[HN Gopher] Is the attack helicopter dead?
___________________________________________________________________
Is the attack helicopter dead?
Author : speckx
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-10-07 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hushkit.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (hushkit.net)
| bhouston wrote:
| I think most manned war vehicles are dead now.
|
| We are definitely entering into the era of drone-vs-human
| warfare.
|
| Drones are cheap and deadly and can be remotely operated, and
| soon probably operated by AI.
| hollerith wrote:
| Yeah, well, the Ukrainian army is on record saying they'd
| rather have more artillery shells than more drones.
| rdtsc wrote:
| They work well together, so give them both.
| recursive wrote:
| Artillery shells are not manned vehicles.
| bitwize wrote:
| But their delivery mechanism may well be.
| recursive wrote:
| > may well be
|
| Another way of saying this is "may well not be".
| hollerith wrote:
| I was responding to, "entering into the era of drone-vs-
| human warfare," not defending manned vehicles.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That's another instance of quantity beating quality. It's the
| same type of thing.
| ponector wrote:
| That means only they need more shells at the moment than
| drones. Ukraine has capacity to produce enough FPV drones.
| Animats wrote:
| Both work together. The drone finds the target. The artillery
| then destroys the target.
| taneq wrote:
| I'd guess they can reuse the drones most of the time?
| ponector wrote:
| Only reconnaissance drones and few heavy bombers. Mostly
| they use kamikadze FPV drones in pair with Mavic for
| surveillance.
| empiko wrote:
| I am not surprised, drone warfare today requires a lot of
| people and a lot of manhours, and it does not scale that
| well. Several guys are often moving the equipment on foot to
| get as close to the frontline as possible, so that the pilot
| can have a few shots at delivering a pretty small explosives
| to a target they might not even found. On the other hand, few
| conscripts can jump on a Grad and start shooting rockets on a
| whim.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Fighter jets, gone ?
| krunck wrote:
| They will be when there are AI controlled aircraft/drones
| that can exceed the G-force limits that humans require and
| can thus out maneuver any human controlled fighter.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Can it out maneuver a missile?
| foota wrote:
| This doesn't seem right to me. The limiting factor here is
| the ability of an air to air missile to hit a target (and
| to find the target in the first place). A drone might be
| more survivable (if it's better at avoiding missiles
| because of the G-forces etc.,.), but it shouldn't be any
| better at destroying an enemy jet, right?
|
| That theoretical highly maneuverable drone with a highly
| advanced sensor suite isn't going to be cheap either. At
| which point, what's the advantage? You wouldn't be bound by
| the number of pilots, but if the drones are too expensive
| it doesn't matter.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > what's the advantage? You wouldn't be bound by the
| number of pilots
|
| You gave part of the answer right there. Not only would
| you not be limited by the number of - hard to replace and
| time-consuming and expensive to train - pilots but you
| don't run the risk of losing them either.
|
| > but if the drones are too expensive it doesn't matter.
|
| The large expense for fighter aircraft tends not to lie
| in the actual production costs but in the development
| costs which are spread over a limited production run.
| Build more drones and they get less expensive per item.
| Build enough of them to overwhelm the enemy and you win
| drone superiority.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Fifth generation fighter jets aren't built for dog-
| fighting. They are stealthy, mesh-networked missile and
| bomb platforms.
|
| Modern fourth generation fighters would be more than
| sufficient up close. Except that fifth generation fighters
| hunt in packs and none of them need to be pointed at their
| target to hit them.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Replaced by MECHS. :)
| bhouston wrote:
| It is coming regardless:
|
| https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-
| stag...
|
| https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/ai-fighter-
| pilot#:~:text....
| jltsiren wrote:
| Humans have a place in high-end weapon systems until there is a
| locally running AGI in the system. An actual near-peer war
| never works the way people expected, and fancy new weapon
| systems tend to underperform initially. In the absence of an
| AGI, humans can adapt their behavior in the field faster than
| tech companies can fix their software and deliver new features.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I've seen people training yolo models on ukraine footage.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| I highly doubt that such a general presumption holds.
|
| As seen in the case of Russia's super drone being downed by
| their own this week after presumably loosing control, only
| relying on unmanned vehicles en mass leads to a single point of
| failure.
|
| Disrupt or corrupt signals, disrupt the entire force.
