Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne and derivatives

Jeb said:
Triton said:
Does an X2 compound rotorcraft have an advantage over tilt-rotor when flying in contested environments?

I can only think of two.
[list type=decimal]
[*]The X2 doesn't have a translation time for the rotors to go from vertical to horizontal. I don't know how fast the tiltrotors can convert or if there are maneuvering restrictions during translation, but in the abstract I'd consider that a disadvantage.

[*]The X2, if equipped with door gunners, doesn't have as much firing arc restriction as a tiltrotor would have while flying in airplane mode. Or, for that matter, in helicopter mode, since the TR's rotor disc spans out much wider than the X2.
[/list]


Regarding acceleration, speculation is that starting from a steady state hover, a comparable X2 would have an acceleration advantage at the beginning because while its pusher is smaller than the proprotors on a comparable Tilt-Rotor, it is already in position to provide full thrust. The Tilt-Rotor would accelerate at first like a normal helicopter. As speed increased, the more towards the horizontal the proprotors translate, the more aft thrust they're going to provide and they will surpass the thrust of the pusher by a good bit, which would up the acceleration significantly. One advantage there is that once wingborne, 100% of the engine's power is available for thrust, whereas with an X2 the majority of power is always going to keep the thing in the air.

Transition time will be a function of what the required performance for a give bird is, and how the engineers choose to meet it. There are no maneuvering restrictions during transition (either way) inherent in Tilt-Rotor technology, AFAIK.

Although neither an X2 or a Tilt-Rotor are going to be using door guns when they are traveling at their higher speeds, unquestionably at lower speeds a Tilt-Rotor has a wider rotor arc so consequently can't elevate the door guns as far, which would be relevant in a tight bank. Helicopters have shot themselves down by inadvertently firing through the rotor arc.

Other possible X2 advantage , depending on the size of the vehicle, could be weight and lift efficiency at very low speeds/hover. With a Tilt-Rotor, the wing is always there. As the vehicle gets smaller, the weight of the wing becomes a larger percentage of total vehicle weight so the helicopter, lacking a wing gains and advantage. I am saying helicopter because given the extra weight of two vs one rotor, that big mast and big transmission inherent to X2, I don't know know how much those factor into the weight equation for X2.

Again, the Tilt-Rotor always has that wing there. That wing, while providing very efficient lift in wingborne flight relative to a rotor, is always going to be in the downwash when in rotorborne flight. This is going to cause a hit to Tilt-Rotor's low speed/hover efficiency. Some of this can be mitigated because a Tilt-Rotor can put a lot more twist on its blades (because it doesn't have to push the blades through the air sideways at higher speeds), but it's not enough to overcome the penalty of wing in the downwash while rotorborne.
 
F-14D said:
Jeb said:
Triton said:
Does an X2 compound rotorcraft have an advantage over tilt-rotor when flying in contested environments?

I can only think of two.
[list type=decimal]
[*]The X2 doesn't have a translation time for the rotors to go from vertical to horizontal. I don't know how fast the tiltrotors can convert or if there are maneuvering restrictions during translation, but in the abstract I'd consider that a disadvantage.

[*]The X2, if equipped with door gunners, doesn't have as much firing arc restriction as a tiltrotor would have while flying in airplane mode. Or, for that matter, in helicopter mode, since the TR's rotor disc spans out much wider than the X2.
[/list]


Regarding acceleration, speculation is that starting from a steady state hover, a comparable X2 would have an acceleration advantage at the beginning because while its pusher is smaller than the proprotors on a comparable Tilt-Rotor, it is already in position to provide full thrust. The Tilt-Rotor would accelerate at first like a normal helicopter. As speed increased, the more towards the horizontal the proprotors translate, the more aft thrust they're going to provide and they will surpass the thrust of the pusher by a good bit, which would up the acceleration significantly. One advantage there is that once wingborne, 100% of the engine's power is available for thrust, whereas with an X2 the majority of power is always going to keep the thing in the air.

Transition time will be a function of what the required performance for a give bird is, and how the engineers choose to meet it. There are no maneuvering restrictions during transition (either way) inherent in Tilt-Rotor technology, AFAIK.

Although neither an X2 or a Tilt-Rotor are going to be using door guns when they are traveling at their higher speeds, unquestionably at lower speeds a Tilt-Rotor has a wider rotor arc so consequently can't elevate the door guns as far, which would be relevant in a tight bank. Helicopters have shot themselves down by inadvertently firing through the rotor arc.

Other possible X2 advantage , depending on the size of the vehicle, could be weight and lift efficiency at very low speeds/hover. With a Tilt-Rotor, the wing is always there. As the vehicle gets smaller, the weight of the wing becomes a larger percentage of total vehicle weight so the helicopter, lacking a wing gains and advantage. I am saying helicopter because given the extra weight of two vs one rotor, that big mast and big transmission inherent to X2, I don't know know how much those factor into the weight equation for X2.

Again, the Tilt-Rotor always has that wing there. That wing, while providing very efficient lift in wingborne flight relative to a rotor, is always going to be in the downwash when in rotorborne flight. This is going to cause a hit to Tilt-Rotor's low speed/hover efficiency. Some of this can be mitigated because a Tilt-Rotor can put a lot more twist on its blades (because it doesn't have to push the blades through the air sideways at higher speeds), but it's not enough to overcome the penalty of wing in the downwash while rotorborne.

Superb analysis.

I will see you and raise you two.

a. Tilt rotor wing provides sunk cost space for things like jammer/aux fuel/(restricted) weapon pods location
b. Tilt rotor can trail things behind it like refuel hose& drogue, countermeasures or antenna.

Now before F-14D calls my raise, I do realize that the question regarded mostly hover and acceleration. I would offer that IF the Tilt Rotor has more rotor flexibility (exact term alludes me at the moment), and nacelle rotational speed it will move out better than a conventional helicopter, without necessity to change fuselage pitch angle. Given a standing straight line start I would have to agree that the compound would initially out accelerate the tilt rotor. However, in practical terms since we are talking about leaving a landing zone, we have to consider that most have obstacles around them that must be cleared as well. So with an "up and out", I am not sure there is much difference between the two honestly (given all power performance is equal).
 
Look for this;

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a040189.pdf
 

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Par Tool Lockheed AH-56A Cheyenne Navy

Model of Lockheed AH-56A Cheyenne in Navy livery manufactured by Par Tool Company found on eBay

Source:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Navy-Attack-Helicopter-Lockheed-AH56A-Cheyenne-Manufacturers-Display-Model/123247072253?hash=item1cb21913fd:g:~40AAOSwNOJbR7FZ
 

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Here is a late 1960s (circa-1967/68?) film about Honeywell's Helmet Sight System that was to equip the AH-56 Cheyenne. The film describes the technology being possibly used for "armament, reconaissance, and navigation." Mention is also made of the US Air Force's TACREACT system contract awarded to Honeywell in 1967.*

The footage includes early feasibility tests, including use of rudimentary camera/sight system within the cockpit of an F-8 Crusader to see if it was possible for pilots traveling at high-speed to identify and track offset targets. The film then goes into detail on the development of the helmet mounted sight system for the AH-56A Cheyenne attack helicopter, including tests which utilized a UH-1A Huey test-bed. Air-to-air tests of the system are also protrayed, with the system mounted in a Beech Model 18 (N67641, ex-USAAF 41-9503; AT-11, c/n 929).** At the conclusion of the film, future applications for the system are briefly discussed.

YouTube - George Mihal: "1966, HONEYWELL, HELMET SIGHT SYSTEM, AH-56 CHEYENNE HELICOPTER"
*As an aside, the TACREACT system is mentioned in a footnote in Air University Review, Vol. XXV, No. 3, March-April 1974, "Visually Coupled Systems," authored by Lt. Col. Joseph A. Birt (USAF) and Thomas A. Furness III. It is in the context ofthe referenced article, and this passage, "In 1968 the Air Force sponsored a test of air-to-ground navigation/reconnaissance using a similar unit to pinpoint targets." The footnote on page 40 reads "USAF Tactical Air Reconnaissance Center, TACREACT, Tactical Air Command Test 67-118, TAC 7058-01054, Tactical Air Command/TARC, Shaw AFB, South Carolina, January 1968. (Report is CONFIDENTIAL.)" The Air University Review article cited, which is a good read with respect to the history and development of helmet-mounted sights, is attached here for reference.
** And for good measure, that Beech 18/AT-11 is still extant (now registered as N88KD) as an exhibit at the Hangar 25 Museum in Big Spring, Texas.
 

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F-14D,

>
Part of the change was rise of the "hide, look, shoot and scoot" philosophy, which neither Cheyenne or Blackhawk were that good at they were more optimized for the high speed, large payload role, as well as the ability to absorb damage. actually somewhat closer to fixed wing,
>

The AH-56 was originally designed with the ATGAR (neh AGM-64 Hornet, neh AGM-114) or an air launch variant of the MGM-51 Shillelagh in mind. When this shifted to the BGM-71 TOW, the type was immediately crippled by the nature of a 500mph wire guidance missile being tail chased by a 275mph attack helicopter. SACLOS on the wire kills your range, your lofting options and your evasive maneuver (~2` bank angle) while gifting you with the TOF of penguin in a 60 knot headwind.

This didn't matter when the threat was shooting at you with <1km DShK and <2km ZPU-1. When they start throwing Zoos and SA-13s your way, how long you have to remain stabilized on target to take the shot tends to become a serious preoccupation.

