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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#611

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #603
ceejayoz wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that one is the original 1968 treaty they acceded to after leavin the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio... . As with any treaty, it can be broken/withdrawn from. The treaty does not establish a right/recourse to a nuclear weapons program to NPT members in Ukraine's scenario. Ukraine just, when agreeing to it, said they'd leave if they had to. They would be non-compliant wi…

Ukraine can join NPT back in exchange for safety assurances. No need for sanctions.

If Ukraine started a nuclear weapons program, they would be in violation of the NPT treaty. Sanctions and loss of Western support would be virtually guaranteed.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#612

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

the_af wrote: post #121
verdverm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it might Why do you think the days of the heli might be over? I think if you ask the military of US, Israel, Russia, and China, you will find them saying the attack heli has unique and useful capabilities not available on other platforms.

Well, I don't have access to any military, but why would they say that? To my knowledge the US has abandoned the development of their advanced attack helicopters, and it's not because the current ones are flawless. Their Apaches are very vulnerable in a modern threat environment. The Russians seem to have lots of inventory, who knows what they are thinking. Even Perun states a lot of Russian tactics and doctrine seem…

I'm guessing a lot of China's reason has to do with the Taiwan strait. For all the advantages tanks and IFVs have over helicopters, they aren't especially good at moving across 100 miles of water.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#613

Post by Retric »

scanny wrote: post #573
Retric wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a RKG-3 in the right situation knock out some armor, definitely. But they don’t seem to be that effective vs amor designed to deal with shaped charges such as you’d see with a peer adversary.

Those shaped charges weren’t envisioned coming from directly above, especially precisely dropped on the engine or on hatches, hence the drones are hitting spots with little to no armour compared to the front and sides.

The Bofors RBS 56 BILL (1988), FGM-148 Javelin and similar missile systems exploited weak top armor long enough ago to result in changes to modern tank designs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-attack

The KF51 Panther revealed 2022 should represent the current state of the art. comprising a hard-kill element of extending the coverage of the ADS to the roof of the vehicle for protection against ATGMs and unguided anti-tank rockets launched from higher elevations, as well as a soft-kill element for protection against threats such as loitering munitions.[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_KF51

Obviously getting 100% accurate information on current tank armor isn’t realistic but at minimum these drones aren’t breaking new ground.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#614

Post by ceejayoz »

onepointsixC wrote: post #521
ceejayoz wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Enriching uranium is within the capability of a nation-state the size of Ukraine. Sure. But standing up a program makes you an international pariah. “We’re keeping this” would have had a bit less uproar. > Physical access to a nuke does not let you disable the PAL. They are constructed so that they are embedded within the device, and cannot be disabled or altered without deconstructing significant parts of the warh…

The US invaded Iraq, because of the phantom prospect of a nuclear proliferation. A state which was just created and gave up Crimea without a shot fired in 2014 was not about to fight to keep nukes which were not theirs in the 90’s. With the combined forces of the West and Russia breathing down their necks there was zero chance that they would be able to keep them.

North Korea serves as a pretty clear counterexample.

Having nukes actually in-hand changes the calculus, a lot.

They'd have been sanctioned like crazy, but invaded? No one's taking the risk that they managed to arm a bomb.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#615

Post by oneshtein »

ceejayoz wrote: post #611
oneshtein wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine can join NPT back in exchange for safety assurances. No need for sanctions.

If Ukraine started a nuclear weapons program, they would be in violation of the NPT treaty. Sanctions and loss of Western support would be virtually guaranteed.

Ukraine is not bound by NPT because we are attacked by nuclear country. See text of NPT signed by Ukraine.

Moreover, Ukraine is post-nuclear country. We had nuclear weapons and we know how to produce more.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#616

Post by aguaviva »

oneshtein wrote: post #615
ceejayoz wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Ukraine started a nuclear weapons program, they would be in violation of the NPT treaty. Sanctions and loss of Western support would be virtually guaranteed.

Ukraine is not bound by NPT because we are attacked by nuclear country. See text of NPT signed by Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine is post-nuclear country. We had nuclear weapons and we know how to produce more.

But you understand this part, right?

Sanctions and loss of Western support would be virtually guaranteed.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds.

Seriously, this whole nuclear idea you're onto, while no doubt well-intentioned, is infinitely untenable for a whole bunch of plainly obvious reasons.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#617

Post by norswap »

nradov wrote: post #524
norswap wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a new generation of defense contractors (Anduril, Ares) coming online that seem to promise order of magnitude improvement on the status quo.

It's good to have more options but Anduril and Ares are mostly a lot of hype. They won't achieve anything close to an order of magnitude improvement. Costs are largely driven by the laws of physics, and those are the same for everyone.

I'm honestly not informed enough to comment, but everyone seems to agree there is really bad mismanagement at Lockheed & co + the incentives as set up are truly fucked up (I remember reading on that, but don't have the source handy) and actively encourage manufacturers to pile on costs to make more profits.

If there's good R&D and first-order thinking in the mix, one order of magnitude does not seem insane to me. It's a cliche, but look at what Elon Musk has achieved, everyone said it couldn't be done, but it happened.

Ultimately other things can help, like designing new innovative form factors and cathering to a changing reality (it's doesn't make sense to shoot down 50k$ drones with 1M$ missiles).

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#618

Post by simiones »

Teever wrote: post #586
simiones wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because all the things you got rid of to make drones cheap when fighting tanks are required when fighting fighters. You only need to be slightly faster and slightly more maneuverable than your target to take it down, while older AT weapons were much faster: so slower drones could still be just as effective. This is not true for fighter jets.

You may find this link interesting: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ares-industries

> Ares is building a new class of anti-ship cruise missiles.

Not sure what this has to do with my claims about not being able to use cheap drones for taking down fighter jets. Military ships, like tanks, are also somewhat slower and somewhat less maneuverable than fighter jets, I believe.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#619

Post by simiones »

Teever wrote: post #596
simiones wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, because of physics: it's easy to hit a slow moving tank from a flying vehicle. It's impossible to hit a fast-moving flying vehicle from a slower moving one. And you can't make a cheap light rotor-based drone move as fast a jet-engine-powered plane no matter how hart you try. For another, R&D: we've been working on fast autonomous flying vehicles to take down aircraft for decades: as the poster above keeps ex…

> Do you think it is plausible that we will see an incredibly cheap anti-aircraft missile ...

I misread the question a bit, sorry. Still, I believe the arguments hold - while I'm sure that it's possible to make cheaper missiles, especially if we take into account the markup typically associated with military contracts, I don't think there is any room to go anywhere near the cost savings that cheap drones brought against tanks.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#620

Post by theelous3 »

guappa wrote: post #606
theelous3 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read that article? That drone was electronically taken out of the sky and rendered useless, it was not commandeered and used against the US. Where did I claim nobody's ever taken out a drone with ewar? Plus this action presumably took an entire squadron with extremely powerful ewar apparatus - a complete waste of time on an 800e drone that will be replaced before the one you've dropped even hits the ground.

Well Iran says they landed it, USA said they crashed it. I don't really know who's less believable between the 2.

Even if they landed it (meaning it landed its self due to loss of control) that doesn't fit your criteria, and says absolutely nothing about the topic at hand - battlefield uno reversing mini drones.
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