RavenOne
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The Ukraine war has demonstrated that putting helicopters, attack or not, in the frontline area is a suicidal move.
@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.
So in 3 years Russia already lost 20% of its total helicopter fleet...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.
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.So in 3 years Russia already lost 20% of its total helicopter fleet...
Global combat helicopter fleet by country | Statista
This statistic illustrates the countries with the largest active combat helicopter fleet worldwide in 2021.www.statista.com
In ten years this would be like over 60% percent?
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.in an effort to apease Trump they end up buying Apache like they did F35 to suck up to Biden
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.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.
Ukrainian MOD says over 300, NATO estimates say also that the numbers are at 10%, so in any way significant.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.