>
Whereas Apache is much more agile down in the weeds.
>

Compared to what? A Huey? A Little Bird? Nose heavier than the Ayatollah...

>
As to the effectiveness of that change, depends on who you ask. It's worthy of note that the Marines are much more into the keep your speed up when down low and don't hover unless you're really sure there isn't much ground to air immediately nearby. We do have data where Army AH-64s and Marine AH-1Ws are working the same kinds of targets in the same areas. Apache had good IR suppression and is famous for its armor. While the -1W had virtually NO IR suppression and, "the armor of a soup can", its loss rate was much lower.
>

Well, the reality is a bit more complex than that. In 1970s Europe, you have the precursor to a mult-OMGs breakout scenario at local 10:1 odds through your rear areas. They get on Route 4 out of Fulda or the Hof and it's a couple hours to Bonn. You are going to have to cross support at extended ranges from 'beyond the shoulder' of adjacent units which will be neck deep in alligators, shaving with a chainsaw.

Now throw in that it's likely winter and you can't see past the end of the rotor disk downwash for want of the sleet-snow-icing that is central Germany. The AH-56 wins here. Because it can come from farther back than Illesheim to maintain sortie rates and has the weather penetration radar pod on one of the fuselage stations. The AH-64 doesn't because it's doppler nav wasn't that great and it's TADS/PNVS were very low resolution, terribly latencied and apt to lose boresight and smear out at the least little thing because the IHADSS wasn't that great either.

The AH-56 was designed to provide remote FOB support in a fashion similar to the YOV-10D NOGS in the middle of the Vietnamese monsoon season. The AH-64 would struggle there, again because the period sensors were just not all that (pilots prefered ANVIS over the PNVS on the Apache, up through the mid-90s when the Broadhead stuff started coming out).

In the summer, the AH-64 would also have difficulties with the early T700 engines in the hot'n'hi effects of the highlands along the border. Speed keeps you in lift when you are marginal for the hover and the AH-56 was in fact capable of ESTOL takeoffs like an Mi-24.

That said, the AH-56 had a coupling mode which could induce 1P/2P and sometimes a 4P hop and when that happened the canopy and boom were so close to the rotor disk that they could and did decapitate aircrew and saw the aircraft in half. Albeit the occasions where they did so required serious cases of pilot error(forgot to secure the collective dampener and ended up self-pumping the oscillation under wild negative/positive G excursions) to make it happen and, in the second case, an engineer in a windtunnel who was not even rated. This caused a secondary mechanical gyro system to be developed as an intermediary solution and then a full on 'digital' (such as it was in those days) AFLCS to be integrated which basically gave the Cheyenne an FBW flight director mode that the AH-64 could not match. It was this capability which allowed the Cheyenne to skim the weeds at such extreme speeds and low levels without major cyclic pitch commits of the fuselage which a conventional helicopter would have had to have resorted to. And if you can couple that to loftable ATGM, you can still NLOS, over hill, for a MULE team to zot for you.

That said, despite having a mechanical linkage system, the Apache came with a taller mast with better blade materials and would not ginsei you under a relatively wide range of positive/negative G excursions or CAT. An AH-56, flown in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan would likely suffer the same boom slap issues as the Hind did which would severely constrain it's evasive maneuver and rapid targt reengage capabilities especially when the ridgeline is above your effective operational ceiling.

The sugar scoop fitted to the final FSD AH-56 was good, only because the exhaust was so close to the rotor disk and the SA-7 had such a lousy lead sulphide seeker. The same system, on the AH-1G only scattered and diffused the heat signature into a bigger plume and sucked up more missiles.

Against second generation shoulder missiles like the Gremlin, Gimlet and early POST Stinger, you would have had to have shifted to a plug system like on the Step III Cobra and with what, 3,200shp coming through the exhaust, I'm not sure it would have the capacity to handle the requried mixing shift. Fitting ALQ-144, lousy as it was, would also be something of an exercise as there would be a lot of conditions where the threat is actually above you, on a ridgeline or in another platform and the Disco Light, on the bottom of the fuselage (the only place were it would not cook or catch main rotor blades) will mask out, leaving only the big bloom of the primary exhaust. You might be MILDLY better off going with an ALQ-157 on both sides.

Since the Apache only had two M130s and no MAWS cue, it can hardly be said to be much better as the ALQ-144 is really just a beaconator to most later man portables.

If you're going to fix the Cheyenne, you need to remove the second M134 gun turret, stop with the wagon wheel CAS mode and strip out the Last Starfighter gunner's chair to push the optics forward and up, into the nose. Probably with some variant of the M65, replacing the TSU components with FACTS and LAAT. The AAS-25 PINE was simply too dated to be useful by 1975, you needed to take advantage of some of the modular TICMs that GEC was working on. If you are going to do COIN CAS, you want to have a much better, 70mm, Rocket (MK.66 over Mk.40) with MPSM warheads and, ideally, guidance, a lot sooner. If you are operating in a high threat anti-armor role, make the shift to an unwired ATGM with SAL or TV for the 1970s and IIR for the 1980s. See the AGM-65 for how that goes...

The AH-56 was a better tank killer than the Hawg, Sled or Indian, for the simple reason that it was NOT doctrinally intended to do frontal CAS in a CAVU environment like a jet powered Able Dog. The same speed which let it suppress enroute threats and then catch up to the Airmobile cavalcade or dash ahead to sterilize an LZ before the slicks arrived would have also let it slip across the FEBA and go huntin` wabbits while the WARPAC were still mobbed up in road columns.

The Soviets were deathly afraid of our Tacfire networked artillery and designed their entire FSE-by-the-nose, main force around the the sides, 'running start' engagement model around bypassing the marshalling phase of a planned attack, flowing directly into the attack from roadmarch as widely separated battlefield maneuver formations, pushing from a lot farther back. As you can imagine, this causes a veritable lemming rush of discrete point targets, so the idea that you are going to head and tail them and then lawnmow the snake inbetween just isn't happening. Unless...

You get about 30-50km beyond the FSCL and deep into BAI country.

This is what upset the Zoomies. Because, with the moving map, all weather penetration radar, two crew, and a really good flight control system (at the very last, keeping in mind they recertified the Cheyenne TWICE, on no money) and a decent if not great PINE FLIR system, the AH-56 could fight EITHER the SEA or the CENTAG mission sets.

The closest the USAF could do to match this was LGBs off the Pave Spike equipped F-4D/E and they were really day-only. Maverick sucked and blew all the way through the scene mag B (shorter acquisition range than the _min range_ of the GAU-8 for about 80% of European 'sunny summer afternoons'...) and the LAU-88 tri rail was a drag pig with major electrical reliability issues inherent to the Quick Draw boresight handoff mechanism.

Of course they wanted the Cheyenne dead. It effectively challenged the mindset behind the equally 'smart HUD,dumb bomb' mindless spothood of the LWF/ACF (F-16) program which was then the Zoomie's latest white scarf Santa wish. And Big Army bent over and complied because, hey, it's The Army. And they didn't want to pay for a 3 million dollar weapons system now, when they could pay 8-10 million for AAH in another decade. Woot!

The sad part being that the A-10, like the F-16 could have been a contenduh but it needed to approach the fight with the same complex Weapons System understanding that had formulated the AH-56 concept definition. It really is the junk in the Avionics trunk here and the Hawg arrived at Bentwaters in...1979-80 I think without:

1. TISL.
Target marking, it's a thing.
2. Digital Map.
Single Seat CAS, it's a gas. Or a guess.
3. GCAS/TFR.
Because Germany is all about the low ceilings. And high tension lines.
4. Autopilot.
Because someone has to fly while you spread out your 1:50,000.
5. MLDS/EWMS
Yes, the AAR-34 existed. It wasn't great but it existed. So did the APQ-153. And you have 16 ALE-40s to program burst-release intervals.
6. CNI UFC.
Because hey, that retro look of a WWII LCOSS sight pedestal is back in fashion!
7. HUDWAC.
Because the USAF were too cheap for even the LCOSS.
8. Datalink.
Because it's not like the Russians are past masters of Radio Electronic Combat or nuthin' and of course ATHS/PLRS/SINCGARS wasn't a thing.
9. INS
INStructions? We don't need no steenkeen INStructions! We BOTOT from the last burning M60!
10. AGM-124 WASP.
It's milliwave, it's folding/tubed, it has a swarm datalink capability to go with a loft and hold, relightable motor, LOAL target sort. And you can put so many on a single pylon (6, 12 or 24 round pods) that you don't have to go wall to wall with drag. It doesn't even require MilStd 1553b.

Guhh.
 
Spoken like a true aircraft engineer!

Vulnerability is moderated by protection. Of course in aircraft where every pound is a thief of critical flight performance protection is primarily provided by design. But armour, and I mean real thick stuff not just a 12.7mm sheet of 5083, can provide significant protection. The key to armouring is reducing the surface area of the object to be armoured as this allows your armour to be thicker for the same weight margin.

Now for the sake of simplicity assuming same sized square rectangles for engine bays to have one engine bay protected from a full sphere requires 6/11 of the armour of two side by side bays (with armour between engines). Which means for the same weight your armour can be 145% thicker.

In the case of AH-56 vs AH-64 the position of the engine bays also has effect as much more of the aircraft’s other structure and systems provides layered protection from fires so even less surface area requires protection. For defence against ground fires this means heavy armour only on the sides and rear of the engine and moderate armour on the front and bottom of the engine bay. Whereas to provide similar protection the AH-64 would need two sets of heavy armour on the bottom, outer side, front and rear of its engine bays (not to mention one between the engines to avoid sympathetic destruction).

