Thread 64368132

>expensive
>complex
>huge logistical requirements
>requires a secure base
>requires ground forces to guard them
>requires an army of highly-trained specialists to keep them in the air
>low availability rate
>doesn't like adverse weather, dust, sand
>can't be deployed in terrain deemed too dangerous
>can't survive in contested airspace
>barefoot savages with Soviet-era AA guns can bring them down
>doesn't do anything swarms of cheap drones can't do for 10% the cost

So what's the point of these things now? Yeah, I know, it is possible to imagine a scenario in which they are useful - such as Saddam Hussein obligingly lining up his tanks in a flat, empty desert to be used as target practise. But that dream scenario will not happen again. What is their use case now?

>>64368132 (OP)
Because we're afraid if we don't waste our money on tons of bullshit we'll be surpassed by our enemies or some gay shit

Who said they were still a viable platform? They're going the way tanks went with the Marines.

>drones
You are brown

>>64368132 (OP)
>complains about bad weather
>shills drones
Pick one faggot.

are russians out of helicopters too? lol

>>64368132 (OP)
Well the US has cancelled anything resembling a new attack helicopter program. Old Apaches and Blackhawks might get ITEP and a couple other upgrades but it looks like that’s about it. Seems like the role is going to be taken over by transport helicopters and tilt rotors launching drones out the back or side from stand off ranges as far as I’m able to tell at least.

>>64368150
Browns on /k/ start pack
>Drones > everything else
>The S-400 is the greatest SAM system ever made and can defend against any airborne threat
>The US can't build anymore ships
>Hypersonic Missiles are the greatest battle implement ever devised
>Aircraft carriers are useless because muh hypersonic missiles
>China make the best combat aircraft in the world because they were battle proven in the latest 3rd world dick measuring contest
>The M16 is le bad because of it's problems in Vietnam
>Western equipment has kill switches

>>64368132 (OP)
didn't that last russian push happen during mildly inclement weather when muh drones couldn't fly?

>>64368204
Don't forget
>Muhh parade!

>>64368132 (OP)
>>expensive
What aircraft isn't?
>>complex
What aircraft isn't?
>>huge logistical requirements
What aircraft doesn't have huge logistical requirements?
>>requires a secure base
This is also not exclusive to the Apache
>>requires ground forces to guard them
As does literally anything worth guarding
>>requires an army of highly-trained specialists to keep them in the air
As does every military aircraft
>>low availability rate
??? Maybe for the third world
>>doesn't like adverse weather, dust, sand
Not an issue
>>can't be deployed in terrain deemed too dangerous
Not an issue
>>can't survive in contested airspace
Its an attack helicopter - no shit, have escorts, gain aerial superiority or accept the risk
>>barefoot savages with Soviet-era AA guns can bring them down
If they're in range (big if)
>>doesn't do anything swarms of cheap drones can't do for 10% the cost
post hands

Dronefags need to get the rope.

>>64368132 (OP)
>first two of 29 new Apache helicopters arrives in Australia
The point of these things might be over your head

>>64368572
The problem with a helicopter is not that it is expensive, it is that pic related is cheap and does most of its job just fine.

>>64368132 (OP)
>designed to kill MBTs in a Fulda Gap senario
>expected to kill ~12 MBTs before being lost
>upgraded over the years to the point they can independently target 16 ATGMs at once
>can land 30mm hits from several km

They will be replaced with big drones but filled their role well for decades, just because you expect and take loses doesn't make a system bad.

>>64368636
>Shoot things from the air
Get shot by AA missiles
>Lob missiles from the air
Do the same much cheaper from ground
>Be quick at important point
Buy several cheap ground missile carriers and be at the important point all along
>Fly into enemy territory and lob missiles from there
Get shot by AA missiles while flying past the front line

>>64368636
>does most of its job just fine
It doesn't though

>>64368648
See
>>64368647

>>64368132 (OP)
and we're the only ones with enough money to run it bitch
>tfw our systems cant be captured becuase they're such expensive peices of shit

>>64368132 (OP)
Highly mobile networked ATGM slinging systems that can fire from the safety of being out of LoS by hugging terrain and sitting behind a hill. Look into the Army's "Any sensor, any shooter" system I think it's called to understand the premise.

