Helo ops

[DavidW75]

Maybe Andy, or someone else who put time in beating the air into submission can explain how they expected to fight in Germany. How will this be handled in the game?


Cheers,

David


Had to get in on the cheers thing

[Sabre21]

Whatever it took to stay alive:)

Seriously though, what we are talking here is a very high intensity war with both sides equipped with very modern technology.

A cobra was a 60's era technology with a bit of the seventies strapped on for good measure. We would have to get up close (within 3km) to be effective. That put us well within missile range, at the near max range of most AAA and outside that of small arms and main guns.

Unfortunately most of our engagements would most likely have been targets of opportunity having been in the Air Cav. What this means is that ranges would probably be anywheres from a hundred meters out to a couple km.

What this does is force the crew to be ever alert, constantly scanning for tell tale signs of the enemy....you might be surprised how easy it is to see a puff of deisal smoke from an engine cranking up, or a glint of light from a manmade object, or even identify friendly versus enemy tire and track marks in the dirt while on the move dodging trees and houses, flying under wires and overpasses, all doing this at speeds that would give the average gunner a lot of difficulty in tracking us.

What it all boils down to is aggressive training...and always pushing your limits without killing yourself in the mean time. I made pilots that flew with me wear gas masks and their NVG's together on night missions..most would only last a half hour at first before becoming nauseated, but with practice...we got up to a couple hours of doing this at a time. We stayed below treetop height also whenever possible, but I have lost several comrades due to wirestrikes because of this. Wires probably bring more fear to a helo pilot than anything else. You just can't see them at night until it is almost too late, even with the best night vision devices.

Doing all that, not to mention being ready to engage at a moments notice, in the day is bad enough, but add in the typical lousy German weather, and then doing it at night will wear you out in no time. Let's don't forget that I am wearing my flight gear, survival gear, body armor, and most likely MOPP gear and at night I strap on another couple pounds of night vision gear to my fat head. Heaven forbid if I ever had to put on my gas mask in all that. The adrenalin keeps you going for a while...the longest I have ever had to go on a single mission is 14 hours, started befor dawn...went all day and recovered after dark..plus it was a live fire exercise. To add someone shooting at me during that would have been tough.

Downtime then means the adrenalin drops off but due to the nature of a war like that, you are constantly moving assembly areas, and you will be lucky to get a few hours sleep and a hot meal in a day.

Many pilots would have been killed off within the first week or two. This would be due to bad luck, poor tactics, or whatever. As time progressed, fewer pilots would get killed due to the learning curve of war, but what would be left would be a small group of very tired over worked pilots that would be living on coffee doing what it would take to stay alive:)

You can not imagine how thankful I am this war never happened.

Sabre21

[Sabre21]

Ack...I never realized that was so long...next time I'll put it in chapters:)

Sabre21

[DavidW75]

That's OK Andy, I was hoping for an answer like that . Basically it sounds like everything I've read or heard about. A guy I know who flew Cobra's out of Bad Kreuznach in the early 70s (you should see his old home movies) said he always figured he'ld die at the hands of some power wires.

[Sabre21]

On my last tour there..88-90..we had 5 fatalities and 1 crippled in a single week from just within the division sector alone. All were at night.

Two apache crews from a sister unit happened to be training in our area that hit wires...both at fairly low altitude...both crews died. But even being familiar with an area doesn't help. The 3rd crew was an OH58 that hit a set of well known wires at 300 feet AGL just a couple km outside one of the airfields. The pilot died and the aerial observer ended up with a broken neck.

I happened to be out flying in my cobra on each of them nights and even remember today how dark it was...no moon. Flying in the States is easy compared with the wire nightmare of Germany. There are hi tension wires that are as high as 300 feet or so. In some cases, a couple strands are strung from one ridge to another across a valley with no poles in between. Thats usually the trick is to scan for poles...those you can see...but when there are no poles...doh!

The only time I came close was in the late afternoon when it was hazy. I was doing some practice engine failures and was descending right into a huge set of wires and didn't see them due to haze and glare until I was almost on them. What a horrid feeling that is and talk about doing an unpowered autorotative hard turn...I think the pucker factor in the cockpit helped avoid that entaglement:)

Sabre21

[DavidW75]

I think the wire problem is just another factor that makes this what if scenerio so fascinating. Imagine the number of helos lost in Germany during a war, nobody would have known how. They just wouldn't have returned.
Didn't the Soviets practice using large numbers of Hinds flying about 300 AGL in support of assaults. Any former Red Army aviators out there

[Sabre21]

I could fill you in on some of what I know.

They typically operated in a flight of two pairs (4 aircraft). Each pair covering the other. They would fly at contour altitudes until target engagement, when they would then pop up to whatever altitude was needed and perform a running fire engagement using rockets or ATGM. In the case of the F model they also had a very nice twin 30mm in lieu of the .51 cal gatling gun that could easily reach out to 3km, but it wasn't much good in air to air.

The AT-6 is IMO one of the finest ATGM's out there. A range of 5-6 km and speeds of 500m per second. Very, very fast! Effective not only against armor (except chobam types) but also against helo's.
Even the Hellfire is not near as fast.

The downside to the Hind was the fact it was so heavy (lots of armor). It was not very maneuverable and could not easily perform hovering attacks which was the norm for western AH aircraft. I was not concerned in the least with any air to air engagements as long as I saw him first:) That's the key to any air to air...usually he who sees first...wins.

I attached a photo you might like:)

Sabre21

[DavidW75]

Originally posted by Sabre21
I could fill you in on some of what I know.

They would fly at contour altitudes until target engagement,

Sabre21

This is not quite NOE right?

[Sabre21]

Thats correct...NOE or Nap of the Earth is really going below treetop and house top height...flying in between these type obstacles whenever possible and changing airspeeds. Contour is pretty much staying just above them at a pretty constant airspeed.

Sabre21

[DavidW75]

That's what I thought. Kinda like when I was ROTC and we had Blackhawks fly us out for an FTX. Once we got over the Nat'l Forest where we had our excercise they flew contour about 50 feet above treetop to our LZ

Memories from my psuedo-prior service days

[Sabre21]

Yep...that be contour flying...but you're braver than I thought crawling on board one of them crashhawks:) There was always jibbing going on between the crews of the various aircraft types.

I hoped you like that shot of that nearly inverted cobra...I love wingovers:)

Sabre21

[DavidW75]

Yeah you can never get enough of upside down Cobras:eek: