Attack helicopters-Are they still useful?

Well.. maybe the these attack helicopter are designed to go against heavy soviet low-level air-defence. But are the countermeasures and armor really that effective vrs some of the newer generation of Man-pad, Low-level air-defence.

IMO they are very useful in low-intensive warfare, like Iraq, Afagan, when Aillied force attacked with an overwhelming force. They easily gained control of the air, as there wasn't any thing to put up a fight in the frist place, all AD, radar, etc was destory if there was any in the frist place. As they were also fighting a poorly trained and equip insurgents/militas.

Is wasn't an attack helicopter but these Iraqi insurgents did down a low-flying UK's SF Hercules with a older SA-7 man-pad last year and I bet these Hercules had some pretty nice countermeasures (DiRCm and flare dispensers).

Therefore IMO if these helicopter is only effictive if friendly force gain full control of air, Destory all AD, electronic warfare and warning system in there operation area.

But I bet any decent trained force, arm with a large number Stinger, Mistral or QW-4 can cos a problem for these attack hel.

I mean look at the facts... Man-pads to these insurgents was like prize, a very rare weapons... to any proper funded army, Man-pads,, it like we got million of them.

And u can't compare the soviet style low-level airdefence to nowaday, it a totally different story. Technology vrs low-level flyer or so call low-level penetration has greatly improved during the last 10-15 years. IMO unless it a stealth helcopter or it not going have a bright future and the US cancel there only stealth helicopter project.

Gollevainen said:

This type of thinking is ridicilous. Why do you think that many western nations have spend millions to developt a weaponsystem that in your obinion wouldn't have a change in modern warfare? As i said before, Apache and tiger (for example) are both designed to go against heavy soviet lowlevel airdefence. Then how do you justify your claims that they are now useless when no country in the world cannot no longer provide same calibre AD network? Remember that most modern attack helicopters have been designed after the development of, lets say A-10.

Click to expand...

Just because everyone is doing it does not mean it is right. Look at history, in late 50's,
when many nations abondoned canon in favor of AA missiles on the latest planes they
designed, how it turned out?

My whole argument against attack helos is they will still have its role in low intensive wars,
such as fighting insurgents and terrorits (that's pretty much US has been doing in last 30
years), but against a well armed army in a possible full scale war vs a sizable country, its
role will be drastically reduced, propobaly useless due to its high cost and extreme vulnerbility.

Take AH-64D as an example, many of us has no idea how it costs, its gross unit cost is about $56 million,
with this amount of money, you can probably buy a F-15E. It is expensive as hell, even US Army
fells that. Can its combat effectiveness justify its high value? No, in Kosovo war, two AH-64D
were down without even seeing combat actions. In Iraq war, an apache was down due to so called "
dust in engine", this just proves how attack helos sensitive to the weather.

Look at its cloest rival in US, A-10. It can pretty much do everything AH-64D be able to do
with much less risk and low cost. Someone mentioned A-10 can not patrol over a combat area,
but certainly it can be achieved by some land armored vehicles.

Why attack helos still exist in US Army? First, as I said, it is still an useful weapon in
low intensive war fighting those poor armed armies. Second, US Army does not have a close-in
ground attack weapon. All attack aircrafts, such as A-10 are from US Air Force. We all know
that US Army and Air Force each develops their own weapons.

In an army like PLA who is not capable of gainning air superiority against US in a possible
war scenario, air defence will become vital. PLA knows this. I remember I read news saying
that even PLA militia units are practicing MANPADS during an excercise. If militia units can
get a hand on MANPADS, you just don't drive attack helos over there. Let A-10 do the job.

For light wars? An Apache has the same firepower as 20 tanks, it can take out a whole tank company in one flight. How you say this is only for "light conflicts"

Well I just wanna point out, the A-10 mainly operate at quite a low-altitude, which it still in the danger of Man-pad. Just about anything that fly at low-altitude can be knock out by Man-pad.

With a army like PLA which most likely has load of Man-pad, most likely a hell of a lot of them a older variety but, if u can masses then, they a still very useful.

The good think with A-10 is u can hear them a mile away, and they can't hide behind anything.

There is point saiding a A-10 or a AH-64D can do dat vrs that... it really depend on the situation.

But in most case if the PLA and it militia units can masses armed with MANPAD. it make quite a problem for alot of the CAS mission, and US amry large fleet of Helicopters.

ger_mark said:

@netspider

attack helicopters are not easy to shot down, today they have a very effective automatic flare system, the most apaches lost in iraq simply has dust in their engines, and they are not easy detectable by radar, no, they are very hard to detect by radar because they fly so low, and they are not noisy but very quiet :coffee:

an A-10 can never give the level of support a modern helo can give, hide behind anything, bring the radar over the tree you are hiding , go higher ,fire your missiles and then hide again

Click to expand...