Designing a helicopter like a tank and a single engine bay can provide significantly more survivability. And not just attrition survivability but mission survivability. Much better to take a hit and still be able to fly and fight rather than to have to flee to safety.

Vulnerability is dictated by two factors. SSPH and SSPK. The vulnerability study is typically based on a systemic study which break down square areas of airframe subject to critical damage by a given threat system.

Bluntly, if you cannot hit because the other guy is firing out of range on your weapons system, whether your weapons system can kill him if it does hit _does not matter_.

This is a better way to look at the survivability onion because it doesn't require you to account for unique modifiers like the extremely constrained TOW firing envelope, it's relatively prolonged TOF to target relative to a rapidly closing firing helicopter behind it and things like blast effects destabilizing the helicopter, too low to recover.

You get hit in a combat environment and your ability to recover is going to be limited. See the 4,500 odd aircraft lost in SEA which were often recovered as wrecks, more than once. And that was against an enemy whose primary gunpit defense was HMGs. In a high intensity warfighter scenario, you are looking at radar laid auto cannon, Man Portables and vehicle based SAMs with precision cue and network handoff from sector/gapfiller radars, further back. Get hit, get dead.

If you do recover and it's a high intensity MTW, the likelihood that your aircraft will be useful for more than a few canbird spares, before it's blown in place or left for the maintenance squadron to truck back to a larger MOB and homebase is very low. They may just strip it and bury it.

In SEA, most of the threats were in treelines or (complex terrain) other solid cover. You had to fire over your own forces head and the standard for targeting was to drop half a Pink Team (LOACH and Snake pairing) down into the dirt a couple miles away, come roaring over the treeline with the gunner leaning out of the side door and dropping a smoke flare as/when the enemy fired at you or the local infantry unit said 'That's the address, send the mail...'.

The Cobra would then come barreling down from 1,500ft or so, take the rocket shot and pull off, with the round out still relatively safe from the ground fire and NOT shooting over the heads of the engaged friendly infantry because the Mk.4/.40 rocket was about as accurate as a coin toss and could SERIOUSLY go amiss if a variety of problems from hangfire on the initiator to unbalanced rotor harmonics in heavy, wet air, effected the weapon as it was still slow, coming out of the tube.

TOW worked really well off a pair of emergency converted Hueys during 1972's Easter Offensive but only from around 2,500-3,000ft AGL because that was the max slant for target acquistion with the primitive XM26 TSU and only because the threat was not firing much in the way of guided or laid weapons, while on the move. Altitude = slant versus linear range and, combined with forward motion, makes it easier to avoid lobshotting or ambush conditions whereby the AAA is firing in basically indirect mode and/or making a lot of noise which encourages you to fly over a trashfire threat. See Najaf, 2003, for how that stings.

Point Being: You do pull high altitude stuff in CENTAG and you're dead. Because everything is guided or laid, SPAAGs, turret guns on the IFVs, Man Portables in the back of IFVs, and of course ADV SAMs (SA-8/9/13/15/19).

You don't want to design a system with a rotating gunner's chair for that environment because it anticipates a fight condition wherein you are closing on the target rapidly enough that line of sight rates require large slew tracking index changes. Against a high intensity threat, even with the XM52 weapons systems relatively decent ballistic perfromance (still 30X113, not 30X173), you immediately suffer the 'if the enemy is in range...' problem of flying into the threat's airspace which can be particularly dangerous in a pepared laager because as another poster suggested, your standard maneuver element is division sized and will have fires elements (AD outermost) LOOKING IN across about a 10-20km battlespace.

It's the Breyr Rabbit condition. Please don't throw me into the Briar Patch Mr. Wolf!

if you want to justify single engine performance, do it for the original reason it was mooted: lighter weight, more power on a single, big, transmission shaft driving a really big rotor disk. As the ability to go fast, cross the FEBA, a significant distance, cross range, from your mission target, get to the mission area, find the target and wipe it out while it's still 30-50km behind their FLOT. Where you are not expected.

Keep all your targeted enemies on your nose and LOAL a SALH weapon with your wingman 5km behind doing the designation as you duck behind whatever hill, treeline or builtup is convenient. With decent optics and an active (roadmarch), high visibility, threat, there is no reason to come to a hover. You use something like the SOTAS or Pave Mover to tell you what's out there. You go more more less straight to it, to compress any reaction force, you shoot and you scoot.

Never lingering to be pinned like butterfly to a collecting board by some angry MiG driver doing a QRA launch from a roadbase a couple klicks to your rear.

NOE from the hover taxi, into and out of ambush hides, is slow and clumsy because you don't dare pitch the nose so much that your power (collective) application blooms you above whatever LOS protection you are masked behind. There is no speed in the traditional ATGW stalk because the nature of the helicopter (pitch to go forward) is so awkward. You are seldom doing more than 90 knots and in the attack, with scouts forward, it's often less than half that.

A rigid compound doesn't suffer this problem. It can fly laser flat, using the collective to up and over terrain features without adding cyclic pitch modifiers and so you are able to stay fast AND low. Firing missiles over the LOS boundary.

Originally, the AH-56 was going to use the MGM-51 Shillelagh or the ATGAR (AGM-64 Hornet). The TOW was a major step back for it because wired SACLOS is so damn slow and you have very stringent roll and pitch limiters on maintaining missile tracker stabilization.

That is where you are making your mistake.
 
Well, someone with a clue.
 
F-14D,

>
Part of the change was rise of the "hide, look, shoot and scoot" philosophy, which neither Cheyenne or Blackhawk were that good at they were more optimized for the high speed, large payload role, as well as the ability to absorb damage. actually somewhat closer to fixed wing,
>

The AH-56 was originally designed with the ATGAR (neh AGM-64 Hornet, neh AGM-114) or an air launch variant of the MGM-51 Shillelagh in mind. When this shifted to the BGM-71 TOW, the type was immediately crippled by the nature of a 500mph wire guidance missile being tail chased by a 275mph attack helicopter. SACLOS on the wire kills your range, your lofting options and your evasive maneuver (~2` bank angle) while gifting you with the TOF of penguin in a 60 knot headwind.

This didn't matter when the threat was shooting at you with <1km DShK and <2km ZPU-1. When they start throwing Zoos and SA-13s your way, how long you have to remain stabilized on target to take the shot tends to become a serious preoccupation.

>
Whereas Apache is much more agile down in the weeds.
>

Compared to what? A Huey? A Little Bird? Nose heavier than the Ayatollah...

>
As to the effectiveness of that change, depends on who you ask. It's worthy of note that the Marines are much more into the keep your speed up when down low and don't hover unless you're really sure there isn't much ground to air immediately nearby. We do have data where Army AH-64s and Marine AH-1Ws are working the same kinds of targets in the same areas. Apache had good IR suppression and is famous for its armor. While the -1W had virtually NO IR suppression and, "the armor of a soup can", its loss rate was much lower.
>

Well, the reality is a bit more complex than that. In 1970s Europe, you have the precursor to a mult-OMGs breakout scenario at local 10:1 odds through your rear areas. They get on Route 4 out of Fulda or the Hof and it's a couple hours to Bonn. You are going to have to cross support at extended ranges from 'beyond the shoulder' of adjacent units which will be neck deep in alligators, shaving with a chainsaw.

Now throw in that it's likely winter and you can't see past the end of the rotor disk downwash for want of the sleet-snow-icing that is central Germany. The AH-56 wins here. Because it can come from farther back than Illesheim to maintain sortie rates and has the weather penetration radar pod on one of the fuselage stations. The AH-64 doesn't because it's doppler nav wasn't that great and it's TADS/PNVS were very low resolution, terribly latencied and apt to lose boresight and smear out at the least little thing because the IHADSS wasn't that great either.

The AH-56 was designed to provide remote FOB support in a fashion similar to the YOV-10D NOGS in the middle of the Vietnamese monsoon season. The AH-64 would struggle there, again because the period sensors were just not all that (pilots prefered ANVIS over the PNVS on the Apache, up through the mid-90s when the Broadhead stuff started coming out).

In the summer, the AH-64 would also have difficulties with the early T700 engines in the hot'n'hi effects of the highlands along the border. Speed keeps you in lift when you are marginal for the hover and the AH-56 was in fact capable of ESTOL takeoffs like an Mi-24.

That said, the AH-56 had a coupling mode which could induce 1P/2P and sometimes a 4P hop and when that happened the canopy and boom were so close to the rotor disk that they could and did decapitate aircrew and saw the aircraft in half. Albeit the occasions where they did so required serious cases of pilot error(forgot to secure the collective dampener and ended up self-pumping the oscillation under wild negative/positive G excursions) to make it happen and, in the second case, an engineer in a windtunnel who was not even rated. This caused a secondary mechanical gyro system to be developed as an intermediary solution and then a full on 'digital' (such as it was in those days) AFLCS to be integrated which basically gave the Cheyenne an FBW flight director mode that the AH-64 could not match. It was this capability which allowed the Cheyenne to skim the weeds at such extreme speeds and low levels without major cyclic pitch commits of the fuselage which a conventional helicopter would have had to have resorted to. And if you can couple that to loftable ATGM, you can still NLOS, over hill, for a MULE team to zot for you.

That said, despite having a mechanical linkage system, the Apache came with a taller mast with better blade materials and would not ginsei you under a relatively wide range of positive/negative G excursions or CAT. An AH-56, flown in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan would likely suffer the same boom slap issues as the Hind did which would severely constrain it's evasive maneuver and rapid targt reengage capabilities especially when the ridgeline is above your effective operational ceiling.

