Note: This post was inspired by an Anonymous reader. I'd like to give him more credit but that's all the information I have on him. Regardless, thanks for the idea!
The Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter)
was an early attempt at a long range, remote control, anti-submarine weapon
delivery platform that could operate from small surface vessels and act as a
standoff weapon. It was produced in the
1960’s with 755 being produced, according to Wikipedia.
An extensive and excellent history of the DASH drone is
presented in reference (4) below.
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| DASH - Note Co-Axial Rotors |
DASH was part of the larger Fleet Rehabilitation and
Modernization (FRAM) effort that was initiated in response to the growing
Soviet submarine threat. FRAM allowed
WWII vintage destroyers to be updated to a point where they could be effective
against the latest submarines of the time.
The DASH drone was around 13 ft long with a 20 ft diameter
co-axial rotor and weighed around 1100 lbs.
Cruising speed was around 50 kts.
Operating range was around 22 miles which was limited by the control
ship’s radar horizon. Take off and
landing control was performed by a deck level control station with post-launch
operational control being transferred to another operator in the Combat
Information Center (CIC). The drone
could carry one Mk46 or two Mk44 torpedoes.
Until late in the program, control was blind with the CIC operator using
only radar for situational awareness.
Later, a TV camera was added to the drone.
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| DASH Launch/Land Control Station |
The drone was designed to be cheap and expendable.
Since
it was expendable, DASH used off-the-shelf industrial electronics with no
back-ups. The controls were multi-channel analog FM.
Over 80% of operational aircraft losses were traced to single-point failures of
the electronics. A total of 10% of the losses were from pilot errors, and only
10% of the losses were from engine or airframe failures. (1)
According to Wikipedia, half the Navy’s drones were lost at
sea.
Beginning in 1965, some drones were adapted for
reconnaissance work (SNOOPY missions) and
gun spotting with the addition of real time video, cameras, telemetry, and
transponders.(4) Loiter time was around
an hour which offered plenty of time for the associated destroyer to work its
target.
Some drones were adapted for ground attack with 2.75” rocket
pods being mounted and used in Vietnam (2)
Later, as the drones were being phased out, some were
adapted for use as target drones for live fire exercises.(3)
The program was cancelled and the drones withdrawn from
service by the mid-1970s.
By
late 1969, DASH began to be removed from FRAM destroyers as they returned to
their home ports for overhaul work. On the destroyer, USS CHEVALIER (DD-805),
for example, the DASH hangar was converted into a "nifty looking"
crews lounge with fake wood paneling and a suspended ceiling covering the
overhead florescent lights. The only problem with this installation was that it
was installed with pop-rivets. The first time CHEVALIER fired its after 5 inch
guns, the entire hangar lounge was destroyed when the ceiling crashed down and
most of the paneling fell off! The DASH hangar was later used to simply store
all the stuff the crew bought overseas. (4)
A few interesting aspects of the DASH program are discussed
below.
Standoff – The
DASH drone was the early equivalent of the ASROC that we use today to provide a
standoff ASW weapon. The drones were
also a lead in to the ubiquitous ASW helicopters we now use. Interestingly, DASH’s range of 22 miles still
far exceeds the range of the current ASROC which Wikipedia cites as 6 miles.
Cheap and Expendable
– One of the distinguishing characteristics of the DASH drone was that it was
cheap which allowed it to be obtained in large numbers and made it
expendable. This is a lesson we
consistently forget, today.
Technology – DASH
was new technology, for its time, and the result was a lot of failures (half
the drones being lost). This is to be
expected from any new technology. In
fact, high failure rates are a characteristic of any new technology. What stood out about this new technology
implementation was that, as mentioned above, it was cheap. This allowed the technology to be explored
and slowly refined without incurring massive budget hits. Contrast this with the LCS or F-35 or Zumwalt
or almost any recent Navy program where the new technology was hideously
expensive and production commitments were made before any prototype was built
or, indeed, any design/construction plans were completed.
