Q on weapons on OH-58s

[thatguy96]

Does anyone know how commonly or not it was for the M27 (minigun) and M8 (AGL) to be used on the OH-58A?

Also, IIRC the OH-58C Operators Maunal doesn't mention weapons of any kind. Did OH-58s in general go without weapons until the OH-58D? Does anyone know when the gunpod was introduced?

I know there's a lot in the development of the OH-58D and associated subvariants I dont understand, so I'm trying to straighten this out. I know we've talked about a lot of this before too, but the mobile version of the forum doesn't let me search :(

Edit - Found the search, but if people have stuff to add it would be appreciated

Edited March 31, 2012 by thatguy96

[11bee]

I'm definitely not the expert but I was pretty sure that the OH-58A could mount the minigun with no issues, don't recall seeing any pics of the M-8 in service. After Vietnam, weapons didn't seem to be that common on the A. With regard to the -C model, the only weapons I ever remember seeing pictures of were Stingers.

Ray?

Floyd?

[thatguy96]

Yeah, the OH-58A could definitely fit the same weapons as the OH-6A, but it doesn't seem to have been that common. I seem to remember the OH-58C's Stinger armament coming up in the Army flight test thread about Stingers on helicopters as well. Still leaves open the question of when the gunpod came in to service. Also, can someone explain the differences between the OH-58D AHIP, OH-58D(I), and OH-58X too?

[anvil6]

The unit I was in at Ft. Hood, 1994-1995 had OH-58A/Cs. I definitely remember them strapping stingers to the skids, but i didn't see them hang any other weapons on their aircraft.

Edited March 31, 2012 by anvil6

[thatguy96]

This Stinger armament for the OH-58D is interesting to me. What was its intended mission profile? Was it supposed to be hunting enemy helos or was this just for self-protection against them.

Also, just to add, the OH-58A/C operators manual says that the M8 and M27 were only authorized on the A.

[FM-Whip]

I'm definitely not the expert but I was pretty sure that the OH-58A could mount the minigun with no issues, don't recall seeing any pics of the M-8 in service. After Vietnam, weapons didn't seem to be that common on the A. With regard to the -C model, the only weapons I ever remember seeing pictures of were Stingers.

Ray?

Floyd?

When I was at Ft. Hood (1977-79) As carried miniguns, but only when on the ranges or on field exercises. The units normally had an annual gunnery practice and qualification of some sort, and when that came up the miniguns were mounted and used. During field exercises that did not involve firing on ranges the miniguns were mounted but they had no ammo. When not on the aircraft the guns were kept locked up but I can't for the life of me remember where. I don't remember seeing Cs with miniguns but that was probably because they had just been fielded and the gunnery practice had not come up yet when I left Hood. In Korea I also saw As (from the 25th Avn BN, 25th ID) with miniguns, flying as part of the annual Team Spirit exercise. Again, no ammo.

Besides miniguns I remember another heavily controlled item was the voice crypto card, KY-58 from memory, which had to be signed out from the unit crypto officer...on one of our field exercises we had an OH-58 go down with some sort of mechanical problem. After landing out in the bushes somewhere the quick-thinking crew stashed their CEOI instructions behind an access panel. A few minutes later ground troops from an opposing forces unit of the 2nd AD showed up and captured them. The CEOI was not found and our communications were therefore not compromised, which is always a good thing...:-)

John Hairell (tpn18@yahoo.com)

[Floyd S. Werner, Jr.]

I'm definitely not the expert but I was pretty sure that the OH-58A could mount the minigun with no issues, don't recall seeing any pics of the M-8 in service. After Vietnam, weapons didn't seem to be that common on the A. With regard to the -C model, the only weapons I ever remember seeing pictures of were Stingers.

Ray?

Floyd?

You rang? I don't ever recall seeing any armament after Vietnam on an OH-58 A or C. Because the Kiowa was a 5.8 (not quite a {OH-}6) they really had power issues. Now we did mount a Stinger, a ATAS to be exact on the 58C. My scout in Desert Storm had this system. Didn't use it but had it.

I did see some early developmental OH-58Ds that had armament early on. Then of course it became standard on the Kiowa Warrior after 1996. My unit actually had the last unarmed Kiowa Warriors in the Army. We retired them out of Germany, Bosnia actually, in June 1996.

Floyd

[thatguy96]

Floyd, do you know when the gunpod for the Kiowa Warrior came into service? It appears to have come into play during the 90s, but I can't seem to fix it down. I also want to thank everyone for the helpful responses.

