Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is the attack helicopter dead?

hushkit.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 650 posts

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#541

Post by rjurney »

warner25 wrote: post #371
rjurney wrote: post #196

> There were about 11,846 U.S helicopters that served in the Vietnam War. The U.S records show 5,607 helicopter losses. Are 310 helicopter losses in Ukraine that high? I don't think so. Russia has lost =~ 3K tanks. That's a 10:1 ratio for tank:helicopter, is that high? Helicopters' role may change. They would be ideal drone operator platforms - they already have a weapons operator in a back seat. The right cannon / l…

Today's US Army is dwarfed by the size of the Vietnam-era Army. I love putting this into perspective for people who don't know the history. Those 5,500+ losses would be more than the Army's entire helicopter fleet today; active and reserve components combined. 300+ losses would be huge, like half of the current Apache fleet. I'm not sure that we ever had more than 300 helicopters in Iraq or Afghanistan, even at the p…

Thanks, I figured but do you know just how much larger? I am listening to Ken Burns' Vietnam on Audible and I believe we had 200K personnel in Vietnam at the peak... oh shit I just double checked and it was 543K personnel JUST IN VIETNAM. Thanks, mang! Enlightening. That is 25% of our entire military today.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#542

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #535
ceejayoz wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'd be a pretty big mistake to interpret "it needs servicing every ten years" as "it stops working immediately after that", and similarly a mistake to think the Russians can't accomplish at least some of that maintenance themselves. One can run a car without oil changes for quite a while before the problems add up.

Even one nuke is a big threat for a non-nuclear country, but Russia is not the only one with nukes, so number of well maintained nukes in service is important, if RF want to win a war with nukes. It will be pretty dumb for RF to strike FIRST with expired nukes.

There's no winning a war with nukes.

Even if 1% are operational, they could devastate the US.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#543

Post by red-iron-pine »

sofixa wrote: post #493
faggotbreath wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

And still, it was supposed to not be vulnerable to enemy radar. And a multi decade old anti-air system, with the benefit of good intelligence and incredibly sloppy American operations, managed to shoot it down. Why would anyone think a helicopter that would be flying much lower to the ground, would be invulnerable to e.g. man portable air defence systems?

it wasn't vulnerable to enemy radar, serbian AA realized that it was the exact same pattern day in and day out, did some quick calculations, and fired at the spot it knew it would be at the next day.

and that worked.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#544

Post by __loam »

lefty2 wrote: post #501
__loam wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been saying tanks are dead for the last two years but: - Even conflicts where tanks were obviously useful, like WWII, there were high rates of loss. - Russian armored groups were poorly trained and not well supported by dismounted infantry early in the war, leading to high losses against fairly mobile Ukrainians armed with ATGMs. Now that the front has solidified, there's less room for maneuver where tank…

Tanks don't really make any sense. MBTs are designed to fight other MBTs. Out of the thousands of tanks that have been taken out in Ukraine, 99.999% has been by drones, artillary or ATMs. You can count the tank versus tank battles on the fingers of your hand. Wouldn't make more sense to evenly distribute the weight of the armour, so the back and top are reasonably armoured, rather than have foot thick armour in the f…

MBTs make plenty of sense even if tank on tank fighting is rare. Having a big cannon that can fire high explosive rounds with a laser rangefinder in an armored enclosure is pretty useful even if you're not fighting tanks. Many western tanks have also been retrofit with additional armor against chemical rounds and mines, or have active protection systems.

Being in a T-72 with an armor configuration from the 80s and a carousel auto loader in the middle of the crew compartment in a war where your enemies have top attack atgms with tandem warheads would suck a lot though.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#545

Post by red-iron-pine »

jvanderbot wrote: post #223
newsclues wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_slug

You may as well use rifle bullets then.

and the rifled bullets will be more aerodynamic and also have rifling for stability. .50 BMG or an autocannon or something.

shotgun slugs aren't usable in any serious, consistent way outside of maybe 20 meters (~60 ft). nasty stuff if you're in range, through.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#546

Post by red-iron-pine »

matusp wrote: post #103
aspenmayer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

did you expect him to have access too, and release, classified data? What insights do you expect him to have over multi-billion-dollar intelligence and counter-intelligence efforts?

like, nearly all commentators, everywhere, are talking about OSINT releases from RUSI or CNA or whoever. and those are based on scraps from official UKR, NATO, RUS, etc. releases.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#547

Post by SJC_Hacker »

vFunct wrote: post #217
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They likely are useful now, given their costs are going down and can be used in saturation attacks like Iran just did. A single ICBM with a dozen 500lb bombs can take out an fleet of fighters.

If launched from a nuclear country, the attacked country would have to assume nuclear payload. In the case of another nuclear country, this means nuclear retaliation.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#548

Post by verdverm »

the_af wrote: post #518
verdverm wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help to first understand both pieces said essentially the same thing and came to the same conclusions. They both also look beyond a single war and a single operator Using italics was unnecessary

So it wasn't the delivery after all, but the content? Punished for disagreement, in other words? It's also hilarious I got downvoted for saying Perun's video was 2 years old and surely there would be new considerations, and sure enough, Perun posted a newer video with new considerations! > Using italics was unnecessary So a single word in italics in a different comment triggered downvotes on my first comment that did…

> So it wasn't the delivery after all, but the content?

you are being argumentative... which earns downvotes. you can word things differently to not be this way. Also, talking about being downvoted is against the posting guidelines, which will earn more downvotes. (See the links at the bottom)

> Punished for disagreement

see it as a signal from community moderation, this is not a free speech platform, content and conversation moderation is necessary online, unpopular opinions are often downvoted to avoid back and forth argumentation, so you may view it beyond moderation as feedback on your views, context dependent

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#549

Post by SJC_Hacker »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #120
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.

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…

I'm not just including precision, but ability to get through defenses - i.e. total battlefield effectiveness.

Precision in terms of "circular error probability" isn't the biggest issue now. Its the EW environment.

My point was if system A gets through defenses 30% of the time, but is 10x cheaper than system B which gets through 80% of the time. System A is generally the better choice, except for some very specific circumstances, very high value targets with limited strike opportunity.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#550

Post by nine_k »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #434
nine_k wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH the highly precise HIMARS played a crucial role many times. Regular artillery has to shoot dozens of shells before it hits the exact high-value target. This betrays the position of the cannon; if it's close enough it will be fired at. HIMARS is precise so it can pack up and leave before the projectiles even reach the target. FPV drones are precise because they're remotely piloted by experienced pilots. This allo…

FPV-drones can also be precise post-mortem. You record the flight as command-inputs in sim from start location. Then you deploy the drone from some carrying vehicle, land and loiter, listening for a trigger. Trigger comes, the drone flies only gets a connection for a lineup if any and flies through the "line up" trajectory. Pilot involvement can be optional.

Should work as long as the drone's inertial and visual navigation stay adequate. (I suppose that GPS and the like gets constantly jammed near high-value targets.)
Post reply on HN