Sponsored by Private Internet Access, Use the following link to access their promotional offer: www.piavpn.com/Perun As noted in the channel update, I'm now collecting suggested questions for a future Q&A episode on Patreon. Next week I'll likely seek some input here if further questions are needed, so feel free to think up potential questions in the meantime if you'd like. As for the episode itself, all I can say is that it's important not to overlearn the lessons of any one war, especially with such imperfect information available, but I thought it was important not just to talk about systems that are working really well, but also those that may be struggling a bit. Hope you enjoy. Apologies for the late release on this one but an Aussie was busy winning the the F1 so...
Suggestion, the Kiel Institute report titled "Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-à-vis Russia". Even after 2½ years at war, it would take Germany 15 years for fighter jets, 40 years for tanks, 100 years for howitzers to reach 2004 levels. While Russia produces 2 entire German defences per year.
@@The_ZeroLine Yes, comments are censored by their algorithm, but it also seems very buggy. I can't link to any other YT video in the comments without it being deleted immediately. And that's of course content that is okay for Google, else they would remove that video. They lose traffic by deleting links to their content, that's bad for business. I don't get what they are up to.
"Now I know it might be very difficult for some of you to believe that a Boeing product might be flawed in some way . . . " Classic Perun damning-with-faint-understatement!
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886Boeings problems directly corelate with the rising percentage of people who think flying machines are picked from the cotton plant
Boeing was doomed when they fully embraced capitalism. Capitalism consumes (stock buybacks, unfixable products, etc). Boeing got too centered in the flames and is being profitably burned. (Not future profits. Profits that have already been reaped.)
Sorry, mate, but I really think you missed the point of the attack helicopter concept, at least in the modern Western concept. I can't speak as to either how the Russians think they should be using their helicopters in doctrine, or how they actually are using their helicopters in doctrine, but you seem to have completely ignored where the attack helicopter fits in as far as we in the West are concerned. The days of using attack helicopters in a troop support role to aid ground forces are long gone, except in cases of extreme emergency or very permissive environments. Instead, they are used as the division and corps commander's maneuver asset. MG Isenhower last week publicly described an evolution during an NTC rotation for a corps-level mission, the 1AD CAB sending both battalions from Fort Irwin to a target area over 250km away, (Conducted with incorporation into a Red Flag exercise to replicate the air and SEAD problem) and this sort of operation pretty much matches what I've seen helicopters be used for over the past four years' worth of division and corps level exercises. You can imagine the level of havoc which can be wreaked by one battalion, let alone two in the division and corps deep areas, by a unit capable of identifying and engaging its own targets in real-time from (relatively speaking) close range, whilst itself emitting a rather limited EM signature, and, of course, being entirely unjammable unlike long-range loitering munitions.
I think doctrinal now, Russia use Attack Helicopters in the way the US Army intended the Tank Destroyers to work during WWII. Basically being spear blunters wherever they think a heavy push is. This was what I recall one of the big contributors to heavy losses on the first day of the 2023 Summer offensive. Was mostly that Ukraine didn't really have a way of dealing with Loitering KA-52s firing Vikhrs at max range specifically at the mine breaching vehicles heading the columns.
@TheChieftainsHatch Hi Chieftain! Thanks for your info on US Army training trends. The multiplicity of ways to use things is only limited by imagination. But this begs a question: Has there been a real world situation in history where the use of attack helicopters has been effective in a way the western doctrine envisions their use? To me it seems it would require very fluid situation and specific circumstances to be possible. So I'm wondering has this ever materialized. Thanks for any more info.
@@dexecuter18 there's an upgraded version of the KA-52's viktr missiles that has a range up to 17km ( experts calculated this by the speed of the missile and time to impact) and there's the Lmurs that has a range of 29km . The Ukrainians did have air defenses in the area of the infamous Bradley, max pros and leopard2 convoy getting hit by the KA-52 but they did not shoot down any of the helicopters
Having btdt cred. " Good enough, arriving at the right time. Better than perfect arriving as things are settled" WW phase 1 and phase 2 being prime example.
There was the firescout, an unmanned scout helicopter with some offensive capabilities. Last I checked though, that program apparently was cancelled. Perhaps a platform like the firescout could return.
They may find a future as command posts for drone units. Height could extend the range of line-of-sight communicatons and still be safe by use of drone decoys or relays.
Weren't scout helicopters already basically replaced? Like, if I had a helicopter and a Reaper drone on call.... What could tempt me to risk lives needlessly to have less overwatch time? (perhaps more total ammunition, but I don't see those straight-line rocket pods having much use, when your targets carry shoulder-fired Stinger-like threats)
One feature of Excalibur is the warhead will not arm if the accuracy of a shot falls outside a certain value. In a counterinsurgency setting this makes sense to avoid collateral damage. Shots were even aimed outside a village to have the guidance system steer them to the target and if there was a failure the shell would land in an empty field. But against an opponent with extensive GPS jamming it's likely the tiny GPS receiver in the shell being launched out of a cannon will quickly lose accuracy.
@@ArchOfficial The small size of the shell and need to survive extreme G-forces of being fired will put hard limits on what can be done to overcome jamming. In the numbers presented the JDAM munitions were much less affected which makes sense as there is much more room to work with and electronics do not have to be so sturdy.
The Slaanesh joke took me, as a 40k fan, so off guard that i thought i was having a small aneurysm and was 'mixing' the media i consumed together. Scrolled it back twice.
Same here. The analogy was understood so naturally at first, it took me some good 7 seconds to realize what it was, and then go back to be sure I heard what I heard.
Attack Helicopters are in a place that MBTs were in the 70s when everyone said they were obsolete due to prolific ATGMs and ironically attack helicopters. But what everyone forgets is that the more weapons there are that are designed to counter a specific platform the more vital that platform is. Just look at what happens when you lack SHORAD and head into an area where attack helicopters prowl. Having ANY attack helicopters forces your opponent into heavily investing in SHORAD and MANPADS and being hesitant to launch any kind of operation where those are lacking. Because you can't just judge a system by what it lets you do, you have to also consider what it forces your opponent to do in response.
There are plenty of other systems that can still force that same type of investment. One analog I wish he had mentioned was the MQ-9 Reaper. It does most of the same things helicopters can do, while being much cheaper. You could argue that its more susceptible to jamming but if a helicopter cant coordinate with ground troops and command, its not going to be very effective.
The PLA started deploying a two-man max autogyro into its mountain units, and those are proposed to make their Taiwan-facing infantry airmobile. Its primary purpose is immediate deployment of leg infantry, but once FOBs are set-up, one man stays to defend the FOB while the other flies it back to re-equip as a gunship, then drop that package at the FOB and fly back to load supplies and fly those in. Supposed to be able to link two to one as empty, full-load transports, too. But in a few years, with more data and practical experience, I expect they'll have their own version of the AH-56; not as armored as an AH-64, but much faster, with a lot more range, higher altitude capability at load, the same or greater payload, and (being made in China) a whole lot (1/10 cost, 1/3 price) cheaper than a current-build or rebuilt Apache . . . but the market will be Saudi Arabia, maybe South America, but mostly used by their PMCs to secure their Silk Road project.
@@hanpol2053 Not all SHORAD is equal. A lot of the investment and research in countering drones relates to finding cheap, electricity based solutions be that jamming or microwave type weapons to fry them. It's a major problem right how costly it is to take out the drones that exist and how limited the magazines of the AA systems are. A system optimized against large numbers of small drones will not be optimized against helicopters, particularly as their weaponry is getting longer and longer.
3:20 I wouldn't say that the Maginot like was over learning from the previous war. The whole point of the forts were to force a war of movement while keeping the coal and steel rich areas of France protected. This happened. The common sentiment is that the Maginot line failed, but it worked perfectly fine. A lot of stuff failed for France, including even a General deciding to leave his forts.
The Maginot Line's problem was that the German army was built specifically for a war of movement, to the point of their supply lines not being able to cope at all when the momentum stops. So in a roundabout way the Maginot Line worked so well it actually helped the Germans during the invasion of France.
@@Calvin_Coolage The French army was built for a war of movement too and I would say more so than Germany. Most of German's troops weren't panzer grenadiers and were regular foot infantry. That German army also hit the Maginot Line and was stopped for a time. General Huntziger's actions were pretty terrible.
@@arisukak That's fair. The Germans got lucky some of their more reckless pushes didn't bite them in the ass like they did during Operation Barbarossa. At the end of the day the Maginot Line is something a lot of people misunderstand, and France's military frankly had much bigger problems than anything to do with the Line.
The problem with the Marginot line was that there was a way around it. Had the French figured that the Germans might go through the Ardenes (exactly like they did the last time) and extended it all the way to the ocean, then the Germans would have faced a much MUCH stiffer obstacle. People like to quote Patton that "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man", but that comes with a few caveats: If you can built fixed fortifications so strong that it will take the enemy weeks of relentless bombardment crack them, then you have weeks of time to react. With today's bunker busting warheads penetrating up to 6 meters of reinforced concrete or 30 meters of soil, then it is going to be very expensive to build such fortifications.... but if you do, the enemy has three options 1) Expend more money destroying them than you expended building them, 2) Chose to fight outside the effective range of your fortified bombardment capability, or 3) Eat the losses that comes with fighting in range of a bombardment system.
@@andersjjensen Except the Maginot Line DID extend toward the ocean. It went from the English channel toward the Mediterranean. The Germans did attack through the Maginot Line as Sedan had fortifications. The line was also supposed to link up with Belgian fortifications that the Belgians decided to just appease Hitler instead of completing which screwed over French plans. Even if they simply "went around it" it still means the line worked. You just made your enemy attack on your terms. Patton was same guy who kept trying to take Metz fortress for 2 months without success.
America in the 200's designing a weapon that can't work with EW is peak "design for the war we are fighting and not the war we will fight". They designed weapons for a permissive environment for the war on terror to reduce collateral damage. But they didn't consider that the enemy gets a say, because disorganised militaries and militants with poor EW weren't the target. Time will tell they are learn that lesson from Ukraine.
Except for the fact that only the first increment of Excalibur rounds had no jamming resistance. Increment Ia-2 and Ib (M982A1) have jamming resistance built in. The problem isn’t inherent to the design, it’s a consequence of shipping Ukraine rounds made in 2007 before the full-capability version was in production.
US HARM and Air-Air missiles have literally homed to jam for at least 30 years. When you fire up an EW emitter against any primary US weapon system, you are going to die.
Excalibur anecdote: 2010-2011 in helmand province my unit got 1 conventional 155 fire-for-effect, all 8-10 rounds blew up beautifully; over 100 Excalibur fire missions, total that actually detonated: 3. That piece of shit is the leading dud producing ordinance on earth. A stance which I have maintained for nearly 14 years.
That's an intended outcome. They have functions to not arm the warhead if it would impact outside of an allowable zone. If you had called in unguided artillery, you'd have just been told you're not getting any.
Switchblades are missing from this. They were hyped immensely very early in the war and failed to deliver greatly. Anecdotes from the field indicated that they were very disappointing. Considering they performed the job worse than a simple FPV drone did for a price of around 50k a piece, i think they fit here well.
In the 2022 budget, the price for a single unit-the airframe, sensors, integrated guidance, warhead, data link, and launcher - was $58,063. This cost does not include additional elements like the guidance unit, which costs around $30,000, or fielding costs, spares, support, training rounds, and simulators. Ukrainian units prefer to use commercial drones equipped with cheaper explosives, at around $700 or less.[42] On April 23, 2023, the US Army decided not to buy more Switchblade 300s.
I remember when western media wrote all the Switchblade will swarm the russian troops and the Nazis were thought that they were only weeks from their win
Interesting about Excalibur. When we stopped hearing about Excalibur, I had assumed it was mostly a combination of two things: the fact that they were available in such small numbers, and assets valuable enough to target with Excalibur having been moved out of the considerably longer range of rocket artillery. -- GLSDB was supposed to be cheap and available in large numbers. The ability to put an incoming object on enemy radar is valuable: even if the object in question isn't actually going to hit anything, it can help make it more likely that something else will, or that enemy resources will be expended without effect. So I would have expected GLSDB to still be heavily used, if lack of accuracy were the only problem.
I think the issue is that the range of 120 miles is still rather middling, combined with small quantities. It's also probably cheaper to just send more drones than to bother mixing in glsdb or such. and it's not got a long enough range to help in attacks with cruise missiles
i think it was both, im pretty sure that the allies gave ukraine xcalibers in an effort to mitigate the shell shortage problem that was happening at the time. Now their is probably very few left that can be given as each nation is going to only give so many before they risk lowering their own war readiness.
I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact: JDAM works, AASM Hammer works, why would GLSDB not work? Aside from launch platform these GPS-guided glide bomb should be very similar weapons. Or it is just Boeing being Boeing?
