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I'm a former Army helicopter pilot (but Black Hawks, not Apaches) and I think this is an interesting observation.

By 2011, when I went to war, the main thing we'd learned was to fly high up above small arms range: above 1,000 feet AGL. Only our Kiowas were generally allowed to operate below that, flying exactly the way you describe Marine helicopters operating; that was part of the Kiowa's nature as scouts relying mostly on the pilots' eyes (and sometimes their M4 rifles pointed out the door). The aircraft (Kiowas, but also Apaches and Black Hawks when in support of troops-in-contact) that got chewed up were invariably operating down below that.

By that time, Apaches were also mostly a deterrent. The point was for them to be seen. That kept the enemy in hiding under cover while we did whatever else needed to be done. Before firing a shot, they'd circle for 30+ minutes recording video and talking into the tape recorder to establish positive identification of targets and explicitly go through all the steps that the lawyers came up with to mitigate civilian casualties. It was all very unlike e.g. Iraq in 1991 or 2003, to my knowledge, or present-day Ukraine. Not at all stealthy or fast. And there has been an effort in recent years to unlearn all of this, and get back to the tactics that would be needed in a fight like Ukraine's.

I was in Iraq in 2003, so like you said very different. We did take small arms fire all the time, pretty ineffective though. We had one Cobra come back looking like Swiss cheese but it did manage to fly back to the fob.

Russia's use is more similar to the use you describe in the marines. Come in fast and low, pop up the nose and fire off the ordinance while popping flares then get out before the MANPADS can take a shot. The problem is that this limits them to very expensive portable artillery and the accuracy suffers a lot when you can't stick around.

The big use for helicopters is defense. Russia showed the potential during last year's failure of a counter-offensive by Ukraine. They'd pop up just over the treelines to shoot their TOW equivalent from outside of MANPADS range (can't do this on offense because you can't be sure that the front line didn't accidentally bypass a MANPADS somewhere). The helicopters would target the minesweeper and rear vehicle to stall the convoy then the chopper's remaining missiles along with artillery and whatever else would finish off the vehicles in the middle (or they'd try their luck in the minefield which always ended badly).

Both sides are doing this also with aircrafts, seen many videos. Point their noses up at predefined distance at given angle, launch battery of unguided missiles. You end up with some form of micro-grad, not very effective I'd say, hitting anything valuable requires a lot of luck. But in saturated airspace that's all they can mostly do, plus bigger planes deliver some gliding bombs.

It's not a novel approach. Russia baked it into their aiming systems decades ago and they supposedly train on the maneuver.

The software can detect when the correct pitch/direction are achieved so the barrage can be reasonably accurate. They don't have the luxury of slowly dialing in their aim, but have much better calculation systems and are firing a fraction of the distance (often over just 1-2 treelines).

As I said, I don't know that it's ideal. I think troops on the ground with a laser designator while the chopper lobs munitions up over the treeline from a farther, safer distance would be ideal.

Somewhere in ukraine, they are already gluing manpads to baba-yagas, to loiter behind enemy lines for air-targets.

Attack helicopters might still have a limited role in some theaters. But the Marine Corps seems to realigning to fight China in the Western Pacific where, regardless of survivability, regular attack helicopters lack the range and speed necessary to be relevant. They might also face a threat from manned fighters which are potentially very dangerous to helicopters, even those flying evasively at low altitude. Thus the shift in force structure away from attack helicopters and towards the F-35B.

I'm not trying to argue with you and I appreciate you weighing in with firsthand expertise. It's just that current USMC leadership seems to be focusing on different priorities.

The CAS role for an AH-1Z and a F-35 couldn’t be more different. I said this in another post but it bears repeating here, like the A-10 the AH-1Z was doing low altitude, slow, line of sight close air support. Literally “put a hellfire in the third window from the right on the top floor of the tan building with the tile details on the roof line” and then watching the Marines behind cover point at it.

