Float Planes for COIN?

[RamscoopRaider]

I was thinking. Say you are a country with an insurgent problem. The insurgency is in an area with a lot of good sized lakes or rivers, but few good places to put even small airfields. Would Float Planes be somewhat useful in this enviornment? Would it be easier to convert an existing float plane like the Beaver or Otter into a COIN aircraft, or to take an existing COIN aircraft like the Super Tucano and add floats?

 

[Just Leo]

Beavers and Otters were originally built with wheels, with floats adapted as planned. They would be highly praised for their ability to take the insurgents bass fishing. The Tucano was originally built as a trainer and adapted to counter-insurgency for those on a budget. I don't know the price for fitting floats. There are a number of helicopter gunships available to suppress those insurgent buggers, and their landing fields would be tougher to predict and ambush. If there isn't enough open space for helo gun-ships, air power won't be effective anyway.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Beavers and Otters were originally built with wheels, with floats adapted as planned. They would be highly praised for their ability to take the insurgents bass fishing. The Tucano was originally built as a trainer and adapted to counter-insurgency for those on a budget. I don't know the price for fitting floats. There are a number of helicopter gunships available to suppress those insurgent buggers, and their landing fields would be tougher to predict and ambush. If there isn't enough open space for helo gun-ships, air power won't be effective anyway.

Well I was thinking about doing this on a budget, and Attack Helos are usually more expensive to procure and operate than light fixed wing and shorter ranged, requiring more to control a given area

Was just using those types as an example

 

[SAVORYapple]

I was thinking. Say you are a country with an insurgent problem. The insurgency is in an area with a lot of good sized lakes or rivers, but few good places to put even small airfields. Would Float Planes be somewhat useful in this enviornment? Would it be easier to convert an existing float plane like the Beaver or Otter into a COIN aircraft, or to take an existing COIN aircraft like the Super Tucano and add floats?

I suspect that the first option would be easier, simply due to the fact that adding weapons hardpoints and forward firing machine guns isn't that difficult (the Rhodesians did that with their Cessna Skymasters [1]), but engineering a dedicated COIN aircraft like the Super-Tucano with floats would require more in the way of aerospace engineering knowledge.

[1] They added 2 forward firing machine guns above the cockpit firing over the propeller arc, and four hardpoints for bombs/rockets/gunpods.

 

[Just Leo]

The Air Tractor is an aircraft adapted to floats and COIN. Perhaps it's time to visit your dealer. There was a time when you could have cut a good deal on a Bronco floatplane. However, I restate that if your regime can't cut a cheque for a Hughes /MD Defender, Gazelle or MBB Bo-105P PAH, perhaps your insurgents have a good point, and it would be better to just sit down and talk. Perhaps a BBQ.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

The Air Tractor is an aircraft adapted to floats and COIN. Perhaps it's time to visit your dealer. There was a time when you could have cut a good deal on a Bronco floatplane. However, I restate that if your regime can't cut a cheque for a Hughes /MD Defender, Gazelle or MBB Bo-105P PAH, perhaps your insurgents have a good point, and it would be better to just sit down and talk. Perhaps a BBQ.

I didn't know anyone ever fitted the Bronco with Floats. Air Tractor looks like a good bet as well

Thank you

 

[Imladrik]

Beavers and Otters were originally built with wheels, with floats adapted as planned. They would be highly praised for their ability to take the insurgents bass fishing. The Tucano was originally built as a trainer and adapted to counter-insurgency for those on a budget. I don't know the price for fitting floats. There are a number of helicopter gunships available to suppress those insurgent buggers, and their landing fields would be tougher to predict and ambush. If there isn't enough open space for helo gun-ships, air power won't be effective anyway.

Actually those small helos you are talking abouyt cost less than the Super Tucano for example (9 million for a Super Tucano, 3.5 for a MD500). But they are also far more heavily armed, have better endurance, harder to shoot down. The light Helos (which are not gunships) are for those on a budget. But if you want efficiency, the CoIn aircraft are probably better (more time on site, heavier armament, etc) and actually don't really need to be floatplane versions, given that they have enough range to be based outside the area of operation of your insurgency.

 

[Torqumada]

The Air Tractor is an aircraft adapted to floats and COIN. Perhaps it's time to visit your dealer. There was a time when you could have cut a good deal on a Bronco floatplane. However, I restate that if your regime can't cut a cheque for a Hughes /MD Defender, Gazelle or MBB Bo-105P PAH, perhaps your insurgents have a good point, and it would be better to just sit down and talk. Perhaps a BBQ.

It's Dusty Crophopper!

Torqumada

 

[MrP]

How about just bolting floats on a Fairchild AU-23 Peacemaker and calling it a day? An even cheaper option would be to buy the civilian version (Pilatus PC-6 Porter) and install the hardpoints and guns yourself. An added bonus is that once the insurgency has been dealt with, you are left with perfectly serviceable utllity planes.

 

[Just Leo]

You can land a land-based COIN aircraft from a road. If your insurgents are in a jungle/forest, they are well-camouflaged and hard to attack, but if they are more than 100 miles away from the nearest road, they aren't likely to cause much trouble soon. That's probably why amphibious COIN aircraft are so rare. Maybe, they're not really insurgents, just campers.

 

[TeaDaemon]

If you want something a little larger (albeit slower), how about an Antonov AN-2 or 3 (depending on if you want a radial engine or a turboprop)?

Cruises at 100 knots, 4-5 hours endurance, useful load of just over 2 tons, already available in a float plane configuration.

Assuming your opponents have no aircraft of their own, and nothing larger than small arms calibre weapons for AA, it'd be easy to mount a few heavy MGs or cannon in side gun positions like an AC-47, or throw barrel bombs out of the cargo hatch on the side.

 

[MrP]

If you want something a little larger (albeit slower), how about an Antonov AN-2 or 3 (depending on if you want a radial engine or a turboprop)?

Interesting choice. Outstanding STOL capability, which arguably makes the floats redundant for COIN operations.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I was thinking. Say you are a country with an insurgent problem. The insurgency is in an area with a lot of good sized lakes or rivers, but few good places to put even small airfields. Would Float Planes be somewhat useful in this enviornment? Would it be easier to convert an existing float plane like the Beaver or Otter into a COIN aircraft, or to take an existing COIN aircraft like the Super Tucano and add floats?

The only reason I can think of why you might want to use a Float plane over a helicopter would be if your insurgency is taking place in nation made up of lots of Small Islands and even then there would have to exist a situation where the terrain prevents helicopters from landing in many places.