>>64368671
>the safety of being out of LoS by hugging terrain and sitting behind a hill
A single drone goes high and far enough past that hill and sees you
Which it does easily, because you're an uncamouflageable thing hanging in the sky for anyone to see
Then a "drone sensor, ground shooter" missile flys at you and kills you
Which it does easily, because you are too constrained by weight to have proper APS, let alone armor, and are also a fragile helicopter
Neither of those two would have happened if you were a missile AFV instead of a missile helicopter

>>64368716
>missile AFV moves at 40mph in decent terrain
>helicopter moves a couple hundred regardless of terrain

Yea, those fulfill the same role, you fucking retard. You know what's better then praying you're able to defeat modern sensors with camouflage? Being in and out in a couple of minutes.

Bonus points for somehow thinking the Army is going to let enemy drones operate uncontested in their local airspace instead of zapping them with DEWs while also thinking that an Apache has to get that close to the frontline to launch an ATGM.

>>64368716
NTA
An Apache can fire 16 ATGMs that travel at ~300m/s from 10km and leave, 33 seconds later the targets are hit.
A cheap quad sent to intercept it will have to cover that same 10km at ~30m/s taking over 5 minutes to get to where the chopper was when it launched.

Drones are great for a lot of things, rapid engagement at range isn't one of them.

>>64368132 (OP)
2-3 Apaches now act as a mobile reserve, able to quickly respond and travel to areas of enemy attacks.
Especially with one carrying a Longbow radar, it can pop up from behind cover or low terrain, detect targets and lob several NLOS missiles in a minute.

There goes a 6-12 of your enemy's armoured vehicles.

>>64368753
they also provide easy access to CAS, since the army operates their own helos instead of going through the air force
and helos can operate closer to the frontline and from makeshift facilities

calling in a single drone to hit a single target is nice, but having a helo in the air and able to take missions on requests or fire on targets at will is even better

>>64368728
>>64368734
>that close to the frontline
If an apache is in range to shoot an ATGM at a vehicle, a vehicle can be in range to fire an AA missile of similar range. If the enemy is smart, it's that very same vehicle. (Since the vehicle has a greater weight budget, it can carry a heavier missile of greater range compared to the helicopter).
>But we have DEW that kills all drones so you can't see us
Never mind that seeing the enemy is a mutual problem - does this mean you have heavy vehicles in the area? That could also be carrying those very same ATGMs you have the helicopter carry? At much lower cost?

>>64368770
Yes, SAMs can kill choppers and ATGMs can kill tanks and bullets can kill infantry.
It's about hitting the other guy before he hits you, this can mean ambushes, flanks or using recon to ignore fortified positions and hit weak areas.

I don't get why so many people struggle with the concept that just because a system isn't invincible that doesn't make it useless.

>>64368770
Ah yes, it's not like the Army is fitting DEWs to everything, including a fucking JLTVs. Oh, wait they are, so it turns out you're still fucking retarded. You also didn't address the problem of now requiring every enemy vehicle to have an ATGM ranged AA missile and sensor package that is capable of NLOS lock on and targeting, which is fine because missiles are free and so is space.

Speaking of space, how many guys are you willing to cut from your Stryker squads to fit a handful of extra ATGMs that now have significantly reduced range because they're being ground launched, and also require the lengthy drive back to base or to wait for resupply trucks to drive to them once they've expended munitions, compared to an Apache which can have a significantly reduced turn around time. I think there's a phrase that pertains to this, something about tempo...?

>>64368770
>If an apache is in range to shoot an ATGM at a vehicle, a vehicle can be in range to fire an AA missile of similar range.

An apache might be able to use counter measures or just straight avoid getting shot by an AA missile in the first place by dipping into and out of max range. A ground vehicle can't do this.