Hi Perun, have you thought about doing a breakdown of how the USA funding of Ukraine has been and is being spent? From what I understand a lot of the $ are being spent in the USA replenishing the stocks that have been supplied to Ukraine. It seems the US military is benefitting by being re supplied with more modern materiel and jobs are being maintained and possibly new jobs created by this spend. In the final month of the USA election campaign, providing an understanding of the how the billions are being spent and what direct and indirect benefits there are to the USA, may be a story worth telling? Perhaps you could do a colourful pie chart showing which states are benefiting the most economically? Consider how the USA may benefit from lessons learned without the cost in US lives, especially in these days of drone warfare? I’d like to understand if it’s conceivable that the extensive fleet of aircraft ’parked’ in the vicinity of Tucson Arizona could be reborn as drones? After all if there is no risk of losing a flight crew does it matter if the odd aircraft is lost in a war zone due to structural failure? (An A10 drone would ratchet up the firepower from a MAV2 just a bit) Love your work, especially the references causally woven into your delivery. Also the actual references to source material. 😀
Thank you, Jason. So many in US have no idea how our budget is spread for manufacturing. Some think buckets of cash are dropped from the sky. Especially important with elections close.
Yeah, seems to me that Perun is just the person to present this in a digestible way. In this day of the meme-verse a couple of visuals of where the $ are being spent, how many jobs are supported and perhaps which states of the spend are traditionally red or blue may help to enlighten at least a fraction of middle America?
The economic impact of US military aid to Ukraine on the US economy is a very important topic to understand. Perun could be a trustworthy source of that understanding. Good comment!!
Here you go: In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine. Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defence contractors. There is also more than $11bn to fund current US military operations in the region, enhancing the capabilities of the Ukrainian military and fostering intelligence collaboration between Kyiv and Washington; and about $8bn in non-military assistance, such as helping Ukraine’s government continue basic operations, including the payment of salaries and pensions.
It's kind of ironic that attack helicopters are reverting back to their rapid response role and away from the armed recon, hunter-killer, & close support roles they assumed during the cold-war. I recall as a child, when introduced to attack helicopters, thinking that it was silly to use them in preference to something like a small airplane when they were more expensive, slower, and carried less ordnance at a higher cost, but I was also 8 and really believed that we should still be flying P-51's so I still had alot to learn! 😆 The section on airborne units was also interesting, as an aside, Perun might want to consider doing a video on just airborne units. As always great vid!
Your 8 year old self may have been correct, if only the air force would allow the Army to fly fixed wing assets for close support, but since they can't: attack helicopters!
Yeah... Perun's assessment that the Apache's main benefit is having rotary wings is harsh but I think fair. The biggest thing the attack helicopter has going for it is _not_ attacking the USAF's delicate feelings. What's the point in spending big money on a sophisticated weapons system which is at its most useful against military forces which are far behind the curve? Shouldn't those sorts of projects be aimed at peer conflict?
@davidkottman3440 , there is long history here. My late father Lt Cmdr USNR, shared this view, that the Army's exasperation with USAF's lack of enthusiasm for CAS would have led to agitation for their own fixed wing if not for the helicopter. He retired in 1966, IIRC, so that shows you how far back it goes. He pointed to Patton's being able to call on Naval fire support, but not CAS, in the landing on Sicily! And I've read quotes from Army Generals being extremely envious of Marine CAS in Korea.
There are two rules when it comes to journalists: (1) When there's a rhetorical question in a headline ("End of Putin's Russia?") the answer is always "no". (2) when something is dubbed a "gamechanger" it means the naive journalist has been impressed by marketing materials and is getting ecstatic over something that will have a mild-to-medium effect on the situation.
I am so grateful for your witty delivery that lets me keep listening enough to have a clue what is going on. Not just in Ukraine but how it works world wide.
Very true. About the only thing not quite on the level was, I thought, allocating video time to whatever some rando from Prigozhin rally said, to make Prigozhin look like more of a legit target vs "Russia's ex-space dude". If we'd cherry-picked quotes by rally attendees of literally every politician of every nation in history, incl right here, I bet you the same case could be made for them being legit targets.
The Attack Helicopter was created for Vietnam. It found a Cold War role as a response platform for Soviet Tank breakthroughs that were bound to happen in an attack through the Fulda Gap. This was a follow on to the Tank Destroyer of WWII vintage. In a mobile environment, it might have a role. It seems not to in a static/attritional battle.
It has a role. You don't need a concrete runway with Patriot for defence to operate AH64. In Poland, we need a fast response ground attack and can't get F16 and F35 fast enough plus fighters will always be plugging gaps in Patriot and Narew coverage. You don't get to 4,7 % GDP on defence (and there is talk of 5%) unless your Russian neighbour is operating more and more like North Korea, and you don't want to repeat the modernisation plan of 1935 with 1942 target and wake up in 1939.
It's worth noting that while American tank destroyers were very useful in WWII, they were only rarely used for their doctrinally assigned role. From what I recall learning about them, TDs spent most of their time acting like artillery, spent most of the remainder of their time acting like tanks, and only on rare occasions did they actually use their mobility to respond to enemy armor, i.e. acting like tank destroyers. TDs were good at their role, but if that's all they were good for, they would have been pretty useless overall.
@@SnakebitSTI By the time that the US got to the field in the European War the bulk of Axis (read German) offensives were done and the Axis was essentially retreating for the rest of the war. Nobody knew that at the time, so Tank Destroyers were created. The idea was to have a greatly mobile anti-tank force that could respond to massed German Armor attacks. This was the purpose of Attack Helicopters in the Cold War. If the Soviets had attacked, they would have created breakthroughs and the Attack Helicopters were supposed to create mobile response units. It is why the Soviets created Buk and Tor, to provide medium reach air defense for armored spearheads. In a relatively static war, it is unclear what Attack Helicopters are for.
@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 Ukraine has tactical depth to retreat. We don't. We have max 100km from the border to some important cities. I live just 220 km from Berlin, in western Poland, and the Russian border is about 350km in a straight line. We need reserves to plug a gap in line fast if Putin goes sightseeing in a tank and bypases border control.
@@lukaszfunka So, you live farther from Russia than Kyiv is from Belarus. You are describing a war of movement where Poland would have no satellite imagery of an impending Russian attack. Again, Ukraine is primarily a static war and the initial war of movement was defeated by mobile ground teams of ATGMs.
Ironically, it's also the most important. Don't get me wrong, my government infuriates me with the drip-drip of aid, but let's face it: without the US and its allies, this would be a very different war
US, Trump, have been telling Europe that Europe is Europe's responsibility. And ignored. US taxpayers have been paying more for Europe defense, then Europeans for 70 years. Don't like it, we can leave. You can pay the Russians to leave you alone.
@@Dasycottusplease remember that the current administration has domestic political opponents that it needs to defeat in the upcoming for any aid to reach Ukraine from the US.
"not talking about game-changing systems, but systems that might be put under pressure by the way the game is changing.” 🙄 🤔 😄😅🤣 (I think I'm so used to Perun's clever phrasing... ...that I sometimes forget how truly clever he is!)
While Boeing has its problems, it does not help that the media, once it gets an idea in its collective head, sometimes misapply it. For instance, one of the "Boeing Problems" was a plane which lost its landing gear. It turns out the plane was in service for twenty years. At that point, it is not likely a Boeing problem but air line maintenance.
With rare exceptions, attack helicopters have worked much better in theory than in practice and have been extraordinarily expensive and vulnerable with very little upside. From Vietnam to Afghanistan to the Gulf War, they've generally taken heavy losses and rarely turned the tide or even helped much. I honestly think they only stick around because they look so fucking cool.
I think one of the best uses of a helicopter is medivac. They can quickly get into an area, load up the wounded and get out. Land vehicles are much slower, and fixed wing is out of the question under most circumstances.
@@brenatevi Oh yeah *helicopters* are awesome for transport, evacuation and rescue. But for close air attack? You want a Super Tucano of just a plain old F-16.
In all fairness to the Excalibur, GPS jamming has been a known weakness since it was developed. Raytheon, as early as 2013, developed a version with semi-active laser targeting capability to help track and hit moving targets. These are far less susceptible to GPS jamming. It's clear they aren't receiving these types. No weapon system is a miracle cure all, that will always perfectly hit every target. If you have an option to either drop 6 million pounds of bombs during extensive bombing missions involving more than a thousand aircraft with around 33% accuracy at the cost of dozens of aircraft lost and hundreds of air crews killed or captured as in WWII. Or, using precision weapons of various types to hit specific targets with minimal losses of lives and a nearly zero rate of collateral damage, it's a win! Precision and smart weapons are and should be an evolutionary process. With time, technology and battle field experience, a more favorable evolution will occur with these systems.
I can see the classic airborne units being useful if the following conditions are met: 1: You are facing a weak country. 2: That you don't share a border with. 3: And that you don't have a foothold in. 4: And whose neighbors refuse to provide you passage. I struggle to think of other uses.
If the neighbors don't let you drive through, they are not going to let you fly your troops through. Especially not if those troops are para-droppable.
@@RidwanMarian Real life contradicts your assertion. Because one puts the onus on the standby country to launch missiles at airplanes, (which they might not even have) while the other requires the aggressor country to smash through border guards.
Attack helicopters are an excellent counter-insurgency weapon, specifically where the insurgents aren't well provided with manpads. Witness their role in Iraq and Afghanistan both by the Soviets, where their effectiveness significantly declined with the Mujahadeen's acquisition of large numbers of Stingers; and the US which did not face a similar threat.
“today we’re not talking about game-changing systems, but systems that might be put under pressure by the way the game is changing.” Tzeench, the Changer of ways 😀
A situation where paradrops would still be optimal is on the Chinese/Indian border. You can't shoot down the planes, because of the agreement to not use firearms(which I assume includes rockets and AA), but whichever side does this suddenly has an extra few hundred men for the melee brawl that is about to ensue.
Cargo planes are still vulnerable to concrete-filles glide bombs dropped by higher, faster fighters. Also if planes are allowed, what's preventing the use of suicide drone planes, or a cargo plane dropping 10 tonnes of nails on the battlefield?
If one side greatly outnumbers the other, the outnumbered side is likely to start shooting before the other side can react in an attempt to quickly even the odds.
Hay. The Russia k52 helicopter took out a whole military convoy. The Russians shaired this success in a video. Only problem was the video showed that the convoy destroyed was Russian. Maybe the reason we are not seeing very more K52 videos.
@@ledzepandhabs Nobody's arguing Alligators (or any attack helo) aren't lethal. It's the problem of being survivable enough long enough to be worthwhile that's the trouble.
I think there is only one major argument for parachute deployable airborne forces in 2024. They provide the ability to rapidly insert a brigade+ sized force deep into a non-peer nation that allows you to theoretically seize them rapidly and provide your adversary and neutral parties on the international stage with a fait acomplis. Ukraine was an unsuitable target for this because they had a remarkably capable IADS that couldn't be fully destroyed easily, and a large army in the field that could crush such an attack. However, Russia has a number of neighbours who would likely perform far worse against such a manouvre. Belarus, Mongolia, most of the 'stans and even a pre-NATO Finland are large enough to be somewhere between inconvenient and impractical to just thunder-run, but have small enough armies (pre-mobilisation) and populations that a rapid strike that catches them unprepared could be VERY effective.
IOW it is the "send in the marines" task - gunboat diplomacy - for a landlocked country. I think the US' days of doing that to distant impoverished shitholes are past.
Thank you Perun for this amazing video and all the other amazing ones you have done over the last two years. I have watched everyone, some twice. I have consumed so many videos on defense economics I am getting targeted ads for Baraccuda Cruise Missiles. Thank you Perun for that, I was honestly going insane getting those ads all the time for boxed mattresses
Having weapons systems that fail is even more valuable than having weapon systems that succeed, in a longterm military development perspective, because those failures teach you important things about the war you're fighting.
The failure of Excalibur and GLSDB to EW makes me think that the weapons manufacturers didn't really do a good job with regard to failure modes In manufacturing the use of FMEA to make products more robust to failure is pretty much standard practice Did the manufacturers apply robust analysis of the potential countermeasures that the enemy could apply? The Russians maybe spoofing GPS but do they also spoof GLONASS?
With the latest accelerometers and laser gyros the availability of inertial navigation systems for terminal guidance means that the manufacturers have been slacking badly. 😊
@@u2beuser714 GLONAS is used as a backup by some systems, but is being widely replaced with Galileo. It was used as it was the only real back up available. Generally speaking, if GPS is jammed then GLONAS will also be. Its notorious for being temperamental and often having poor accuracy. It has, by far, the worst accuracy of all the positioning systems.
Jam resistance was developed in early, although I'm fairly sure Ukraine didn't receive any of those rounds. The fail modes are there for safety in counterinsurgency and generally involve not arming the warhead.
