantasee]

I think he's talking about when the idea was first proposed by the Marines, in 2002 (according to the article).

It sounds pretty awesome, but I don't know the value (or the accuracy) of launching a bunch of grunts into space. Couldn't this be mistaken for an ICBM?

[Duckie]

The idea of Space Troopers capturing Bin Laden is worth exploring.

Space Troopers. Come on. We have to do it.

[TimothyC]

The project was known as the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion program (Sustain). Its advocates said it took too long on foot to reach the caves where bin Laden was said to be hiding, and helicopters were too visible.

Yes because something that comes in like a meteor is going to be less visible than a helicopter!

[Phantasee]

The project was known as the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion program (Sustain). Its advocates said it took too long on foot to reach the caves where bin Laden was said to be hiding, and helicopters were too visible.

Yes because something that comes in like a meteor is going to be less visible than a helicopter!

Tell me: if you saw a helicopter coming, wouldn't you just react the same way you always do, and grab your trusty RPG and shoot the sumbitch down?

On the other hand, if a fucking meteor comes and lands nearby, and then some motherfuckers come out and start shooting at you, I think you're probably going to be in awe. Also: sent by God (Allah)?

[The Yosemite Bear]

will they get to call themselves "Space Marines" now?

if so, we definatly must fund this.

[Knife]

Yeah, seriously.

Don't be a tool. This has been floating around for five or so years if not longer. Perhaps four since Bush's proposal four years ago about the new space program. Hell, honestly it's older than that but....

I love how it's a Marine Corps idea. All the stupid fucking ideas come from them.

Yeah, like bombing naval ships with aircraft, or amphibious landings. All the stupid ideas...

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes, knife not to mention the mercs in China kicking japense arse from our first day in the war.

[TimothyC]

Tell me: if you saw a helicopter coming, wouldn't you just react the same way you always do, and grab your trusty RPG and shoot the sumbitch down?

On the other hand, if a fucking meteor comes and lands nearby, and then some motherfuckers come out and start shooting at you, I think you're probably going to be in awe. Also: sent by God (Allah)?

I'd skedaddle like there was no tomorrow (which for me there stands a good chance that there would not be) after seeing the meteor. Which defeats the purpose of coming in that way. Plus, this thing is going to be visible on radar and IR for hundreds of miles, and The Mark One Eyeball for tens of miles , plus unless it it doubles as a STOL plane, you've just dropped a squad of marines into hostile territory without a good escape. And by that point we might as well build a fleet of Nuclear Powered Hydrofoil Battleships.

[Vympel]

Good luck finding the funding for that in the budget.

[MKSheppard]

Yeah, like bombing naval ships with aircraft

Billy Mitchell would disagree.

or amphibious landings

How sad that's not the truth. The Army has had a very long history of Amphibious operations, as opposed to sending a bunch of people from a warships' Marine contigent ashore, ranging from the Mexican American war onwards. Hell, McClellan pulled off one of the biggest amphibious operations in US history to date during his Peniusular Campaign.

All the stupid ideas...

Indeed.

A while back I surveyed "To Foreign Shores : U.S. Amphibious Operations in World War II", by John A Lorelli.

It's a very revealing read; and reveals some things I did not know; such as the Army having contact with Higgins of Higgins Boat fame before the war; regarding landing craft; which does rebut the Marine claim of "we were the only ones farsighted enough to talk to Higgins!", and it makes the Marine/Army philosophical differences regarding amphibious landings clear.

Marine Amphibious doctrine was a direct evolution of what the Marines throughout the Corps' history, small local operations centered around very little opposition to seize small strips of land; and was carried forth into it's doctrine during WWII; seizing isolated outposts where reinforcements were not likely to arrive.

The Army's doctrine on the other hand, was a direct evolution of it's Mexican-American and Civil War experience with Amphibious operations, and was centered around invading large continental land masses where immediate and strong enemy reinforcements and counterattacks would be quickly coming.

This carried out into basic loading doctrine during WWII; the USMC wanted a 5 day basic loadout as the minimum for invading an island, while the Army wanted a 10 day basic ammunition load out along with a host of other things minimal. Also, beachhead doctrines were totally different; the Marines wanted as little supplies to be unloaded onto the beaches to keep them clear, so that they could be rapidly moved off of.

The Army on the other hand preferred to unload as much as they could as fast as possible onto the beaches and to hell with congestion.

This did not make them very popular with Navy Quartermasters; because the Army liked to overload whenever possible; which meant that usually the first LVTs off a ship would sink due to overloading, and stuffing 600 men onto a LST that the Navy says can only hold 400 men.

