Bundeswehr orders 82 x Airbus Helicopters H145M

Affter the1970 bombastic 105, 2030 is gifted with the 105 plus.

This is how, I guess, you summarize 40 years of Airbus military.
 
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(Cough) Boeing Chinook
(Cough) Sikorsky Stallion
(Coughs again) Bell Huey
 
Not the same. H145 are bought to replace the lack of an appropriately designed attack helo. The German army is signifying here its opinion that Airbus didn´t even move much the line in 40 years.
 
Actually I think that some are now looking for platforms that have potential for multi-use. I doubt Germany is going to tout the H-145 as a replacement for Tigre or on par with Apache. Certainly the move keeps highly specialized and trained people employed, but I don't think this is different in any of the industrialized countries.
 
The Ukraine war has demonstrated that putting helicopters, attack or not, in the frontline area is a suicidal move.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhh7Jx3sR9w


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URGTVwfjDyA


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XQqVNgWdyY


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SUReJCVbTc


If you are going to shoot guided missiles from kilometers away, range of the missiles and performance of the targeting sensors are more important then the ammount of armor on the helicopter.
 
Wotan said:
The Ukraine war has demonstrated that putting helicopters, attack or not, in the frontline area is a suicidal move.
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The USA lost 5,086 helicopters during ten years in Vietnam, roughly 500 per year, being about 43% of those deployed.

In comparison Russian helicopter losses in the Ukraine conflict have been around 325 in just under three years of war, or 108 per year.
 
It also does not help that both sides have higher technology MANPAD systems than the survivability systems on the aircraft. Also the antiquated tactics used by both sides at the beginning of the war did not help reduce the numbers of casualties. Until someone can show me real data about how many missions are flown per aircraft lost I am not willing to write off an entire concept of operation. With Youtube rational we ought get ride of tanks and artillery and air defense. Even infantry might be questionable.
@Kiltonge - what they do not tell you about that statistic for U.S. Army losses in Vietnam are how many of those helicopters were recovered, fixed, and shot down again. There were some helicopters, that over their lifespan, had been shot down three or four times.
 
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yasotay said:
@Kiltonge - what they do not tell you about that statistic for U.S. Army losses in Vietnam are how many of those helicopters were recovered, fixed, and shot down again. There were some helicopters, that over their lifespan, had been shot down three or four times.
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You mean like these?

Sikorsky H-37 with downed CH-21:

Sikorsky H-37 with downed CH-21.jpg

CH-37 611th Trans Co:

CH-37 611th Trans Co.jpg

CH-47 recovers UH-1 in Vietnam:

CH-47 recovers UH-1 in Vietnam.jpg
 
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Wotan said:
So in 3 years Russia already lost 20% of its total helicopter fleet...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/259396/global-combat-helicopter-fleet-by-country/
In ten years this would be like over 60% percent?
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325 number comes from ? These are claims by Ukrainian MOD about as reliable as those from Russian MOD that in official claims destroyed Ukrainian airforce 3times over, as far as i can google Oryx is at less than half that and that is including Damaged that might get repaired and lost in crashes and mishaps unrelated to war.

Besides prior to 2022 they manufactured 134 helicopters of all types per year ,while in 2022 they supposedly delivered 296 ,but i imagine that number includes refurbished units as well ,in general engines are likely the choke point for helicopter production.As some of these these were co produced or had components made in Ukrainan Moto Sich practically up to 2022 .

So losses are far from irreplaceable and post 2022 much less frequent .On the flipside old stuff is being replaced with more modern stuff, SU24 &25 with Su34 , Mil24/35 with Ka52 and Mil28 ,small numbers of Su57 trickle in.

If you count it all up Allies lost about 300 in Iraq and Afghanistan no SAMs or MANPADs capabilty let alone balistic missiles and cruise missiles ,closest to that were Taliban folks in flip flops and Aks breaking into an airbase and burning down some AV-8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and_accidents_during_the_Iraq_War
Germans do not have an alternative like Apache ,there is no industrial setup to evolve Tiger,so i would not be surprised if at one point in an effort to apease Trump they end up buying Apache like they did F35 to suck up to Biden.
 