Edited April 3, 2012 by thatguy96

[Rotor_head_Dan]

In doing a research paper for "Operation Prime Chance" I came across a few websites. Here is one from a 101 ABN histories site Here . And another from a pilot from Prime Chance 2 Here. Hope this help.

-Dan

[thatguy96]

Those are useful. The first link suggests that the gun was introduced during the initial arming of OH-58Ds for Prime Chance. Can anyone confirm this or whether the gun was being tested prior to that?

Edited April 3, 2012 by thatguy96

[rotorwash]

Those are useful. The first link suggests that the gun was introduced during the initial arming of OH-58Ds for Prime Chance. Can anyone confirm this or whether the gun was being tested prior to that?

Joe,

I have been meaning to write a more detailed reply to this thread, but haven't had a chance. However, I can tell you that in all the test board photos I have, so far there are no pics of 50 cal gun pods prior to Prime Chance. Also, i have a photo of a 50 cal mounted to the right side during the operation which would lead me to think the setup was in it's infancy. I'll try to post pics later if you like.

Ray

[thatguy96]

Joe,

I have been meaning to write a more detailed reply to this thread, but haven't had a chance. However, I can tell you that in all the test board photos I have, so far there are no pics of 50 cal gun pods prior to Prime Chance. Also, i have a photo of a 50 cal mounted to the right side during the operation which would lead me to think the setup was in it's infancy. I'll try to post pics later if you like.

Ray

Ray, that would be great. I'm working on an article about the guns of the "Aeroscouts" from the "Sky Cav" to the present and this is the portion of the timeline I don't really know well. The article will end with the relatively recent replacement of the M296-equipped gunpod with the mounted M3P arrangement.

[Floyd S. Werner, Jr.]

Floyd, do you know when the gunpod for the Kiowa Warrior came into service? It appears to have come into play during the 90s, but I can't seem to fix it down. I also want to thank everyone for the helpful responses.

No idea. I came onto the Kiowa Warrior scene late in its development (1996).

Floyd

[Reddog-03]

Ray, that would be great. I'm working on an article about the guns of the "Aeroscouts" from the "Sky Cav" to the present and this is the portion of the timeline I don't really know well. The article will end with the relatively recent replacement of the M296-equipped gunpod with the mounted M3P arrangement.

Do you have any good photos or schematics of the new gun mount? The guys flying cover for me during my last tour in Iraq were using it. Some day when I get around to it, I'd love to build one of their birds.

[rotorwash]

Joe,

I'll post some pics of OH-58 stuff I have. Many of these are experimental Aviation Test Board birds but at least you can see what they tried. I hope these are of interest.

Ray

OH-58A with XM27:

Early OH-58D with what I assume were most of the options at the time. Sorry I don't have a date for this one, but it's the earliest pic I have with the 50's.

Here's the Prime Chance bird with the right handed 50 cal.

OH-58C with 70mm rockets from 1983:

OH-58C March 1983 LACT program with TOW launchers mounted. I think LACT stands for Light Air Calvary Troop but I could be mistaken.

OH-58C March 1983 LACT program with stingers mounted.

OH-58C March 1983 LACT program with flare pod mounted.

OH-58A October 7 1981 with stingers mounted:

OH-58C (I believe) with M158 pod on right and M27 minigun on left:

Last one for now. Sorry but I have no date. Oh-58C shown with M18 minigun pod and other possible weapons. i have no pics that I know of showing the M18 pod mounted, but if I find one, I'll post it.

[thatguy96]

@Ray

At some point I'm going to need to go through the Aviation Digests for the 1970s and 1980s, as I think there might be some useful info in there too. I think you're right about the LACT definition, but regardless, these appear to be the JOH-58C Light Combat Helicopters that got passed from Task Force 160 to the test entity at Fort Lewis (HTLD/HTTB/Motorized Division/etc). The M27E1 subsystem/M158A1 rocket pod configuration was the initial configuration, but it seems to have been the impetus for the development of the Universal Weapons Pylon that's still part of the OH-58D armament subsystem. This clearly allowed for the mounting of anything with the standard lugs.

The gunpod appears to have been available at least by Prime Chance from that picture (which is interesting as there isn't any obvious feed for the weapon, on the reasons why it supposed only be mounted on the left side). Looks like they also tested the M18 gun pod as another option. I know as part of the MASSTER experiments the Emerson Flexible Turret System/Mini-TAT was also tested. There's the suggestion that the Global Helicopter Technology CFD-5000 (the pod used on the OH-58D) can be fitted with a 7.62mm weapon, but I've never seen any evidence that the US Army looked into that. Thanks for sharing all that.

