TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Okay that's interesting, lets take a few things apart.
Firstly we know there are Ghost hawks or shadow hawks or stealth hawks or whatever GI Joe character name you want to give the low observable choppers. That there is at least one. As two would have been used in Neptune Spear with one smashed, crashed and barbequed in Islamabad Pakistan.
If stealthed helicopters were used in this recent operation, it would indicate that the Army had more than the two used in Neptune Spear. Now tracking back in the period after the operation we had a number of theory regarding the origin of those birds. Some said they were cancelled projects. One off machines specially modified from conventional MH60 types others said that they were totally new designs with only some common parts between them and Blackhawk and some claimed that there was in fact two different models Stealthhawks more or less modifed prototypes with 2-4 built and then a production Ghosthawk which improves the design.
Second we have no conformation of other stealthily rotary wing assets in US services.
Aviationist has theories of stealthy little birds and Chinooks but no proof.
Stealthily little birds however do have some basis of development. In the Vietnam era the CIA operated a modified version of the OH6 LOAH dubbed "The Quiet One" because it was modified to produce almost no sound. Its small size and unique features may make such possible.
Chinook however is another matter. There have been gunship programs but no known signature reduction, also consider its large size and shape. The size of your average Greyhound bus with flat sides it seems unlikely to me that a Stealth skin would do much about it's billboard radar profile. Adding in its overall age and it seems unlikely.
IMO rather than Stealth Chinook if I was the DOD looking to buy a stealthy penetrator, I personally would favor attempting a Silent Osprey, there is some basis for this notion.
1) the Osprey program was begun under the US Army after the Desert one fiasco which left the Iranians a number of slightly used Ch53 and enough propaganda materials to last twenty years.
2) Bell Helicopter at a US Army Aviation show years ago displayed a Concept art of a Stealth Quadrotor.
Additionally consider that although V22 has a smaller cargo and passenger volume it has longer range and higher speed. That however is all conjecture.
Now why would the US DOD have the Ghosthawks in the region? After Neptune Spear some people had a problem with the Idea that the SEALs and the Stealth choppers were shipped in just for this one operation. Rather some believe that the low observable choppers were already in Afghanistan for another possible mission, that mission?
US concerns that the Pakistani Taliban could have destabilized the government and seized control of Pakistani's nuclear weapons. These Theorists say that that worry was enough to keep the stealth helicopters in Afghanistan as a proactive measure, that in the event of a coup the StealthHawks and a Socom team would have entered Pakistan and neutralized the WMD.
Okay, now if that was the case in Afghanistan could a similar situation be in place in the middle east today? Could the Ghosthawks have already been on the ground waiting for operations? Yes it seems possible. First the Iranian nuclear issue then the Syrian conflict as well as Iraq seem likely to justify the presence of US Socom and stealth penetrator assets, both manned and unmanned.
Now we come to the Grey Eagle.
Grey Eagle is a derivative of the predator drones. Its not stealth its a white program, meaning you can read about it openly. It seems to me that of your operating stealth manned assets worried about the potential for issues with air denial from both ground and air assets then you would want to support with at least some low observable unmanned platforms. This likely means stealth drones like the RQ180 as well as other still black programs were in the air. Perhaps including a stealthy equivalent to the grey eagle to support the Socom mission and deploy air to ground missiles as needed.
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