Dont forget pictures of BMD-2s and 4s from early war, where you literally have a puddle of aluminum, some road wheels, and bits of track left... with what might have been an engine sitting in several different spots.
it's still the "looking at a destroyed MBT and thinking all MBT's are useless" problem in some form, though The BMD is supposed to survive only against light weaponry because it's not meant to go against a prepared enemy, it's meant to accompany airborne units in fast strikes and that's all. The root of the issue is Russia using them like BMP's because they ran out of BMP's
@@Galf506BMD have been used as IFV since the early days of the war, because they should be used that way. The problem is that no IFV at all can survive in a battle where there are armadas of drones.
"I know it might be very difficult for some of you to believe that a Boeing product might be flawed in some way," 🤣🤣🤣 It's good to look at things that are sub optimal too, and learn from them. Thanks Perun. 😊
blow your mind for a second: what likely defeated the northwest road invasion on day-one was a lack of replacement fuel hoses on the fueling trucks leading to the motorpool simply cutting off the worn-out ends and re-attaching the nozzles on shorter hoses
Ukranians have a LOT of reasons why they would do their best to get it right instead of 'just making it profitable'! I'd be game to see them get to work on that. I'm a bit surprised that we don't have 'simpler' solid-state gyro devices that can 'inertial navigate' when the GPS frequencies get jammed. It might need coding for stuff like, "If my target suddenly drifts to the east at 450 MPH then maybe continue using INS from last-known-good targeting data and do not steel mike a madman to try to get to its 'new' spot which is out of effective range" if it's being spoofed. That might be harder to catch, but there's ways it could be done. Anyway, I think that's a good idea.
@@EShirako in the first Iraq war, the US used terrain following cruise missiles with 60s technologies. I bet the guidance systems are probably a lot cheaper and easier to make now.
@@rajeshkanungo6627 @rajeshkanungo6627 Oooh! Yeah, we don't seem to ever reuse older tech. I wonder why not? Oh...well, ok, so maybe it uses gyros that we've lost the tech knowledge to create now, and how to interface with the things? From the 60's they are CLEARLY not digital computers. So maybe they are cheaper to make, but I'm not sure they are actually easier, and regaining the skill in that work may be more costly than we're willing to put money into recreating. Like the rocket motors...we couldn't even copy our own stuff because the welding techs from long ago hadn't left instruction manuals after they figured out how to make the bigger rocket motors. We cut NASA's budget, then a few generations later we're all surprised that we can't recreate the 'moon rocket' motors. Turns out, we need SUPER skilled welders using finesse that our current welding techs don't generally have or even understand. Maybe we can't recreate the jeweled-pivots the gyros used for their navigation systems or something dumb...but 'interfacing with it' is more likely to be the big problem. They'd be analog systems, and those can be TERRIBLY hard to decipher. I have an older 8-track recording tape-system that I was trying to rebuild and update...but when I tried to swap the power supply out, no matter how I adjusted the power output the recordings were all sllllllowwwww...it was clocking itself from a remaining-harmonic from the power module, as far as I can tell, and that adjusts the base motor turning rate. I don't even know what the recording heads want to do; they aren't working at all, and I suspect it's also because something 'sneaky' is missing from the power supply's inputs. I had wanted to make it WAY more efficient by not using the old transformer-based power supply it was using, but it turns out analog systems do a LOT with only a few inputs. 😕 If we can reuse that old tech that worked so well, though...I'd be game to use that!
What Airbus are doing is moving away from the attack helicopter (RIP Tiger / Tigre) as a unique military airframe and are using advanced commercial airframes strapped with sensors and weapons. Thus you have the advantage of off-the-shelf tech and civilian commercial development, where the helicopter won't go away anytime soon, so the future is a return to the Bo 105 concept.
That's more a failure of their Tiger product than the suitability of commercial helicopters for war, which are a compromise. It also means that for Western-allied forces, the Apache rules. The US Army not only uses them for attack but the Apaches replaced the commercial-derived Kiowa Warrior in the armed recon role. There's a reason the Tiger is being killed off and the Apache continues to be used and ordered by many other militaries.
The Tiger is also a technological dead end where it is a pain in the butt to upgrade and modify. Countries are still buying attack helis like AH 1Z and AW129
@@quakethedoombringer Yeah those two at-least have the advantage of having the power train common with other types unlike the Tiger. Will be interesting to see how AW249 Fenice shapes up (which also has the power train common with a commercial type).
The thing about how important jamming resistance is reminds me of a story about China's first SACLOS ATGMs. They were trying to sell them to some countries in Africa, and the potential customers were pretty impressed. However, they then put the missile to the jamming test, which it failed spectacularly. The Chinese designers had not considered EW, and the representatives from the African country explained that this is the sort of thing you learn from first hand experience.
@@MM22966 You asked wikipedia level question. Quoth the wiki: _"Many SACLOS weapons are based on an infrared seeker aligned with the operator's gunsight or sighting telescope. The seeker tracks the missile, either the hot exhaust from its rocket motor or flares attached to the missile airframe, and measures the angle between the missile and the centerline of the operator's sights. This signal is sent to the missile, often using thin metal wires or a radio link"_ - There are two points to apply jamming with radio link and one point with wire guided. Dazzlers dazzle to infrared seeker.
There is a plus to jump training, same as formation marching. Just as we don't expect the troops to fight in march formations, preparing troops to drop does lead to better quality troops. Naval infantry benefits from ship crew training, even if used as ground pounders.
As a Polish person, I can tell you some truth. We bought 290 Chunmoo launchers, first contract in 2022 and second contract in 2024. We bought 96 Apaches but not for 12 billion dollars. It was 10 billion. We didnt purchase any rockets and ammo for Apache. It will be a separate contract, and most likely it will not be Hellfire but the newest Spike or Brimstone. We bought Hellfire 2 last year but for our AW149 fleet.
@@kursantstrzelecki2958 Not true. The British withdrew because, in the wake of cuts in military spending, they did not want to pay for the integration of Brimstone with Apache.
Let us acknowledge the Russian Navy’s surprising capability to convert naval assets en situ, while effortlessly retraining sailors to operate as ghosts. The Black Sea submarine fleet has been considerably bolstered and silently awaits its moment (probably on Halloween of some year).
Not really, they adapted. You don't see sea drones having any success while Ukraine commando missions are now suicide missions with close to 100% casualty rate.
Now be nice. They have just never ever had a usable, much less threatening surface forces. Now, the submarines are at least a semi-credible threat. But I am not a subject matter expert on submarines. But the news in the black sea not that viable. 😅
I would like to add that there is one video of an attack helicopter from Kursk firing a missile at a target. The video its self came out on the second or third day, it was firing an ATGM at a Challenger 2 tank, but it missed and hit the floor next to it. The damage caused by the explosion was superficial and just a loose panel(such as a mudguard) was thrown off to the side.
If I remember right there were a number of claimed successes of KA-52 early in the incursion that later turned out to be friendly fire. Also at least one fell victim to manpads.
Anyone investing in attack helicopters right now has to ask themselves. "What can 1 attack helicopter do that a combination of 100+ advanced drones, loitering ammunition and artillery can't?"
Well, that depends: does this attack helicopter have a laser anti-missile/anti-drone system, like the USN was testing on the F-35? Or even like Federal Express has been mounting on some of its cargo planes for the past ten years? Does it have a maser to compliment that? Does it have a Growler package for EW? A drone could have Airborne Warning And Control equipment, but Earth to orbit to orbit to orbit to Earth takes time and creates an inevitable slow, ass-covering, bureaucracy. You will have a human in the loop sometime; why not ASAP? Does it maybe have three or four launchers in each wing, simply launch tubes along a feed ramp, with an autoloading magazine magazine stocked with dozens of air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-tank missiles? Javelin was a contemporary of Stinger, created by BAe as a MANPAD. It lost the competition because Stinger was faster with a better hit percentage; but Javelin had a much heavier warhead, and was bought up from BAe and reimagined as a fire-and-forget brilliant anti-tank missile with the new warhead. So, why not see if it wouldn't be nifty to have both, and something for pillboxes and bunkers? Or, see what else Starstreak could do -- or just make a Universal disposable tube.
An attack helicopter need not be manned. It can be a robotic (local AI plus "broad brushstrokes" operator control of several units) system laying down suppressive fire and deploying wheeled and/or tracked drones in front and behind enemy lines.
I love how you justified the attempted murder of the guy who was an overseer of Russian civilian space program: "20 or so years ago he was near some guy who blamed Jews for lack of Democracy in Russia". The amount of mental gymnastics is stunning.
Have not had the time to watch your presentations for a while now but holy crap I’ve missed your weekly presentations. Keep up the great work! It is awesome to hear people who know their stuff present it in this fashion.
I invented, (along with my cat) a GPS guided slingshot. It's very cheap to make, easy to use, and it's as good as any javelin. My cat is a genius 😾That said, we both enjoy your content.
I think the paradrop "problem" is reflective of the nature of this war. For sure, the US has learned and unlearned air mobile infantry a hundred times over the years, but Iraq and Afghanistan did not have conditions that prevented airborne forces to be used. The changing VDV equipment likely reflects the fact that it is simply far too risky to use air assault methods in a sky that is heavily contested and lethal. The change to heavier equipment is probably temporary for the duration if the war - it makes no sense to hold back the VDV, who are typically better trained and experienced, when you can forget air mobile attacks today and have them act as normal units for the next few years, then go back to air assault post war.
I continue to be amazed at how you can turn an hour long powerpoint presentation on defense economics topics into an enjoyable and engaging experience. Thank you for continuing to provide such amazingly educational and entertaining content. Honestly I think our standard education systems should take a long look at edutainment content like yours for how to make learning an appealing process rather than a grueling one.
Poland ordered about 290 K239 launchers. The entire order was divided into two phases. In the first phase in 2022, 218 launchers were ordered and in the second, which you talk about in the video, 72 were ordered.
31:10 I could have remembering hearing something about a Russian Cargo aircraft getting blown out of the sky during the first few days. I remember being convinced at the time that the Russians were following the old Airborne Assault Doctrine. Securing the Airfield with paraborne or heliborne light infantry quickly followed up by fixed wing cargo aircraft landing heavier reinforcements. Obviously with the loss (assuming my memory of 2+ years ago is accurate) the follow up landing and then the collapse of the Kyiv push the VDV were left high and dry.
I think I remember that. However the reason the airlift with cargo aircraft failed and got turned back from Hostomel airport was simply the Ukrainians guessing what was happening and shelling their own runways - making them unusable. Unable to bring in reinforcements the initial VDV on the ground got slaughtered .
@@Davey-Boyd Ah, yes, the un suppressed AA installations. How I could forget. They are only dangerous to helicopters. Not to huge ass flying behemoths. Bondarčuk gun in the finest.
Most losses of BMD-4's were to artillery and drones and not to direct combat (where it actually did pretty good). If not for TB-2 Bayraktar dropping LGBs on those vehicles at the start of the war, we'd see a very much different story about "vehicles are not needed to airborne". In fact, vehicles like BMD are incredibly valuable to guys on the ground as they provide carrying capacity, mobility AND firepower to otherwise naked light infantry, that will die *even easier* to artillery and drones otherwise. The reason of why VDV inflicted damage on ukrainian reinforcements and escaped afterwards instead of just dying in 40 to 1 kinda situation were... BMD-2/4 and Typhoon MRAPs that carried retreating VDV towards mechanized formations of RuAF that actually had heavier AA capabilities. One of the reasons of why russians decided to include "Pantsir" into airborne airlift doctrine were drones that couldn't always be dealt with by Verba AA of VDV.
Re: helicopters - vulnerable yes, but so are fixed wing aircraft. Fixed wing had to get used to ADA and SAMs, but they did it, via passive & active defence and SEAD & DEAD packages (formations of a/c with jammers, sensors, anti radiation munitions and AGMs). Helicopters have often operated solo, more afraid of gunfire than missiles. I think because they're usually "Army" (focused on doing ground support), they haven't adopted active defenses like laser blinding, EW, kinetic active defence (like iron first), nor adopted any tactics like wild weasel teams or SEAD packages. I think helicopters are a fantastic way to flexibly concentrate force at a point, but have gotten used to big air force providing air dominance (even Russian helicopters, such as in Syria). And yes, expensive compared to drones, but i would think they're more flexible and manpower efficient than achieving similar effects with drones, which is important for militaries with large budgets but small personnel counts (like most Western militaries)
I disagree on the man power argument, it takes a very long time to train a helicopter pilot versus a drone pilot. A killed helicopter pilot killed is a very big deal thus and they are much more at risk of dying. Meanwhile Ukraine drone pilot does 40 sorties per day! in a bunker.
I thought the description of the reasons for the Apache helicopter was just BS speak until I heard the word synergy and then I was all on board. O hope they said modular in there too.
A little late, but here with fresh cup of hot coffee... I'd speculate rotary wing attack aircraft will be the easiest to replace with drones. Wouldn't be surprised to see them first refitted with AI before being entirely retired..