Maybe Marines on the ground had a different experience, but I viewed the jets, Artillery, and AC-130s as a much more blunt instrument. We got a lot of calls for precision strikes that would have been danger close, and without us I can imagine a lot more friendly fire incidents.

That said, there is no air to air defense for an attack helicopter, it’s comical that we even practiced. Without our jets suppressing enemy jets, there would be no way helicopters could operate, we’re sitting ducks.

Well, actually helicopters are already critical in both anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare. They can extend range and distribute shots of anti-ship missiles to make concurrent salvos from multiple directions more deadly.

Well, actually you missed the point of the original article and of my comment. No one is claiming that all military helicopters are dead, just attack helicopters. The helicopters used by naval forces for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare (along with other missions) generally aren't classified as attack helicopters.

I did not miss the point of the article, I just don't get his interest in medium helicopters when the missile he wants 8 of on a medium helicopter weighs 100 pounds.

not true sub launched drone variations include helicopter like platforms .

Your experience is against insurgency and irregular force. Near-peer enemy with better weapons is different case.

Kosovo war for example. US deployed two battalions of AH-64s in Task Force Hawk into Albania, but never send them over the border. Their task would have been just what they were designed for, but risk reward ratio was just too high. Serbs would have been able to cause them massive casualties.

For most cases combining drones for targeting with field or rocket artillery achieves the same.

My experience is not just against insurgents. I fought uniformed Iraqi military, and some black pajamas guys later. I was there in 2003.

The conflict in Kosovo was nothing like the ROE in Iraq, and if you’re on the ground calling for fire you damn sure would know the difference between arty and us.

> The single use drones that operate like kamikaze vehicles may throw a winkle into the mix, but a helo flying at 150knots is going to be very challenging to hit for one of those.

All you're seeing is makeshift COTS drones picking targets of opportunity. If you know that MANPADS can easily take down a helicopter then you are already aware that there is decades-old technology already quite able to take down helicopters, and the only difference between the drones you're seeing today and those that can be easily produced today is the product design requirements.

Everyone disagreeing with you is only assuming improvements to drones and not the counter-drones (or the counter-counters you mention).

I sometimes frequent on 9gag, and someone had posted a video of UKR drones attacking RUS drones/UAVs. I don't remember seeing a speedometer on the feed of the attacking (UKR) drone, but if I can estimate it was at least (RUS UAVs) 80-100km/h (just cruising/spying) while the (UKR) drones were coming in at twice the speed.

Considering how UAVs and/or smaller drones have evolved and used in the battlefield the past few years, we need to rethink the way to conduct war.

> assuming improvements to drones and not the counter-drones

And I think we just began. The good thing about this (if there is ever a good thing in war/death-dealing) is that a drone carrying a small explosive device to release it over a vehicle will not kill 10k civilians.

OTOH drones are used by Russian forces for "human safari" hunting in cities now, so war crimes will always find a way if the will is there.

For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InGah1DF2Cc

I imagine that moderately sized autonomous VTOL jets will eventually become cheap enough to completely displace attack helicopters for most use cases.

I’d think a variation (vary size, shape to suit task) of this with weapons would do well, since it’ll already be replacing the black hawk.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_V-280_Valor

It's interesting to look at the design of FPV racing drones today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pEqyr_uT-k

When they fly, they basically turn horizontal, relying on body lift + vectored thrust. They're small enough, with high enough power/weight ratios, that that's enough. Apparently there's no need for a tilt-rotor, because the whole airplane becomes a tilt-rotor.

Similar principal as cruise missiles, which have short stubby wings to augment body lift + vectored thrust. When the airframe gets light enough, you don't need much in the way of wings.

The french designed a plane in the late 1950s that would take off vertically, and its wings were a tube.

https://interestingengineering.com/videos/this-bizarre-plane...

There were a few drawbacks. It required a seat that pivoted 90° forward, so that when pilots could see when taking off and when landing.