Speaking of prototypes, the DASH was initially prototyped
using a modified existing Gyrodyne RON-1 Rotorcycle in early 1958. By the end of 1958, a contract was awarded
for the production of 12 additional prototypes which were used for testing in
1960. Evaluations led to additional
modifications which became the production version of DASH, the QH-50C, and
production began in 1963. We see, then,
the program was executed responsibly with prototypes and testing prior to final
design and production – the opposite of how the Navy executes programs today!
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| DASH with Torpedoes |
Focus – The DASH
program was also an example of focus.
DASH was designed and built to perform one task and only one task:
deliver torpedoes. This kept the cost
low and the design simple which allowed large numbers of drones to be purchased,
made losses acceptable, and sped up implementation of the program. Contrast that with today’s obsession with
making every asset a do-everything, wonder machine which, inevitably, winds up
over budget and behind schedule. There
is a valuable lesson (some would call it common sense!), here, about focus and
restraint.
Summary - Unfortunately, DASH was just slightly ahead of its time. The technology, such as remote telemetry, video, electronics, etc. was not yet advanced enough to allow the drone to realize its full potential. The lack of situational awareness due to lack of sensors made the unit very difficult to operate. Still, DASH provided valuable institutional experience for the Navy with both helicopters for ASW and remote controlled aircraft. Ironically, many naval observers today are calling for unmanned UAVs to perform ASW chores such as weapons or sonobuoy delivery without realizing that we had this capability over fifty years ago!
Summary - Unfortunately, DASH was just slightly ahead of its time. The technology, such as remote telemetry, video, electronics, etc. was not yet advanced enough to allow the drone to realize its full potential. The lack of situational awareness due to lack of sensors made the unit very difficult to operate. Still, DASH provided valuable institutional experience for the Navy with both helicopters for ASW and remote controlled aircraft. Ironically, many naval observers today are calling for unmanned UAVs to perform ASW chores such as weapons or sonobuoy delivery without realizing that we had this capability over fifty years ago!
(1)Wikipedia, “Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH”, retrieved 11-Jul-2020,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrodyne_QH-50_DASH
Great post CNO!
ReplyDeleteI recall a lot of the problems with DASH boiled down to a turf-war between NAVAIR and the surface Navy, which left gaping deficiencies in training, maintenance, and organization.
The Japanese (JMSDF) apparently took these issues far more seriously and consequently enjoyed a much better operational history with their DASH program.
Oooh, shoot ... Japanese operations. I should have covered that but I didn't even think of it. My bad! I'll take a look and see if I can find some info on it.
DeleteThere used to be a maintenance step where you opened it up, removed a ring, did something, replaced the ring, and closed it back up. The ring had something to do with the azimuthal bearing on which the DASH flew. It was relatively easy to get it 180 degrees out, and that happened so frequently that there was an established procedure when it did. We had one that somehow got reinserted 90 degrees out. I didn't fly the direction we told it to fly, and it didn't fly the 180 out direction. Suddenly, it came back between the stacks. We figured the problem out and got it back on deck, but it was a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteRange and endurance seemed to be DASH's biggest limitations, which were 71 nmi and 1 hour, respectively, according to Wiki. Given that, this sounds like something you wouldn't launch unless you had a good fix on the target. However, it's range exceeded that of many Russian torpedoes in use at the time which provided an advantage to our ships.
ReplyDeleteThe closest modern version I can think of is the Marine's planned MUX program. Which has since been reconfigured into "a family of systems that will include a very large land-based unmanned aerial vehicle and a medium-sized one for shipboard operations," according to a USNI report in March.
The Knox class DE's as originally planned, were to carry DASH. Whether or not DASH was ever deployed with a Knox class DE I don't know. I do know the Rathburne, DE 1057, did not have DASH on board when I was aboard (1971-1973).
ReplyDeleteI was told a story, by one who claimed to have been presnt, when a DASH came in at full chat with an armed mark44 upside down when it fortunately ran out of fuel
ReplyDeleteVLA range is listed as over 10 miles on navy fact file and 22km on wiki. DASH 1965 flyaway cost was 154k which today would be 1,260,340.89. More of a loyal wingman type price than MQ-8B or C. Is there even a vertical takeoff and landing target drone in use these days they could evolve something from?