|
| The US is the force it is because it can do combined arms like
| nobody else.
|
| Unique capabilities don't matter if your opponent saturates
| them with low tech or combined arms.
|
| Look at last weeks Iran ICBM barrage vs. iron dome and David's
| sling.
|
| Sure, unmanned vehicles bring unique capabilities to any field
| of battle, but combined arms is as much the future as it was
| the past.
| bhouston wrote:
| > Look at last weeks Iran ICBM barrage vs. iron dome and
| David's sling.
|
| I believe the issue was not overwhelming the defences but
| rather the defences (Iron Dome and David's sling) were
| designed for short range and slow rockets from Lebanon or
| Gaza and not long range fast/high rockets from Iran.
|
| It may be that the cost per Arrow missile (for long range
| intercepts) is $3M as well, so they didn't fire that many of
| them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_(missile_family)
| daedrdev wrote:
| Iron dome is only used against small rockets, and was never
| intended to hit ballistic or cruise missiles. Thus it's not
| a failure since they aren't used for that kind of defense.
| There are separate anti ballistic systems that were used
| and shot down many of the rockets.
| bhouston wrote:
| Why are you repeating what I said? I am just confused as
| to why you are "correcting" me in a reply when you are
| saying the same thing.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Interception comes with risks - the debris from that
| missile has to land somewhere. The only person confirmed to
| have been killed in the recent Iranian attack was a man in
| the West Bank who was crushed by part of a destroyed
| missile. It's clear that at least some of the missiles that
| got through were deliberately ignored because they were on
| target to hit open ground.
| bhouston wrote:
| The best analysis I've seen is this Washington Post
| analysis that said that +24 Iranian missiles hit Israeli
| military/intelligence targets or were close misses:
|
| https://x.com/catebrown12/status/1842167731547721788
|
| If there was 180 missiles were fired and 24 got through
| to targets, that is a penetration rate of 13%.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Shouldn't it be more drone-vs-drone?
| bhouston wrote:
| > Shouldn't it be more drone-vs-drone?
|
| For the sake of humanity, I wish that was the case, but it
| won't be. Defensive drones will exist for sure, but generally
| the targets will be human or infrastructure, not other
| drones.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| You want to destroy the more valuable thing (human) with
| the less valuable thing (drone). It could get worse than
| World War 1.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I think most manned war vehicles are dead now.
|
| IMO, submarines - especially nuclear subs probably have decades
| of life left at a minimum.
|
| But yeah - everything else is starting to look very vulnerable.
| decafninja wrote:
| What's to stop development of unmanned drone SSNs? Including
| ones that act as motherships for underwater drone swarms to
| boot.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| [delayed]
| ponector wrote:
| IFV are not dead, rocket launchers as well. Even tanks are
| still a key. At the end people are capturing land/city, not
| drones.
|
| But drones are changing warfare. Drone hunting other drones,
| drone with self guidance - they are being used in battle right
| now.
|
| 500$ or even less is the cost of FPV drone with night camera
| capable to carry 2kg bomb. Russia is buying soldiers for up to
| $25000 to be killed by such cheap drone later.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| Those drones are getting lost / shot down / missing their
| targets at high rate. But since they are relatively cheap,
| they almost effectively artillery shells right now. Don't
| need a high kill rate when you have lots of them.
| ponector wrote:
| That is true, not every drone hits the target. But the same
| with any other weapon. How many 155 shells are needed to
| actually hit the target? A moving target?
|
| And one regular 155mm shell is 5x more expensive than FPV
| drone.
| verdverm wrote:
| Better discussion by Perun
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnoKpXvj41A
|
| (there is a saying or word for titles as questions, and the
| answer is always no)
| shawn_w wrote:
| Betteridge's law of headlines.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline.
| ..
| googledocsftw wrote:
| "Are Betteridge headlines dead?"
| verdverm wrote:
| "Is this the one weird trick to rule them all?"