The sugar scoop fitted to the final FSD AH-56 was good, only because the exhaust was so close to the rotor disk and the SA-7 had such a lousy lead sulphide seeker. The same system, on the AH-1G only scattered and diffused the heat signature into a bigger plume and sucked up more missiles.

Against second generation shoulder missiles like the Gremlin, Gimlet and early POST Stinger, you would have had to have shifted to a plug system like on the Step III Cobra and with what, 3,200shp coming through the exhaust, I'm not sure it would have the capacity to handle the requried mixing shift. Fitting ALQ-144, lousy as it was, would also be something of an exercise as there would be a lot of conditions where the threat is actually above you, on a ridgeline or in another platform and the Disco Light, on the bottom of the fuselage (the only place were it would not cook or catch main rotor blades) will mask out, leaving only the big bloom of the primary exhaust. You might be MILDLY better off going with an ALQ-157 on both sides.

Since the Apache only had two M130s and no MAWS cue, it can hardly be said to be much better as the ALQ-144 is really just a beaconator to most later man portables.

If you're going to fix the Cheyenne, you need to remove the second M134 gun turret, stop with the wagon wheel CAS mode and strip out the Last Starfighter gunner's chair to push the optics forward and up, into the nose. Probably with some variant of the M65, replacing the TSU components with FACTS and LAAT. The AAS-25 PINE was simply too dated to be useful by 1975, you needed to take advantage of some of the modular TICMs that GEC was working on. If you are going to do COIN CAS, you want to have a much better, 70mm, Rocket (MK.66 over Mk.40) with MPSM warheads and, ideally, guidance, a lot sooner. If you are operating in a high threat anti-armor role, make the shift to an unwired ATGM with SAL or TV for the 1970s and IIR for the 1980s. See the AGM-65 for how that goes...

The AH-56 was a better tank killer than the Hawg, Sled or Indian, for the simple reason that it was NOT doctrinally intended to do frontal CAS in a CAVU environment like a jet powered Able Dog. The same speed which let it suppress enroute threats and then catch up to the Airmobile cavalcade or dash ahead to sterilize an LZ before the slicks arrived would have also let it slip across the FEBA and go huntin` wabbits while the WARPAC were still mobbed up in road columns.

The Soviets were deathly afraid of our Tacfire networked artillery and designed their entire FSE-by-the-nose, main force around the the sides, 'running start' engagement model around bypassing the marshalling phase of a planned attack, flowing directly into the attack from roadmarch as widely separated battlefield maneuver formations, pushing from a lot farther back. As you can imagine, this causes a veritable lemming rush of discrete point targets, so the idea that you are going to head and tail them and then lawnmow the snake inbetween just isn't happening. Unless...

You get about 30-50km beyond the FSCL and deep into BAI country.

This is what upset the Zoomies. Because, with the moving map, all weather penetration radar, two crew, and a really good flight control system (at the very last, keeping in mind they recertified the Cheyenne TWICE, on no money) and a decent if not great PINE FLIR system, the AH-56 could fight EITHER the SEA or the CENTAG mission sets.

The closest the USAF could do to match this was LGBs off the Pave Spike equipped F-4D/E and they were really day-only. Maverick sucked and blew all the way through the scene mag B (shorter acquisition range than the _min range_ of the GAU-8 for about 80% of European 'sunny summer afternoons'...) and the LAU-88 tri rail was a drag pig with major electrical reliability issues inherent to the Quick Draw boresight handoff mechanism.

Of course they wanted the Cheyenne dead. It effectively challenged the mindset behind the equally 'smart HUD,dumb bomb' mindless spothood of the LWF/ACF (F-16) program which was then the Zoomie's latest white scarf Santa wish. And Big Army bent over and complied because, hey, it's The Army. And they didn't want to pay for a 3 million dollar weapons system now, when they could pay 8-10 million for AAH in another decade. Woot!

The sad part being that the A-10, like the F-16 could have been a contenduh but it needed to approach the fight with the same complex Weapons System understanding that had formulated the AH-56 concept definition. It really is the junk in the Avionics trunk here and the Hawg arrived at Bentwaters in...1979-80 I think without:

1. TISL.
Target marking, it's a thing.
2. Digital Map.
Single Seat CAS, it's a gas. Or a guess.
3. GCAS/TFR.
Because Germany is all about the low ceilings. And high tension lines.
4. Autopilot.
Because someone has to fly while you spread out your 1:50,000.
5. MLDS/EWMS
Yes, the AAR-34 existed. It wasn't great but it existed. So did the APQ-153. And you have 16 ALE-40s to program burst-release intervals.
6. CNI UFC.
Because hey, that retro look of a WWII LCOSS sight pedestal is back in fashion!
7. HUDWAC.
Because the USAF were too cheap for even the LCOSS.
8. Datalink.
Because it's not like the Russians are past masters of Radio Electronic Combat or nuthin' and of course ATHS/PLRS/SINCGARS wasn't a thing.
9. INS
INStructions? We don't need no steenkeen INStructions! We BOTOT from the last burning M60!
10. AGM-124 WASP.
It's milliwave, it's folding/tubed, it has a swarm datalink capability to go with a loft and hold, relightable motor, LOAL target sort. And you can put so many on a single pylon (6, 12 or 24 round pods) that you don't have to go wall to wall with drag. It doesn't even require MilStd 1553b.

Guhh.
Much of the detailed and experienced knowledge is beyond me...would comment though that is seems the USAF would not want the Karem AR-40 as it would again be solo war winner like the 56 would have been-(avionics aside which should render any FARA if properly equipped as the 56 would have been very formidable) Surprisingly, LEG, you have turned me against the Apache.
Also a 155mm ramjet msle (MGM-51 Shillelagh like -small form factor) for both barrel launch from an Abrams replacement and a large wing helicopter would make a warwinner, but also which threatens the USAF CAS role. (whether AF really wants the CAS role is questionable give their behavior).
 
TOW isn't exactly fast but I don't believe the Shillelagh was particularity fast either. Maybe Hornet would have worked well although if it had an EO seeker similar to Maverick A/B it would have had quite the price tag.

I know the AH-56 had cutting edge avionics for its day but I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that its sighting system was better than TADS/PNVS which seemed pretty impressive for the time it was introduced. That weather-penetrating radar pod sounds useful. Were there any ideas on how that would be fielded? One per every helo seems a bit unlikely.

Trying to use the AH-56 in a battlefield interdiction role in West Germany doesn't seem like a good idea despite the machine's qualities. That high low level speed is great but when it comes to actually attacking a Soviet column it still isn't going to be enough to protect against the Shilkas and everything else firing back at you.

Realistically with the sort of air-defense overhaul the Soviets undertook in the 1970s I think the strategies that US Army aviation adopted during that time period were the only way to be effective without crippling losses.
 
F-14D,

>
Part of the change was rise of the "hide, look, shoot and scoot" philosophy, which neither Cheyenne or Blackhawk were that good at they were more optimized for the high speed, large payload role, as well as the ability to absorb damage. actually somewhat closer to fixed wing,
>

The AH-56 was originally designed with the ATGAR (neh AGM-64 Hornet, neh AGM-114) or an air launch variant of the MGM-51 Shillelagh in mind. When this shifted to the BGM-71 TOW, the type was immediately crippled by the nature of a 500mph wire guidance missile being tail chased by a 275mph attack helicopter. SACLOS on the wire kills your range, your lofting options and your evasive maneuver (~2` bank angle) while gifting you with the TOF of penguin in a 60 knot headwind.

This didn't matter when the threat was shooting at you with <1km DShK and <2km ZPU-1. When they start throwing Zoos and SA-13s your way, how long you have to remain stabilized on target to take the shot tends to become a serious preoccupation.

>
Whereas Apache is much more agile down in the weeds.
>

Compared to what? A Huey? A Little Bird? Nose heavier than the Ayatollah...

>
As to the effectiveness of that change, depends on who you ask. It's worthy of note that the Marines are much more into the keep your speed up when down low and don't hover unless you're really sure there isn't much ground to air immediately nearby. We do have data where Army AH-64s and Marine AH-1Ws are working the same kinds of targets in the same areas. Apache had good IR suppression and is famous for its armor. While the -1W had virtually NO IR suppression and, "the armor of a soup can", its loss rate was much lower.
>

Well, the reality is a bit more complex than that. In 1970s Europe, you have the precursor to a mult-OMGs breakout scenario at local 10:1 odds through your rear areas. They get on Route 4 out of Fulda or the Hof and it's a couple hours to Bonn. You are going to have to cross support at extended ranges from 'beyond the shoulder' of adjacent units which will be neck deep in alligators, shaving with a chainsaw.

Now throw in that it's likely winter and you can't see past the end of the rotor disk downwash for want of the sleet-snow-icing that is central Germany. The AH-56 wins here. Because it can come from farther back than Illesheim to maintain sortie rates and has the weather penetration radar pod on one of the fuselage stations. The AH-64 doesn't because it's doppler nav wasn't that great and it's TADS/PNVS were very low resolution, terribly latencied and apt to lose boresight and smear out at the least little thing because the IHADSS wasn't that great either.

The AH-56 was designed to provide remote FOB support in a fashion similar to the YOV-10D NOGS in the middle of the Vietnamese monsoon season. The AH-64 would struggle there, again because the period sensors were just not all that (pilots prefered ANVIS over the PNVS on the Apache, up through the mid-90s when the Broadhead stuff started coming out).