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Arjen said:
The German F-35 order came about when the need to get nuke-carrying aircraft ASAP became apparent when the 'special operation' in Ukraine started.
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Understood .but the project was in the pipeline for years with plans to get new Typhoons certified and keep production line open , they even 'retired' top AF brass that was advocating for F35 . Buying a foreign jet with a domestic production line for Eurofighter threatened to shutdown was never a purely rational choice . There is always politics involved.
 
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Mr.T said:
325 number comes from ? These are claims by Ukrainian MOD about as reliable as those from Russian MOD that in official claims destroyed Ukrainian airforce 3times over, as far as i can google Oryx is at less than half that and that is including Damaged that might get repaired and lost in crashes and mishaps unrelated to war.

Besides prior to 2022 they manufactured 134 helicopters of all types per year ,while in 2022 they supposedly delivered 296 ,but i imagine that number includes refurbished units as well ,in general engines are likely the choke point for helicopter production.As some of these these were co produced or had components made in Ukrainan Moto Sich practically up to 2022 .

So losses are far from irreplaceable and post 2022 much less frequent .On the flipside old stuff is being replaced with more modern stuff, SU24 &25 with Su34 , Mil24/35 with Ka52 and Mil28 ,small numbers of Su57 trickle in.
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Ukrainian MOD says over 300, NATO estimates say also that the numbers are at 10%, so in any way significant.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-air-force-losses-ukraine-christopher-cavoli-1890228
"Russia has lost about 10 percent of its aircraft in more than two years of war in Ukraine, the head of the United States' European forces has said, weeks ahead of a potential new Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine."

"Referring to Ukraine's reports from February, Nicholas Aucott, a senior military adviser with the U.K. government, said in March that the "repeated destruction of warplanes is a significant setback for Russia's war effort."

Available information suggests Moscow "is losing jets 20 times faster than they can replace them," Aucott added."

The discusssion here was if it would be a good ideea to invest in masive fleeets of attack helicopters and to fly these helicopters over the frontline. The results from Ukraina show it is better not to do so.
Russians perform now air strikes predominantly with jets which launch guided munitions from tens of kilometers behind the frontline.

So the german decision not to invest heavily in attack helicopters might be a smart one. It is interesting to see that americans like the H145M, they have bought until now almost 500 of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_UH-72_Lakota
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8_cIuKMeI
 
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I understand the point but its still great to remain grounded in reality ,not complete fantasy world when trying to prove a point.
German decision is likely down to not having a choice , and jobs program for domestic industry. If they could they would buy domestic attack helos. No one else decided to abandon them for utility helicopters , multiple attack helicopter programs are live.

Like said Ukrainian MOD =BS numbers , best estimate so far is ''103 helicopters lost , 30 damaged, 2captured'' even if you round it up to 150-160 still a huge gap for ghost of Ghost of Kiev to fill . In regards to jets estimates for new deliveries hover around 28 fighters per year ,and some are in 30-50 ballpark for 2023 ,and forcast for 2024, so that 20:1 ratio would need many times the losses or maybe held true on initial days of 2022 . As mentioned cca 50% of the losses are Su-25 and Su-24 last built in 1989 and 1993, so any replacements are more modern jets.

Ukraine might not be best case study and many of the lessons will not apply to any future conflict, Ukraine was extremely saturated with Manpads ,Atgms and SAMs as much of the NATO stocks were striped to supply it in addition to own stocks and 3rd world supply of soviet systems paid for by EU and US ,it has/had more anti air capability its arsenal than most if not all of NATO Europe combined

This kind of oversaturation was already seen in Syria where all sorts of jihadis had thousands of ATGMs supplied ,way beyond any similar sized country capacity.Made it extremely deadly for armor but as 'sponsors' to that regime change effort were not as keen on supplying MANPADs in quantity to their Proxys, these never became a mayor factor. Russians actually took the wrong lessons from that effort, particularly about the application of airpower,that is always a trap folks looking for solutions to past conflict.

I might be wrong but that is just my two cents on the subject.
 
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Mr.T said:
Understood .but the project was in the pipeline for years with plans to get new Typhoons certified and keep production line open , they even 'retired' top AF brass that was advocating for F35 . Buying a foreign jet with a domestic production line for Eurofighter threatened to shutdown was never a purely rational choice . There is always politics involved.
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It was allways a foreign jet as B61 would never been integreated into Eurofighter in any reasonable time frame. F-35 was the cheapest and quickest solution.
 
