Is the attack helicopter dead?

In the war I fought in, there was a markedly different approach to combat air ops between even just the different service branches. The Army tended to use the Apache like it was a flying tank, hovering and delivering ordinance; the Marines (which is where I fought) flew as low and as quickly as possible even while sending rounds and hellfire missiles downrange. The marines were not losing aircraft in anywhere close to the numbers of the Army when I was there. You need a skilled operator to hit a helicopter moving at 100 knots when it's 15m over the buildings, and we mostly operated at night. I remember watching a ZPU gunner pointing the cannons directly at us and firing, and laughing as the rounds just flew behind the tail.

It's my understanding (and from watching the videos that I can get as a civilian) that the Russians still aren't operating their helicopters in a manner that I would be comfortable with if I was inside one. I certainly wouldn't be pumped flying in the environment they are in, with so many MANPADS out there, but there is no way a machine I was in would be hit with an anti-tank missile while we hovered (as was in the article.)

Lot of preamble to say: no, I don't think the attack helicopter is dead. Attack helicopters are nimble and can hide in terrain quite well, and even when an attacking force can see them it takes a skilled operator to actually hit them. The single use drones that operate like kamikaze vehicles may throw a winkle into the mix, but a helo flying at 150knots is going to be very challenging to hit for one of those. I expect there will be quite an arms race countering and then counter countering these in the future wars.

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.

We’re still in the very early stage of drone development for warfare and Ukraine is using a lot of civilian gear. Now the armed forces of the world are plowing their funding into R&D I expect them to develop quickly. For example, aluminum air batteries are perfect for this use case but havent been developed because until now single use batteries haven’t seen any demand. Those will at least double or triple the range for armed drones. High end solar panels can allow them to sit and wait for a trigger to attack.

Combine that with the tech behind the Redbull F1 camera drone [1] that can fly at 200mph and drones become much deadlier to attack helicopters. Slap a rocket motor on it for final approach, even a sub-M civilian model rocket motor, and it’s over. Imagine the drone just sitting there listening for a helicopter to get close enough - humans wouldn’t even need to be involved except to place it strategically.

[1] https://youtu.be/NDUcoNlgPrk

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 1952. That era seems to be over. There are so many portable systems now that can take out an aircraft.

Jam-resistant drones are already a thing. Drones are going to have to be shot down one at a time. This is quite possible but the missiles to do it can cost more than the drones.

[1] https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/02/08/us-army-spent-bil...

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)

I've been so overexposed to the meme about criticizing gender identity that I've forgotten that attack helicopters are actual military vehicles.

It's always worth remembering that a soldier who costs a million dollars to train can be killed by a 20 cent bullet. But soldiers still exist.

Everything in a war will involve losses that appear asymmetric if you consider losses in isolation. War is a horrible affair.

Helicopters won't disappear because they can be shot down, but if UAV, communications, plus artillery can replace them. Communication is the most likely weak link due to countermeasures.

All IMO of course.

Whoever can most cost effectively put explosives on target wins.

The future will be annihilation at a distance with cheap standoff weapons followed by swarms of cheap drones loitering over battlefields to clean up.

I'm surprise the article didn't mention the US military history.

The US Army has not had a evolution of its attack helicopter since the 1970s.

I remember because one of my favorite childhood games was Comanche 3. [1] Control a helicopter, not crash, not get shot down, neutralize enemies, and achieve mission objectives -- it was cutting-edge for 1997.

The Comanche program was scrapped after more than a decade of development. And the Defiant program was just cancelled last year as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_3

I think most manned war vehicles are dead now.

We are definitely entering into the era of drone-vs-human warfare.

Drones are cheap and deadly and can be remotely operated, and soon probably operated by AI.

The way Russians use them is obsolete… just like Russian tanks.

Combined arms maneuvering is what they _should_ be doing. In fact Russia reorganized to theoretically be setup for this sort of maneuvering; they organized into BTGs (battalion tactical groups) which contain basically everything: air defense (area denial and SHORAD), logistics (refuel, resupply, rearm, repair), infantry, armor, air attack, engineering, artillery, and I’m probably leaving a few out.

To this end they’ve been completely ineffective.

They started as the second best army in the world, then went to the second best army in Ukraine, and now they are the second best army in Russia.