The primary allure of the attack helo is the speed of engagement. The kill chain can be as short as a few seconds, which when supporting ground forces, is very important. Couple that with the fact it is it's own sensor system with the ability to use jam resistant (or jam proof like Hellfire) PGMs, and you have something that can service multiple targets quickly and efficiently. FPVs, missiles, and other systems don't have that ability. That doesn't excuse russian's utter failure to perform SEAD and the resulting losses.
Few seconds when it's already there. A dedicated prop aircraft (like famous Super Tucano) can get there in similar time at fraction of resources. "russian's utter failure to perform SEAD" - SEAD, just like all air superiority things, only works against much weaker enemy.
@@kursantstrzelecki2958 Fixed wing aircraft need time to plan their approach vector, egress, and are just generally further from troops they're suppose to be escorting. Helos also need those things, but it's all much faster.
While a helicopter can service more targets than a FPV, it’s different when you get the equivalent cost of multiple FPVs compared to one helicopter. The biggest problem with helicopters seems to be theyre too vulnerable to anti-air. When that’s not an issue they’re really good but not worth it when it is.
Its tough to make extrapolations about helicopters from Russia's performance because U.S. systems, doctrine, and training is very different. It's hard to argue with some of the conclusions in this video though. I am extremely biased because I fly attack helicopters but I think there is something to be said about the H-1s in the Marine Corps because, 1. Cobras are significantly cheaper than apaches. 2. With the mixed uh/ah section you get the attack helicopter with the utility support and essentially an organic casevac platform right there.
"Doing things to the electromagnetic spectrum that would make Slaanesh proud" I'm not rich enough to be into Warhammer, but i understand the reference. The only question now is, what the hell does that sentence mean?
In my headcanon the only reason they have the Hind is so Liquid can fit the whole wild n' wacky FOXHOUND team in the back with room left over for their wardrobe manager and makeup artist.
It is interesting hearing about the issue of externally guided munitions were eventually countered by jamming. But systems that did not rely on external guidance, dumb munition and internal guidance remained fully viable.
A friend of mine, 82nd Airborne, corrected me when I used the term "perfectly functional" to described aircraft by reminding me that it is the Air Force that maintains and flies the aircraft that the Army jumps out of. 😁
Very interesting, informative, and well-presented. And I say that as a retired U.S. Army Aviation officer who served in both air cavalry and attack helicopter units, flying both OH-58 scouts and AH-64 Apaches. I have long worried that the helicopter force structure that we have developed in the post-Cold War era might not be survivable in a conflict with a near-peer adversary.
It is completely incorrect to compare the BMD-4 with Bradley. The analogue for BMD-4 is M113 and here the results on field will be much more comparable. Comparing the BMD with the IFV, which is twice as heavy and twice as expensive, is completely wrong. These are two very different machines for different tasks, it's just that the battlefield turned out to be one.
The M-113 doesn't pretend to be anything other than a lightly armoured troop transport, it has only token weapons (a roof mounted machine gun). The BMD-4 by contrast has an extensive load of heavy weapons, it at least pretends to be an IFV in that sense. Commanders who see a big gun on a vehicle tend to expect said vehicle to use it, so they will send those vehicles into situations where they are exposed to direct fire far more often. We might compare this to the Ukrainian experience with those French armoured cars with 105mm guns. Armour totally inadequate to face direct enemy fire, but commanders saw the big guns and thought they should be used... Leading to terrible casualties in those units, as they became targets for shelling that their armour could not protect them against.
I do wonder if the solution to the attack helicopter is to essentially allow it to be more attritable. Instead of a 50 million dollar system, you make a cheap rotary winged bomb truck for 2 to 5 million. This allows for the carrying of those larger and heavier munitions, but also gives you something reusable but potentially just as deadly for the price of an Iskander.
That's exactly what Airbus are moving to after the commercial failure of their Tiger attack helicopter (a dreadful piece of kit). They are selling it as more cost-effective than a dedicated attack chopper - which is code for "more attritable".
@@kenoliver8913 "more cost-effective than a dedicated attack chopper - which is code for "more attritable"" - You might as well translate it to "cheaper to maintain" (because it is).
There has been a lot of talk about whether MBTs still make sense and the consensus among the initiated seems to be that they still do make sense because nothing else can do their job better. The same can not be said about attack helicopters. They had their mission profile encroached on and their niche shrunk from all sides to the point where there isn't really anything left that a attack helicopter can do, which some other, usually cheaper thing can't do as good or better. Being German, I am glad that the German army decided to not replace the Tiger attack helicopters with another attack helicopter, but with much cheaper militarized "regular" helicopters, like the ones used by police or as flying ambulances. They are good enough when it comes to getting a ATGM from point A to B as quick as possible. For that you don't need armor or a largely useless 30 mm cannon. And even that much seems to be mostly done because Germany is contractually required to provide a fleet of X attack helicopters to NATO's fleet.
If one has ATGMs with long enough range even small training helicopters could become platforms to deliver them without necessarily putting themselves in the harms way.
@@herptek That is what Germany did in the 80s and earlier. The Tiger is the first "proper" attack helicopter they ever had. Before that they used a militarized version of a civilian helicopter, carrying 6 "HOT" ATGMs as far as I know. So now they are going back to their roots, you could say.
This is funny because the German version of the Tiger literally cannot carry the 30mm cannon to begin with, only the French, Aussie, and Spanish version can and the Tiger has notoriously thin armor. The reason the Tiger is replaced because it is an expensive technological dead end that is hard to modify with better electronics and weaponry, not because attack helis are useless
@@quakethedoombringer 1.) The German army knowingly and deliberately chose not to use a 30mm gun, because they already considered those useless in the 90s. 2.) The Tiger's kevlar plastic armor can withstand hits from Soviet 14.5 mm rounds and even 23mm round in key areas. It is tougher than the steel armor of the AH64 Apache, it just has the disadvantage that because it is plastic, it cracks when it gets hit and has to be replaced, even when hit by only small arms fire, which it can reliably stop. Steel armor can still be used with a few dents in it and those dents can be hammered out. Kevlar armor is more of a "all or nothing" thing. It does stop projectiles more reliably than steel armor while being lighter, but it has to be replaced after every hit, even after hits it easily stopped, which makes it expensive. 3.) They still are running a modification program right now, even with plans to retire the whole fleet in a few years. 4.) They considered replacing the Tigers with AH64, but decided not to do that for the reasons I explained, because attack helicopters really are obsolete. The US Army cancelled the successor to the AH64 for the same reason recently.
What I would be really interested in is how the terrain impacts the effectiveness of these systems. I live in a area with high mountains everywhere and I could imagine that this could potentially impact the effectiveness of airdefense systems and also change how other systems are used. I would find a video about this topic very interesting. Also when you compare ukraine to other potential future battlefields.
Of course it impacts the effectiveness of AD systems....radar and EO/IR cannot penetrate ground.... You can see this when idiots were telling everyone that an S-400 would kill everything in a 400km radius circle from the battery.... (despite the fact the Russian's haven't got the longest range missile into operational service yet...). The problem is...even without hills, valleys and mountains...the earth is not flat. The curvature of the earth means that the S-400's radar will not see anything flying at very low level if it is a certain distance away. Even if the radar is elevated to 10m above the ground the distance to the horizon is only 11.5km... A low flying aircraft flying at 250ft will not be visible to an S-400 radar elevated at 10m above the ground until it is 34km away....modern anti-radiation missiles have ranges over 100km...all the aircraft has to do is fire a missile at the radar, turn around and quickly retreat past the radar horizon and there is nothing the S-400 can do...
Sponsored by Private Internet Access, Use the following link to access their promotional offer: www.piavpn.com/Perun
As noted in the channel update, I'm now collecting suggested questions for a future Q&A episode on Patreon. Next week I'll likely seek some input here if further questions are needed, so feel free to think up potential questions in the meantime if you'd like.
As for the episode itself, all I can say is that it's important not to overlearn the lessons of any one war, especially with such imperfect information available, but I thought it was important not just to talk about systems that are working really well, but also those that may be struggling a bit. Hope you enjoy.
Apologies for the late release on this one but an Aussie was busy winning the the F1 so...
Hi Perun, would this have helped them when they were using Cel Phones to plan attacks
Suggestion, the Kiel Institute report titled "Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-à-vis Russia". Even after 2½ years at war, it would take Germany 15 years for fighter jets, 40 years for tanks, 100 years for howitzers to reach 2004 levels. While Russia produces 2 entire German defences per year.
And remember...DO NOT PAINT over the multi-million dollar sensor system... 'face palm' 🙄 (4:10)
I was the first person to comment on the video and I said congrats on Piastri, but it got auto deleted by YT.
@@The_ZeroLine Yes, comments are censored by their algorithm, but it also seems very buggy. I can't link to any other YT video in the comments without it being deleted immediately. And that's of course content that is okay for Google, else they would remove that video.
They lose traffic by deleting links to their content, that's bad for business. I don't get what they are up to.
"Now I know it might be very difficult for some of you to believe that a Boeing product might be flawed in some way . . . " Classic Perun damning-with-faint-understatement!
Most of Boeing‘s problems started when they moved their headquarters to Chicago and then South Carolina.
Boeing.. More like.. Boring, amirite? right? right?
ehhh
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886Boeings problems directly corelate with the rising percentage of people who think flying machines are picked from the cotton plant
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886 Their problems started when Boeing's CEO (who married his 1st cousin, btw) merged the company with McDonnell/Douglas.
Boeing was doomed when they fully embraced capitalism. Capitalism consumes (stock buybacks, unfixable products, etc). Boeing got too centered in the flames and is being profitably burned. (Not future profits. Profits that have already been reaped.)
Sorry, mate, but I really think you missed the point of the attack helicopter concept, at least in the modern Western concept. I can't speak as to either how the Russians think they should be using their helicopters in doctrine, or how they actually are using their helicopters in doctrine, but you seem to have completely ignored where the attack helicopter fits in as far as we in the West are concerned. The days of using attack helicopters in a troop support role to aid ground forces are long gone, except in cases of extreme emergency or very permissive environments. Instead, they are used as the division and corps commander's maneuver asset. MG Isenhower last week publicly described an evolution during an NTC rotation for a corps-level mission, the 1AD CAB sending both battalions from Fort Irwin to a target area over 250km away, (Conducted with incorporation into a Red Flag exercise to replicate the air and SEAD problem) and this sort of operation pretty much matches what I've seen helicopters be used for over the past four years' worth of division and corps level exercises. You can imagine the level of havoc which can be wreaked by one battalion, let alone two in the division and corps deep areas, by a unit capable of identifying and engaging its own targets in real-time from (relatively speaking) close range, whilst itself emitting a rather limited EM signature, and, of course, being entirely unjammable unlike long-range loitering munitions.
wish I could pin this one as it's a fantastic discussion point. I'm out at the moment but I'll come back to this when I can. Cheers mate.
Comment to bump this up
I think doctrinal now, Russia use Attack Helicopters in the way the US Army intended the Tank Destroyers to work during WWII. Basically being spear blunters wherever they think a heavy push is. This was what I recall one of the big contributors to heavy losses on the first day of the 2023 Summer offensive. Was mostly that Ukraine didn't really have a way of dealing with Loitering KA-52s firing Vikhrs at max range specifically at the mine breaching vehicles heading the columns.
@TheChieftainsHatch
Hi Chieftain!
Thanks for your info on US Army training trends. The multiplicity of ways to use things is only limited by imagination. But this begs a question:
Has there been a real world situation in history where the use of attack helicopters has been effective in a way the western doctrine envisions their use?
To me it seems it would require very fluid situation and specific circumstances to be possible. So I'm wondering has this ever materialized. Thanks for any more info.
@@dexecuter18 there's an upgraded version of the KA-52's viktr missiles that has a range up to 17km ( experts calculated this by the speed of the missile and time to impact) and there's the Lmurs that has a range of 29km . The Ukrainians did have air defenses in the area of the infamous Bradley, max pros and leopard2 convoy getting hit by the KA-52 but they did not shoot down any of the helicopters
For military "That works." is just as important as knowing "That doesn't work."
Having btdt cred. " Good enough, arriving at the right time. Better than perfect arriving as things are settled" WW phase 1 and phase 2 being prime example.
Is that what she said?
@@osu3167If that was then you’re hanging out with really weird women.
Someone should tell Todd Howard: "It just works..."
CMM: Amateur military enthusiasts are just KSP players in disguise
*hears the line about making Slaanesh proud in relation to the electromagnetic spectrum*
This video right here, Inquisitor
pretty sure Perun has a 1 h Power Point in the drawer explaining how he will avoid the Inquisition
With Space Marine 2 bringing 40k into the zeitgeist, it's not surprising for him to "whip" out the references.
@@martinhubinette2254 There are plenty more in his 40K Rogue Trader playthrough. It's on his other channel if you are interested
@@martinhubinette2254he always did it. In many of his videos there are references either to wh40k or battletech
Perun a follower of the Horus Reformation lfgooooooooooo
Australian PowerPoint man is here to make Sundays better
Yea righto anyway happy monday morning
Chieftain is holding a massive grudge...
