SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - Is a Maritime Patrol Aircraft good at Anti Surface Mission?

tAKticool47 · 09-29-19, 10:14 AM

I know I am very, very late on this post but wanted to throw in a link

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/co...sub-1598415741

This is an AMAZING article of an interview with a career P-3C Orion pilot who goes into GREAT DETAIL about all the P-3s strengths, weaknesses, missions, even some comparison and info vs. the new P-8 Poseidon etc.

The P-3 was an absolutely amazing platform for maritime patrol and grew into a multimission, long-endurance, highly effective piece of military kit. And as the article explains, it was capable of unmatched versatility and endurance... I forget the exact example it used but it could load up with like 8 torpedoes, a bellyfull of sonobuoys, and do 8+ hours of antisubmarine warfare (using various sonobuoys, air and surface search radar, magnetic anomaly detection, etc.) -- prosecute the subs they found, then suppose an enemy surface action group is detected inbound, they could land, rearm with Harpoons, get back into the air as an anti-surface warfare platform, -- then the next morning they could rearm with AGM-65s (precision/ laser guided) and SLAM-ERs ( inertial, infrared, precision-guided land-attack missies) and go conduct ISR / Land-attack / command and control etc. over land.

Anyway it's a great article, that author now operates "The War Zone" at

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone

if you're unfamiliar, it's one of the best military news and info websites on the net (although increasingly extremely bleeding-heart liberal, but hey, that's very popular these days too lol.)

09-29-19, 10:14 AM	#4
tAKticool47 Bosun Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Nature Coast Posts: 61 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	P-3 is an amazing aircraft! I know I am very, very late on this post but wanted to throw in a link https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/co...sub-1598415741 This is an AMAZING article of an interview with a career P-3C Orion pilot who goes into GREAT DETAIL about all the P-3s strengths, weaknesses, missions, even some comparison and info vs. the new P-8 Poseidon etc. The P-3 was an absolutely amazing platform for maritime patrol and grew into a multimission, long-endurance, highly effective piece of military kit. And as the article explains, it was capable of unmatched versatility and endurance... I forget the exact example it used but it could load up with like 8 torpedoes, a bellyfull of sonobuoys, and do 8+ hours of antisubmarine warfare (using various sonobuoys, air and surface search radar, magnetic anomaly detection, etc.) -- prosecute the subs they found, then suppose an enemy surface action group is detected inbound, they could land, rearm with Harpoons, get back into the air as an anti-surface warfare platform, -- then the next morning they could rearm with AGM-65s (precision/ laser guided) and SLAM-ERs ( inertial, infrared, precision-guided land-attack missies) and go conduct ISR / Land-attack / command and control etc. over land. Anyway it's a great article, that author now operates "The War Zone" at https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone if you're unfamiliar, it's one of the best military news and info websites on the net (although increasingly extremely bleeding-heart liberal, but hey, that's very popular these days too lol.)