@Reddog-03

I don't have much more info than is contained in this old thread about the new gun system. Maybe that would help start you off. Its a pretty simple recoil absorbing mount attached ot the Universal Weapons Pylon.

[11bee]

What is that airscoop / antenna on the nose directly in front of the windshield? Don't recall seeing that on standard OH-58C's.

Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that armed OH-58's were at one point going to be used on the Iran hostage rescue mission by what was eventually going to evolve into TF-160. Just curious if these actually were deployed or not? If they actual were in service, any info on whether they had any unique mods / paintwork or where just plain vanilla OH-58's with a minigun?

Regards,

John

[rotorwash]

@Ray

At some point I'm going to need to go through the Aviation Digests for the 1970s and 1980s, as I think there might be some useful info in there too. I think you're right about the LACT definition, but regardless, these appear to be the JOH-58C Light Combat Helicopters that got passed from Task Force 160 to the test entity at Fort Lewis (HTLD/HTTB/Motorized Division/etc). The M27E1 subsystem/M158A1 rocket pod configuration was the initial configuration, but it seems to have been the impetus for the development of the Universal Weapons Pylon that's still part of the OH-58D armament subsystem. This clearly allowed for the mounting of anything with the standard lugs.

The gunpod appears to have been available at least by Prime Chance from that picture (which is interesting as there isn't any obvious feed for the weapon, on the reasons why it supposed only be mounted on the left side). Looks like they also tested the M18 gun pod as another option. I know as part of the MASSTER experiments the Emerson Flexible Turret System/Mini-TAT was also tested. There's the suggestion that the Global Helicopter Technology CFD-5000 (the pod used on the OH-58D) can be fitted with a 7.62mm weapon, but I've never seen any evidence that the US Army looked into that. Thanks for sharing all that.

Joe,

I agree those are JOH-58C's. Finally found the post in the FLIGHT TEST thread about LACT:

Killer Bee said "I can help you with the LACT question. It stands for Light Air Cavalry Troop. I commanded the unit from the summer of 1983 to the fall of 1984. We were formally, C Troop, 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, 9th Infantry Division. We had 13 JOH-58's and no two were exactly alike. As was previously noted we were stepping on the toes of the PM AHIP. None of the pilots and crewchiefs were hand-picked, yet it was a tremendous unit to be part of. Hope that helps a little. "

You might want to get in touch with him if you can as I suspect he could shed a lot of light on questions about the setups I posted.

Ray

[HeavyArty]

Do you have any good photos or schematics of the new gun mount? The guys flying cover for me during my last tour in Iraq were using it. Some day when I get around to it, I'd love to build one of their birds.

The new gun/mount is the M3 Browning .50 cal mount.

ArmyCast M&M just recently announced a 1/35 scale resin/metal/PE version of it.

OH-58D Kiowa - armament set (scroll to the bottom)

(Resin set for Kiowa contains: new Browning M3, metal barels, ammo box, upgrade pylon, PE parts - for Academy kit)

scale: 1/35

I haven't gotten one yet, but it looks really nice.

Edited April 4, 2012 by HeavyArty

[11bee]

The new gun/mount is the M3 Browning .50 cal mount.

ArmyCast M&M just recently announced a 1/35 scale resin/metal/PE version of it.

I haven't gotten one yet, but it looks really nice.

That set looks really nice, wish it was out when I was building my KW. I have to wonder how bad that M3 shakes when it is fired. I can't believe that a long tube like that (mounted to a such a light helo) could provide any kind of rigid support for such a powerful weapon. Bullet dispersion must be pretty wide!

[thatguy96]

What is that airscoop / antenna on the nose directly in front of the windshield? Don't recall seeing that on standard OH-58C's.

Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that armed OH-58's were at one point going to be used on the Iran hostage rescue mission by what was eventually going to evolve into TF-160. Just curious if these actually were deployed or not? If they actual were in service, any info on whether they had any unique mods / paintwork or where just plain vanilla OH-58's with a minigun?

Regards,

John

You'll note that the JOH-58C had a unique landing skid arrangement. These skids were designed to allow the helicopter to be compressed for loading into a C-130 I believe. I've had very little luck finding information about follow-on hostage rescue planning after the Eagle Claw/Evening Light disaster. I know the USAF responded by starting Project Honey Badger to explore and improve special operations aviation capabilities, which included Project Credible Sport, which would have obviated helicopters from the mission plan entirely. Others have suggested that the JOH-58Cs were earmarked for another potential hostage rescue mission. This seems unlikely to me as the JOH-6A (AH-6C) was clearly the helicopter special operations aviators were more taken with.