In the summer, the AH-64 would also have difficulties with the early T700 engines in the hot'n'hi effects of the highlands along the border. Speed keeps you in lift when you are marginal for the hover and the AH-56 was in fact capable of ESTOL takeoffs like an Mi-24.

That said, the AH-56 had a coupling mode which could induce 1P/2P and sometimes a 4P hop and when that happened the canopy and boom were so close to the rotor disk that the blades could and did decapitate aircrew and saw the aircraft in half. Albeit the occasions where they did so required serious cases of pilot error(forgot to secure the collective dampener and ended up self-pumping the oscillation under wild negative/positive G excursions) to make it happen and, in the second case, an engineer in a windtunnel who was not even rated. This caused a secondary mechanical gyro system to be developed as an intermediate solution and then a full on 'digital' (such as it was in those days) AFLCS to be integrated which basically gave the Cheyenne an FBW flight director mode that the AH-64 could not match. It was this capability which allowed the Cheyenne to skim the weeds at such extreme speeds and low levels without major cyclic pitch commits of the fuselage which a conventional helicopter would have had to have resorted to. And if you can couple that to loftable ATGM, you can fire NLOS, over hill, for a MULE team to zot for you.

That said, despite having a mechanical linkage system, the Apache came with a taller main rotor mast with better blade materials and would not ginsu you under a relatively wide range of positive/negative G excursions or CAT. An AH-56, flown in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan would likely suffer the same boom slap issues as the Hind did which would severely constrain it's evasive maneuver and rapid targt reengage capabilities especially when the ridgeline is above your effective operational ceiling.

The sugar scoop fitted to the final FSD AH-56 was good, only because the exhaust was so close to the rotor disk and the SA-7 had such a lousy lead sulphide seeker. The same system, on the AH-1G only scattered and diffused the heat signature into a bigger plume and sucked up more missiles.

Against second generation shoulder missiles like the Gremlin, Gimlet and early POST Stinger, you would have had to have shifted to a plug system like on the Step III Cobra and with what, 3,200shp coming through the exhaust, I'm not sure it would have the capacity to handle the required mixing as band shift. Fitting ALQ-144, lousy as it was, would also be something of an exercise as there would be a lot of conditions where the threat is actually above you, on a ridgeline or in another platform and the Disco Light, on the bottom of the fuselage (the only place were it would not cook or catch main rotor blades) will mask out, leaving only the big bloom of the primary exhaust. You might be MILDLY better off going with an ALQ-157 on both sides of the tail.

Since the Apache only had two M130s and no MAWS cue, it can hardly be said to be much better as the ALQ-144 is really just a beaconator to most later man portables.

If you're going to fix the Cheyenne, you need to remove the M134 turret, stop with the wagon wheel CAS mode and strip out the Last Starfighter gunner's chair to push the optics forward and up, into the nose. Probably with some variant of the M65, replacing the TSU components with FACTS and LAAT. The AAS-25 PINE was simply too dated to be useful by 1975, you needed to take advantage of some of the modular TICMs that GEC was working on. If you are going to do COIN CAS, you want to have a much better, 70mm, Rocket (MK.66 over Mk.40) with MPSM warheads and, ideally, guidance, a lot sooner. If you are operating in a high threat anti-armor role, make the shift to an unwired ATGM with SAL or TV for the 1970s and IIR for the 1980s. See the AGM-65D for how that goes...

The AH-56 was a better tank killer than the Hawg, Sled or Indian, for the simple reason that it was NOT doctrinally intended to do frontal CAS in a CAVU environment like a jet powered Able Dog. The same speed which let it suppress enroute threats and then catch up to the Airmobile cavalcade or dash ahead to sterilize an LZ before the slicks arrived would have also let it slip across the FEBA and go huntin` wabbits while the WARPAC were still mobbed up in road columns.

The Soviets were deathly afraid of our Tacfire networked artillery and designed their entire FSE-by-the-nose, main force around the the sides, 'running start' engagement model around bypassing the marshalling phase of a planned attack, flowing directly into the lunge from roadmarch as widely separated battlefield maneuver formations, pushing from a lot farther back. As you can imagine, this causes a veritable lemming rush of discrete point targets, so the idea that you are going to head and tail them and then lawnmow the snake inbetween just isn't happening. Unless...

You get about 30-50km beyond the FSCL and deep into BAI country.

This is what upset the Zoomies. Because, with the moving map, all weather penetration radar, two crew, and a really good flight control system (at the very last, keeping in mind Lockheed recertified the Cheyenne TWICE, on no money) and a decent if not great PINE FLIR system, the AH-56 could fight EITHER the SEA or the CENTAG mission sets.

The closest the USAF could do to match this was LGBs off the Pave Spike equipped F-4D/E and they were really day-only. Maverick sucked and blew all the way through the scene mag B (shorter acquisition range than the _min range_ of the GAU-8 for about 80% of European 'sunny summer afternoons'...) and the LAU-88 tri rail was a drag pig with major electrical reliability issues inherent to the Quick Draw boresight handoff mechanism.

Of course they wanted the Cheyenne dead. It effectively challenged the mindset behind the equally 'smart HUD, dumb bomb' mindless spothood of the LWF/ACF (F-16) program which was then the Zoomie's latest Santa wish. And Big Army bent over and complied because, hey, it's The Army. And they didn't want to pay for a 3 million dollar weapons system now, when they could pay 8-10 million for AAH in another decade. Woot!

The sad part being that the A-10, and even the F-16 could have been a contenduh but it needed to approach the fight with the same complex Weapons System understanding that had formulated the AAFSS concept definition. It really is the junk in the Avionics trunk here and the Hawg in particular arrived at Bentwaters in...1979-80 I think without:

1. TISL.
Target marking, it's a thing.
2. Digital Map.
Single Seat CAS, it's a gas. Or a guess.
3. GCAS/TFR.
Because Germany is all about the low ceilings. And high tension lines.
4. Autopilot.
Because someone has to fly while you spread out your 1:50,000.
5. MLDS/EWMS
Yes, the AAR-34 existed. It wasn't great but it existed. So did the APQ-153. And you have 16 ALE-40s to program burst-release intervals for.
6. CNI UFC.
Because hey, that retro look of a WWII LCOSS sight pedestal is back in fashion!
7. HUDWAC.
Because the USAF were too cheap for even the LCOSS.
8. Datalink.
Because it's not like the Russians are past masters of Radio Electronic Combat or nuthin' and of course ATHS/PLRS/SINCGARS wasn't a thing.
9. INS
INStructions? We don't need no steenkeen INStructions! We BOTOT from the last burning M60!
10. AGM-124 WASP.
It's milliwave, it's folding/tubed, it has a swarm datalink capability to go with a loft and hold, relightable motor, LOAL target sort. And you can put so many on a single pylon (6, 12 or 24 round pods) that you don't have to go wall to wall with drag. It doesn't even require MilStd 1553b.

Guhh.
Much of the detailed and experienced knowledge is beyond me...would comment though that is seems the USAF would not want the Karem AR-40 as it would again be solo war winner like the 56 would have been-(avionics aside which should render any FARA if properly equipped as the 56 would have been very formidable) Surprisingly, LEG, you have turned me against the Apache.
Also a 155mm ramjet msle (MGM-51 Shillelagh like -small form factor) for both barrel launch from an Abrams replacement and a large wing helicopter would make a warwinner, but also which threatens the USAF CAS role. (whether AF really wants the CAS role is questionable give their behavior).


The best anti-armor CAS is an M270 MLRS with SADARM/TGSM or WAAM Hornet (Mine not missile), mixed with DPICM. Saturation is incredible. Shot density can be low to allow reengagement and TOF at max range is better than 155. With the GPS round, the accuracy is quite good so it basically comes down to finding a choke and chopping the combat lane in front of it to cut the threat off.

The issue is whether or not you have the range to interdict from two or three divisional AORs over as the thundering horde of WARPAC tears up the in-area forces and, depending on the era, the OMG threat goes deep for the win.

If you go with TACMs, your guidance gets better because it can be datalinked, inflight, to very precision hits via the Pave Mover, tracking GMTIs. But now you're talking a million dollar round in an era where that actually meant something and the need for a Tacit Blue or better because you are not going to protect the SLAR on an F-111 (too few) or an Orchidee` slung beneath a Puma (too shootable).

AH-56 lets you bring the smart fires to the target via a bus platform with the sensors to do on-site allocation sorting of the moving target array. Put the Hellfire on EITHER the Cheyenne or the A-10 and now you are slinging enough kills that even if you sensorize only a few aircraft (A-10B min-change with a FLIR camera for the pilot and a Zot like the Pave Spot on the OV-10A for the backseater) you can get enough kills to be worth the per-sortie risk. Because the Russians aren't flying a lot at night either and our radar missiles were significantly better than their's.

The key thing to do is have the cast iron cahones to be willing to let the enemy tanks run themselves dry with only security elements and RT as CAS to slow them up as you SERIOUSLY concentrate on bagging their POL/Ammo, moving up behind them. The artillery closes the barn door behind the horse to any followon exploitation forces, allowing you to reform your lines rather than thin them to give chase to armor with armor (pursuit tactics in the M60 are not practical, the Leopard 1 was a little better, but not much vs. a 125mm tank with vastly superior armor...). But to make all this work, you MUST be able to go deep and kill their maneuver gas.

