Kevin Brooks wrote:

I always thought the emphasis on radar stealth was off the mark. But
be careful drawing any hard and fast conclusions in regards to helo
survivability vis a vis the 11th AVN deep attack during OIF.

I'm not looking only at that attack. There are a bunch of incidents, from
Operation ANACONDA on, that suggest that attack helos are going to get hit
fairly often, and that those hits will come from optical or IR weapons.

I did not like Commanche, but I *can* see the wisdom
of including a strike capability in your cavalry scout
birds--increased versatility for when things don't go as planned, the

Sure, but I question the scale of the armament actually selected. With the
stub wings (which I think were deferred from the most recent production
plan), a Comanche could carry 14 Hellfires, almost 90% of the armament of an
Apache. That's a lot of targets of opportunity. And the requirement for
internal carriage for part of that load added both cost and complexity.

Personally, I think they should have started building a much less complex
scout sometime in the early 1990s, starting with AH-58 capabilities but
built in into a more combat-worthy airframe. It would look strikingly like
an early AH-1 or the Japanese OH-X in general outline. Sensors consist of
Londbow above the mast and Comanche optics above the cockpit but below the
rotor (the second-best spot,a fter the mast it taken by radar). Armament of
perhaps 4 Hellfire (or two rocket pods) and 4 Stinger (for UAV killing as
much as for self-defense) on stub wings plus maybe a GAU-19 .50-caliber
gatling in a chin mount for small arms suppression. Don't worry about radar
LO; concentrate on IR, front-aspect visual, and maybe acoustics.

With luck and planning, the same dynamic system can be adapted for that long
overdue Light Utility Helo requirement (shades of UH-1/AH-1 in reverse?).
--
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"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
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