I would be inclined to say that it is more likely that the Iranian connection to the JOH-58C comes from the fact that the HTTB/HTLD concept was initially developed with a Southwest Asia intervention to protect Iranian oil fields against Soviet aggression in mind. This of course ceased to be a major issue after 1979, though the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) continued to be oriented toward a rapid intervention mission. That mission profile was later passed on to the 7th Infantry Division (Light), though some of it remained with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light), which was the final successor to the remnants of the 9th Infantry Division (first reflagged as 199th Infantry Brigade [separate] [Motorized] and then as the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment).

[11bee]

You'll note that the JOH-58C had a unique landing skid arrangement. These skids were designed to allow the helicopter to be compressed for loading into a C-130 I believe. I've had very little luck finding information about follow-on hostage rescue planning after the Eagle Claw/Evening Light disaster. I know the USAF responded by starting Project Honey Badger to explore and improve special operations aviation capabilities, which included Project Credible Sport, which would have obviated helicopters from the mission plan entirely. Others have suggested that the JOH-58Cs were earmarked for another potential hostage rescue mission. This seems unlikely to me as the JOH-6A (AH-6C) was clearly the helicopter special operations aviators were more taken with.

I would be inclined to say that it is more likely that the Iranian connection to the JOH-58C comes from the fact that the HTTB/HTLD concept was initially developed with a Southwest Asia intervention to protect Iranian oil fields against Soviet aggression in mind. This of course ceased to be a major issue after 1979, though the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) continued to be oriented toward a rapid intervention mission. That mission profile was later passed on to the 7th Infantry Division (Light), though some of it remained with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light), which was the final successor to the remnants of the 9th Infantry Division (first reflagged as 199th Infantry Brigade [separate] [Motorized] and then as the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment).

Regarding the first hostage rescue mission, I came across an official DOD history of this a while back. Although very heavily redacted, it included multiple references to armed OH-58's with unspecified weapons and collapsible skids. The document also mentioned using these helos to attack AAA and SAM sites in the Tehran area!

The link to this is here:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/reading_room/526.pdf

I can't get it working today but I'm not sure if the issue is w/ my work PC or the link is no longer valid.

I believe that for the proposed second rescue attempt, the plan was to use the AH-6C. That was confirmed by our resident Night Stalker expert who occasionally posts in this forum.

[thatguy96]

OSD changed the address of their FOIA reading room (for whatever reason). The new link is here: http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/iranian_hostage_crisis/526.pdf'>http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/iranian_hostage_crisis/526.pdf The rest of the documents in that collection can be found here: http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/iranian_hostage_crisis/

Reading the document in question suggests that using the modified OH-58Cs were part of the subsequent mission planning. The first document to mention them talks about a meeting discussion the modification in June 1980 (the first attempt had been launched on 24-25 April 1980). There appear to have been three hostage rescue exercises in the latter half of 1980: Poison Dart, Trade Wind, and Storm Cloud. It looks like Snowbird might be the codename for the follow-on mission or at least part of the planning. The suggestion is that there were a number of different force combinations explored. One of these should have been the use of the XFC-130H Credible Sport aircraft.

EDIT- It appears that Snowbird and Ricebowl might be codenames associated with planning of the rescue in general. There are a lot of undefined codewords, making it difficult to sort out quickly. Also, one of the documents mentioned an undefined "OH-58C (ELN)" configuration.

Edited April 4, 2012 by thatguy96

[rotorwash]

You'll note that the JOH-58C had a unique landing skid arrangement. These skids were designed to allow the helicopter to be compressed for loading into a C-130 I believe.

Joe,

Those are called MPLH (Multipupose Light helicopter) skids. The JOH-58C's i posted had gear with adjustable height, but there was some experimentation with squat landing skids like these. You can also see that this bird has the flat plated canopy that was supposed to reduce glare. from what i understand though, pilots really hated the flat canopy mod. perhaps one of out resident 5.8 drivers can confirm that. If you are interested I have photos of the initial testing of the flat plated canopy as well.

Ray

[Reddog-03]

The new gun/mount is the M3 Browning .50 cal mount.

ArmyCast M&M just recently announced a 1/35 scale resin/metal/PE version of it.

(Resin set for Kiowa contains: new Browning M3, metal barels, ammo box, upgrade pylon, PE parts - for Academy kit)

scale: 1/35

I've had that same photo for some time now. For some reason it's been the only one I could find. The ArmyCast set looks interesting, though. That photo should give me just what I was looking for. Thanks, Gino.