The closest operational model I can think of is the Jordanian Black September war against the Syrians where the need was to apply sufficient shock to the lead formations to give Jordan some breathing room as their army was split between multiple brigade forces in concurrent 'monitoring' missions across the country on various guerilla factions as well as the Iraqi 3rd Division which had defacto parked itself in East Jordan in 1967 and showed little intent of decamping. On or about 15 September, King Hussein got tired of living a realm where a foreign terrorist group more or less controlled his capital and brought in multiple artillery elements to begin shelling the excrement out of Amman. This lead to a Syrian invasion on 18 September by the SAA 5th division which came down from the North as King Hussein did his best to rid his country of the PLA pests who were fomenting war between Jordan and Israel.

He couldn't hold them because the PLA/Fedayeen were constantly mucking with his own logistics in nominal 'rear areas', just like 2003.

By about September 20th, the Syrians had swept far enough south, picking up a hodgepodge of Fedayeen, Fatah, Iranian and supposedly Chinese 'advisors' (think IS and their mongrel lot) that Hussein was on the phone asking for relief from just about anyone who would pick up on the other end.

The Brits said no, the Americans said no and the Israelis 'needed to think on it'.

We did move the 6th Fleet into position in anticipation of intervening AFTER Jordan collapsed. As Hussein realized he was on his own in a situation where, if he lost to the Syrians, they, the Iraqis, Saudis and Israel would tear apart his country like a bunch of feral jackals.

The 40th Brigade was able to do a post-Alamein, Rommel in Retreat, speedbumping mission on the leading BCTs of the Syrians. Who were actually decelerated, linking up with the various guerilla factions looting and shooting innocents (Hue) and then on the morning of September 22, King Hussein changed the nature of war. By proving that YES, if you are in it to win it, airpower can determine the outcome. The Syrians were badly scattered, had little AA and were in an ops pause, refueling, so the RJAF began hitting them, over and over again until the SAA road columns were smoking pyires. To the point where, in the space of 2-3hrs they were in full retreat, yiping for the hills.

Israel gave them an added kick in the pants on the way back north and having learned a lesson about being King, Hussein began furiously rolling up every guerilla he could find until he came up with about 20,000 POWs and 600-700 odd weapons cache sites. This was the end of Fatah/PLA in Jordan and they subsequently moved into Lebanon to rinse and repeat until the Israelis again cleaned house (see: PFG, 1982).

The important take aways here are CAVU in the desert is not mid winter in Central Europe while, _provided they know where to shoot_, (Highway Of Death) along a limited, linear, target array as MSR roadnet system; tacair can move a lot of mud in an incredibly short period of time, at Jet Speed. The Russians would have also stuck to Hitler's highway network, as it's just too much trouble trying to move cross country, down logging trails through the wooded hills of south central Germany, with division combat elements in three feet of snow. They also needed to fait d'accompli own Germany to begin negotiations on ending the war before the nukes started flying and as Desert Saber shows, an unobstructed tank force can do a lot in 100hrs.

The issue then becomes whether or not you can slow them long enough to stop them by corking their logistics. The Russians would come in winter, simply because we didn't have the all weather capable tacair to stop them (Phantoms, Thuds, 104s), in the early-mid 1970s. If you have to hunt trucks through the bushes, you want something that can do a slow stalk, running parallel to an A/A without getting 'Road Wrecked' by following a predictable SAMbush lane.

The other thing to remember is that not even the Russians had infinite resources. AD, outside of towed and man portables, was held at division or even Corps levels, to be tasked where needed, to aid the breakout. This means you can either protect your trucks, exposed on the roadways, or you can protect your lead FSEs which would constantly be running into a man and his Milan (or MULE), on the back of some jeep. If you can't maintain spacing on the forward security elements you are going to constantly bunch and lunge with your main force, clearing up casualties from every delaying action on some fairly narrow roads. Inviting saturation artillery and air.

So that's where where the threat ADVs are going to be.

The Helicopters can deal with organic Sergeis and SA-7s in the CS/CSS units. They just standoff from them with ATGW and/or use very fast pass flanking attacks such as you see in all the demos of Cheyenne rocket and gun runs. Whereas fixed wing is not going to do well, at medium altitude, in a veritable thicket of heavy frontal SA-3/6/8, leapfrogging up behind the combat formations. Jets clawing through the midnight murk, looking for headlights will get Chewed Up.

But you have to have the guts and the insight to say NO to the Zoomies and apply them in the morning, frontally, where they can actually do some good, as fast CAS. Letting the night belong to the precision artillery and the all weather attack helicopters.

Even though they think everything 5 miles beyond the FLOT is their personal hunting preserve, USAFE was essentially non-functional, at night, on moving targets, throughout the Cold War. Which means they cannot swat refueling trucks moving up during this period.

I only read about the penetration radar/TFR (the reference was not specific) recently. I have looked for photos and not found anything in the usual sources though I still have some feelers out with the AIAA as they helped me run down some particulars on related material in the past.
 
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TOW isn't exactly fast but I don't believe the Shillelagh was particularity fast either. Maybe Hornet would have worked well although if it had an EO seeker similar to Maverick A/B it would have had quite the price tag.

I know the AH-56 had cutting edge avionics for its day but I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that its sighting system was better than TADS/PNVS which seemed pretty impressive for the time it was introduced. That weather-penetrating radar pod sounds useful. Were there any ideas on how that would be fielded? One per every helo seems a bit unlikely.

Trying to use the AH-56 in a battlefield interdiction role in West Germany doesn't seem like a good idea despite the machine's qualities. That high low level speed is great but when it comes to actually attacking a Soviet column it still isn't going to be enough to protect against the Shilkas and everything else firing back at you.

Realistically with the sort of air-defense overhaul the Soviets undertook in the 1970s I think the strategies that US Army aviation adopted during that time period were the only way to be effective without crippling losses.

Trailing a wire off anything automatically limits you to subsonics, no matter the carriage environment. Shillelagh was what it was because it was a CLGP. Whether you repackage the guidance into a bigger round or add a booster package, getting away from the wire guided environment is worth it. TOW RF does 4.5km at something like 800fps (vs. 3.75 @ 550fps) because it ditched the spool. Given TOW gets squirrelly at max range as the weapon slows down and command lags out, anything helps. That said, closing on the threat is stupid but so is showing your side profile with guns blazing after a salvo rocket launch at <1.5km ranges under the 'One Clean Shot' vs. the 'Shoot The Dragon!' rule.

I only read about the weather penetration radar/TFR (the reference was not specific) recently-

>
The two predecessor programs, Pave Star and Pave Imp, had provided only a limited night or all-weather capability, and to meet the requirements of MAC ROC 19-70, the Pave Low project was initiated in 1972. At Edwards AFB, Sikorsky engineers installed a forwardlooking radar, the AN/APQ-141—initially designed for the US Army AH-56 Cheyenne gunship—on HH-53B #66-14433, an NRS-modified BLACK KNIGHTS AND RED SCARVES │ 95 aircraft and veteran of combat duty in SEA.
>


While I have a hard time believing a pod as large as the proboscis on the MH-53 was carried on the Cheyenne, it would stand to reason that that it would be on one of the Sponson pylons (which were derated to fuel-only), to retain maximum weapons clearance under the wings. Obviously this is going to pose HERO, EMI and masking issues with the XM52 installation. I do know that it was podded.

I have looked for photos and not found anything in the usual online sources though I still have some feelers out with the AIAA as they helped me run down some particulars on related material in the past. You might also try the Warbird Tech volume, though finding one gets real expensive. If anyone has photos, info or drawings, please share.

In terms of utilization, if you can tuck up close on a section lead, you can probably penetrate as he does, just using rotor glimmer from above. The gunner backing up the pilot on the PINE to track the lead until breakout. The scenario I originally read mentioned SEA in the highlands or Laos where you are dropping down from cruise at 3-5,000ft into who knows what terrain elevation. Hunting Trucks.

In Europe, you would probably want one for every aircraft. The weather gets so horrible there, midwinter, that you are down to 500ft and under 1 mile visibility and _all_ Gen-1 FLIR is going to be all but useless, at night. Given all the high tension lines and the icing conditions things could get pretty serious if you didn't have independent navigation in threat airspace, which you would be ingressing at low level, all the way.

Of course the Russians invented the 'Pelengator' for exactly this scenario so it may be that you're not going to be using the radar more than intermittently enroute to the target area but if you can follow separate doppler nav tracks inwards, you at least reduce the chances of friendly collision by combination of the moving map, target file photos and the radar. Drop a log (ground flare) at some preprogrammed IP and orient off that as an update marker that lets you effectively say: "Everything east of here is mine, everything south is yours." as you hit the columns from both sides of a road.

As I stated above, the Russian ADV inventory was not infinite, as they were very expensive vehicles for the time and thus tended to be held back for Higher to doll out to specific mission taskings. You would find logistics units with older, towed, ZU-23 or SA-7 as the Shilka and SA-8/9 were pushed forwards with the maneuver elements or concentrated around specific vulnerabilities like river crossings or highway junctions. This is one of the reasons why you want to have fast jets doing timed runs, in daylight as they can loft or low angle toss from all directions at such short popup intervals that you can effectively saturate the threat engagement interval. It gets expensive in terms of attrition for that first or second man in. But it works if you have rockets or ARMs to rapidly suppress with. In daylight.

