Thread 64097124

with the massive amount of american SOF troops that have died over the past 35 years almost entirely because of helicopter-related reasons, you'd think that they'd come up with better tactics and operating procedures when using helicopters by now

>gothic serpent
>red wings
>robert's ridge
>extortion 17
etc

bump

>>64097124 (OP)
there is something fucky about the US armed forces obsession with VTOL shit even if kills hundreds and costs many, many billions
there must have be a VTOL conspiracy running shit

Fair, fair.. but have you considered how fucking cool helicopters are?

>>64097124 (OP)
>>64097144
The helicopter crashes are to cover up the dead SOF killed fighting the mutants in the tunnels under manhattan

>>64097124 (OP)
Only reason the US military got into helicopters in Vietnam was cause the first lady at the time owned shares in the company that produced them
They'rea meme.

>>64098838
>here must have be a VTOL conspiracy running shit

A helicopter-plane like the Ospray can fly further than a traditional whirlybird. That's it.

Very useful in Afghanistan what with the mountains.

So again blame gwot for the fixation on the Ospray

>>64099006
It would be interesting to see what percentage of SOF casualties in GWOT were due to helicopters

>>64099166
I'd wager a sizeable percentage of SOF casualties are the result of helicopter crashes. It's the "massive amount" statement I take issue with. When was the last time the US had a "massive amount" of casualties in general, nevermind SOF casualties in particular? Vietnam? Even if you accept the statement that SOF suffers a disproportionately higher casualty rate than other units, the overall amount is somewhere between fuck and all in the scheme of things over a time frame of decades.

>>64098849
Are they also aquatic reptiles of the teenage variety?

>>64099205
That seems like it's largely a function of us not being in a Vietnam/Korea scale war. I don't really agree with OP either though because presumably in anything close to a near peer conflict we wouldn't be using helicopters the way we used them for middle east counterinsurgency

>>64097124 (OP)
and
>>64097144

The US never took "massive" casualties since the Viet Nam war. Most years driving to work took out more troops than combat.

>>64098883
Helos predate the Southeast Asian War games and were used elsewhere before the US entered our greatest strategic mistake because LBJ was a rustic retard.

I was alive for most of the Viet Nam war and historically observant though too young to enlist and joined in '81 (USAF because Army quality of life in the late Hollow Force era was much worse than anything since to present day).

>>64099233
You are demonstrably correct. All rotary wing birds are delicate soft targets like anything light enough to fly. Thousands of helos were destroyed in Southeast Asia because the enemy learned that fact early on.

>>64097124 (OP)
>massive
Not really, it's spread out over several decades after all. Also helicopters in every country are deathtraps, and the Blackhawk is actually on the good end of utility helicopters.
Also supposedly they use helicopter crashes to cover up clandestine, illegal, or failed operations though it's not like I can prove that.
>>64098838
That's because VTOL, whether fixed-wing or rotary, does things that CTOL is either inconvenient for or just completely incapable of so it's just worth the risk. Any military with as much focus on expeditionary capability as the US would be obsessed with VTOL
>>64098972
IIRC the Osprey actually has a lower accident rate than the MH/CH-53 and a lower fatality rate in crashes.

>>64097124 (OP)
the thing i dont get is how some of these guys like tim kennedy went on a decade long lying spree about them basically being rambo irl and shit when they didnt even need too. riddle me that nigger

>>64100185
lying is easy for sociopaths and sof selects for sociopaths