Are attack helicopters overrated?

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Alex6714

But if you are assuming your sending the attack heli in the middle of a full scale jets flying around, aa spamming the air etc then of course it will fail.

First establish air-superiority with jets, then deploy attack helicopters alongside armour to support each other. Remember the heli will probably have radar of some sort, so the armour is not likely to get ambushed. The armour is there to take ground and protect infantry as they move forward to establish FOBs where further armour/helis/infantry can operate from and because its pointless destroying the enemy if you dont then take any ground.

You just dont use an attack heli when you dont really have air-superiority.

[CastleBravo]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]CAS_117

That only half true. Again That is all this talk of "Rock, Paper, Scissors".

I mean honestly, try and actually think of all the ways you can hurt someone with a stick. Doesn't even have to be a sharp stick. You should get at least 3. Now compare that to an Apache longbow with MLRS support.

All those weapons are useless if there is poor intel, organization, or training. In my completely unprofessional opinion intel is the most important (see Vietcong). Most armies seem to lose because they don't use their sticks right, not because they aren't big enough or don't have enough of them.

That is true to a point, but learning how to swing your stick (ok this is starting to sound odd) can only take you so far. If all your stick can do is swing while my sticks are made to be thrown and hurt you from afar, you have a problem.

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]CAS_117

After speaking to an officer at N SASK R, he had actually crossed out the "Tank hunting team" chapter and replaced it with the "getting picked up on Thermal imaging and getting blown away by a barrage of 125mm shells and coaxial weapons on tanks traveling 30 kph, 4km away team". There is a basic problem fighting a high tempo mechanized war as an infantryman. When you see one tank, there's probably at least a platoon of tanks right behind it. And if you move, shoot, or even breathe too fast, you get picked up on thermals and you and your buddies are dead.

I was referring to CAS for the infantry and what other alternatives to gunships we have available now that we didn't back in the cold war, but ya its gotta be tough taking on armor like that as an infantryman.

However, I wonder how the armor guys would feel if they were asked to go up against an enemy with the air power of the United States. There really isn't anything you can do other than win the air war or abandon traditional maneuver forces and go to a guerrilla war.

With our air-force's ability to penetrate enemy air space, detect enemy vehicles, and drop all sorts of nastiness (BLU-108/B anyone?) on them, how could you hope to survive in an armored vehicle when the US AF is trying to kill you? I would argue that armor in a war without control of the air is even more helpless than infantry are in that type of situation since its a lot harder for the armor to hide. If armor can pick up infantry that easy at 4km, how well do you think aircraft see armor?

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]CAS_117

CAS: Harder to organize, smaller logistical footprint.

Field Arty: Usually easier to organize since generally in same command structure. Larger logistical footprint.

Definitely. I wonder what the future holds for field arty though. The navy's Advanced Gun System project looked very interesting. If the army could get a mobile gun that fires precision guided shells 100+km things would get interesting. Even developing the gun for a destroyer will be challenging I'm sure, so I have no idea if there will ever be a mobile gun with that sort of capability. Between the future of precision artillery and completely new precision strike weapons like NLOS-LS, there may come a day when the army can provide most of the fire support it needs from ground-based weapons rather than calling in close air support; weapons without the organizational problems of calling in support from another branch of the military; weapons that are available on VERY short notice.

[Jaymz]

8km Hellfire engagement range < 10km engagement range of a modernised Tunguska.

Don't even get me started about the Pantsir-S1, 20km target tracking and engagement anyone? Pantsir-S1

Also note that the SA-9 "Gaskin" (MEC mobile AA post v0.85) can fire 9M31M missiles. These missiles have the exact same maximum engagement range that Hellfire missiles do.

[CastleBravo]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Jaymz

8km Hellfire engagement range < 10km engagement range of a modernised Tunguska.

Don't even get me started about the Pantsir-S1, 20km target tracking and engagement anyone? Pantsir-S1

Also note that the SA-9 "Gaskin" (MEC mobile AA post v0.85) can fire 9M31M missiles. These missiles have the exact same maximum engagement range that Hellfire missiles do.

The helicopter still has the advantage. If I can pop up from behind terrain, fire a weapon, and then hide again before your return fire can get to me, then you die and I fly away unharmed. Of course the helicopter is still very vulnerable to any threat it is unaware of when flying that low, so its preferred to strike with a fixed winged aircraft that can exploit its energy advantage over any ground-based defenses. Even more preferred would be a very-low observable aircraft that you never even see.

