Posted on 05/03/2018 9:12:21 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A few of our allies such as Czech Republic, Poland, and the Ukraine use the Hind and Hip.
And IIRC at one point we were acting as the middle man for Afghanistan and Iraq for their purchases of those platforms.
That second link looks more like a SA-16 or SA-18
It’s worse than that, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Western helicopter design has tended to emphasize technology, range, compact packaging, agility and troop carrying capacity (depending on the chopper’s purpose). Generally, this means that we didn’t armor our choppers and relied on things like IR suppression and agility for survivability. The Hind was born out of seeing what happened to US rotorcraft in Vietnam - it can barely hold eight troops, but it *can* hold eight troops, and it doesn’t have to run away from enemy rifle or machine gun fire after it drops them off. In fact, doctrine for the Hind in a Vietnam-like open battle is for it to hang around and support the troops by hunting the enemy. The entire fuselage is proof against .50 BMG or .51 Russian, so it can just ignore small arms fire. Early marks had some surprising vulnerabilities - in Afghanistan it was discovered that the cockpit windows were made of glass. Unfortunately for the pilots, the glass wasn’t as bullet resistant as the Soviets had hoped; this was quickly rectified with a new Perspex-type canopy and cockpit windows. The Hind is also reportedly not as agile as most Western operators generally prefer - but that’s kind of the tradeoff it makes for being a flying tank.
However, we’ve kept on cranking out more unarmored or lightly armored choppers and haven’t paid much attention to the Hind. Agile choppers have their place (and the Russians do make them too) but the distinct lack of a Hind counterpart in Western militaries is something that’s come back to bite us multiple times in various conflicts. The US has used the Apache as a general fire support chopper and suffered losses that a Hind wouldn’t because the Apache is supposed to be a sneaky tank killer (and is far better at that role than the Hind is) and isn’t heavily armored. Small arms fire *can* bring down an Apache and has; the Apache is supposed to hide behind terrain and rain down antitank missiles on approaching armored formations, not fly direct support against infantry formations.
Some previous discussion here:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3570253/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3567607/posts
Oh, and by the way? Mexico operates Hinds.
Mexico flies the Hind and Hip and they’re looking to buy more.
https://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/780718/1704-mexico-air-force-mil-mi-17-1v/
Mexico even has its own specific version of the Hind, the Mi-35O.
Against the cartels, i presume? and thanks 4 links!
I have painted the return of the Messiah from above and actually used a couple of Hinds in it! I’m bad with names.
Just watched the video of the Royal Marines strapped to the apache. Dang blurry monitor...I’m a former Marine mom but also half Brit. Son was in Afghanistan.
I do not now nor have I ever considered mexico an ally since they aid and abet the invasion of our country.
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