ReplyDeleteNeat topic!! This is a great example of old tech that could be a basis for somthing new. Using newer materials, and significantly smaller modern electronics( im sure our cellphones have more computing power than DASH did!!), you could make a much lighter unit, which would either extend range/loiter time, or increase the payload. Using cheap COTS hardware, it could be built in numbers. No need to make it stealthy and expensive...
ReplyDeleteOur DASH kept homing in on the Air Search Radar of the CVS. Needless to say we were not allowed to fly it very often while in company!!
ReplyDeleteI love this post. It shows how we tried cutting edge technology 50 years ago the right way: task (not technology) driven, with minimal scope creep, so they were cheap enough to experiment with and view as expendable. Arguably they were better than today's Fire Scouts - way cheaper than those $16M luxuries that don't carry weapons or even function properly. We need to LEARN from our past mistakes.
ReplyDeleteThe loss of a DASH drone could also mean the loss of one or two torpedoes. Which, depending on their cost, could make the drones less cheap and expendable.
ReplyDeleteOf course the loss of the payload makes the overall cost less cheap and less expendable. Adding one extra rivet also makes it less cheap and less expendable. However, relative to the cost of other weapon systems, like aircraft, the cost is negligible regardless of the payload contribution.
DeleteCome on, you can do better comments than this. Help me keep the blog standards high!
In reality, the unnecessary loss of one or two torpedoes is the real problem. Ships back then (and probably today too) didn't carry many torpedoes to begin with. So, losing one or two could put a ship at a disadvantage later on. While cheap and expendable are nice qualities to have, reliability, in my opinion, is equally important. At about $10K per, torpedoes were relatively cheap back then too, but you wouldn't want a dud hitting an enemy ship.
Delete"Interestingly, DASH’s range of 22 miles still far exceeds the range of the current ASROC which Wikipedia cites as 6 miles."
ReplyDeleteIsn't the VL-ASROC the current ASROC? that has a 13.7 mile range so still less than the DASH but double the range of the original ASROC.
(looking forward to any info you get on Japan's use of the DASH).
Japanese DASH USE
ReplyDeleteFor those interested, I've been unable to find much info on Japanese DASH use. It appears that Japan obtained around 20 units and modified 7 destroyers to operate the DASH. Apparently, much of the operations were from land bases, as well. The Japanese apparently had a great deal of success, recording something in the neighborhood of 10,000 landings and ultimately only losing 3 units.
Eventually, the Japanese discontinued the program when the USN dropped the program, likely due to logistical support problems related to the main program cancellation.
Reader GAB suggested that the Japanese success may have been due in large part to better training and maintenance.
Sorry, that's all I've found so far.
An embedded link in Reference #4 goes into some detail about the Japanese Navy's experience with the DASH drone and sheds some interesting light on how the two navies operated them.
DeleteSome highlights . . .
"The Japanese success with their DASH program can be seen in the different manner in which the JMSDF managed their DASH program. The primary difference was the length of time the JMSDF personnel stayed with the program. Capt. Robert H. Beyer USNR (ret), Gyrodyne's then Director for International Operations, who worked with the JMSDF for over six and one half years, stated that personal whom he knew in 1966 were still with the program in 1971. Compare this to the U.S. Navy it was not at all unusual to have a DASH Officer "come and go" through a specific DASH command within six months."
"On a JMSDF destroyer, DASH assignments were considered primary duty with other shipboard assignments considered collateral. Further, Japanese technicians would meticulously wash and wax all drones before returning them to their hangars."
"Flight time of the DASH system and DASH controller flight proficiency also appeared to be a major issue of why the two separate Navy's had differing results of success. When the U.S. Navy's DASH program was in full operation, U.S. Destroyer Commanders were required to fly their DASH system at a minimum of 4 hours monthly. . . . By contrast, the JMSDF flew their DASH program daily. By doing this, the crews were very current and resulted in only two losses by October 1971, which were equipment related and not operator error."