I don’t think attack helicopters are obsolete but scout helicopters can absolutely be completely replaced by unmanned systems.
And for a fraction if the cost probably.
There was the firescout, an unmanned scout helicopter with some offensive capabilities. Last I checked though, that program apparently was cancelled. Perhaps a platform like the firescout could return.
I think attack helicopters will be replaced with unmanned versions. They're just too dangerous to have manned nowadays.
They may find a future as command posts for drone units. Height could extend the range of line-of-sight communicatons and still be safe by use of drone decoys or relays.
Weren't scout helicopters already basically replaced?
Like, if I had a helicopter and a Reaper drone on call....
What could tempt me to risk lives needlessly to have less overwatch time?
(perhaps more total ammunition, but I don't see those straight-line rocket pods having much use, when your targets carry shoulder-fired Stinger-like threats)
One feature of Excalibur is the warhead will not arm if the accuracy of a shot falls outside a certain value. In a counterinsurgency setting this makes sense to avoid collateral damage. Shots were even aimed outside a village to have the guidance system steer them to the target and if there was a failure the shell would land in an empty field. But against an opponent with extensive GPS jamming it's likely the tiny GPS receiver in the shell being launched out of a cannon will quickly lose accuracy.
The most interesting feature, by far, is that strange women lying in ponds often distribute these shells
I think it has more to do with the rounds given to Ukraine being entirely GPS jamming unresistant, unlike later variants.
@@ArchOfficial The small size of the shell and need to survive extreme G-forces of being fired will put hard limits on what can be done to overcome jamming. In the numbers presented the JDAM munitions were much less affected which makes sense as there is much more room to work with and electronics do not have to be so sturdy.
Never rely on ammunition distributed by a watery tart.
@yamchadragonball6983
You could make a religion out of this.
Or the basis of a system of governance.
"turned into an Oryx entry" is probably the most hilariously grim phrase I've heard on this channel
Get oryxed, Conscriptovich
The armor equivalent of being featured on LiveLeak?
'What is my legacy?'
- You are (17, destroyed)
@@MM22966those two are definitely not exclusive
Ah yes, the CIA count that had to be abandoned after they ran out of pictures of the same Ukranian soviet tanks from diff angles.
The Slaanesh joke took me, as a 40k fan, so off guard that i thought i was having a small aneurysm and was 'mixing' the media i consumed together. Scrolled it back twice.
i had to rewind too
very definitely entered my repertoire of euphemisms.
Perun probably read a certain Russian blogger who uses the 40k setting to explain the situation to avoid the censure
Same here. The analogy was understood so naturally at first, it took me some good 7 seconds to realize what it was, and then go back to be sure I heard what I heard.
@@upsidewalksPerun is more likely to be a 40K fan. Have you heard the references he sneaks into his presentations?
Attack Helicopters are in a place that MBTs were in the 70s when everyone said they were obsolete due to prolific ATGMs and ironically attack helicopters. But what everyone forgets is that the more weapons there are that are designed to counter a specific platform the more vital that platform is.
Just look at what happens when you lack SHORAD and head into an area where attack helicopters prowl. Having ANY attack helicopters forces your opponent into heavily investing in SHORAD and MANPADS and being hesitant to launch any kind of operation where those are lacking. Because you can't just judge a system by what it lets you do, you have to also consider what it forces your opponent to do in response.
The opponent would have to invest in shorad anyway. Helicopters are and have never been the only threat from above.
@@herrfugbaum8978 The argument was that with so many drones shorad will be very prevalent. even without any attack helicopters .
There are plenty of other systems that can still force that same type of investment. One analog I wish he had mentioned was the MQ-9 Reaper. It does most of the same things helicopters can do, while being much cheaper. You could argue that its more susceptible to jamming but if a helicopter cant coordinate with ground troops and command, its not going to be very effective.
The PLA started deploying a two-man max autogyro into its mountain units, and those are proposed to make their Taiwan-facing infantry airmobile. Its primary purpose is immediate deployment of leg infantry, but once FOBs are set-up, one man stays to defend the FOB while the other flies it back to re-equip as a gunship, then drop that package at the FOB and fly back to load supplies and fly those in. Supposed to be able to link two to one as empty, full-load transports, too.
But in a few years, with more data and practical experience, I expect they'll have their own version of the AH-56; not as armored as an AH-64, but much faster, with a lot more range, higher altitude capability at load, the same or greater payload, and (being made in China) a whole lot (1/10 cost, 1/3 price) cheaper than a current-build or rebuilt Apache . . . but the market will be Saudi Arabia, maybe South America, but mostly used by their PMCs to secure their Silk Road project.
@@hanpol2053 Not all SHORAD is equal. A lot of the investment and research in countering drones relates to finding cheap, electricity based solutions be that jamming or microwave type weapons to fry them. It's a major problem right how costly it is to take out the drones that exist and how limited the magazines of the AA systems are. A system optimized against large numbers of small drones will not be optimized against helicopters, particularly as their weaponry is getting longer and longer.
3:20 I wouldn't say that the Maginot like was over learning from the previous war. The whole point of the forts were to force a war of movement while keeping the coal and steel rich areas of France protected. This happened. The common sentiment is that the Maginot line failed, but it worked perfectly fine. A lot of stuff failed for France, including even a General deciding to leave his forts.
The Maginot Line's problem was that the German army was built specifically for a war of movement, to the point of their supply lines not being able to cope at all when the momentum stops. So in a roundabout way the Maginot Line worked so well it actually helped the Germans during the invasion of France.
@@Calvin_Coolage The French army was built for a war of movement too and I would say more so than Germany. Most of German's troops weren't panzer grenadiers and were regular foot infantry. That German army also hit the Maginot Line and was stopped for a time. General Huntziger's actions were pretty terrible.
@@arisukak That's fair. The Germans got lucky some of their more reckless pushes didn't bite them in the ass like they did during Operation Barbarossa. At the end of the day the Maginot Line is something a lot of people misunderstand, and France's military frankly had much bigger problems than anything to do with the Line.
The problem with the Marginot line was that there was a way around it. Had the French figured that the Germans might go through the Ardenes (exactly like they did the last time) and extended it all the way to the ocean, then the Germans would have faced a much MUCH stiffer obstacle.
People like to quote Patton that "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man", but that comes with a few caveats: If you can built fixed fortifications so strong that it will take the enemy weeks of relentless bombardment crack them, then you have weeks of time to react. With today's bunker busting warheads penetrating up to 6 meters of reinforced concrete or 30 meters of soil, then it is going to be very expensive to build such fortifications.... but if you do, the enemy has three options 1) Expend more money destroying them than you expended building them, 2) Chose to fight outside the effective range of your fortified bombardment capability, or 3) Eat the losses that comes with fighting in range of a bombardment system.
@@andersjjensen Except the Maginot Line DID extend toward the ocean. It went from the English channel toward the Mediterranean. The Germans did attack through the Maginot Line as Sedan had fortifications. The line was also supposed to link up with Belgian fortifications that the Belgians decided to just appease Hitler instead of completing which screwed over French plans.
Even if they simply "went around it" it still means the line worked. You just made your enemy attack on your terms.
Patton was same guy who kept trying to take Metz fortress for 2 months without success.
This might be the earliest I've ever caught a Perun video. Always a treat on a Sunday!
America in the 200's designing a weapon that can't work with EW is peak "design for the war we are fighting and not the war we will fight". They designed weapons for a permissive environment for the war on terror to reduce collateral damage. But they didn't consider that the enemy gets a say, because disorganised militaries and militants with poor EW weren't the target.
Time will tell they are learn that lesson from Ukraine.
They also assumed Russia wouldn't help the terrorists, which was true at the time, but definitely not true of Iran or Russia itself.
Except for the fact that only the first increment of Excalibur rounds had no jamming resistance. Increment Ia-2 and Ib (M982A1) have jamming resistance built in. The problem isn’t inherent to the design, it’s a consequence of shipping Ukraine rounds made in 2007 before the full-capability version was in production.
@@ryanchatham9971very cool fact!
US HARM and Air-Air missiles have literally homed to jam for at least 30 years. When you fire up an EW emitter against any primary US weapon system, you are going to die.
Excalibur anecdote: 2010-2011 in helmand province my unit got 1 conventional 155 fire-for-effect, all 8-10 rounds blew up beautifully; over 100 Excalibur fire missions, total that actually detonated: 3. That piece of shit is the leading dud producing ordinance on earth. A stance which I have maintained for nearly 14 years.
That's an intended outcome. They have functions to not arm the warhead if it would impact outside of an allowable zone. If you had called in unguided artillery, you'd have just been told you're not getting any.
@@ArchOfficial That's a nice functionality! but can you disable it if you just want to do some damage?
Probably not if stick to official guadlines on using them but give this problem to some central eu countries then the ansver is yes
@@surters I don't know, and I can't find any DECLAS info about it.
Let me guess, the Taliban then started using the dud rounds for IED's?
Switchblades are missing from this. They were hyped immensely very early in the war and failed to deliver greatly. Anecdotes from the field indicated that they were very disappointing. Considering they performed the job worse than a simple FPV drone did for a price of around 50k a piece, i think they fit here well.
In the 2022 budget, the price for a single unit-the airframe, sensors, integrated guidance, warhead, data link, and launcher - was $58,063. This cost does not include additional elements like the guidance unit, which costs around $30,000, or fielding costs, spares, support, training rounds, and simulators. Ukrainian units prefer to use commercial drones equipped with cheaper explosives, at around $700 or less.[42]
On April 23, 2023, the US Army decided not to buy more Switchblade 300s.
Switchblade did deliver on their primary role, to bring massive profits to the US arm's industry and to fleece the US taxpayer.
I remember when western media wrote all the Switchblade will swarm the russian troops and the Nazis were thought that they were only weeks from their win
@@bastikolaski8111 Есть только одни нацисты, и это HOHOLS - NATION OF USsRAINA
Interesting about Excalibur. When we stopped hearing about Excalibur, I had assumed it was mostly a combination of two things: the fact that they were available in such small numbers, and assets valuable enough to target with Excalibur having been moved out of the considerably longer range of rocket artillery.
--
GLSDB was supposed to be cheap and available in large numbers. The ability to put an incoming object on enemy radar is valuable: even if the object in question isn't actually going to hit anything, it can help make it more likely that something else will, or that enemy resources will be expended without effect. So I would have expected GLSDB to still be heavily used, if lack of accuracy were the only problem.
Problem is the rockets are out of production so the number that can be produced is finite
I think the issue is that the range of 120 miles is still rather middling, combined with small quantities. It's also probably cheaper to just send more drones than to bother mixing in glsdb or such. and it's not got a long enough range to help in attacks with cruise missiles
@@pogo1140 only the dumb short range, GLMLRS and ATACMS are still being produced GLMRS-ER and PrSM are in early initial production
i think it was both, im pretty sure that the allies gave ukraine xcalibers in an effort to mitigate the shell shortage problem that was happening at the time.
Now their is probably very few left that can be given as each nation is going to only give so many before they risk lowering their own war readiness.
I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact: JDAM works, AASM Hammer works, why would GLSDB not work? Aside from launch platform these GPS-guided glide bomb should be very similar weapons. Or it is just Boeing being Boeing?
Hi Perun, have you thought about doing a breakdown of how the USA funding of Ukraine has been and is being spent?
From what I understand a lot of the $ are being spent in the USA replenishing the stocks that have been supplied to Ukraine. It seems the US military is benefitting by being re supplied with more modern materiel and jobs are being maintained and possibly new jobs created by this spend.
In the final month of the USA election campaign, providing an understanding of the how the billions are being spent and what direct and indirect benefits there are to the USA, may be a story worth telling?
Perhaps you could do a colourful pie chart showing which states are benefiting the most economically?
Consider how the USA may benefit from lessons learned without the cost in US lives, especially in these days of drone warfare?
I’d like to understand if it’s conceivable that the extensive fleet of aircraft ’parked’ in the vicinity of Tucson Arizona could be reborn as drones? After all if there is no risk of losing a flight crew does it matter if the odd aircraft is lost in a war zone due to structural failure? (An A10 drone would ratchet up the firepower from a MAV2 just a bit)
Love your work, especially the references causally woven into your delivery. Also the actual references to source material. 😀
Literally 100% of US military support is used either in the US or in partner countries. It's basically a stimulus into companies.
Thank you, Jason. So many in US have no idea how our budget is spread for manufacturing. Some think buckets of cash are dropped from the sky. Especially important with elections close.
Yeah, seems to me that Perun is just the person to present this in a digestible way. In this day of the meme-verse a couple of visuals of where the $ are being spent, how many jobs are supported and perhaps which states of the spend are traditionally red or blue may help to enlighten at least a fraction of middle America?
The economic impact of US military aid to Ukraine on the US economy is a very important topic to understand. Perun could be a trustworthy source of that understanding. Good comment!!