I suppose a Cheyenne could carry some SEAD ordnance (ADSM comes to mind) but you're really not there to get into it with the enemy SPAAGs and what not, you want to kill tanks. Or trucks. And as vulnerable and slow as any helicopter is to any HMG or bigger (yes, even the AH-56) compared to a 500 knot jet doing snake'n'nape or cluster runs, why waste the avionics sophistication that can go beyond FEBA in night actions, to hit the bear in the face with a hammer, predictably, during the day, with this huge airframe, moving at speed. Everyone will see you and task a QRA response to come get you while firing trashfire from weapon they have to hand.

The answer, as it so often is, is the bullets and scopes matter, more than the rifle.

If you can shift to a Hellfire or equivalent, you can theoretically engage with one shot, designate, fire another, and be on your way out of the fight as missile 1 impacts and your wingman, 5km back, sparkles on the same code, moving the missile to a second target while firing his own weapons at really tight interval. I've never really seen the purpose in being very slow, very low. It doesn't impress artillery. It doesn't stop tank rounds and particularly CLGP, when you pop back up to designate or shoot another 15-17 second TOW. If you can instead be very far, using salvo mode engagement tactics to put 3-4 shots down range, per pass, you don't have to be stuck in proximity and can snipe, go away and come back again a few minutes as compass quadrants, later.

When you have an 8km Hellfire, it's the missile, not the launch platform, which matters in getting this standoff. So protect the launch platform by remaining at speed against all other threats rather than being pinned to the ground ducking the engaged enemy ground force as that Hind comes over the treetops of your ambush hide.

Remember, there is no JAAT here. No OH-58C or Alphajet looking for trouble as troikas of Mi-24s sweeping the flanks of their lead company teams which are themselves screening forces for the largerr main combat element. You are on your own and so you want to get in, get it done, and get out. Before someone radios Frontal Aviation to come fly swat the midnight creepers.

Under conditions where the threat has minimal understanding that they are even being engaged, night and through weather penetration changes all of this by cutting down on the number of hunters out there, thinking it's duck season. Which is itself useful because Hellfire, in Direct Mode, (due to low ceilings) is also going to lose half it's standoff.

Versus trucks with cold drivers on strange roads, looking to make a blacked-out rendezvous and get back under cover before daylight without even the LLTV scopes of period T-64/72 which are bedded down already in secure laagers with deployed OPs and attached radar SPAAGs and SAM ADVs blinking on and off, I know which target set I would pick.

Kill what feeds the strong, where they are weakest. Movong on the road nets, at night. And the warriors will fall the next day, because the camp followers did not live to deliver their gas. And they are stuck, static, predictable, as the steel rain falls.
 
Leg - preposterous! Everyone knows you have to shoot the artillery.

Please note cynicism in my comment.

Also, many thanks to the link. Have been looking to read on AFSOC 53's.
 
TOW isn't exactly fast but I don't believe the Shillelagh was particularity fast either. Maybe Hornet would have worked well although if it had an EO seeker similar to Maverick A/B it would have had quite the price tag.

I know the AH-56 had cutting edge avionics for its day but I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that its sighting system was better than TADS/PNVS which seemed pretty impressive for the time it was introduced. That weather-penetrating radar pod sounds useful. Were there any ideas on how that would be fielded? One per every helo seems a bit unlikely.

Trying to use the AH-56 in a battlefield interdiction role in West Germany doesn't seem like a good idea despite the machine's qualities. That high low level speed is great but when it comes to actually attacking a Soviet column it still isn't going to be enough to protect against the Shilkas and everything else firing back at you.

Realistically with the sort of air-defense overhaul the Soviets undertook in the 1970s I think the strategies that US Army aviation adopted during that time period were the only way to be effective without crippling losses.

Trailing a wire off anything automatically limits you to subsonics, no matter the carriage environment. Shillelagh was what it was because it was a CLGP. Whether you repackage the guidance into a bigger round or add a booster package, getting away from the wire guided environment is worth it. TOW RF does 4.5km at something like 800fps (vs. 3.75 @ 550fps) because it ditched the spool. Given TOW gets squirrelly at max range as the weapon slows down and command lags out, anything helps. That said, closing on the threat is stupid but so is showing your side profile with guns blazing after a salvo rocket launch at <1.5km ranges under the 'One Clean Shot' vs. the 'Shoot The Dragon!' rule.

I only read about the weather penetration radar/TFR (the reference was not specific) recently-

>
The two predecessor programs, Pave Star and Pave Imp, had provided only a limited night or all-weather capability, and to meet the requirements of MAC ROC 19-70, the Pave Low project was initiated in 1972. At Edwards AFB, Sikorsky engineers installed a forwardlooking radar, the AN/APQ-141—initially designed for the US Army AH-56 Cheyenne gunship—on HH-53B #66-14433, an NRS-modified BLACK KNIGHTS AND RED SCARVES │ 95 aircraft and veteran of combat duty in SEA.
>


While I have a hard time believing a pod as large as the proboscis on the MH-53 was carried on the Cheyenne, it would stand to reason that that it would be on one of the Sponson pylons (which were derated to fuel-only), to retain maximum weapons clearance under the wings. Obviously this is going to pose HERO, EMI and masking issues with the XM52 installation. I do know that it was podded.

I have looked for photos and not found anything in the usual online sources though I still have some feelers out with the AIAA as they helped me run down some particulars on related material in the past. You might also try the Warbird Tech volume, though finding one gets real expensive. If anyone has photos, info or drawings, please share.

In terms of utilization, if you can tuck up close on a section lead, you can probably penetrate as he does, just using rotor glimmer from above. The gunner backing up the pilot on the PINE to track the lead until breakout. The scenario I originally read mentioned SEA in the highlands or Laos where you are dropping down from cruise at 3-5,000ft into who knows what terrain elevation. Hunting Trucks.

In Europe, you would probably want one for every aircraft. The weather gets so horrible there, midwinter, that you are down to 500ft and under 1 mile visibility and _all_ Gen-1 FLIR is going to be all but useless, at night. Given all the high tension lines and the icing conditions things could get pretty serious if you didn't have independent navigation in threat airspace, which you would be ingressing at low level, all the way.

Of course the Russians invented the 'Pelengator' for exactly this scenario so it may be that you're not going to be using the radar more than intermittently enroute to the target area but if you can follow separate doppler nav tracks inwards, you at least reduce the chances of friendly collision by combination of the moving map, target file photos and the radar. Drop a log (ground flare) at some preprogrammed IP and orient off that as an update marker that lets you effectively say: "Everything east of here is mine, everything south is yours." as you hit the columns from both sides of a road.

As I stated above, the Russian ADV inventory was not infinite, as they were very expensive vehicles for the time and thus tended to be held back for Higher to doll out to specific mission taskings. You would find logistics units with older, towed, ZU-23 or SA-7 as the Shilka and SA-8/9 were pushed forwards with the maneuver elements or concentrated around specific vulnerabilities like river crossings or highway junctions. This is one of the reasons why you want to have fast jets doing timed runs, in daylight as they can loft or low angle toss from all directions at such short popup intervals that you can effectively saturate the threat engagement interval. It gets expensive in terms of attrition for that first or second man in. But it works if you have rockets or ARMs to rapidly suppress with. In daylight.

I suppose a Cheyenne could carry some SEAD ordnance (ADSM comes to mind) but you're really not there to get into it with the enemy SPAAGs and what not, you want to kill tanks. Or trucks. And as vulnerable and slow as any helicopter is to any HMG or bigger (yes, even the AH-56) compared to a 500 knot jet doing snake'n'nape or cluster runs, why waste the avionics sophistication that can go beyond FEBA in night actions, to hit the bear in the face with a hammer, predictably, during the day, with this huge airframe, moving at speed. Everyone will see you and task a QRA response to come get you while firing trashfire from weapon they have to hand.

The answer, as it so often is, is the bullets and scopes matter, more than the rifle.

If you can shift to a Hellfire or equivalent, you can theoretically engage with one shot, designate, fire another, and be on your way out of the fight as missile 1 impacts and your wingman, 5km back, sparkles on the same code, moving the missile to a second target while firing his own weapons at really tight interval. I've never really seen the purpose in being very slow, very low. It doesn't impress artillery. It doesn't stop tank rounds and particularly CLGP, when you pop back up to designate or shoot another 15-17 second TOW. If you can instead be very far, using salvo mode engagement tactics to put 3-4 shots down range, per pass, you don't have to be stuck in proximity and can snipe, go away and come back again a few minutes as compass quadrants, later.

When you have an 8km Hellfire, it's the missile, not the launch platform, which matters in getting this standoff. So protect the launch platform by remaining at speed against all other threats rather than being pinned to the ground ducking the engaged enemy ground force as that Hind comes over the treetops of your ambush hide.

Remember, there is no JAAT here. No OH-58C or Alphajet looking for trouble as troikas of Mi-24s sweeping the flanks of their lead company teams which are themselves screening forces for the largerr main combat element. You are on your own and so you want to get in, get it done, and get out. Before someone radios Frontal Aviation to come fly swat the midnight creepers.

Under conditions where the threat has minimal understanding that they are even being engaged, night and through weather penetration changes all of this by cutting down on the number of hunters out there, thinking it's duck season. Which is itself useful because Hellfire, in Direct Mode, (due to low ceilings) is also going to lose half it's standoff.

Versus trucks with cold drivers on strange roads, looking to make a blacked-out rendezvous and get back under cover before daylight without even the LLTV scopes of period T-64/72 which are bedded down already in secure laagers with deployed OPs and attached radar SPAAGs and SAM ADVs blinking on and off, I know which target set I would pick.