Mr.T said:
Ukraine might not be best case study and many of the lessons will not apply to any future conflict, Ukraine was extremely saturated with Manpads ,Atgms and SAMs as much of the NATO stocks were striped to supply it in addition to own stocks and 3rd world supply of soviet systems paid for by EU and US ,it has/had more anti air capability its arsenal than most if not all of NATO Europe combined

This kind of oversaturation was already seen in Syria where all sorts of jihadis had thousands of ATGMs supplied ,way beyond any similar sized country capacity.Made it extremely deadly for armor but as 'sponsors' to that regime change effort were not as keen on supplying MANPADs in quantity to their Proxys, these never became a mayor factor. Russians actually took the wrong lessons from that effort, particularly about the application of airpower,that is always a trap folks looking for solutions to past conflict.
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I think that Germany is preparing not for some distant conflict, but exactly for a conflict with Russia. And this means extreme saturation with Manpads on the frontline.

So the best thing will be to stay kilometers behind the frontline and pick the invading russsian armor with missiles from a safe distance.
 
Wotan said:
I think that Germany is preparing not for some distant conflict, but exactly for a conflict with Russia. And this means extreme saturation with Manpads on the frontline.

So the best thing will be to stay kilometers behind the frontline and pick the invading russsian armor with missiles from a safe distance.
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Well it first needs 10years to achieve that type of saturation , last estimates by German military that whole BW is enough to defend a medium size German city , ammo stocks are for 4 days of full scale war , folks have no idea the bottom of the barrel has been scraped for Ukraine , some countries like Denmarks have no artilery left.

Russia Invading Germany is about as likely as North Korea invading US mainland.
 
It was suposed to be safe also for Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
"The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with U.S. Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance,[3] prohibited Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons."

But the russians invaded Ukraine anyway. Why should any european nation think that they are safe? It is obvious that if Putin would be able to overrun Ucraine he will continue to invade other european state.
 
yasotay said:
It also does not help that both sides have higher technology MANPAD systems than the survivability systems on the aircraft. Also the antiquated tactics used by both sides at the beginning of the war did not help reduce the numbers of casualties. Until someone can show me real data about how many missions are flown per aircraft lost I am not willing to write off an entire concept of operation. With Youtube rational we ought get ride of tanks and artillery and air defense. Even infantry might be questionable.
@Kiltonge - what they do not tell you about that statistic for U.S. Army losses in Vietnam are how many of those helicopters were recovered, fixed, and shot down again. There were some helicopters, that over their lifespan, had been shot down three or four times.
Click to expand...
Also how many people die in suxh shootdowns is important. Who cares if a helo/tank/apc is destroyed if the people inside get to escape unharmed.
 
It seems that Germany did not get the memo regarding the antiquity of helicopters, especially attack helicopters (please note sarcasm) Of course Russia, China, Turkey as well as others appear to have missed it as well.
One could make an argument that smaller, more nimble, sniping helicopters might have utility on the modern battlefield.
 
yasotay said:
It seems that Germany did not get the memo regarding the antiquity of helicopters, especially attack helicopters (please note sarcasm) Of course Russia, China, Turkey as well as others appear to have missed it as well.
One could make an argument that smaller, more nimble, sniping helicopters might have utility on the modern battlefield.
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German procurement officials have said they are prioritising filling Nato’s capability gaps, focusing on air defence as well as offensive capabilities such as precision missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory. “In the end I would like to defeat my enemy before he crosses my border,” senior defence ministry official Carsten Stawitzki told a conference in Berlin last month.Stawitzki argued he was “not a dinosaur” and understood the importance of supporting innovation by buying newer technologies. But he also pushed back at those from the start-up world who say that Ukraine shows that Nato must prioritise drone warfare. “Ukraine is not a blueprint,” Stawitzki said, arguing that Kyiv had been forced to buy a high number of drones because it lacked the conventional capabilities of many Nato armies.
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https://www.ft.com/content/30fbb68d-aaaf-405a-b50d-a275d10ce59a
 

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