>>64368204
You forgot
>forward assist is... LE BAD!
>shotguns are obsolete
>muh 11.5 ARP

>>64368140
>we
Fuck off thirdie

>>64368806
>every enemy vehicle
One in the general vicinity is sufficient.
>an ATGM ranged AA missile
Can be doubled with an actual ATGM btw. Spike NLOS already does that
>sensor package that is capable of NLOS lock on and targeting
Everything will have that in the future.
>significantly reduced range because they're being ground launched
I already explained why they can have higher range by virtue of being heavier.
>require the lengthy drive back to base or to wait for resupply trucks
Are you arguing that helicopters are an economic way to do missile logistics? Because that's basically what you are arguing.
>>64368823
>use counter measures
Any target can do that
>dipping into and out of max range
First actual argument here.

>>64368770
You aren't completely wrong, but an NLOS fired from altitude will out-range ground launched NLOS. And by the time you can detect the chopper or it's incoming missiles, it will likely already be flying away.

Thing is, doesn't change the fact that a rapid response group of 2-3 attack helicopters has flown around for the Russians and blunted a number of Ukrainian attacks. Those choppers weren't shot down.

But yes, they do remain a high-risk/high-reward asset, that is highly mobile and dangerous. More countries are buying Apache, so there is clearly still value.

>>64368890
Do you understand that speed and tempo is sometimes of more importance then pure economics? Do you think sending 1k ali express drones at a target in waves of 5 until it's destroyed is of comparable tactical value ensuring that it's guaranteed destroyed in the first pass within minutes? Are we going to continue to ignore the ability to concentrate your firepower nigh instantly when needed allows substantially less investment then distributing equivalent density of lethality across the entire front?

>>64368976
>the ability to concentrate your firepower nigh instantly when needed allows substantially less investment then distributing equivalent density of lethality across the entire front
Depends entirely on the relative costs of the platforms and munitions. And having the lethality distributed has advantages as well, not least that it is harder to degrade.

>>64368132 (OP)
>So what's the point of these things now?
There is no point, that's why the Army: Cancelled the FARA in 2024, reduced the numbers of the Army Aviation in 2025

>>64368132 (OP)
Thanks for giving us a pretext for cancelling the 96 Apache contract.

>>64368204
>>The US can't build anymore ships
nigger this is a serious fucking problem but this isn't the thread for that

>>64368204
Forgot
>Shaheds only cost $5 and not several hundred thousand like the Russians were paying the Iranians
>Chinese 6th gens (any form)
>Diesel powered DC EMALS carrier

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t1E6FXHQhDQ&pp=ygUfdGhlIGNoaWVmdGFpbiBhdHRhY2sgaGVsaWNvcHRlcg%3D%3D
Yes I'm being a mobilenigger, no you cannot stop me.

You can almost get a F-16 for an apache, and pay 50% more and you get a F-35. The jets can fit brimstones and SDB2 and spear and mavericks and kill tanks all the same while killing everything else when the tanks are hiding or not relevant.

The advantage of helicopter is being able to use cheap wire/laser guided missile that are too short ranged to be safe to use, while jets provide BLOS missiles with far more range and airplanes are just far more efficient. (and that army owns them)

Russian attack helicopter have like a week of effective operations for the war, while Russian jets is applying a steady stream of effective ordinance on target after glide bombs gets developed.

>>64370241
Russian attack helicopter have like a week of effective operations for the war
Because Russia cannot into air superiority. That was proven immediately when Ukraine was invaded, their major airfields were basically locked down and Russia did fuck all with it other than bumrush Kiev with their paratrooper units and leave them to get murdered piecemeal.
> while Russian jets is applying a steady stream of effective ordinance on target after glide bombs gets developed.
Wow. So Russia is launching WW2 era munitions because it can't actually engage in a modern war against an inferior opponent that mostly operated the same equipment as them. Meanwhile Ukraine has struck and destroyed multiple primary economic facilities using drones in Russia despite them having "the best SAMs" in the world.
Good job, Pyotr. You aren't going into the meat /k/ube unit today.

