1st Indian Built Apache very soon

[Homer]

2 hours ago, mpow66m said:

here ya go,also my ACUs I wore were made in China.

 

https://www.bing.com/search?q=f35%20parts%20china&pc=cosp&ptag=C96ABB11A3B5D3&form=CONBDF&conlogo=CT3210 

 

Thanks.

$2 magnets are not "major components". 

[Homer]

Are you seriously suggesting the USAF can take over the air calvary role with drones and the A-10 or are talking about something else again?

[JustSomeGuy]

12Alpha: I think you're counting apples and oranges.

There are two basic scenarios concerning scout helicopters, and their usage would be vastly different.

 

Scenario 1: COIN. That's Afghanistan you're talking about, and you're correct about that in all including the drones. After all, most of the US military development efforts and resources has been focused and tailored almost exclusively on COIN ever since 9/11.

 

Scenario 2: conflict with technologically symmetrical adversary.

This is where your assumptions die. Drones? Well, there aren't many fully autonomous, are there, and even in hybrid conflict such as Ukraine/Donbas, there were active EW units. Jamming the drone's comms and GPS is pretty much the most fundamental task of these guys. Heck, even the Iranians could do it.

 

Add air defense. I donť know any drone which is at least X-band stealth and/or capable of autonomously (see above) utilizing terrain doing NOE. Do you?

 

And first and foremost, add velocity. When you're fighting COIN, you're fighting grunts on feet or slowly moving 4x4s. Grunts in MRAPs could keep pace with that and thus are sufficient for recon, as you suggest. However, when you're fighting highly mobile adversary with airborne and mechanized forces, you need some unit which could quickly fly between suspected points on the map and tell the HQ what is or isn't there. And no grunt could do that before the hypothetical AFVs or helicopters leave the spot, flanking you and doing Russian's favourite "cauldron" (as in recent Ilovaisk and Debaltseve massacres.)

 

How are scout helicopters better than drones and grunts? Well, they're faster than grunts and carrying better sensors. Infantry usually doesn't have SADA-III nitro-cooled thermals. Neither do they have millimeter-wavelength radars. Add speed, and you have a good recce platform.

 

Now the air defense thing. I the 70's and 80's, whole western paradigm of air-to-ground on tactical scale (CAS and recce) was built around intervisibility and it's implications. Long story short, analysis of terrain in expected theater of war told the staffers how long would low-flying air assets be exposed to the enemy before the next terrain feature would get in between the LOS between the NATO air asset and WP AD asset. Up to the 80's, the AD systems were simply to slow to manage to acquire, track, shoot and hit low-flying NATO aircraft before they re-masked behind the next hill. That's what A-10s, F-111s and Tornados relied on.

 

As the AD got better and faster, the US focused attention on how to shoot the AD from behind cover. Hence, OH-58D and the rotor-mounted mast with stabilized optics on top. Using intervisibility, NOE and carefull planning, the OH-58D would get near the Reds and only stick it's optics above the horizon. The Kiowa would be un-exposed to the enemy AD, thus invulnerable. And the Apaches would then shoot the Reds using salvo of LOAL-mode Hellfires.

 

And then, the Commanche was supposed to replace the Kiowa's rotor-mounted-sensor-mast with stealth.

 

That is something no drone could replicate (because no drone could do the route-planning improvisation autonomously such well as the Kiowa crews did).

 

But since the Defense Secretaries decided the USA would apparently never, ever, face anyone technologically on-par, added few drops of wishful thinking and devotion to cool hi-tech "smart" computer thingies from Silicon Walley and just focused on COIN, this capability would be lost together with Kiowa. Unless the datalink between the AH-64E and it's MD500 is un-jammable.

 

Don't get me wrong, the Apache Guardian is awesome beast, especially with GFAS. But it's simply not a scout helicopter, for it is way too exposed and has to come to the enemy's LOS and therefore, enemy fire. Unless the rotor-mast-mounted-optics from Kiowas get mounted to the non-Longbow Apaches

 

[12Alfa]

For the price of just 1 AH-64 one could buy enough drones (off the shelf type) to overwhelm any air-defense, and yes even the US. So you buy 1 AH-64 and lose it, or you by 100's if not thousands of drones to gather intel and have maybe if your having a bad day 50 shot down. Guess math is not my best quality.

And I'm in favor of keeping the OH-58's

[12Alfa]

19 hours ago, Homer said:

 

Thanks.

$2 magnets are not "major components". 

try running the radar with out them, and see (no pun here) how well you can see. lol

[12Alfa]

17 hours ago, Homer said:

Are you seriously suggesting the USAF can take over the air calvary role with drones and the A-10 or are talking about something else again?

The USAF wants to can the A-10, I would not think they would be best in promoting anything about the AC. And They have no back ground in the calvary as we know it, so having them take over a role they don't posess is a bit of a strech don't ya think?

 

I do think that the A-10, and with drones could do the job of the AH-64 in all weather though.

[mpow66m]

19 hours ago, Homer said:

 

Thanks.

$2 magnets are not "major components". 

The fact that the Chinese ar making ANYTHING for our Mil. should alarm people.

[Homer]

5 hours ago, 12Alfa said:

try running the radar with out them, and see (no pun here) how well you can see. lol

 

You mean it wouldn't work just like it wouldn't work if you removed any one of the hundreds of other parts that make up a radar?  lol

 

5 hours ago, 12Alfa said:

I do think that the A-10, and with drones could do the job of the AH-64 in all weather though.

 

The USAF...would not...be best in promoting anything about the AC. And They have no back ground in the calvary as we know it, so having them take over a role they don't posess is a bit of a strech don't ya think?

[Homer]

5 hours ago, mpow66m said:

The fact that the Chinese ar making ANYTHING for our Mil. should alarm people.

 

I was more interested in the part and expected a little more than $2 magnets.  I will try to be more alarmed in the future.

 

Anyway, thanks for the cheap entertainment guys.  I will upload a field manual for helo operations as soon as I can find my external hd.

[mpow66m]

The only entertainment is you,lol.