People in this discussion are concentrating on the drones (which are a big factor) but the massively effective HIMARS and ATACMS is worth noting too.

Precision guided artillery has been a game-changer in Ukraine.

MANPADS have generally not changed since the Afghanistan war. And here I mean the Soviet-Afghanistan war, not the twice as long but more or less equally ineffective American-Afghanistan war. If the attack helicopter is dead, then it has already been dead for ~40 years.

> 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 / loadout could take out small drones. Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) style wingmen would work with quadcopters for helicopters. They could expand the sensory capability to avoid surface to air threats.

Russia's Ka-52 were a significant problem for Ukraine in the summer 2023 offensive. When Ukraine's armour would meet massive mine fields and get stymied, it was Ka-52s arriving, popping up over tree lines and taking pot shots at them with ATGMs from a distance that outranged most of their MANPADs. Only a few were taken out by lucky hits near the front. The only reason they aren't seen as much anymore is because Russia was idiotic and kept them parked at an airfield within ATACMS range.

Ask Ukrainians, their last year counter-offensive was stopped primarily by Ka-52 helicopters with LMUR/Vikhr guided missiles.

A BS article if I ever saw one. Take for example this:

> Moreover, the threat is not the organic air defences of battlegroups or a Soviet Motor-Rifle Regiment or Brigade, but dispersed and well-hidden infantry and special forces units equipped with modern MANPADS missile systems. Furthermore, because the enemy forces are operating over the defenders’ own ground, the defence can be cued and alerted to approaching helicopters, given good data connectivity.

which is exactly what did NOT happen when the Ukrainians counter-attacked on their own territory, in Southern-Ukraine, when the Russian Ka-52s had a field day (actual, several field days) against incoming Ukrainian heavy armour. These Anglo guys still live in the 1980s, they should ask the Ukrainians what they feel about the "demise" of the attack helicopter, that way maybe non-sense like this won't get published anymore.

Helicopters like all CAS require air superiority / supremacy to operate effectively. Neither side has either, so it is not an ideal environment for a helicopter to operate in.

This seems to be the takehome. The helicopter has to be a drone operator and behave very defensively, with effective active measures.

> Given the right network integration and the right weapons, you could inflict a deal of pain in a fairly basic helicopter while staying well out of the way of any air defence. You still have to protect yourself against chance encounters – partisans or special forces with shoulder-launched weapons, for example. This appears easier said than done.

This is the kind of thing I'm interested in discussing but then stop myself because I'd rather not give anybody any ideas.

At the risk of being off-topic for an article about helicopters, I will never stop loving the A-10 -- brrrrrt for life

I hope our military is thinking about drones, because when WW3 starts our enemies are going to have millions of tiny software-controlled drones and if we're still fighting like we're in WW2 it's all over for us.

They shouldn't die, just become robotic with optional remote control. Comparing to copters helis have significant advantages and disadvantages too. I.e. different enough to have different roles

What does "full scale invasion" mean exactly?

All piloted combat aircraft seem questionable at this point.

More weight, more vulnerability, more ethical issues, less ability to take high g force, more expensive, more focus and endurance issues, more constraints on taking risks.

When bombing runs are guided bombs anyway and air to air is all about over the horizon missiles anyway then there really questions around why you need a human in it at all.

Brimestone 2 is 50kg - what's his deal with medium helicopters?

What a pity that Brimstone isn't integrated with the Apache.

This article appears to be written by AI.

Ask not what you can do to the attack helicopter, but instead what the attack helicopter can do to you. Increase vulnerability is only one side of the coin. If there are still valuable missions that can be better done by an attack helicopter than by a competing system, then they are not dead.

But yeah, drones will probably take most of the missions away.

Remember when the Ukrainian counter offensive failed, in part due to the Russian helicopters coming in and absolutely annihilating the offensive?

I do. The helicopter isn’t dead, neither is the tank.

But their tactics might change, and they might become optionally manned, because why not?

But if you need quick reaction, massive firepower, or troop transport either quickly or in difficult to reach places, good luck doing it with drones or wheeled vehicles.

I don't know anything about warfare but it's impressive that everyone here is an expert in it. AI, drones, AI powered drones, I just can't keep up.