In article ,
(robert arndt) wrote:

The days of the attack helo are numbered. The US Army is going with
the Hunter and Raven UAVs plus future UCAVs.

Not surprising since UCAVs can do a better job,

Well, in theory, and for some missions, anyway. But you have a couple
of potential problems with that. If they're completely autonomous,
they're not going to be as "smart" as humans when it comes to targeting
and new situations. If they're remotely-controlled, there's the whole
issue of jamming and/or lost communications.

are cheaper, unmanned,

"Cheap" is only good when it's "as good." Generally, they're going to
be as good for a lot of missions, and will be better for some others,
but there's going to be a need for on-site human pilots until we can
figure out how to make *really* smart portable robots.

and can (in the future) carry " Swarmers"- KKVs (Kinetic Kill
Vehicles) that attack everything like exploding locusts.

....which could be carried by any vehicle, manned or not.

I'm strongly in favor of an expanded UCAV force, but we've got a long
way to go before they're going to be a real replacement for attack
planes and helos.

And I'm betting that some of the first "real" attack UCAV helos will be
based off of lessons we've leanrd on the Comanche. Yank out the
human-carrying parts of the Comanche, leave off the more sophisticated
systems, scale the airframe down by about 50%, and you'd have a heckuva
nice little attack robot for a fraction of the cost.

--
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