yeah but America has no relation to China when it comes to its geographic location and borders, China has a massive land forces, borders that are in 1000s of km, with Russia, Central Asia, India, North Korea and further Japan to the East many places are hilly terrain and not land army friendly, which neighbour is America going to border war with, Canada?? in 1991 against Saddam US sent approx. 250 Apaches alone and in terms of area that region was small
no one roles out armour without air cover these days, even a 1,000 Z-10 is a conserative estimate as to what China really needs for a army of its size, to the South West the Indian border is all mountains only a attack helicopter will suceed there
having 2 aviation regiments per province with 2 attack sqaudrons each is a pretty light force, it isnt even a heavy protection but then it all depends how attack helicopters are used by PLA
a modern day attack helicopter is like having a tank, it can even replace a tank, but more versitile and flexible, the more the better
I see where you are coming from with that number, but the fact remains that attack helicopters are not cheap to buy or operate. Sure it would be awesome to be able to have a thousand Z10s, but what other, more useful stuff would you need to forgo to have them?
The USA, with a military budget bigger than the next 10 militarise combined does not operate a thousand Apaches. How on earth is the PLA supposed to buy and operate that many attack helicopters with only a fraction of that budget?
Moreover, I really do not see why China would need one, let alone two Z10 regiments in every Provence. Does America have an Apache unit in every state? Many of China's 23 provinces are nowhere near any potential trouble spots, so what would be the point in having them there? Hostile heavy armour is not going to teleport hundreds and thousands of miles into the middle of China that would need rapid response attack helicopter forces to counter.
If there is a war, there will be warnings and a build up which would give China plenty of time to forward deploy units to the threatened region, and with China's transport infrastructure, it would only take a couple days max to get significant forces to pretty much anywhere in China, even if caught completely unawares, the local forces should be able to comfortably hold the enemy for that long before rapid deployment forces arrive, followed shortly after by the bulk of the PLA. There is simply no need to maintain a standing attack helicopter force in every Provence.
As I said before, China is at peace and does not see any likely scenarios where it would be fighting a big land war would be require anywhere close to that many attack helicopters.
Korea is far smaller than Iraq, so 300-400 Z10s would be plenty. Similar thing with Vietnam since any war with them would be a limited boarder clash, and China has no intention of invading the whole country, so it won't need anywhere close to as many helicopters as the Americans did during the Vietnam war.
China and Russia might not be as close as America and Canada, but the chances that the two would fight a major war against each other are about as remote as America and Canada going to war against each other.
There is a chance that China and India might go to war at some point, but the problem is that helicopters tend not to perform well in the high altitude of the Sino-India boarder, but more importantly, the terrain there makes heavy armour operations all but impossible. Attack helicopters are a hard counter to enemy heavy armour, but what will you use them against if there are no armour to hunt?
As the US found to its cost in Afghanistan, using attack helicopters in mountainous terrain against a foe armed with just RPGs and man portable HMGs is very dangerous and risky. Faced with a modern army with modern MANPADS and radar guided light AAA guns and attack helicopters will have a very hard time. Loosing some attack helicopters taking out a convoy of enemy MBTs is worth the trade, but loosing the, blasting a few enemy grunts? Not so much. In the mountains, against light infantry, artillery, armed drones and high flying fast jets and bombers would be more useful than attack helicopters.
Helicopter would be great for moving men and equipment around in mountainous terrain, but you need transport helicopters for that, not Z10s.
As for Central Asia, well China has no beef with anyone there, and I am not even sure what Japan has to do with the Z10.
Other things to consider is that even though the PLA has put a lot of emphasis on the AA capabilities of its armed helicopters, attack helicopters are not really meant to provide air cover cover for friendly armour and infantry. They are very good at CAS, don't get me wrong, but you are giving up one of their biggest advantages - speed and mobility to have them perform CAS. Attack helicopters really coming into their own as tank hunters and scouts, where they can fully exploit all of their unique attributes and capabilities to the full.
Attack helicopters are not meant to be a replacement or substitute to traditional heavy armour. Attack helicopters cannot hold ground and provide mobile cover for ground troops or stay on station for days on end.
Think of attack helicopters as mounted archers whereas tanks are more like your armoured mounted knights. Both are good at killing enemy mounted knights, with the mounted archers being better at it, but if you want to punch through and shatter a disciplined enemy infantry square, the mounted knights are more effective.
Attack helicopter and tanks compliment each other, but even though many of their roles overlap, they are not true substitutes for each other and there are things that both can do that they other cannot.
