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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#161

Post by meiraleal »

Loughla wrote: post #157
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War never changes. The future will be boots on the ground, men engaging in hand-to-hand combat, one dies/one lives. That might occur in the context of standoff weapons or cheap drones or AI or whatever, but all of those things will be to facilitate a scenario where your side brings more men to that fight, that your men have an advantage in that fight, and that the fight actually reduces the other side's ability to do…

What? In what world is hand to have combat the nature of war anymore? I don't think I understand what you're saying here. Also, I would argue that winning battles is about numbers and advantage. Winning wars is about effectively reducing supplies and support.

Drones can't occupy land (yet).

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#162

Post by shiroiushi »

OliveMate wrote: post #105
sneed_chucker wrote: post #5

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.

>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 frac…

Yeah, that was an amazing helicopter, and it's really too bad it was cut, but as you say, it just didn't make economic sense any more when UAVs were invented. I guess it's something like the Japanese battleship Yamato, with the largest guns ever installed on a warship. It was amazing, but easily sunk by airplanes flown from aircraft carriers, so it was already obsolete when it was launched.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#163

Post by murkt »

ponector wrote: post #101
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

155mm shells are $3k-10k per piece. So it’s more like 5-20x than FPV drone.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#164

Post by Spooky23 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #136
sidewndr46 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Worth noting that Russia has nuclear weapons, yet elects not to use them against their near peer Ukraine.

Given the decay of Russia and their forces, it’s questionable whether they would work.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#165

Post by moritonal »

szvsw wrote: post #126
verdverm wrote: post #4

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)

Am I the only person who is shocked to realize that this is the same Perun who does strategy gaming YouTube tutorials on a related channel!? I had seen a bunch of his Terra Invicta content… had no idea he also did actual military analysis? Is that what he does professionally in some capacity or is he just an amateur interested in this stuff with a fairly well researched YouTube channel?

I mean, as I watched him destroy my personal definition of what a military industry might look like in X4 I did start to make the connection with the similar sounding war economist I followed.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#166

Post by Spooky23 »

Animats wrote: post #50

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 195…

We’re seeing a spike in UFO sightings, so something has been cooked up and is being tested.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#167

Post by nostrademons »

WillAdams wrote: post #141
marginalia_nu wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that Russia has nuclear weapons, yet elects not to use them against their near peer Ukraine.

Worth noting that Ukraine had nuclear weapons and negotiated them away in exchange for a promise that Russia would not use nuclear weapons against them.

Worth also noting that the nuclear weapons that Ukraine had were useless. All modern (post-1960s) nukes except the UK's are equipped with PALs [1]. Without the launch codes, they are just very expensive hunks of lithium deuteride. The launch codes for Ukraine's nukes remained with the KGB/FSB in Moscow throughout the breakup of the Soviet Union. They had essentially zero negotiating leverage, and as a result got essentially zero out of the negotiation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_action_link

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#168

Post by jojobas »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #5

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.

It seems like you also need to re-evaluate against pretty much suicide infantry.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#169

Post by theelous3 »

rolandog wrote: post #113
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Considering we're looking at an adversarial nation state (famously full of script kiddies) which is absolutely hell-bent and motivated to tackle their drone problem, and not once has that state or its script kiddies commandeered a single drone - nevermind a fleet of them - (nor are the script kiddies even remotely in range?) I don't see this being a problem now or in the near future.
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