>>64368132 (OP)
>doesn't do anything swarms of cheap drones can't do for 10% the cost
show me the drones that can penetrate 400km from the front and wipe out an armored column you shitskin

>>64368770
>If an apache is in range to shoot an ATGM at a vehicle, a vehicle can be in range to fire an AA missile of similar range. If the enemy is smart, it's that very same vehicle. (Since the vehicle has a greater weight budget, it can carry a heavier missile of greater range compared to the helicopter).


This shit every single time

SAMS DON'T JUST SPAWN INTO PLACE WHEN YOU CLICK ON A MAP. YOU HAVE TO DEPLOY THEM. YOU HAVE TO SUPPLY THEM. THEY HAVE A FOOTPRINT. Even a manpads team can't just be forward deployed and hidden ready to ambush a fucking aircraft forever. Everything that is just sitting there waiting to kill something is more vulnerable than the thing that might come to be killed because it's the nature of warfare that offensive measures evolve and defensive measures eat shit. And the more concealable and mobile air defenses are the more compromises they have. Manpads don't have all that much range or energy and sensors to overcome countermeasures, terrain masking, maneuvering, etc. Unless you're targetting airliners about to land you're not that likely to land a hit with a manpads. A kamikaze drone might actually do better against random opportunity targets except piloting one into a moving aircraft is actually hard and it takes a skilled operator and a lot of luck to have just the right range and angle of approach to pull it off.

You can pull the anti air ambush trick once and then the next time there's something important that air power might wanna come and fuck up, they're gonna do SEAD first, and because you can't afford to just not protect the important thing air power is coming for, they'll likely succeed. Or maybe they're a first world military and they do SEAD from the very start.

>>64368716
>Then a "drone sensor, ground shooter" missile flys at you and kills you
That all hinges on the assumption that if a first world country can make sensor networking happen then a third world country can do it too.

>>64370605
>We will only fight third world countries

>>64369763
Current US military shipbuilding capacity is 60% that of the 80s. It's bad but not as catastrophic as it seems considering the USN had a peak fleet size of 594 in 1987 compared to 295 today, keeping in mind today's fleet is equivalent to the the 1987 fleet in firepower.

>>64370623
You're all third world countries.

>>64368647
>Buy several cheap ground missile carriers and be at the important point all along
>several
This is where you commit a scaling error.

>muh NLOS ATGM delivery
ok and I put a longbow on a drone, or a swarm of NLOS/ISTAR drones, that guide in booster-rocket equipped Hellfire missiles from >20km away, launched from mobile shoot-and-scoot vehicles that can carry way more than an apache

>>64373150
>ok and I put a longbow on a drone, or a swarm of NLOS/ISTAR drones,
Yea, because they're cheap enough that they're not worth swatting out of the sky, right? Hardware is just free if you attach the word drone to it after all.

>launched from mobile shoot-and-scoot vehicles that can carry way more than an apache
40mph in good terrain and much worse in bad vs 165mph cruise regardless of terrain. How many more of these do you think you'll need to provide sufficient rapid response equivalent to one Apache? How many more crew members is that? How many more maintenance people? How much larger is the logistical trail to feed, equip, and maintain your retarded missile truck force? Pro-tip, personnel are amongst the most expensive things if you're a professional Western military and not third world subhumans. There's a reason we have Apaches in such number, despite MRLS and HIMARS being readily available to the US.

How stupid is west taiwan for making an AH-64 knock off if attack helicopters are useless.

>>64368803
Nobody ever judges, purchases, considers, plans upgrades for, or budgets anything like logical modular systems.
Retards will install a square corner on a round ball.

>>64373225
did they call that one the B-CH1?

>>64368132 (OP)
>this is the guy that tells you the shitty russian twin rotor is actually very good

>>64370257
> Because Russia cannot into air superiority.
Invest in jets to air superiority. Jets kill choppers, jets kill tanks, jets kill ships, jets kill everything. Investing in Metal bawkes is does nothing and lose wars.