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Perun seems to know his stuff. That said, I'd be curious to
| know more about his research process, as well as that of other
| Russia-Ukraine war mappers/vloggers. Determining whether grainy
| drone footage is current or past alone seems difficult to me as
| an outsider and fan of their work, though I wish it weren't
| necessary and that the war were over.
| verdverm wrote:
| Perun brings lots of citations and discusses his sources
| regularly, and always adds caveats. I wouldn't liken his
| weekly video to those of the daily mappers or telegram video
| collectors. Very different kinds of content.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I wasn't meaning to compare them negatively and I don't
| really follow other channels on that topic besides maybe
| Task & Purpose I think it's called. Not dismissing anything
| Perun or others have done, just acknowledging that it's
| hard to reason about how he goes about gathering the info.
| I hear him saying he does research, but not the process.
| empiko wrote:
| Tbh Perun often just takes a report released by RUSI, ISW, or
| other war think tank and does some narration over it. On top
| of that, he often extrapolates from very small or noisy data.
| the_af wrote:
| That video by Perun is 2 years old, while TFA is from today.
| Surely there have been additional lessons learned in two years?
| verdverm wrote:
| Not really, the conclusions are basically the same between
| both
|
| 1. There are no wonder weapons, nor are weapons obsoleted so
| easily. You cannot look at one in isolation of the larger
| context. The incidents in one war do not inform the use in
| all wars or operations.
|
| 2. Militaries view these types of things as part of a larger
| system, the parts of which are combined to create a desired
| effect. It is situational and Russia C&C is not the same as
| other countries C&C.
|
| 3. War has pro/con evolutions, as the drones progress, so
| does the anti-drone tech. These same helicopters were
| allegedly instrumental in preventing Ukraine's counter
| offensive in Zaporizhzhia, with their standoff anti-tank
| missiles, popping up above the trees, outside the range of
| manpads
| the_af wrote:
| "Not really" means the war and its tactics haven't changed
| _at all_ in two years? I find that very hard to believe.
|
| I agree with your three points, but they are very high
| level, a bit like quoting Sun Tzu. The question is whether
| the attack heli is becoming rapidly obsolete (or at least,
| relegated to less relevant roles), and I think it _might_.
| Other weapon systems have, after all.
| kergonath wrote:
| > "Not really" means the war and its tactics haven't
| changed at all in two years? I find that very hard to
| believe.
|
| In this specific respect, not really. Neither Ukraine or
| Russia really gained air superiority and MANPADS are
| common. In that context, attack helicopters are not a
| great weapon. It does not mean that it would be the case
| in all future wars. Some countries are more capable than
| Russia. Sure, better anti-drone weapons would help, but
| it's a bit early to call helicopters obsolete. Pretty
| much in the same way as it was premature to call the main
| battle tank dead as a concept last year.
| the_af wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been clearer: I meant the attack
| helicopter in a war between near peers. Obviously it is
| different when the enemy is technologically far behind.
| verdverm wrote:
| > I think it might
|
| Why do you think the days of the heli _might_ be over?
|
| I think if you ask the military of US, Israel, Russia,
| and China, you will find them saying the attack heli has
| unique and useful capabilities not available on other
| platforms.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the only capability they provide the US is that the army
| is allowed to buy them.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Part of a broader pattern in military technology right now.
|
| All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an
| expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones
| right now.
|
| If you're fighting a highly asymmetric conflict where your
| enemies can barely touch your expensive toys then it's less of a
| concern.
|
| If you're fighting near-peer it's a different story.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Efficiency starts to matter in a near-peer conflict.
| Retric wrote:
| Near-peer conflicts have more meaningful targets which favors
| these kinds of expensive weapons platforms.
|
| A drone that can do meaningful damage to a factory 500+ miles
| from a front line is either an easy target or it starts to
| look a lot like a missile with all the associated costs from
| that.
| torginus wrote:
| I think it's more complex than that. The US made
| Switchblade drones which cost tens of thousands of dollars
| were outperformed with lightly modified FPVs with grenades,
| which came in under a thousand.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| We don't know if they underperfomed so much as weren't
| cost effective. If the switchblade costing $10k results
| in a kill 80% of the time, while the $1k drone is 30% of
| the time, you just get 3 times as many $1k drones,
| average about the same kill rate, and save 70% to boot.
| Or spend the same amount and get about 3x the kill rate.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| Your analysis assumes collateral damage is irrelevant.
| immibis wrote:
| It is, or it's an advantage.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Collateral damage is much less relevant in symmetric
| conflicts. Nobody is using either a Switchblade or an FPV
| in the middle of civilian areas in Ukraine right now.