The Army's amphibious doctrine is superior as evidenced by two events during WWII:

Sicily 1943: When the beachhead was counterattacked nearly immediately by full fledged Panzer Divisions with a weight of equipment the Japanese never had, and it was held.

Biak 1944: The US Army lands with 12,000 troops to take out an island whose garrison is estimated to be 2,000. Only after the battle begins do we find out that there actually are 11,000 Japanese troops on the island, and as an added bonus, the major landing beach on Biak overlooked a cliff full of Japanese. As a bonus, the Japanese contested Biak with major air and sea forces, for example Yamato and her sister sortied to attack the landings at Biak, but were called off because of the landings on Saipan.

It comes down to this:

Biak: 12,000 Army troops vs 11,000 Japanese; 1.09 to 1 ratio; 474 KIA and 2,400 WIA.
Tarawa: 35,000 USMC troops vs 3,000 Japanese; 11 to 1 ratio; 1,000 KIA, 2,296 WIA.

The difference?

Marine doctrine called for advances at all costs, Tarawa was taken in about 3 days, while the Army's doctrine called for methodical advances, Biak took about a month.

This doctrinal difference came to a head on Saipan, when Howlin Mad Smith USMC, relieved the commander of the US Army's 27th Division, because he felt that the division was moving too slowly, instead of the mad-dash craziness of Marine Doctrine.

This craziness continues on into today's Marine doctrine; with their present OTH assault doctrine, which basically means "We want to simply skip over the beaches and supply all of our forces' needs with cargo slung under helicopters."

[Ender]

This idea was first put forth in the Air Force 2025 report that was written back in 1995. Article is full of shitty research.

[K. A. Pital]

Wow, someone's on crack. "Logistics" isn't something you can just wave out of the window.

[Commander 598]

Yeah, seriously.

Don't be a tool. This has been floating around for five or so years if not longer. Perhaps four since Bush's proposal four years ago about the new space program. Hell, honestly it's older than that but....

I'm pretty sure back then it was just a funny idea, now it's got DoD attention and blueprints being drawn up.

[thejester]

The Army's amphibious doctrine is superior as evidenced by two events during WWII:

Sicily 1943: When the beachhead was counterattacked nearly immediately by full fledged Panzer Divisions with a weight of equipment the Japanese never had, and it was held.

Huh? How does that prove Army 'doctrine' (was there any actual practical difference, especially given the overall responsibility of the Navy for landings?) was superior? It's not like there were Marine landings that were overrun by Japanese counterattacks. In any case, the destruction of Axis counterattacks on the Sicily beacheads must surely be attributed to NGFS, which was the same for Marines and Army.

Biak 1944: The US Army lands with 12,000 troops to take out an island whose garrison is estimated to be 2,000. Only after the battle begins do we find out that there actually are 11,000 Japanese troops on the island, and as an added bonus, the major landing beach on Biak overlooked a cliff full of Japanese. As a bonus, the Japanese contested Biak with major air and sea forces, for example Yamato and her sister sortied to attack the landings at Biak, but were called off because of the landings on Saipan.

It comes down to this:

Biak: 12,000 Army troops vs 11,000 Japanese; 1.09 to 1 ratio; 474 KIA and 2,400 WIA.
Tarawa: 35,000 USMC troops vs 3,000 Japanese; 11 to 1 ratio; 1,000 KIA, 2,296 WIA.

The difference?

Marine doctrine called for advances at all costs, Tarawa was taken in about 3 days, while the Army's doctrine called for methodical advances, Biak took about a month.

This doctrinal difference came to a head on Saipan, when Howlin Mad Smith USMC, relieved the commander of the US Army's 27th Division, because he felt that the division was moving too slowly, instead of the mad-dash craziness of Marine Doctrine.

This craziness continues on into today's Marine doctrine; with their present OTH assault doctrine, which basically means "We want to simply skip over the beaches and supply all of our forces' needs with cargo slung under helicopters."

Silly comparison.

The Army units that landed on Biak faced no opposition on the beaches, and their first contacts with the Japanese on 27/28 resulted in the withdrawal of two battalions under Japanese counterattack, despite the presence of American armour. It wasn't just Howlin' Mad Smith who found US Army advances excruciatingly slow, either - MacArthur gave the commander on Biak, H.H. Fuller, the arse for taking too long to capture the island. So much for doctrinal differences.

Equally, to suggest 'methodical advance' would have been practical on Tarawa is crap. For a variety of reasons outside the Marines' control, the time allotted for bombardment was not enough. The tide issue meant that the Marines came in under intense fire, and stayed there. When the entire landing zone was under bombardment, how could they afford to be methodical? If the Army had been in the same situation the result would have been no different.