Unpowered landings would inevitably result in damage to the airframe.

Powered landings looked like space-x rockets, and were at the time difficult to pull off, as their instrumentation and and flight systems weren't developed enough to reliably land vertically.

They noted the airframe would have a habit of spinning when hovering vertically.

It was cancelled after a failed test flight, but with modern technology I think one could be built flightworthy.

The plane does look cool, and would fulfill a critical role of a jet aircraft that can be launched without a runway.

Note that most of the downsides there relate to having a pilot that you want to survive in an emergency. Get rid of the pilot, and you get rid of a lot of constraints on size, weight, G-forces, survivability, emergency response, etc.

That thing is amazing. I suspect optimised for shorter distance and dynamism, whereas I think the 280 is basically a faster helicopter that can cruise longer distance? Not expert, just wondered about the tradeoffs given the relatively bad safety record of the v22 Osprey it replaces. So this is an Osprey, but better and safer because simpler mechanics.

On new approaches, I saw something about new US missile research where they get rid of the fins and point the nose to turn. My Google-fu is failing me though.

They stall and aren't maneuverable at the speeds you need.

Honestly I don't want to sound like a smartass and second-guess you, but the main problem with attack helicopters imo is that they are expensive to buy and operate, going comfortably into lower-end jet fighter territory, so to justify their existence, they need to possess some indispensable qualities.

I'm not sure what those are, but I think they probably have to do with the ablity to hover in place/land anywhere, a capability probably much more meaningful in transport helicopters.

And it seems the US has decided to choose the V-280 Valor, which is a tiltrotor rather than a helicopter.

I don't follow the space closely, but it seems to me there's no active program in the US that's developing a combat helicopter that's likely to enter service, so I don't think the US military considers them to be worth investing in that much.

An AH-1Z costs about 4,500$ an hour to operate, a F-15E costs about 29,000$ an hour. Helicopters can operate from basically anywhere you can drive a fuel truck to, jets not so much.

You’re talking about a tilt rotor to replace a troop carrying helicopter, it’s a different role with different requirements.

The AH-1Z is more like the A-10 warthog than a traditional jet fighter, and in the wars we’ve been in recently serves a similar role, close air support. To the Marines on the ground, they are indispensable. The airframes were “just” (in the terms that make sense for an airframe that has been in service since the late 60s) upgraded to 4 rotor with a number of other updates.

Being able to literally point at the enemy and have the pilots see you and put ordinance where you are pointing… that is way way different than trying to call in strikes from jets or freaking arty as some people were saying.

the united states stopped investing in them because they're more of a near-peer type weapon.

They are absolutely devastating to columns of tanks. And they help control the "z-axis" the the united states military is dependent on.

Helicopters give you the ability to have air "presence" and keep situations in check with low-peer adversaries. When you start bringing in MANPADS or stingers the game changes.

Oddly enough things like the US Javelin anti tank system and the british NLAW are making tanks relatively obsolete as well.

I suspect attack helicopters with some sort of very small automated phalanx system (directed energy weapon? net launcher?) to destroy drones would be incredibly effective still.

The Apache is still an effective platform for delivering a shit ton of ordnance down range from out of no where and then skidaddling.

The Russian Ka-52 has a soft-kill system that can blind the IR seekers of Soviet and US MANPADS the Ukrainians use. We've seen videos videos of it working... about 70% of the time, which means you have to shoot it 3 times instead of once, but it goes down just the same, and that's not saying anything about bullets, which you can do nothing about.

I think modern military doctrine dictates that you shouldn't even give a chance of an enemy to shoot at you.

I don't think they are a near peer weapon at all. Even small groups can have weapons that can hurt it, in contrast with an F-16, which, unless you have an air force of your own, or anti-aircraft batteries, you can do nothing about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ALQ-144

> They are absolutely devastating to columns of tanks

Artillery or missile strikes are too.