| phs318u wrote:
| It's not that collateral damage is irrelevant. It's that
| the calculation as to whether collateral damage is "worth
| it" in the context of the specific goal/target is usually
| relative and calculated unemotionally. Some may say
| inhumanly.
| rolandog wrote:
| Another thing commonly left out of these napkin math
| scenarios is cyber security risk... it may make sense to
| cut down on human resources, but you better make sure
| your drone fleet won't be commandeered by an adversarial
| nation-state's script kiddies. Cheaper to make, but
| perhaps also cheaper to have them turn on you.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It is not just production cost, the average latency
| between target detection and target destruction has a
| _large_ impact on battlefield dynamics. More precise
| weapons can destroy most of the capability of less
| precise weapons before they are ever used. Additionally,
| precision weapons typically have a much smaller
| logistical footprint, and logistics can make or break
| military campaigns.
|
| Much of the US focus on precision terminal guidance is
| derived from this calculus in a straightforward way. It
| may be more expensive in a unit cost sense but
| significantly cheaper in terms of net expected effect on
| the battlefield. This "precision versus quantity"
| argument played out to greatly favor precision in
| Ukraine.
| titanomachy wrote:
| > near-peer
|
| I prefer the Culture term "equiv-tech"
| pavlov wrote:
| There's something icky about discussing killing real people
| like it was fan fiction of a sci-fi franchise.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I guess you don't want to read anything by actual
| military people, then. Dehumanizing the enemy is a
| requirement for those folks.
| kergonath wrote:
| It is also something that must be resisted, because
| that's how you get war crimes and genocides.
| simonh wrote:
| That's not the case. It happens, for sure. I know some
| hair raising army jokes, but plenty of military people
| recognise their opponents as people just the same.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| Its not just tech but capability. You can give some random
| country F35s, that doesn't mean they are useful.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I live in the US. A near-peer conflict involves a nuclear
| exchange. The world will change in ways forever that none of
| us can ever foresee at that point.
| gertlex wrote:
| Not sure that counts, as we're not using nuclear weapons in
| practice for current conflicts/engagements.
|
| We have the whole other range of combat capabilities, and
| the distribution of those capabilities in our arsenal/armed
| forces seems guaranteed to change.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Then it is just another proxy war, like the last half of
| the 20th century between major powers.
| krisoft wrote:
| > The world will change in ways forever that none of us can
| ever foresee at that point.
|
| Nukes are not magic. Of course we can foresee many of the
| changes a nuclear exchange would bring. Especially on the
| "planning for war" level.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Part of a broader pattern in military technology right now.
|
| It's not a new discussion, this comes up every decade or so
| when some new technology takes expensive kit out but just as
| with the tank nothing is going anywhere.
|
| Paraphrasing I can't remember who, "if you're getting out of
| the tank, what are you getting into?" Helicopters, tanks,
| mechanized and combined arms warfare and metal are still pretty
| much the only way you take territory, there's no alternative,
| even if drones start taking helicopters or expensive vehicles
| out it's the only thing that is mobile and packs a punch and
| protects your infantry.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the biggest tick against helicopters is that they are much
| more expensive, and poorly armored than a tank, and their
| speed advantage for delivery matters a lot for special ops
| type jobs, but is pretty irrelevant for army type jobs.
| empiko wrote:
| Attack helis were never that important compared to tanks of
| mechanized infantry. On top of that, it really seems that a
| significant part of their role can be fulfilled by drones.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and
| an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against
| drones right now.
|
| Manned systems still have advantages though: no matter how much
| EW there is, you still have a man in the loop.
|
| But I expect the role of the human to be less and less
| mechanical, and more and more about bearing the responsibility.
| As such I expect manned systems to evolve into more like on
| mini command post supported by a squad of automated weapons.
| (Ideally you'd want the manned version to look exactly the same
| as the automated ones to prevent enemies from targeting it,
| like the IDF did with its fake tanks[1] a while ago).
|
| [1]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-disguises-missile-
| launc...
| Teever wrote:
| When we'll reach this inflection point with jet fighters?
|
| I remain skeptical that the F-35 will prove to be a prudent
| expenditure of resources both financial and in terms of R&D.
| OliveMate wrote:
| >All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an
| expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones
| right now.