Kill what feeds the strong, where they are weakest. Movong on the road nets, at night. And the warriors will fall the next day, because the camp followers did not live to deliver their gas. And they are stuck, static, predictable, as the steel rain falls.

Dear Leg,
I am lucky enough to have the Warbird Tech volume and looked this up last night.

According to the book there was intention (or on the wish list in dev't):

A) station keeping radar
B) full terrain following radar pod (as you describe but in less detail in the book)
C) a laser based active scanning night imaging system

There is a group of references, I'll get these and post later.

Thanks for fascinating notes (is there a section of the website where your acronyms are detailed? There should be!)

UPDATE: Reference is Wings of Fame, Vol.14 Airtime Publishing Inc.,1999, p.149/153 (I've ordered a £5 copy off Amazon today)
 
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Against second generation shoulder missiles like the Gremlin, Gimlet and early POST Stinger, you would have had to have shifted to a plug system like on the Step III Cobra and with what, 3,200shp coming through the exhaust,

More like 4,300shp towards the end.
 
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Idle musing here, but the AH-56 seems ideally suited to the 'Sandy' mission - not only was it designed as a helicopter escort, but its size, performance and armaments are strikingly similar to an A-1.

Notwithstanding the CL-1051 CSAR version discussed upthread, is there any suggestion that the type was pitched to the USAF for this role?
 
Leg,

You went back 11 years??
>
Whereas Apache is much more agile down in the weeds.
>

Compared to what? A Huey? A Little Bird? Nose heavier than the Ayatollah...


The specifications for the AAH program emphasized low speed agility and IIRC, set higher requirements for that than did AAFSS while not requiring as much high speed performance. As Lockheed said in their pitch for their CL-1700 AAH (which resembled a smaller AH-56 with no pusher), "We're scaling down, not up".


>
As to the effectiveness of that change, depends on who you ask. It's worthy of note that the Marines are much more into the keep your speed up when down low and don't hover unless you're really sure there isn't much ground to air immediately nearby. We do have data where Army AH-64s and Marine AH-1Ws are working the same kinds of targets in the same areas. Apache had good IR suppression and is famous for its armor. While the -1W had virtually NO IR suppression and, "the armor of a soup can", its loss rate was much lower.
>

Well, the reality is a bit more complex than that. In 1970s Europe, you have the precursor to a mult-OMGs breakout scenario at local 10:1 odds through your rear areas. They get on Route 4 out of Fulda or the Hof and it's a couple hours to Bonn. You are going to have to cross support at extended ranges from 'beyond the shoulder' of adjacent units which will be neck deep in alligators, shaving with a chainsaw.

I wasn't discussing Cheyenne itself, but commenting on the change in Army's philosophy from the time of AAFSS to AAH. and its relative effectiveness Whereas the former emphasized motion tactics, the latter envisioned hiding behind terrain and popping up for a quick shot and then scooting to a new location and doing it again. I was noting that USMC's philosophy was closer to the former, and even though their vehicle's design had less "survivability" features, its loss rate was lower.
 

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My mistake about the RAH-56 designation. I know better that it was the AH-56. :-\ Must have had Comanche on my mind to add the R in my original post. ;D I fixed it now.

I know that the Comanche program had problems. But has there been a weapons program in recent memory that there weren't technical problems, cost overruns, and political debate?

Could the Army have made use of the Comanche during the Vietnam war? Would it have been a better gunship on the battlefield than the AH-1 Cobra?

The Hughes, now Boeing, AH-64 Apache might be a superior aircraft, but it was years away.

Interesting to see the Northrop/Hawker Harrier in United States Army livery.

I understand too that the United States Air Force wanted to take the A-10 Thunderbold II out of service before the Gulf War. Perhaps it would have been better if the United States Army had taken over the close air support role from the United States Air Force.
As the links I provided show, the problem with the Cheyenne was it was designed for Vietnam and operation in a theater almost devoid of serious air defense systems. The rigid rotor system of the AH 56 gave it high speed but made it unable to hover in ground effect and make use of cover for pop up attacks.
It was designed to use unguided rockets in a diving attack from altitude against ground targets. The results of the Ansbach trials in Germany were decisively against it. Used against Soviet style air defenses it got slaughtered.

As for the A-10, the USAF has always been loathe to provide CAS to the Army as it is an affront to their independence as a branch of the military.
 
You probably have a point here. But don't forget that most of the weapon systems designed for the AH-56 were later - re-implanted into their US Army siblings.
 
I would have to disagree here; the Cheyenne was designed with the European theater in general and West Germany in particular mostly in mind, though the COIN role and police actions such as Vietnam were considered important taskings as well (especially given McNamara's obsession with such). The paper you link seems to be primarily be concerned with how existing & post-Cheyenne attack helicopters in service or under development as of 1980 (Apache) would be able to deal with Soviet battlefield air defence systems and associated doctrine, which was not helped by things like how in-depth army aircrew training had suffered during the 1970s.

The real cause of the Cheyenne's cancellation was as it was with so many other Army aviation programs of the Cold War (and even afterwards); The United States Air Force.
 
Still, being difficult to handle in Ground effect hover is certainly something you wouldn't want to have to deal with in the way attack helicopters operated in Europe.
 
Thought they had fixed that glitch by the time the program was cancelled?
 
I would have to disagree here; the Cheyenne was designed with the European theater in general and West Germany in particular mostly in mind, though the COIN role and police actions such as Vietnam were considered important taskings as well (especially given McNamara's obsession with such). The paper you link seems to be primarily be concerned with how existing & post-Cheyenne attack helicopters in service or under development as of 1980 (Apache) would be able to deal with Soviet battlefield air defence systems and associated doctrine, which was not helped by things like how in-depth army aircrew training had suffered during the 1970s.

The real cause of the Cheyenne's cancellation was as it was with so many other Army aviation programs of the Cold War (and even afterwards); The United States Air Force.
I remember watching several US Army films on these trials back in the early 80's or late 70's. James Bradin in From Hot Air to Hellfire, The History of Army Attack Aviation says the same thing. The US pilots were trained for combat in Vietnam where flying high enough to avoid small arms ground fire was a necessity and the usual tactic was a diving attack using rockets as the main weapon. Guided ATGM's were not a thing in use on then current US Army helicopters. Trials with TOW missiles had just begun and tactics for their use hadn't been developed.
At Ansbach, German and Canadian helicopter crews got a 41.7 to 1 kill ratio on "enemy" vehicles. The US Army crews, trained and skilled in the methods used in Vietnam managed just 8.6 to 1. The 7.62mm Gatling gun and 2.75" HVAR rockets used on then current AH-1G helicopters were good for Vietnam but found to be terrible against the SAM heavy Soviet systems the helicopters would be up against.
Up to that point the AH 56 hadn't been tested using hover in ground effect and pop-up tactics, so Lockheed and the Army tried the Cheyenne out at Yuma Proving Ground using them. The rigid rotor and design for high speed meant it had an "inability to effectively perform low-speed, low-mission tasks below 120 knots..."


That's the evaluation that doomed the AH 56 post Ansbach
 
Anti-tank =/= CAS to me is the key here.

MY (humble) understanding is that the AH-56 was to be a massive, ultra-fast CAS platform; trying to get CAS into the realm of helicopters rather than jets like A-10, A-7, A-4, or even freakkin' F-100s as used in Vietnam.

What happened was that, despite the AH-56 impressive capabilities, it wouldn't have survived CAS missions in Europe, so the Army grundingly returned attack choppers to the anti-tank role and thus the AH-64 was born.

The anti-tank versus CAS mission explain why the AH-1 survived: it was good enough for that, with TOWs. Same for the AH-64: excellent to destroy tanks by hidding below the landscape but you wouldn't want to try CAS with it.

Overall, don't underestimate another factor
- Army = > anti-tank > helicopters
- USAF = > CAS > fixed-wing
Was more acceptable POLITICALLY.

Plus the Army didn't knew its real needs (I quoted Jack Real harsh feelings many times on this forum)
...while USAF was ambiguous if no skizophrenic at best
"We need A-10 just to piss-off the Army in the anti-tank & CAS role"
"Anti-tank and CAS ? are you f... kidding me ? NOT A POUND FOR AIR TO GROUND !!!"

They were really like a) an embrassment of riches and b) spoiled childs in a candy shop - at times.

I really like how USAF
- created the A-10 just to bother the Army
- then said a decade later "A-10 is too slow and day only, screw it"
- with Republic creating the A-10B
- and Vought, the A-7F
- only for USAF to try and pass the mission to F-16s with a big gun pod in GW1...
- and by 2021 the A-10 is still there: single seat, day only, and it survived yearly atempts to screw it...
- and the F-35 to replace the A-10, too - nearly forgot that one... yeah !!

Complete insanity, really.
 
I'm keeping a short list of all these anti-tank / CAS platforms... AH-56, AH-1, Bell 309 "King Cobra", S-67, YAH-63, AH-64, YA-9, A-10, A-10B, A-7, A-7F, F-16, F-35...
 
Don't forget the ultimate US Army / USAF fight over aviation:

1616950184221.png

The OV-1 Mohawk was a joint US Army / USMC design for CAS. The Marines wanted it to carry lots and lots of things that explode on wing racks and have a quartet of 20mm cannons. The Army was going to only have an unarmed reconnaissance version. Then the USAF found out that the Army version could potentially be armed with all sorts of stuff because of the Marine version.

Thus, the A-10! See! The Air Force can do that mission! The Army doesn't need Mohawks! With the loss of Army support for the program, the Marines ended up scrapping it too because going it alone was too expensive.
 
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