Here you go:
In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine. Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defence contractors.
There is also more than $11bn to fund current US military operations in the region, enhancing the capabilities of the Ukrainian military and fostering intelligence collaboration between Kyiv and Washington; and about $8bn in non-military assistance, such as helping Ukraine’s government continue basic operations, including the payment of salaries and pensions.
Michael Bay was lead designer on the BMD-4.
It's kind of ironic that attack helicopters are reverting back to their rapid response role and away from the armed recon, hunter-killer, & close support roles they assumed during the cold-war. I recall as a child, when introduced to attack helicopters, thinking that it was silly to use them in preference to something like a small airplane when they were more expensive, slower, and carried less ordnance at a higher cost, but I was also 8 and really believed that we should still be flying P-51's so I still had alot to learn! 😆
The section on airborne units was also interesting, as an aside, Perun might want to consider doing a video on just airborne units. As always great vid!
Your 8 year old self may have been correct, if only the air force would allow the Army to fly fixed wing assets for close support, but since they can't: attack helicopters!
Yeah... Perun's assessment that the Apache's main benefit is having rotary wings is harsh but I think fair. The biggest thing the attack helicopter has going for it is _not_ attacking the USAF's delicate feelings.
What's the point in spending big money on a sophisticated weapons system which is at its most useful against military forces which are far behind the curve? Shouldn't those sorts of projects be aimed at peer conflict?
@davidkottman3440 , there is long history here. My late father Lt Cmdr USNR, shared this view, that the Army's exasperation with USAF's lack of enthusiasm for CAS would have led to agitation for their own fixed wing if not for the helicopter. He retired in 1966, IIRC, so that shows you how far back it goes. He pointed to Patton's being able to call on Naval fire support, but not CAS, in the landing on Sicily!
And I've read quotes from Army Generals being extremely envious of Marine CAS in Korea.
There are two rules when it comes to journalists: (1) When there's a rhetorical question in a headline ("End of Putin's Russia?") the answer is always "no". (2) when something is dubbed a "gamechanger" it means the naive journalist has been impressed by marketing materials and is getting ecstatic over something that will have a mild-to-medium effect on the situation.
Wow you have no idea about journalists do you!
@@okbutthenagain.9402 wow, you have no sense of humour and wouldn't recognise a joke if it hit you in the face, would you?
@@okbutthenagain.9402 I am one.
I am so grateful for your witty delivery that lets me keep listening enough to have a clue what is going on. Not just in Ukraine but how it works world wide.
Very true. About the only thing not quite on the level was, I thought, allocating video time to whatever some rando from Prigozhin rally said, to make Prigozhin look like more of a legit target vs "Russia's ex-space dude". If we'd cherry-picked quotes by rally attendees of literally every politician of every nation in history, incl right here, I bet you the same case could be made for them being legit targets.
Putin say you witty.
The Attack Helicopter was created for Vietnam. It found a Cold War role as a response platform for Soviet Tank breakthroughs that were bound to happen in an attack through the Fulda Gap. This was a follow on to the Tank Destroyer of WWII vintage. In a mobile environment, it might have a role. It seems not to in a static/attritional battle.
It has a role. You don't need a concrete runway with Patriot for defence to operate AH64. In Poland, we need a fast response ground attack and can't get F16 and F35 fast enough plus fighters will always be plugging gaps in Patriot and Narew coverage. You don't get to 4,7 % GDP on defence (and there is talk of 5%) unless your Russian neighbour is operating more and more like North Korea, and you don't want to repeat the modernisation plan of 1935 with 1942 target and wake up in 1939.
It's worth noting that while American tank destroyers were very useful in WWII, they were only rarely used for their doctrinally assigned role. From what I recall learning about them, TDs spent most of their time acting like artillery, spent most of the remainder of their time acting like tanks, and only on rare occasions did they actually use their mobility to respond to enemy armor, i.e. acting like tank destroyers.
TDs were good at their role, but if that's all they were good for, they would have been pretty useless overall.
@@SnakebitSTI By the time that the US got to the field in the European War the bulk of Axis (read German) offensives were done and the Axis was essentially retreating for the rest of the war. Nobody knew that at the time, so Tank Destroyers were created. The idea was to have a greatly mobile anti-tank force that could respond to massed German Armor attacks. This was the purpose of Attack Helicopters in the Cold War. If the Soviets had attacked, they would have created breakthroughs and the Attack Helicopters were supposed to create mobile response units. It is why the Soviets created Buk and Tor, to provide medium reach air defense for armored spearheads. In a relatively static war, it is unclear what Attack Helicopters are for.
@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 Ukraine has tactical depth to retreat. We don't. We have max 100km from the border to some important cities. I live just 220 km from Berlin, in western Poland, and the Russian border is about 350km in a straight line. We need reserves to plug a gap in line fast if Putin goes sightseeing in a tank and bypases border control.
@@lukaszfunka So, you live farther from Russia than Kyiv is from Belarus. You are describing a war of movement where Poland would have no satellite imagery of an impending Russian attack. Again, Ukraine is primarily a static war and the initial war of movement was defeated by mobile ground teams of ATGMs.
The most disappointing system in Ukraine is the timerous US government.
Ironically, it's also the most important.
Don't get me wrong, my government infuriates me with the drip-drip of aid, but let's face it: without the US and its allies, this would be a very different war
Harsh but fair.
US, Trump, have been telling Europe that Europe is Europe's responsibility.
And ignored.
US taxpayers have been paying more for Europe defense, then Europeans for 70 years.
Don't like it, we can leave. You can pay the Russians to leave you alone.
@@Dasycottusplease remember that the current administration has domestic political opponents that it needs to defeat in the upcoming for any aid to reach Ukraine from the US.
I'm actually more disappointed by the German government, but that is probably local bias.
"not talking about game-changing systems, but systems that might be put under pressure by the way the game is changing.”
🙄 🤔 😄😅🤣
(I think I'm so used to Perun's clever phrasing...
...that I sometimes forget how truly clever he is!)
“Now I know it might be very difficult for some of you to believe that a Boeing product may be flawed in some way”👌🏻
That was a third degree burn!
While Boeing has its problems, it does not help that the media, once it gets an idea in its collective head, sometimes misapply it. For instance, one of the "Boeing Problems" was a plane which lost its landing gear. It turns out the plane was in service for twenty years. At that point, it is not likely a Boeing problem but air line maintenance.
With rare exceptions, attack helicopters have worked much better in theory than in practice and have been extraordinarily expensive and vulnerable with very little upside. From Vietnam to Afghanistan to the Gulf War, they've generally taken heavy losses and rarely turned the tide or even helped much. I honestly think they only stick around because they look so fucking cool.
I think one of the best uses of a helicopter is medivac. They can quickly get into an area, load up the wounded and get out. Land vehicles are much slower, and fixed wing is out of the question under most circumstances.
Speaking of looking cool you cant disagree that the mi-24 hind looks effin sexy like daaamn
@@brenatevi Oh yeah *helicopters* are awesome for transport, evacuation and rescue.
But for close air attack? You want a Super Tucano of just a plain old F-16.
Well, they thought that for Extraction 13… No Apache battle surveillance = ambush
Spoken like someone who has never been under fire and had an Apache show up to save you entire platoon.
In all fairness to the Excalibur, GPS jamming has been a known weakness since it was developed. Raytheon, as early as 2013, developed a version with semi-active laser targeting capability to help track and hit moving targets. These are far less susceptible to GPS jamming. It's clear they aren't receiving these types. No weapon system is a miracle cure all, that will always perfectly hit every target. If you have an option to either drop 6 million pounds of bombs during extensive bombing missions involving more than a thousand aircraft with around 33% accuracy at the cost of dozens of aircraft lost and hundreds of air crews killed or captured as in WWII. Or, using precision weapons of various types to hit specific targets with minimal losses of lives and a nearly zero rate of collateral damage, it's a win! Precision and smart weapons are and should be an evolutionary process. With time, technology and battle field experience, a more favorable evolution will occur with these systems.
I can see the classic airborne units being useful if the following conditions are met:
1: You are facing a weak country.
2: That you don't share a border with.
3: And that you don't have a foothold in.
4: And whose neighbors refuse to provide you passage.
I struggle to think of other uses.
If the neighbors don't let you drive through, they are not going to let you fly your troops through. Especially not if those troops are para-droppable.
@@RidwanMarian Real life contradicts your assertion. Because one puts the onus on the standby country to launch missiles at airplanes, (which they might not even have) while the other requires the aggressor country to smash through border guards.
@@RidwanMarianLike Ukraine allowed Russia to pass to Moldova
Sunday would not be the same without this. 🙂
Attack helicopters are an excellent counter-insurgency weapon, specifically where the insurgents aren't well provided with manpads. Witness their role in Iraq and Afghanistan both by the Soviets, where their effectiveness significantly declined with the Mujahadeen's acquisition of large numbers of Stingers; and the US which did not face a similar threat.
The ka 52 played a significant role in stopping the ukrainian counter offensive in zaparogia.
All hail powerpoint man
“today we’re not talking about game-changing systems, but systems that might be put under pressure by the way the game is changing.” Tzeench, the Changer of ways 😀
A situation where paradrops would still be optimal is on the Chinese/Indian border.
You can't shoot down the planes, because of the agreement to not use firearms(which I assume includes rockets and AA), but whichever side does this suddenly has an extra few hundred men for the melee brawl that is about to ensue.
Cargo planes are still vulnerable to concrete-filles glide bombs dropped by higher, faster fighters. Also if planes are allowed, what's preventing the use of suicide drone planes, or a cargo plane dropping 10 tonnes of nails on the battlefield?
Or as we know from recently released wargames, to rapidly deploy substantial combat formation into geopolitically sensitive parts of the world
If one side greatly outnumbers the other, the outnumbered side is likely to start shooting before the other side can react in an attempt to quickly even the odds.
Other than needing an acronym and initialism break down in order to follow your videos, I absolutely love them. Thank you for your time.
Actually, very hyped to hear you talk about "meh." 😏
Hay. The Russia k52 helicopter took out a whole military convoy. The Russians shaired this success in a video. Only problem was the video showed that the convoy destroyed was Russian. Maybe the reason we are not seeing very more K52 videos.
I see all kinds of current KA52 videos, what a lethal machine.
@@ledzepandhabs The pilots keep getting killed when the Ka-52's explode...
It’s hilariously amazing how many times the Russians have fired on their own personnel/equipment in this war 😂
@@ledzepandhabs Nobody's arguing Alligators (or any attack helo) aren't lethal. It's the problem of being survivable enough long enough to be worthwhile that's the trouble.
Ka52 are effective fire fighting vehicles against large armored pushes. That's about it.
This, to me, is as important as weapons that exceeded expectations. You need to know where money, time, and effort is being wasted.
I think there is only one major argument for parachute deployable airborne forces in 2024.
They provide the ability to rapidly insert a brigade+ sized force deep into a non-peer nation that allows you to theoretically seize them rapidly and provide your adversary and neutral parties on the international stage with a fait acomplis.
Ukraine was an unsuitable target for this because they had a remarkably capable IADS that couldn't be fully destroyed easily, and a large army in the field that could crush such an attack.
However, Russia has a number of neighbours who would likely perform far worse against such a manouvre. Belarus, Mongolia, most of the 'stans and even a pre-NATO Finland are large enough to be somewhere between inconvenient and impractical to just thunder-run, but have small enough armies (pre-mobilisation) and populations that a rapid strike that catches them unprepared could be VERY effective.
IOW it is the "send in the marines" task - gunboat diplomacy - for a landlocked country. I think the US' days of doing that to distant impoverished shitholes are past.
Thank you Perun for this amazing video and all the other amazing ones you have done over the last two years. I have watched everyone, some twice. I have consumed so many videos on defense economics I am getting targeted ads for Baraccuda Cruise Missiles. Thank you Perun for that, I was honestly going insane getting those ads all the time for boxed mattresses
"fail cheaply" that's good general life advice.
Having weapons systems that fail is even more valuable than having weapon systems that succeed, in a longterm military development perspective, because those failures teach you important things about the war you're fighting.
The failure of Excalibur and GLSDB to EW makes me think that the weapons manufacturers didn't really do a good job with regard to failure modes
In manufacturing the use of FMEA to make products more robust to failure is pretty much standard practice
Did the manufacturers apply robust analysis of the potential countermeasures that the enemy could apply?
The Russians maybe spoofing GPS but do they also spoof GLONASS?
You don't need to spoof GLONAS, it'll fail to direct you even whilst it's running.
@@pluemas Glonass is used in conjunction with gps , kinda runs contrary to your claim no?
With the latest accelerometers and laser gyros the availability of inertial navigation systems for terminal guidance means that the manufacturers have been slacking badly. 😊
@@u2beuser714 GLONAS is used as a backup by some systems, but is being widely replaced with Galileo. It was used as it was the only real back up available. Generally speaking, if GPS is jammed then GLONAS will also be.