|
| Worth mentioning that this already happened to an attack
| helicopter 20 years ago! The Comanche[0] was a revolutionary
| recon/attack helicopter with some mental stealth engineering
| behind it - everything from limiting sound profile via blade
| design & fenestron, a radar presence a fraction of an Apache,
| they even directed the exhaust down the tail boom so that the
| heat generated could easily be dissipated by the tail rotor!
|
| Unfortunately for helicopter nerds, UAVs were a fraction of the
| price, suitable for recon and attack, and pilots could survive
| it being shot down.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing%E2%80%93Sikorsky_RAH-66...
| paulddraper wrote:
| I'm surprise the article didn't mention the US military history.
|
| The US Army has not had a evolution of its attack helicopter
| since the 1970s.
|
| I remember because one of my favorite childhood games was
| Comanche 3. [1] Control a helicopter, not crash, not get shot
| down, neutralize enemies, and achieve mission objectives -- it
| was cutting-edge for 1997.
|
| The Comanche program was scrapped after more than a decade of
| development. And the Defiant program was just cancelled last year
| as well.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_3
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| Between that, F-22, JSF, Hind and A10, we had some great great
| games that decade. Still miss Fighter Ace on MSN Gaming Zone.
| verdverm wrote:
| VTOL VR is a pretty great VR first mil flight sim. It has
| f-18, f-35, and apache like vehicles. They recently
| introduced wind effects and EW. Allegedly the radar cross-
| sectioning is better than DCIS (actually accounts for
| orientation towards the radar)
| the_af wrote:
| If you haven't already, be sure to checkout MicroProse's [1]
| "modern" retro flightsim, Tiny Combat Arena.
|
| Sure, it's beta and continuously in development (and likely
| won't be finished, ever), but still, you can take off in a
| Harrier and blow up stuff. The graphics are charmingly retro.
|
| --
|
| [1] published by MicroProse, but actually a one-man effort.
| howard941 wrote:
| Tornado was another terrific sim. It had the best mission
| planner and immersion even though its simulation of the ALARM
| was busted. Digital Integrations? Don't remember if that was
| the publisher.
| russdill wrote:
| I remember quite clearly when it was scrapped, because suddenly
| it was much easier to find a parking spot.
| wiseowise wrote:
| What about this classic?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Strike
| decafninja wrote:
| My understanding is that the latest versions of the Apache and
| Cobra are very different from their original incarnations,
| despite looking similar, no?
| _3u10 wrote:
| Avionics for sure, but there's not really anything like a
| "5th gen" helicopter. Helicopters are mostly close air
| support. No one is going to send fleets of helicopters to
| engage in air to air combat with other fleets of helicopters.
| mh- wrote:
| Wow, that stirred up some nostalgia. I loved this game. All the
| Jane's ones too.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Whoever can most cost effectively put explosives on target wins.
|
| The future will be annihilation at a distance with cheap standoff
| weapons followed by swarms of cheap drones loitering over
| battlefields to clean up.
| paulddraper wrote:
| We've had ICBMs for some time.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Don't those cost 10s of millions each?
| paulddraper wrote:
| Look up what a drone costs.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| ICBMs are not useful in a conventional conflict.
|
| BTW Russia and the US at least, saw this coming decades ago.
| Which was the reason behind the intermediate range missile
| treaty, which was sadly ripped up in the early 2000s.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| Yeah. The archetypal "second amendment" weapon... the kind any
| regular American would need to hold his own was a musket, then
| a rifle, then lever or auto loader, then an M16. Now it's a
| drone. A man or crew out in the country with AR15s are Don
| Quixote tilting at windmills with the advent of cheap drones.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Standoff weapons stop being cheap when countermeasures come
| into effect.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Drones for reconnaissance and kill verification too, in
| combination with regular artillery.
|
| Archer has a 40km range (SF to San Jose) and can fire off three
| rounds in 20 seconds before hitting the road at 40mph. "Sniper"
| artillery apparently:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_artillery_system
| p1necone wrote:
| The logical endgame of this is war between a bunch of drones
| with very few humans in the loop, with the only viable way for
| either side to end it being to attack civilian targets until
| the opponent surrenders.
| Dwedit wrote:
| I've been so overexposed to the meme about criticizing gender
| identity that I've forgotten that attack helicopters are actual
| military vehicles.
