Here they come!

cushtac

There's an option on two more, so if that's exercised there'll be 6. People should also remember that the AIII's were not bought all at the same time, so there's every chance more of these, or the bigger AW-149, could be bought in the future.

For the first time since the Puma the AC's going to have a decent heli in the army co-op role. The crews seem eager to train & operate in that role too. It's a step in the right direction & I'm going to be optimistic about it.

Mad Finn

Manic Moran wrote:

And why would that be? What is everyone else in the world buying, and why aren't they buying 139s?

NTM

I may be wrong about this but I believe we are not allowed to buy American made weaponry by the Americans themselves because we are not an ally. We could go to Nevada with a fat wad of cash. Buy what we want at a good ol' boy store and try and smuggle it out of the country.

But officially, only states prepared to do the Americans' bidding and go kill a few towelheads for the sake of democracy may purchase American made weaponry. Unless of course you are a terrorist group in which case it's open season. The IRA has, or had assuming it has decommissioned its guns, more American made weaponry than the army of the Sovereign Irish state.


That's the theory.

Steyr

Mad Finn wrote:

I may be wrong about this but I believe we are not allowed to buy American made weaponry by the Americans themselves because we are not an ally.

Thats wrong as we bought the Javelin Missile System from them, Congress approved!:D

Mad Finn wrote:

The IRA has, or had assuming it has decommissioned its guns, more American made weaponry than the army of the Sovereign Irish state.

Alot of the confiscated IRA weaponry is used by the ARW for Training, seen them with their M16's, AK's the lot in Army Training vids.

GerryRyan

Ok, I've been put in my place, have no problem admitting it.
Sure what would I know, I'm just an artillery man.

the_syco

Manic Moran wrote:

Name one. I am willing to entertain also field artillery, air defense, and vehicle-mounted.

NTM

Pretty sure that we got the Steyr Aug A1 before the Brits, among others. Or so was drilled into me by the Sargent when I was in the FCA (about 7 years ago).

Manic Moran

Pretty sure that we got the Steyr Aug A1 before the Brits, among others

This is true. Ireland did indeed bring the Steyr AUG into service before the British. It also brought it into service before the Russians, Americans, Germans, Chinese, Finnish and everyone else that has chosen to use a rifle other than the AUG.

Ireland brought the AUG into service about ten years after it became the standard Austrian rifle.

NTM

The thing

testicle wrote:

If you have ever been near Limerick, or indeed, parts of Dublin at night, you will see and hear a Garda Helicopter, which is flown by the Air Corps. I think your theory has been blown out of the water there.

Ok then Bud, when have you ever seen troops being flown at night with the Air Corps?
Answer= never as they aren't trained to do so.

SAR helicopters, namely the Dauphin has been grounded in night ops after the accident in waterford.

Alluette's don't have any nightvision equipment or night navigation aids so cannot fly at night.

Irish troops aren't trained to operate with Air Corps at night because they don't have the ability.

The Garda ASU (Air support unit is a different service to the IAC's helicopter fleet, it is only crewed by AC pilots, they are not an Air Corps registered Aircraft)

Fixed wing aircraft are totally different to helicopters, I full well know that fixed wing IAC aircraft can fly at night but our helicopters cannot.

The thing

Mad Finn wrote:

I may be wrong about this but I believe we are not allowed to buy American made weaponry by the Americans themselves because we are not an ally. We could go to Nevada with a fat wad of cash. Buy what we want at a good ol' boy store and try and smuggle it out of the country.

But officially, only states prepared to do the Americans' bidding and go kill a few towelheads for the sake of democracy may purchase American made weaponry. Unless of course you are a terrorist group in which case it's open season. The IRA has, or had assuming it has decommissioned its guns, more American made weaponry than the army of the Sovereign Irish state.


That's the theory.

Wrong Ireland has several pieces of U.S. made kit,
The SINCGARS radio system and other sat and comms equipment,
The Javlin anti tank 84mm,

Ireland tends to source European made kit and for historical and economic reasons British made kit.

The thing

Manic Moran wrote:

This is true. Ireland did indeed bring the Steyr AUG into service before the British. It also brought it into service before the Russians, Americans, Germans, Chinese, Finnish and everyone else that has chosen to use a rifle other than the AUG.

Ireland brought the AUG into service about ten years after it became the standard Austrian rifle.

NTM

Ireland first bought the Steyr Aug A1 assualt rifle in 1988, Austria had only been using the rifle in an operational role since the early 1980's in about 1985. The rifle was developed in 1978 and we were the first export customer, which we got by swaping resourses in our butter mountain to Austria, who then we not an member of the EEC.