Its notorious for being temperamental and often having poor accuracy. It has, by far, the worst accuracy of all the positioning systems.
Jam resistance was developed in early, although I'm fairly sure Ukraine didn't receive any of those rounds. The fail modes are there for safety in counterinsurgency and generally involve not arming the warhead.
Dont forget pictures of BMD-2s and 4s from early war, where you literally have a puddle of aluminum, some road wheels, and bits of track left... with what might have been an engine sitting in several different spots.
Being made aluminum tends to do that, also see M113 and Bradley
it's still the "looking at a destroyed MBT and thinking all MBT's are useless" problem in some form, though
The BMD is supposed to survive only against light weaponry because it's not meant to go against a prepared enemy, it's meant to accompany airborne units in fast strikes and that's all.
The root of the issue is Russia using them like BMP's because they ran out of BMP's
@@Galf506BMD have been used as IFV since the early days of the war, because they should be used that way. The problem is that no IFV at all can survive in a battle where there are armadas of drones.
Its sunday and its 17 :07 pm and still no perun video i felt somthing isnt right
Quick, call the A-Team, Jason Borne and John Wick to check on wether he is alright.
"I know it might be very difficult for some of you to believe that a Boeing product might be flawed in some way," 🤣🤣🤣 It's good to look at things that are sub optimal too, and learn from them. Thanks Perun. 😊
blow your mind for a second: what likely defeated the northwest road invasion on day-one was a lack of replacement fuel hoses on the fueling trucks leading to the motorpool simply cutting off the worn-out ends and re-attaching the nozzles on shorter hoses
I think your statement about Boeing is pretty good. They should literally hire programmers from Ukraine instead of the people they are using.
Also designers and engineers. Boeing has been doing some very silly stuff for a bit now. New blood - and more importantly, ideas - would do them good.
Ukranians have a LOT of reasons why they would do their best to get it right instead of 'just making it profitable'! I'd be game to see them get to work on that. I'm a bit surprised that we don't have 'simpler' solid-state gyro devices that can 'inertial navigate' when the GPS frequencies get jammed. It might need coding for stuff like, "If my target suddenly drifts to the east at 450 MPH then maybe continue using INS from last-known-good targeting data and do not steel mike a madman to try to get to its 'new' spot which is out of effective range" if it's being spoofed. That might be harder to catch, but there's ways it could be done.
Anyway, I think that's a good idea.
@@EShirako in the first Iraq war, the US used terrain following cruise missiles with 60s technologies. I bet the guidance systems are probably a lot cheaper and easier to make now.
@@rajeshkanungo6627 @rajeshkanungo6627 Oooh! Yeah, we don't seem to ever reuse older tech. I wonder why not? Oh...well, ok, so maybe it uses gyros that we've lost the tech knowledge to create now, and how to interface with the things? From the 60's they are CLEARLY not digital computers. So maybe they are cheaper to make, but I'm not sure they are actually easier, and regaining the skill in that work may be more costly than we're willing to put money into recreating. Like the rocket motors...we couldn't even copy our own stuff because the welding techs from long ago hadn't left instruction manuals after they figured out how to make the bigger rocket motors. We cut NASA's budget, then a few generations later we're all surprised that we can't recreate the 'moon rocket' motors. Turns out, we need SUPER skilled welders using finesse that our current welding techs don't generally have or even understand. Maybe we can't recreate the jeweled-pivots the gyros used for their navigation systems or something dumb...but 'interfacing with it' is more likely to be the big problem. They'd be analog systems, and those can be TERRIBLY hard to decipher. I have an older 8-track recording tape-system that I was trying to rebuild and update...but when I tried to swap the power supply out, no matter how I adjusted the power output the recordings were all sllllllowwwww...it was clocking itself from a remaining-harmonic from the power module, as far as I can tell, and that adjusts the base motor turning rate. I don't even know what the recording heads want to do; they aren't working at all, and I suspect it's also because something 'sneaky' is missing from the power supply's inputs. I had wanted to make it WAY more efficient by not using the old transformer-based power supply it was using, but it turns out analog systems do a LOT with only a few inputs. 😕
If we can reuse that old tech that worked so well, though...I'd be game to use that!
In your heart of hearts, you know that the IRS has Apaches.
What Airbus are doing is moving away from the attack helicopter (RIP Tiger / Tigre) as a unique military airframe and are using advanced commercial airframes strapped with sensors and weapons. Thus you have the advantage of off-the-shelf tech and civilian commercial development, where the helicopter won't go away anytime soon, so the future is a return to the Bo 105 concept.
That's more a failure of their Tiger product than the suitability of commercial helicopters for war, which are a compromise. It also means that for Western-allied forces, the Apache rules. The US Army not only uses them for attack but the Apaches replaced the commercial-derived Kiowa Warrior in the armed recon role. There's a reason the Tiger is being killed off and the Apache continues to be used and ordered by many other militaries.
The Tiger is also a technological dead end where it is a pain in the butt to upgrade and modify. Countries are still buying attack helis like AH 1Z and AW129
@@quakethedoombringer Yeah those two at-least have the advantage of having the power train common with other types unlike the Tiger. Will be interesting to see how AW249 Fenice shapes up (which also has the power train common with a commercial type).
The thing about how important jamming resistance is reminds me of a story about China's first SACLOS ATGMs. They were trying to sell them to some countries in Africa, and the potential customers were pretty impressed. However, they then put the missile to the jamming test, which it failed spectacularly. The Chinese designers had not considered EW, and the representatives from the African country explained that this is the sort of thing you learn from first hand experience.
Im pretty sure you are talking about hj-73 atgms which are in essense malyutka copies with heavy modifications but those are very old
@@u2beuser714 Wouldn't that describe virtually all Chinese hardware until about ten years ago?
I'll take this never happened for a 1000
SACLOS systems are wire-guided. How would they jam them?
@@MM22966 You asked wikipedia level question. Quoth the wiki:
_"Many SACLOS weapons are based on an infrared seeker aligned with the operator's gunsight or sighting telescope. The seeker tracks the missile, either the hot exhaust from its rocket motor or flares attached to the missile airframe, and measures the angle between the missile and the centerline of the operator's sights. This signal is sent to the missile, often using thin metal wires or a radio link"_
- There are two points to apply jamming with radio link and one point with wire guided. Dazzlers dazzle to infrared seeker.
Never, EVER have I seen and heard more informative and thorough analysis of military matters than Perun. Great content. Thanx.
There is a plus to jump training, same as formation marching. Just as we don't expect the troops to fight in march formations, preparing troops to drop does lead to better quality troops. Naval infantry benefits from ship crew training, even if used as ground pounders.
As a Polish person, I can tell you some truth. We bought 290 Chunmoo launchers, first contract in 2022 and second contract in 2024. We bought 96 Apaches but not for 12 billion dollars. It was 10 billion. We didnt purchase any rockets and ammo for Apache. It will be a separate contract, and most likely it will not be Hellfire but the newest Spike or Brimstone. We bought Hellfire 2 last year but for our AW149 fleet.
Brimstone can't work with Apache. Even British (who made Brimstone) decided not to integrate those.
@@kursantstrzelecki2958 Not true. The British withdrew because, in the wake of cuts in military spending, they did not want to pay for the integration of Brimstone with Apache.
Disappointing Systems - Well, that also includes a surprising amount of the Russian Navy.
Let us acknowledge the Russian Navy’s surprising capability to convert naval assets en situ, while effortlessly retraining sailors to operate as ghosts. The Black Sea submarine fleet has been considerably bolstered and silently awaits its moment (probably on Halloween of some year).
Not really, they adapted. You don't see sea drones having any success while Ukraine commando missions are now suicide missions with close to 100% casualty rate.
Now be nice. They have just never ever had a usable, much less threatening surface forces. Now, the submarines are at least a semi-credible threat. But I am not a subject matter expert on submarines. But the news in the black sea not that viable. 😅
irrelevant
I suppose it depends on perspective and objective, if one is trying to produce a reef system for future diving tourism…
Thank you perun for analyzing and uploading always, much appreciated 👍 🙏
I would like to add that there is one video of an attack helicopter from Kursk firing a missile at a target.
The video its self came out on the second or third day, it was firing an ATGM at a Challenger 2 tank, but it missed and hit the floor next to it. The damage caused by the explosion was superficial and just a loose panel(such as a mudguard) was thrown off to the side.
If I remember right there were a number of claimed successes of KA-52 early in the incursion that later turned out to be friendly fire. Also at least one fell victim to manpads.
@@bobjohnbowles Several Ka-52's fell victim to the Ukrainian anti-TANK missiles, which had five times the explosive compared to a Stinger. No chance!
@@paullangford8179 What on Earth the ATGM has even more expensive than AA missile? Does it use diamond warhead?
Anyone investing in attack helicopters right now has to ask themselves. "What can 1 attack helicopter do that a combination of 100+ advanced drones, loitering ammunition and artillery can't?"
Range and jam resistant?
CaseEvac from Mariupol.
@@OCinneide CaseEvac would be done by a transport helicopter.
Well, that depends: does this attack helicopter have a laser anti-missile/anti-drone system, like the USN was testing on the F-35? Or even like Federal Express has been mounting on some of its cargo planes for the past ten years? Does it have a maser to compliment that? Does it have a Growler package for EW? A drone could have Airborne Warning And Control equipment, but Earth to orbit to orbit to orbit to Earth takes time and creates an inevitable slow, ass-covering, bureaucracy. You will have a human in the loop sometime; why not ASAP?
Does it maybe have three or four launchers in each wing, simply launch tubes along a feed ramp, with an autoloading magazine magazine stocked with dozens of air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-tank missiles? Javelin was a contemporary of Stinger, created by BAe as a MANPAD. It lost the competition because Stinger was faster with a better hit percentage; but Javelin had a much heavier warhead, and was bought up from BAe and reimagined as a fire-and-forget brilliant anti-tank missile with the new warhead. So, why not see if it wouldn't be nifty to have both, and something for pillboxes and bunkers? Or, see what else Starstreak could do -- or just make a Universal disposable tube.
An attack helicopter need not be manned. It can be a robotic (local AI plus "broad brushstrokes" operator control of several units) system laying down suppressive fire and deploying wheeled and/or tracked drones in front and behind enemy lines.
All i took away from the attack helicopter and VDV segment was the rapidly growing need for infantry jetpacks... and tank jetpacks.
I love how you justified the attempted murder of the guy who was an overseer of Russian civilian space program: "20 or so years ago he was near some guy who blamed Jews for lack of Democracy in Russia". The amount of mental gymnastics is stunning.
Have not had the time to watch your presentations for a while now but holy crap I’ve missed your weekly presentations. Keep up the great work! It is awesome to hear people who know their stuff present it in this fashion.
I invented, (along with my cat) a GPS guided slingshot. It's very cheap to make, easy to use, and it's as good as any javelin. My cat is a genius 😾That said, we both enjoy your content.
I invented the Shark Alarm which was equipped with a snooze button.
I think the paradrop "problem" is reflective of the nature of this war.
For sure, the US has learned and unlearned air mobile infantry a hundred times over the years, but Iraq and Afghanistan did not have conditions that prevented airborne forces to be used.
The changing VDV equipment likely reflects the fact that it is simply far too risky to use air assault methods in a sky that is heavily contested and lethal. The change to heavier equipment is probably temporary for the duration if the war - it makes no sense to hold back the VDV, who are typically better trained and experienced, when you can forget air mobile attacks today and have them act as normal units for the next few years, then go back to air assault post war.
33:09 your translation Militarese to English was awesome
I continue to be amazed at how you can turn an hour long powerpoint presentation on defense economics topics into an enjoyable and engaging experience. Thank you for continuing to provide such amazingly educational and entertaining content. Honestly I think our standard education systems should take a long look at edutainment content like yours for how to make learning an appealing process rather than a grueling one.
Poland ordered about 290 K239 launchers. The entire order was divided into two phases. In the first phase in 2022, 218 launchers were ordered and in the second, which you talk about in the video, 72 were ordered.
31:10 I could have remembering hearing something about a Russian Cargo aircraft getting blown out of the sky during the first few days. I remember being convinced at the time that the Russians were following the old Airborne Assault Doctrine. Securing the Airfield with paraborne or heliborne light infantry quickly followed up by fixed wing cargo aircraft landing heavier reinforcements. Obviously with the loss (assuming my memory of 2+ years ago is accurate) the follow up landing and then the collapse of the Kyiv push the VDV were left high and dry.
I think I remember that. However the reason the airlift with cargo aircraft failed and got turned back from Hostomel airport was simply the Ukrainians guessing what was happening and shelling their own runways - making them unusable. Unable to bring in reinforcements the initial VDV on the ground got slaughtered .
It's been 2,5 years since we wait for any proof of that "slaughter"
@@Davey-Boyd Ah, yes, the un suppressed AA installations. How I could forget. They are only dangerous to helicopters. Not to huge ass flying behemoths.