Attack helicopter is an expensive aircraft specialized for the unimportant task of shooting at metal bawkes that dies to everything. It is actually useless if the opponent gets air superiority, and it is useless if your own jet fleet is large enough to conduct attack sorties on low value targets like metal bawkes.

Just buy jets, even ghetto are better than choppers. Consider this $3mil aircraft with high mach cruise, 2500km radius, stealth shaping. rocket assisted ZTOL and so on.

The only good thing about rotorcraft is hover, and if a role doesn't require it there is no reason to use rotorcraft.

>>64368204
> The US can't build anymore ships
This is mostly true though. Our ships are way over budget and never on time.

>>64368132 (OP)
They made a ton of sense before stingers/strelas were proven to actually work and have dangerous ranges, and a ton more sense on top of that when there was no fucking such thing as a drone, not even a surveillance drone.

These things were designed to fly up to the front lines far quicker than nay ground vehicle, blow their loads killing a dozen tanks each and then had back to rearm and do it again when the USSR was attacking. They probably would have been decent at this job in the 80s. The fact they dominated during the Gulf war was partly because the war was already obviously over by the time they were roaming around that people couldn't be assed fighting them. They happened to work fine in Afghanistan too against opponents with no capacity to see or fight at night who mostly had unguided RPGs. In an actual peer conflict it is dubious how useful they really are. Even in Ukraine the Russians did make great use of attack helos to stop the Ukraine counteroffensive in Summer 23 - they were not entirely worthless. But most of them were destroyed anyway, making them probably not worth it when even one helo would have been untold many thousands of fiber optic drones that could have basically accomplished the same task and not have to go back to a vulnerable air base and wait around to get atacm'ed.

>>64374552
>They made a ton of sense before stingers/strelas were proven to actually work and have dangerous ranges,
they make sense even today, because nothing else can both hover and carry a large amount of ordnance

>>64368132 (OP)
But if you can get it into uncontested airspace, it'll fuck shit up like nothing else.

>>64368132 (OP)
>[Thing] requires maintenance, training, logistical support, planning, and coordination with other combat arms to be effective which is clearly impossible.
>Muh drones
Which one of multipolars are you from?

>>64368132 (OP)
A Lancet does the same thing.

>>64374765
>shitty target finding/recon capabilities with a crapy thermal camera if you're lucky
>low loiter time
>one fairly shit strike and total loss of recon afterwards
VS
>High end radar and optics coupled with long loiter times for target finding and/or recon by fire
>at it's lowest at least 8 strikes with better warheads
>plus gun
>plus a multitude of other air launched ordnance including A2A and HARM weapons
Yeah it's totally the same

>>64368132 (OP)
>can't survive in contested airspace

The first shots of Desert Storm were literally Apaches wrecking Iraqi early warning radars

>>64375609
>35 years ago

>>64375609
>The first shots of Desert Storm were literally Apaches

Wrong. First shots were fired by the B52s

>>64375615
>Soviet-derived air defense
>improving over the last 35 years

Apaches beat your brown asses and will keep doing it.

>>64375733

Wrong

>It began on 17 January 1991, at 2:38 AM, Baghdad time, when Task Force Normandy, eight US Army AH-64 Apache helicopters led by four US Air Force MH-53 Pave Low helicopters, destroyed Iraqi radar sites near the Iraqi–Saudi Arabian border, which could have warned Iraq of an upcoming attack.

>>64368132 (OP)
>What is their use case now?
They look cool

because in perfect conditions a wing of apaches can wipe out entire military base, entire tank columns, entire batallions of soldiers. gunships are abolutely murderous when no SAMs are in the area.

>>64376030
>Soviet
French

>>64368132 (OP)
>Just look at it
Okay??
I'm looking, I'm masturbating... You posted words, too? Sorry op, you committed the classic blunder. Maybe next time post one of your ugly women so i look at your text instead, yeah?