[JointStrikeFighter]

THREE COMPANIES OF SPACE MARINES!!111!!!


This may be a useless strategic capability. Maybe if we build them a space station called THE FREEDOM STAR they will be awesomezor.

PS What are heavy weapons and how could they be important to modern military operations?

[Sidewinder]

When 'Popular Science' ran an article on this, a reader wrote a letter that basically said, "Are you stupid or something?" The reader's criticism included questions the PopSci writer (and the guys selling this bridge to the Pentagon) failed to ask, like, "Where is the rocket ship going to land?" "A platoon of marines? They're not going to last long against any serious opposition," "You can't just magically ignore the nations whose airspace you'll cross to get the rocket ship where you want it," (probably concerned someone will mistake the Hot Eagle for an air-launched ballistic missile or something), and "Assuming you can get the rocket ship to the LZ without a hitch, how are you going to retrieve it?"

Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, which is funding White Knight, recently predicted the craft it could be used to airlift emergency supplies into disaster zones.

I doubt this will work any better than airdrops from a C-130 and other conventional aircraft. As noted, the question, "Where will it land?" isn't something a rocket crew can ignore. If speed's of the essence, can't they develop a bomb-like cargo pod that can be carried under a fighter jet? That's got to be more practical than using a rocket ship.

The two-stage Hot Eagle would be launched from an aircraft carrier.

Payload: 30,500 kg (30 tons)
Length: 24 m (79 ft)
Wingspan: 43 m (141 ft)

[quote="article on what, "For many years after its introduction, it was also the heaviest aircraft ever flown from an aircraft carrier""]Length: 76 ft 4 in (23.27 m)
Wingspan: 72 ft 6 in (22.1 m)
<snip>
Empty weight: 39,400 lb (17,900 kg)
Loaded weight: 70,000 lb (31,750 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 82,000 lb (37,200 kg) [/quote]
I doubt a carrier-borne Hot Eagle will get very far UNLESS the USN gets an aircraft carrier the size of the Habakkuk.

[dragon]

THREE COMPANIES OF SPACE MARINES!!111!!!


This may be a useless strategic capability. Maybe if we build them a space station called THE FREEDOM STAR they will be awesomezor.

PS What are heavy weapons and how could they be important to modern military operations?

Heavy weapons are usally things like 50 cal machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, anti vehicle weapons etc. And they're very important to modern military operations.

And the ability to put a squad of heavily armed marines any where in the world in 2 hours is actually a good tactial ability.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The capability doesn't matter a damn if the platoon cannot extracted quickly and safely, or the vehicle risks being mistaken for a ballistic missile. It's not like a team of Delta or Rangers can do much with so little supplies and such an obvious insertion. They'd be swamped and the "Hot Eagle" captured.

Not exactly going to replace the likes of the MH-53.

[Sarevok]

Are they going to be like dropping cyborg supersoldiers from orbit ? Because otherwise I don't understand what a dozen marines stranded in an enemy nation can do but parade in front of an Al-Jazeera camera confessing "sins".

[Winston Blake]

Yeah, seriously.

Don't be a tool. This has been floating around for five or so years if not longer. Perhaps four since Bush's proposal four years ago about the new space program. Hell, honestly it's older than that but....

I think the main point is that the SpaceShipOne flight only happened 3 years ago, and this is the first news I've seen about the Marines talking to Virgin and Burt Rutan about the admittedly old idea. I think this sort of thing is news:

He was recently promoted to be one of the most senior officers in the US military establishment, and Sustain has since become a top priority.

A US Air Force spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Brown, confirmed last week that NASA and Pentagon officers had met for two days of talks to draw up plans for Hot Eagle.

[Winston Blake]

As for the actual technical questions, I assume that 'Hot Eagle' would be intended for inserting troops when there's an American/allied presence already in the area. That would allow them to be picked up by helicopter or otherwise extracted the old-fashioned way. The only real point appears to be that inserting space marines ('space troopers', what? Come on!) via rocket ship would give less initial warning.

Regarding the point about appearing to be a ballistic missile, I don't think it may just be mistaken for one, I think it genuinely qualifies as one, probably a kind of SRBM. It can't be that hard to pack an explosive warhead in there instead of mighty space marines. Given that it's supposed to be launched from a carrier, then as long as the target country isn't landlocked, they could probably plan a launch path that never crosses anyone else's territory. In many cases they might be able to obtain permission to cut borders, if they trust the neighbouring countries enough.

Does anyone have any idea if a high-precision SRBM of, say, 700km range (cf SCUD-D) would be useful as a cheap complement to Tomahawk missiles?