SAM-truck < heli < jet

[SuperTimo]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Jaymz

8km Hellfire engagement range < 10km engagement range of a modernised Tunguska.

Don't even get me started about the Pantsir-S1, 20km target tracking and engagement anyone? Pantsir-S1

Also note that the SA-9 "Gaskin" (MEC mobile AA post v0.85) can fire 9M31M missiles. These missiles have the exact same maximum engagement range that Hellfire missiles do.

Long range targeting radars for SAMs would most likley be destroyed by SEAD strikes before choppers go in, also apaches them selevs have been used for SEAD strikes, such as the begining of the 1991 gulf war.

[Alex6714]

I would say in modern warfare aircraft are almost equal to AA.

The thing is yeah, tunguska has some more range, and other SAMS much more, but by the time the attack heli goes in, that poor tunguska has most likely been raped by jets with GBUs, clusterbombs, MLRS or any other such strikes.

SEAD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If the situation was that bad, aircraft wouldn´t be used in these missions.


Edit:

If you read the book "Apache" by ed macy (weopons officer qualified in both seats), it has alot of interesting stuff in it.

The hidas defense system as mentioned will detect a sam launch, tell you the direction it is coming from, deploy the correct countermeasure, and start telling the pilot the correct moves to evade.

The technology is amazing and its advancing so fast, on the ground and in the air.

[eddie]

As others have said - SEAD. The UK can perform this in an 'inclusive' role, with weapons mounted onto jets such as Tornadoes. The U.S. did (might still do) have a dedicated SEAD aircraft in the form of the F-4G 'Wild Weasel' which used anti-radiation missiles. These days I think the U.S can mount AGM-88 HARMs onto F-15s and F-18s which will track a radar signal and then go to the target.

I think the UK's weapon has three modes. In the first mode it locks on to the target's emissions, flies to it, then bang. In the second mode the ALARM flies to a designated waypoint and releases a parachute, waiting for the radar to turn on. When it does the ALARM ejects the parachute and homes in on the radar. The third mode is area suppression where it again flies to a designated waypoint and homes in on the highest priority target.

My point? Jets have the capability to suppress and kill ground-based radars pretty easily these days. With most modern jets being multirole they are able to fight their way to or out of the target and drop ordnance. If the jet can't mount its own air-to-air weapons (I'm excluding two ASRAAMs) it can be escorted by those carrying ASRAAMs, AMRAAMs and BVRAAMs.

So, yes, radars are a problem for attack helicopters, but they're also relatively easy to suppress these days. If a radar's suppressed, chances are a jammer can be sent on station and another jet can come along to give the radar site 'the good news'.

ALARM OR - 58 miles
HARM OR - 80 Nautical Miles (in PB mode)

Two more brief points -

Loiter time

Ability to get into the fight in a matter of seconds. The British Apaches fly in wheels apparently, so an area on the ground is never obscured from view and always able to be engaged by a minimum of a 30mm cannon. I'm sure other nations do the same or similar patterns.

[Engineer]

It would not just be the "military" radars rolling in such situation, most likely every damn piece of radars the country has would be switched on.. Ships, coastal stations, airfields... every single one of them.

Good luck finding the real radar that is giving targeting data to other units.

What comes to countermeasures, why do AA-missiles still have a success ratio over 75% ++ if flares/chaff would be so effective?

Some of the AA-missiles doesn't only care about thermal, nor radar guidance. They also trust on optical guidance. The chances you could jam or fool these types of missiles are incredibly small.

Warfare between conventional armies is not child's play, there is always a weapon system that can make other weapon system useless... But this thread is too much "I like this" and "I like that", because luckily there is no such conflict where we could see who is right.

[Alex6714]

http://www.56thvfw.com/pages/redflag...Quickguide.pdf

Depends on the missile really. No doubt that aa will take down an aircraft relatively easily, but its the same the other way round.

It appears that the SA7 and SA9 gaskin are actually pretty "easy" to evade.

[Kruder]

I dont know what are people discussing here,if they werent needed or overrated,there wouldnt be any developments or future projects on attack choppers.

Question might be this,is 1,2,3 or N predators(UAV) armed with 8 hellfires each are more effective than an attackhelo?

Gunships are 1st class CAS weapons against guerilla warfare,since the asymetrical warfare is thought to be the warfare of century,you'll need some kind of really close support aircraft.A jet cant be that accurate and more importantly it cant go on a seek and destroy type mission on infantry level...