"In the defense to the U.S. Navy, it can be said that the height of the U.S. Navy's DASH program corresponded to the peak in the war in Vietnam where skilled and experienced DASH personnel were being transferred off Destroyers and onto billets on Carriers fighting the air war."
"However, it should also be stated, that for the Japanese, the DASH equipped Destroyers were the equivalent to "their aircraft carriers"; those JMSDF DASH destroyers received the best personnel and had the highest priority in their Navy."
Good find!
DeleteI found this from Armed Forces Journal which I thought worth sharing.
DeleteIt seems the Navy had a diamond in the rough in the QH-50. Here you had something that could give small ships (or any ship with sonar) a standoff ASW capability without having to have full-blown aviation facilities. But, there seems to be have been something of a turf war between the ship and aviation communities plus the program seemed to lack of support from the upper levels.
I worked on 1052-class Destroyers through the 1970's which had DASH hangars installed. They were empty and I was told by senior coworkers and onboard Navy personnel that DASH was a failure that the Navy had unfortunately designed the Class to accommodate.
ReplyDeleteYour interesting post inspired me to find out more about how the 1052 Class had been designed for a major weapon system that couldn't be deployed, and I found this GAO report:
"Adverse Effects of Producing Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopters
Before Completion of Development and Tests"
http://archive.gao.gov/otherpdf1/087461.pdf
The report is undated but Appendix II is the Navy reply dated 29 April 1970. The report is interesting in that it cites more factors than the drone loss rate when criticizing the Navy for not completing prototyping and testing prior to final design and production.
I trust Dr Norman Friedman's commentary on the DASH program in his design history of USN destroyers, as well as the website: http://gyrodynehelicopters.com/dash_history.htm far more than GAO in this case.
DeleteGAO has internal bureaucratic divisions that tend to ignore or de-emphasize issues that cut across those divisions, and of course there are also vested interests in using audits to reinforce a larger narrative – in this case on acquisition. If you notice, the Navy called BS on GAO stating that ‘the Navy spent over a quarter of a billion dollars for the development and acquisition of the Drone Antisubmarine He1icopter Weapon System’ and justifiably so: GAO ascribed the costs of FRAM refits to DASH – quite incorrect.
The fact that the Japanese and U.S. Army had much greater success with their respective QH-50 programs suggests strongly that we consider why. I believe LCDR I. B. Anderson’s letter of 9 January 1970 explains the organizational failure directly: “The system has been operated by surface types and administered by aviators. NAVAIRSYSCOM has been required to fund a system, which was not under its operational control. COMCRUDESLANT/PAC have been required to operate a system, which was last in line for aviation money.” http://gyrodynehelicopters.com/the_navy_failed_dash.htm
Add to this the manpower priorities, training issues, and the reality that DASH competed partial against manned aviation/NAVAIR/LAMPS program and we have an unpleasant picture of the program.
The GAO report cites the disconnect between DASH operational range and that of existing surface ship active sonar:
ReplyDelete"DASH operational radius of 30 nautical miles was established as a requirement €or the drone in order to equal the intended design range of a sonar, which was then under development. This sonar was scheduled for operational evaluation in 1962 to determine its acceptability for service use ... this sonar was not
approved for service use until November 1968."
I have reasons to believe the sonar cited was the AN/SQS-26, which has its own critical GAO report:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/202343.pdf
Neither report mentions that the Cold War was a driver of accelerated development and deployment that sometimes didn't work out despite great expense and effort. And in the case of the AN/SQS-26, it did eventually succeed.
It strikes me that part of the problem with DASH might have been deploying an intrinsically expendable asset into a peacetime navy. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and speculate that losing a DASH every 10 or so flights would be considerably less traumatic in a hot war than in everyday peacetime cruising and training.
ReplyDeleteWhich would presumably lead to pressure for a much more reliable system that can sustain those peacetime training and deployment rates while being ridiculously overbuilt for actual wartime.
If this point is valid I would assume it is still applicable, leading to the suspicion that many current systems are not really designed for actual conflict as opposed to sustainable use in peacetime. But which systems?
On the other hand I could be completely off the mark.