If a helo is already very hard to detect by radar, like you said, why US Army wastes an enormous amount of money on developing stealth Commanche?

Helos (not just attack helos) are extremly popular targets on battlefield, every one will want to knock one down. Just dump you high calibre machine gun on it, it probably will down. It is slow, fly low, practically no armor at all, all this makes them easy targets. In Vietnam war, US easily lost over 5000 helos. In that event as depicted in movie "Black Hawk Down", two helos
lost due to RPG fire, which is unguided weapon. It is just so easy to shot down a helo if appropriate weapon is used. Unfortunately, this type of weapons is so precious to those poor insurgents.

Nethappy said:

Well I just wanna point out, the A-10 mainly operate at quite a low-altitude, which it still in the danger of Man-pad. Just about anything that fly at low-altitude can be knock out by Man-pad.

With a army like PLA which most likely has load of Man-pad, most likely a hell of a lot of them a older variety but, if u can masses then, they a still very useful.

The good think with A-10 is u can hear them a mile away, and they can't hide behind anything.

There is point saiding a A-10 or a AH-64D can do dat vrs that... it really depend on the situation.

But in most case if the PLA and it militia units can masses armed with MANPAD. it make quite a problem for alot of the CAS mission, and US amry large fleet of Helicopters.

Click to expand...

The thing is this MANPAD thing is dirty cheap and extremely easy to operate,
PLA will be able to manufacture them massively in a possible war scenario. Take down a $56 million worth attack helo with a $10,000 worth MANPAD missile, you will get a medal. .

Well the US Army wastes an enormous amount of money on developing stealth Commanche, but just canceled the project.

The Commanche is hard to detect I belivie but not the AH-64.
THE AH-64 Frontal RCS, at 10 gigahertz is 663 times that of a RAH-66 and the AH-64 is much noiser and has a higher Infrared signature.

And a point of reality there is very little IR countermeasures or flare dispensers can do, it the MaNpad was using at closer range, as there wouldn't be enough time for them to react, even if they manage to loot the missle aways from the helicopters, warhead fragments still has a change of damaging it and/or knocking it down if it detonates close enough as helos has little or no armor.

My mate bak in the Aussie Reserve, once joked that our AUG could knock out a Hawk if we werelucky enough. He said he was sure the it can penterate it armour. But i was never crazy enough to try.

Actually, I think Attack helicopters have a long period of time to live on. Most of them are armored.
1st, most SAMs can't shoot them, because they fly too low.
2nd, most MANPADS can't shoot them, because a majority of this Earth's MANPADS, especially those of terrorists, are SA-7s, which can't lock on helicopters.
3rd, so all missiles are out, you are down to guns: AKs, MGs, useless on it. I doubt the M2s on the tanks can do much, unless it hits the rotor or something.
4th, 20+mm IFV rounds, some are probably too weak. These cannons tend to have a maximum of 5 shots/pull, not always helpful.
And these guns have a range of about 2km max, chopper attack from way farther.

There are pretty much only 2 kinds of weapons available against AHs: AAAs and RPGs.

each have their advantages.

For example, CAS planes are much faster, so the response time is faster.

However, helos have a much greater louter time, so they can be deployed as an integrated asset to ground control. Let's not forget that battlefield intelligence provided by a helo is very important to network centric warfare.

Last thing I'd like to point out is that Helocopters are not very well armored when you taken higher caliber rounds into account. For example, the rotor of the Apache is only proof to 7.62mm fire. This figure is just off my head, however.

Apache is supposed to be a very rugged system. It can take .50 cal/12.7mm and keep going. Most of the actual Apache pilots that were injured in Iraq/Afghanistan were involved in crashes that were maintenence/weather involved. Because the Apache's engines aren't designed to be able to operate in heavy desert conditions with all the talcom powder like sand that chokes up thier engines. The Super Cobra, on the other hand was designed to be operated by Marines and for Marines, therefore it would HAVE to be able to operate at it's best in heavy sea and desert/sandy beach conditions. That's why if you ask me, the new upgraded version of the Super Cobra, designated the AH1-Z Viper, is now the most capable modern attack helicopter in the world. It is basically the same thing as the Super Cobras and Whiskey Cobras, but everything is just made more powerful and robust. Two huge new engines, a four bladed rotor, upgraded avionics and weapons package and it goes ALOT faster. The Helmet Mounted Sighting Sytsem is standard in the Viper, and it can carry just as much if not more ordnance than the Longbow can. It's ordnance package includes the AIM-9 series, Sidearm, Hellfire, TOW, LAU-61/68 2.75inch rocket pods, GPU-2A 20MM gun pod and everything else in between. All this and plus the fact that the AH1-Z Viper has been built around a fail safe design that is supposed to be able to sustain 30mm cannon fire and still bring the pilot home.

That makes this chopper one baaad-mamma-jamma...