>>64368228
Fucking hot, SleeperKid's stuff is amazing. I'd spank Sumiko silly.

>>64368132 (OP)
>muh drones
Rope.

>>64376372
a big ass drone could do the same.

>>64381026
NTA but a big ass drone, in order to do all the things (not most, all) a gunship does but better it would need to be big enough to carry the payload equivalent to an Apache or even AH-1Z, have a powerplant oomphy enough to match the speed, and have complex avionics enough for hovering and nap-on-the-earth flight travel and maneuvering.
In order to have a drone that does all this and does it reliably well-enough to justify it as *better than* what it's replacing, you'd need to make it so expensive that at that point the only benefit you'd be bringing to the table is "muh unmanned."
With all due respect to helo drivers, but they're not exactly the same scarce commodity, training-wise, as a fifth or even fourth-gen fighter pilot, nor is their training regime *AS* intensive (flying fucking helos IS NOT easy), so on a simple "cost" grounds the pilots aren't a justification for a whole new multi-million (being generous) project for something just to make it on par with what you already have, and already know how to integrate and use across your forces, domestic AND allied.

tl;dr drone faggotry really, really is a bastion and hallmark of "thirdies-as-bean-counters," neither of which are inherently good at warfare.

>>64381026
point to the big ass drone that exists please

>>64381199
>destroying en entire base with four missiles
>destroying a tank column with four missiles
>destroying an entire batallion with four missiles

and man you couldn't even post a predator drone? the original big-ass-drone?

>>64368228
imagine the smell at 6 seconds

>>64381722
Tangy, tasty. Definitely worth a lick

>>64374501
Those are just the fake budgets that get sent to Congress for approval. Congress just assumes that everything will cost double what it's claimed it will, so if you let them see the real price they'll assume it's going to be double that price and won't approve it.

>>64374556
>>64381145
Hover is trash, ask any harrier or F-35B driver if they'd try this slow earth hugging bs. Hover makes you a land vehicle that is 20x more expensive with huge sensor signature throwing thousands of horse power without even a camo net, and die to stupid shit like machineguns, ATGMs, or fiber controlled anti-tank drones.

The only use of hover is hiding below the horizon out of LOS, but everyone is spamming drones and even trash radar and look down shoot down.

Just giving OV-10 or Su-25 with BLOS missiles would work better.

>>64368132 (OP)
Rapid mobility combined with overwhelming firepower. An individual Apache carries 16 Hellfire missiles that it can use beyond the range of a manpad. A single squad of Apache's can fuck over an entire armored thrust involving hundreds of vehicles and America has over 700 of these things. Their VTOL capabilities and high speed mean they can show up in any theater quickly. Despite Anons panicking about air defense, the Ukraine war shows us that while a massive air defense web is effective, it takes years to degrade an air force. Even if America fails to suppress the enemy air defense, the Apache's will still not drop like flies.
>doesn't do anything swarms of cheap drones can't do
Drone attacks work over a long period of time but in a sudden crisis where hundreds or thousands of armored vehicles are approaching, it is much harder to coordinate that kind of massive drone action the same way you can throw squads of attack helicopters and that is before you get into EW. The static nature of the war in Ukraine really lets drones shine since they have time to hunt but when the Ukrainians were advancing in force, it was Russia's attack helicopters that stepped up.
Even if the helicopters take heavy losses and don't even come out ahead on a dollars lost to dollars destroyed ratio, holding territory and stopping an enemy advance can make a few hundred million dollars lost a bargain.
>for 10% the cost
The number one thing people bring up is how cheap, simple and easy to produce drones are. They say this with a lot of things like replacing big complex tanks with cheaper vehicles. Cost and production is not a reason to replace complex but better equipment with lots of cheap crap. Drones are like bullets in that you only need a stockpile big enough to last until production really gets going, then you have all you will ever need. So stock up on the big complex stuff that is not quick and easy to build, never the cheap stuff.

>>64368132 (OP)
>So what's the point of these things now?

there is fundamentally no point to them at all