The thing

ThatGuy wrote:

:eek:

Let's be realistic here. When would the RDF get a look in at these helicopters (or any for that matter)? Feel free to correct me thought.

Reserve troops on the border, were trained in heli ops, as indeed they were in APC drills.
A lot of Reserve promotion courses are heli trained.
4 Helicopters are simply not enough, don't forget every PDF recruit is meant to be heli trained.

Manic Moran

The thing wrote:

Austria had only been using the rifle in an operational role since the early 1980's in about 1985.

You might want to check your dates on that. The AUG started development in the 1960s, and was adopted by the Austrian Army under the name "Stg.77 (Assault rifle, model of 1977)." Full scale production started in 1978, with fielding in the first units late that same year.

Ireland got its hands on it in 1986, if I recall, for a two-year period of trials and acceptance before being fielded in 1988..

NTM

Steyr

The thing wrote:

Ok then Bud, when have you ever seen troops being flown at night with the Air Corps?
Answer= never as they aren't trained to do so.

SAR helicopters, namely the Dauphin has been grounded in night ops after the accident in waterford.

Alluette's don't have any nightvision equipment or night navigation aids so cannot fly at night.

Irish troops aren't trained to operate with Air Corps at night because they don't have the ability.

The Garda ASU (Air support unit is a different service to the IAC's helicopter fleet, it is only crewed by AC pilots, they are not an Air Corps registered Aircraft)

Fixed wing aircraft are totally different to helicopters, I full well know that fixed wing IAC aircraft can fly at night but our helicopters cannot.

Yes on manouvers in the Curragh, my ancle was in the 1st BN and they did heli insertions via Dauphin,Puma YES in the Night. Night time Ops happens all the time in the Air Corps, Its required. The Dauphins were not grounded fully, they still did SAR until they were WFU by the Air Corps, 1 is still in Active service. The 2 new EC135's are doing alot of Night work with the ARW. Irish troops are Trained in Night ops with helis as its needed especially to allow them to integrate with other nations on overseas duty. The GASU Aircraft are registered as Irish Air Corps Aircraft have you even bothered to check their serial numbers to show that they are Air Corps Aircraft.

Serials are..
1. 256-EC135
2. 255-AS 355 N Squirrel
3. 254-Britten-Norman Defender 4000, BN 2T-4S


The Garda Air Support Unit (GASU) became operational in September 1997 when it took delivery of a fixed wing Pilatus Britten-Norman BN 2T-4S Defender 4000 aircraft and a Eurocopter AS355N Squirrel Helicopter.

In 2001 the GASU fleet was further increased by the addition of a second helicopter, an EC 135 T1.

The aircraft are on the Irish military register. The Air Corps provide pilots and maintain the aircraft on behalf of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and An Garda Síochána.

The aircraft were selected to meet the operational policing needs of An Garda Siochana. All aircraft are fitted with the latest police role equipment including state-of-the-art daylight and thermal image (infra red) cameras, mounted on a gyro-stabilised pod.

The Air Support Unit is based at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel, Co. Dublin and is a national resource under the operational control of Deputy Commissioner, Operations.

The GASU is a very busy unit within the Garda Síochána. In 2003 the Unit recorded 2,598 callouts resulting in 2,074 actual flying hours contributing in the arrest of 373 persons along with the recovery of 108 stolen vehicles.

Deployment of the GASU

Garda Aircraft may be deployed to incidents in the following circumstances,


An Immediate threat to life.
Incidents of crime, terrorism or of national importance.
Immediate threat of serious public disorder.
A task, which will lead to the immediate prevention or detection of crime.
To gather evidence and to prevent or detect crime or to avert a serious public disorder.
To gather information on and deal with incidents relating to Crime, Public disorder and traffic related matters.

taken from www.garda.ie

Manic Moran

The thing wrote:

The Garda ASU (Air support unit is a different service to the IAC's helicopter fleet, it is only crewed by AC pilots, they are not an Air Corps registered Aircraft)

Looking at my model of the EC-135, the number 256 slots neatly into the AC's numbering scheme, and it has no civilian registration marking.

Seems like an AC-owned aircraft to me.

NTM

Steyr

Manic Moran wrote:

Looking at my model of the EC-135, the number 256 slots neatly into the AC's numbering scheme, and it has no civilian registration marking.

Seems like an AC-owned aircraft to me.

NTM

It is.

The thing

I stand corrected on the above points.

saobh_ie

Just popping back a bit to the internal security role. With a lift capacity of 6 tons (Edit: Where'd I get that from? It's 2778kg) would it be reasonable to expect it to be used to ferry the bomb squad or an element of it to scenes? Rather than having to wait a couple of hours for them to arrive as we saw in Dublin and at the Airport over the last number of months?