Bondarčuk gun in the finest.
@@worldoftancraft Wtf are you on about?
@@Davey-Boyd watched yesterday's video from Daily Mail.
Well time to listen to another Perun video at work.
my other favorite australian defense powerpoint youtuber, what a nice sunday
Perun, Döner and a beer.
Perfect sunday evening.
Most losses of BMD-4's were to artillery and drones and not to direct combat (where it actually did pretty good). If not for TB-2 Bayraktar dropping LGBs on those vehicles at the start of the war, we'd see a very much different story about "vehicles are not needed to airborne". In fact, vehicles like BMD are incredibly valuable to guys on the ground as they provide carrying capacity, mobility AND firepower to otherwise naked light infantry, that will die *even easier* to artillery and drones otherwise.
The reason of why VDV inflicted damage on ukrainian reinforcements and escaped afterwards instead of just dying in 40 to 1 kinda situation were... BMD-2/4 and Typhoon MRAPs that carried retreating VDV towards mechanized formations of RuAF that actually had heavier AA capabilities. One of the reasons of why russians decided to include "Pantsir" into airborne airlift doctrine were drones that couldn't always be dealt with by Verba AA of VDV.
Re: helicopters - vulnerable yes, but so are fixed wing aircraft. Fixed wing had to get used to ADA and SAMs, but they did it, via passive & active defence and SEAD & DEAD packages (formations of a/c with jammers, sensors, anti radiation munitions and AGMs).
Helicopters have often operated solo, more afraid of gunfire than missiles. I think because they're usually "Army" (focused on doing ground support), they haven't adopted active defenses like laser blinding, EW, kinetic active defence (like iron first), nor adopted any tactics like wild weasel teams or SEAD packages.
I think helicopters are a fantastic way to flexibly concentrate force at a point, but have gotten used to big air force providing air dominance (even Russian helicopters, such as in Syria).
And yes, expensive compared to drones, but i would think they're more flexible and manpower efficient than achieving similar effects with drones, which is important for militaries with large budgets but small personnel counts (like most Western militaries)
I disagree on the man power argument, it takes a very long time to train a helicopter pilot versus a drone pilot. A killed helicopter pilot killed is a very big deal thus and they are much more at risk of dying. Meanwhile Ukraine drone pilot does 40 sorties per day! in a bunker.
"more afraid of gunfire than missiles" - Russian helo pilots in Afghan war would kindly disagree. Those that survived, that is.
I thought the description of the reasons for the Apache helicopter was just BS speak until I heard the word synergy and then I was all on board. O hope they said modular in there too.
LOL! Indeed! Somebody must get paid by the buzzword! Oh, don't forget "Transformational" and "Joint"!
A little late, but here with fresh cup of hot coffee...
I'd speculate rotary wing attack aircraft will be the easiest to replace with drones. Wouldn't be surprised to see them first refitted with AI before being entirely retired..
Great video on two of the most important words in economics: "Opportunity Costs". As always +1.
The primary allure of the attack helo is the speed of engagement. The kill chain can be as short as a few seconds, which when supporting ground forces, is very important. Couple that with the fact it is it's own sensor system with the ability to use jam resistant (or jam proof like Hellfire) PGMs, and you have something that can service multiple targets quickly and efficiently. FPVs, missiles, and other systems don't have that ability. That doesn't excuse russian's utter failure to perform SEAD and the resulting losses.
Few seconds when it's already there.
A dedicated prop aircraft (like famous Super Tucano) can get there in similar time at fraction of resources.
"russian's utter failure to perform SEAD" - SEAD, just like all air superiority things, only works against much weaker enemy.
@@kursantstrzelecki2958 Fixed wing aircraft need time to plan their approach vector, egress, and are just generally further from troops they're suppose to be escorting. Helos also need those things, but it's all much faster.
While a helicopter can service more targets than a FPV, it’s different when you get the equivalent cost of multiple FPVs compared to one helicopter.
The biggest problem with helicopters seems to be theyre too vulnerable to anti-air. When that’s not an issue they’re really good but not worth it when it is.
Its tough to make extrapolations about helicopters from Russia's performance because U.S. systems, doctrine, and training is very different. It's hard to argue with some of the conclusions in this video though.
I am extremely biased because I fly attack helicopters but I think there is something to be said about the H-1s in the Marine Corps because, 1. Cobras are significantly cheaper than apaches. 2. With the mixed uh/ah section you get the attack helicopter with the utility support and essentially an organic casevac platform right there.
Ah perfect my favorite PowerPoint
"Doing things to the electromagnetic spectrum that would make Slaanesh proud"
I'm not rich enough to be into Warhammer, but i understand the reference. The only question now is, what the hell does that sentence mean?
Completely f***ing it
When your EW crews make Slaanesh say, "I wish I'd thought of that!", you know something got creatively screwed over.
Noise marines. EW consists of playing noise to confuse the drone.
So well written and narrated, pleasure to listen to an intelligent organization of ideas, concepts and practical outcomes. Excellent. Thanks.
"A hind D,..... Colonel, what's a Russian gunship doing here?"
I should know this, but what is it from?
@@MM22966 "Snake? Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake?!"
In my headcanon the only reason they have the Hind is so Liquid can fit the whole wild n' wacky FOXHOUND team in the back with room left over for their wardrobe manager and makeup artist.
@@MM22966 It's from Metal Gear Solid
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III Raven took 90% of the space.
Best part of my Sunday just dropped in time for dinner 🥘
For me it's breakfast!
@@LuckyFlanker13 Perun has fans across the world i see!
@@Daniel-x6e hm I forget when I first watched his shit. I think it was bling/no basics? I forget, it’s practically a Sunday tradition now
Good morning Perun
Sounds like the BMD is what HBO would have us believe the Bradley was.
It is interesting hearing about the issue of externally guided munitions were eventually countered by jamming. But systems that did not rely on external guidance, dumb munition and internal guidance remained fully viable.
WOOOOOOOOO NEW PERUN VID this is always the best way to end off a weekend
But wait, I thought all of these systems would win the war for Ukraine.
I am still waiting to see how the Russian Boomdakka snazz wagon performs.
The wagons go “Boom” in a snazzy way when hit by dakka.
What’s there to question about it?
A friend of mine, 82nd Airborne, corrected me when I used the term "perfectly functional" to described aircraft by reminding me that it is the Air Force that maintains and flies the aircraft that the Army jumps out of. 😁
100% RAAF as well when I was in.
Very interesting, informative, and well-presented. And I say that as a retired U.S. Army Aviation officer who served in both air cavalry and attack helicopter units, flying both OH-58 scouts and AH-64 Apaches. I have long worried that the helicopter force structure that we have developed in the post-Cold War era might not be survivable in a conflict with a near-peer adversary.
Love your channel. I love your witty comments. Love your political & military awareness. I Appreciate your investigative capabilities..
WAKE UP! NEW PERUN VIDEO!!!!
No need, it's 5PM in Europe, ha!
Wake up call in US! 😊@paweek5540
@@paweek5540A relaxing treat before bedtime!
Jajaja. I'm already awake! (And have nothing really useful to say, so the algorithm has to contend with this.)
@@ahoannon5711 “nothing useful to say”??
What, you think this is twitter??
Who remembers the BMPT Terminator?
It's basically just a BMP2 with the armor of a T72
It is completely incorrect to compare the BMD-4 with Bradley. The analogue for BMD-4 is M113 and here the results on field will be much more comparable. Comparing the BMD with the IFV, which is twice as heavy and twice as expensive, is completely wrong. These are two very different machines for different tasks, it's just that the battlefield turned out to be one.
The M-113 doesn't pretend to be anything other than a lightly armoured troop transport, it has only token weapons (a roof mounted machine gun).
The BMD-4 by contrast has an extensive load of heavy weapons, it at least pretends to be an IFV in that sense. Commanders who see a big gun on a vehicle tend to expect said vehicle to use it, so they will send those vehicles into situations where they are exposed to direct fire far more often.
We might compare this to the Ukrainian experience with those French armoured cars with 105mm guns. Armour totally inadequate to face direct enemy fire, but commanders saw the big guns and thought they should be used... Leading to terrible casualties in those units, as they became targets for shelling that their armour could not protect them against.
Thanks Perun for another great and informative presentation. Really like the way you delve into things. Cheers from Germany 😊
Gotta say, every time im watching a video and a perun warhammer reference gets dropped into my favourite weekly PowerPoint it makes me chuckle
Who painted "do not paint" on the lancet launcher?
A nihilist.
@@kursantstrzelecki2958Nihiists. Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, but at least it’s an ethos, dude!
I do wonder if the solution to the attack helicopter is to essentially allow it to be more attritable. Instead of a 50 million dollar system, you make a cheap rotary winged bomb truck for 2 to 5 million.
This allows for the carrying of those larger and heavier munitions, but also gives you something reusable but potentially just as deadly for the price of an Iskander.
That's exactly what Airbus are moving to after the commercial failure of their Tiger attack helicopter (a dreadful piece of kit). They are selling it as more cost-effective than a dedicated attack chopper - which is code for "more attritable".
It’s called a “ drone”
@@jonathangriffiths2499 that was implied. Helicopter drone.
@@kenoliver8913 "more cost-effective than a dedicated attack chopper - which is code for "more attritable"" - You might as well translate it to "cheaper to maintain" (because it is).
There has been a lot of talk about whether MBTs still make sense and the consensus among the initiated seems to be that they still do make sense because nothing else can do their job better.
The same can not be said about attack helicopters.
They had their mission profile encroached on and their niche shrunk from all sides to the point where there isn't really anything left that a attack helicopter can do, which some other, usually cheaper thing can't do as good or better.
Being German, I am glad that the German army decided to not replace the Tiger attack helicopters with another attack helicopter, but with much cheaper militarized "regular" helicopters, like the ones used by police or as flying ambulances. They are good enough when it comes to getting a ATGM from point A to B as quick as possible. For that you don't need armor or a largely useless 30 mm cannon.
And even that much seems to be mostly done because Germany is contractually required to provide a fleet of X attack helicopters to NATO's fleet.
If one has ATGMs with long enough range even small training helicopters could become platforms to deliver them without necessarily putting themselves in the harms way.
@@herptek That is what Germany did in the 80s and earlier. The Tiger is the first "proper" attack helicopter they ever had. Before that they used a militarized version of a civilian helicopter, carrying 6 "HOT" ATGMs as far as I know.
So now they are going back to their roots, you could say.
This is funny because the German version of the Tiger literally cannot carry the 30mm cannon to begin with, only the French, Aussie, and Spanish version can and the Tiger has notoriously thin armor. The reason the Tiger is replaced because it is an expensive technological dead end that is hard to modify with better electronics and weaponry, not because attack helis are useless
@@quakethedoombringer
1.) The German army knowingly and deliberately chose not to use a 30mm gun, because they already considered those useless in the 90s.
2.) The Tiger's kevlar plastic armor can withstand hits from Soviet 14.5 mm rounds and even 23mm round in key areas.
It is tougher than the steel armor of the AH64 Apache, it just has the disadvantage that because it is plastic, it cracks when it gets hit and has to be replaced, even when hit by only small arms fire, which it can reliably stop. Steel armor can still be used with a few dents in it and those dents can be hammered out.
Kevlar armor is more of a "all or nothing" thing. It does stop projectiles more reliably than steel armor while being lighter, but it has to be replaced after every hit, even after hits it easily stopped, which makes it expensive.
3.) They still are running a modification program right now, even with plans to retire the whole fleet in a few years.
4.) They considered replacing the Tigers with AH64, but decided not to do that for the reasons I explained, because attack helicopters really are obsolete.
The US Army cancelled the successor to the AH64 for the same reason recently.
@@TrangleCUS didn't cancel the successor to the Apache, they cancelled the successor to the OH-58D, a light reconnaissance helicopter.
What I would be really interested in is how the terrain impacts the effectiveness of these systems. I live in a area with high mountains everywhere and I could imagine that this could potentially impact the effectiveness of airdefense systems and also change how other systems are used. I would find a video about this topic very interesting.
Also when you compare ukraine to other potential future battlefields.
Of course it impacts the effectiveness of AD systems....radar and EO/IR cannot penetrate ground....
You can see this when idiots were telling everyone that an S-400 would kill everything in a 400km radius circle from the battery.... (despite the fact the Russian's haven't got the longest range missile into operational service yet...). The problem is...even without hills, valleys and mountains...the earth is not flat. The curvature of the earth means that the S-400's radar will not see anything flying at very low level if it is a certain distance away. Even if the radar is elevated to 10m above the ground the distance to the horizon is only 11.5km...
A low flying aircraft flying at 250ft will not be visible to an S-400 radar elevated at 10m above the ground until it is 34km away....modern anti-radiation missiles have ranges over 100km...all the aircraft has to do is fire a missile at the radar, turn around and quickly retreat past the radar horizon and there is nothing the S-400 can do...