| bubaumba wrote:
| They shouldn't die, just become robotic with optional remote
| control. Comparing to copters helis have significant advantages
| and disadvantages too. I.e. different enough to have different
| roles
| Animats wrote:
| The US Army is cutting back in this area. The Future Attack
| Reconnaissance Aircraft, which was a small attack helicopter, has
| been cancelled.[1] If it flies low and slow over the enemy, it's
| going to be shot down. Better to send many drones and lose some
| of them.
|
| The concept of tactical air superiority is now questionable. The
| USAF used to boast that American troops have not had to fight
| under a hostile sky since 1952. That era seems to be over. There
| are so many portable systems now that can take out an aircraft.
|
| Jam-resistant drones are already a thing. Drones are going to
| have to be shot down one at a time. This is quite possible but
| the missiles to do it can cost more than the drones.
|
| [1] https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/02/08/us-army-spent-
| bil...
| paganel wrote:
| A BS article if I ever saw one. Take for example this:
|
| > Moreover, the threat is not the organic air defences of
| battlegroups or a Soviet Motor-Rifle Regiment or Brigade, but
| dispersed and well-hidden infantry and special forces units
| equipped with modern MANPADS missile systems. Furthermore,
| because the enemy forces are operating over the defenders' own
| ground, the defence can be cued and alerted to approaching
| helicopters, given good data connectivity.
|
| which is exactly what did NOT happen when the Ukrainians counter-
| attacked on their own territory, in Southern-Ukraine, when the
| Russian Ka-52s had a field day (actual, several field days)
| against incoming Ukrainian heavy armour. These Anglo guys still
| live in the 1980s, they should ask the Ukrainians what they feel
| about the "demise" of the attack helicopter, that way maybe non-
| sense like this won't get published anymore.
| phatfish wrote:
| Battle vs war. In the right situation any weapon is effective.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is the kind of thing I'm interested in discussing but then
| stop myself because I'd rather not give anybody any ideas.
| the_gorilla wrote:
| I don't know anything about warfare but it's impressive that
| everyone here is an expert in it. AI, drones, AI powered drones,
| I just can't keep up.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| All you have to do is Google + GPT and you can be an expert
| too!
| H8crilA wrote:
| MANPADS have generally not changed since the Afghanistan war. And
| here I mean the Soviet-Afghanistan war, not the twice as long but
| more or less equally ineffective American-Afghanistan war. If the
| attack helicopter is dead, then it has already been dead for ~40
| years.
| twilo wrote:
| What does "full scale invasion" mean exactly?
| tryauuum wrote:
| it's an acknowledgment of previous (pre-2022) invasions of
| Ukraine territory
| morkalork wrote:
| Russia's Ka-52 were a significant problem for Ukraine in the
| summer 2023. When Ukraine's armour would meet massive mine fields
| and get stymied, it was Ka-52s arriving, popping up over tree
| lines and taking pot shots at them with ATGMs from a distance
| that outranged most of their MANPADs. Only a few were taken out
| by lucky hits near the front. The only reason they aren't seen as
| much anymore is because Russia was idiotic and kept them parked
| at an airfield within ATACMS range.
| jonstewart wrote:
| Came here to say this. Ukraine also adapted by, most likely,
| having a roving Patriot that ambushed a few Ka-52s (and a few
| fixed-wing jets).
|
| Western militaries don't seem to have much capability for
| tactical/mobile medium range air defense. The Russian Air Force
| has been extremely unimpressive, but has cobbled together an
| effective tactic now of launching glide bombs at front line
| targets from relatively safe territory. I am surprised no one
| has figured out how to put one or two long-range air-air
| missiles on a loitering high altitude drone.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Helicopters like all CAS require air superiority / supremacy to
| operate effectively. Neither side has either, so it is not an
| ideal environment for a helicopter to operate in.
| nl wrote:
| People in this discussion are concentrating on the drones (which
| are a big factor) but the massively effective HIMARS and ATACMS
| is worth noting too.
|
| Precision guided artillery has been a game-changer in Ukraine.
| aftbit wrote:
| Ask not what you can do to the attack helicopter, but instead
| what the attack helicopter can do to you. Increase vulnerability
| is only one side of the coin. If there are still valuable
| missions that can be better done by an attack helicopter than by
| a competing system, then they are not dead.
|
| But yeah, drones will probably take most of the missions away.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-07 23:00 UTC)