Also given a total of four, would it be reasonalbe that they would be able to maintain three in service at all times, two for training as mentioned above, one on standby for anything that might happen (internal security or to replace one of the training birds if it goes U/S) and then one down for maintenance?

Would they really get 32 people nevermind troops into an AW139? The website has crew listed as Pilot/Passenger 1/15.

The EH101 however can carry 32 people. Has the news paper quoted by the OP (assuming its a paper, its very news speak) made an error?

Manic Moran

My guess is 32 battle-ready troops transported by the whole fleet of four at once.

Of course, how many the chopper's supposed to carry vs how many it actually carries are not necessarily the same. Take, for example, a CH47. Officially listed at about 32 combat-ready troops, the Brits crammed over 90 at once.

NTM

100gSoma

pics of 274 and 275

Steyr

There are pics on www.irishmilitaryonline.com of them in the Curragh armed with the GPMG's!

the_syco

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/9391838?view=Eircomnet

[FONT=Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]hey can travel at up to 185 mph and stay in the air for three-and-a-half hours at a time.
Two General Purpose Machine Guns (GMPGs) and Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) are also fitted.
Another two Augusta helicopters are due to be delivered in early 2007 with an option of two more.

Yea. Guns. Always handy against our own terrorists.

[/FONT]

therealworld

When I was ten I used to draw up what I'd like the iac to operate, eg f16s, f14s blackhawks, effin C5s!!!! then I grew up, j.c. lads first bit of decent kit and your still moaning! DOD holds purse strings, and it don't buy votes! p.s. anyone know where we'd pick up a half doz Gripens going cheap

DERMUR02

The thing wrote:

Reserve troops on the border, were trained in heli ops, as indeed they were in APC drills.
A lot of Reserve promotion courses are heli trained.
4 Helicopters are simply not enough, don't forget every PDF recruit is meant to be heli trained.

reservists trained in Heli Op's and APC drills.... Look just climbing in and out of these things does not constitute training... The "reservists" are allowed to hop in and out every now and again just to appease the war lords among ye...

Steyr

DERMUR02 wrote:

reservists trained in Heli Op's and APC drills.... Look just climbing in and out of these things does not constitute training... The "reservists" are allowed to hop in and out every now and again just to appease the war lords among ye...

Am we have been given "trips" in the A3's and done CASEVAC and Insertions via heli..........................................Also with the new Integrated Reserve it will be a Requirement for all Serving RDF Personnel to be Trained up to PDF standard ( YES ALL ASPECTS OF PDF TRAINING ) to be able to Operate with PDF Personnel at home and Abroad, and the PDF do a hell of alot of Helo Ops in and out of areas.

scubagit

DERMUR02 wrote:

reservists trained in Heli Op's and APC drills.... Look just climbing in and out of these things does not constitute training... The "reservists" are allowed to hop in and out every now and again just to appease the war lords among ye...

Have to agree on this one. Ask anyone in the ARMY (cadre included) if courses run for the RDF are of the same standard as PDF and I think you will get the same answer.
A BIG FAT NO!!
As for serving overseas....That little hot potato isn't even up for discussion til AT LEAST 2016 so don't get too excited.

Manic Moran

Well, in fairness, when I got my AF154 after my driving course, we were examined to standard by non-Cadre PDF staff at the Cavalry School, who actively complemented us.

NTM

arybvtcw0eolkf

Manic Moran wrote:

Ireland got its hands on it in 1986, if I recall, for a two-year period of trials and acceptance before being fielded in 1988..

NTM

Might have been alittle after '88. I was serving with the 63rd Bn (UNIFIL) with the FN then. But it wouldn't have been too long afterwards.

***sorry, nit picking***

Sputnik

Well, in fairness, when I got my AF154 after my driving course, we were examined to standard by non-Cadre PDF staff at the Cavalry School, who actively complemented us.

Yep, RDF lads undergo exactly the same test as PDF and have to meet the same standards. Other courses are going in the same way.

darkman2

According to RTE today another two helicopeters have been ordered. Dont know if its the same ones. Anyone know about this?:rolleyes:

Manic Moran

Just exercising the option to buy. I don't know why they even bothered making it an option, it was blatantly evident that they would need to be taken up.

NTM

cushtac

Manic Moran wrote:

Just exercising the option to buy. I don't know why they even bothered making it an option, it was blatantly evident that they would need to be taken up.

NTM

The option was held over the heads of the manucaturers to ensure a smooth delivery of the first lot.