Huey loadouts

[Reflected]

I need some information about typical Huey loadouts, please:

 

I know slicks had 2 door gunners and that's it.

 

What about gunships? AFAIK they carried the smaller amount of rockets plus forward firing guns, but did they have door gunners or just the pilot and co-pilot on board?

 

Then there was the rocket ships, with a pair of those big tubes full of rockets. They didn't carry miniguns and/or side gunners, did they?

 

 

When I set up my Huey as a gunship, I don't experience what I read about in many books, that they could barely get off the ground, and had to slide on the ground to get translational lift. Ok, we have the H not the C model. I was wondering, can this be reproduced by lowering the engine performance in ME from 90%? How low?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Marsvinet]

The performance problems probably stemmed from the fact that Vietnam is very moist, warm and in many places, at high altitudes. They also flew old UH1B/Cs as gunships, and their engine power wasn't really comparable to the 80's UH1H that we have.

 

EDTI: Realized that I answered the wrong question. This is from memory, but early UH1B gunships carried mainly small amounts of rockets with quad-M60s and doorgunners that used M60s. ARA (Aerial Rockt Artillery) carried shitloads of rockets, and in certain cases were equipped with 40mm grenade launchers. Later in the war with the upgraded C and M model hueys, they started carrying more rockets and forward facing miniguns. Certain gunships carried only rockets in 19-hydra tubes and had grenade launchers and door gunners with M60s.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Marsvinet

[Reflected]

Thanks for the info! I also ran through "Guts and Gunships" again, and found some descriptions. Apparently gunships carried door gunners too.

 

So you say the 19-hydra tube came later in the war to replace the "small bouquet" of rockets on early models?

[Robert31178]

If you want to get a feel for what it was like try setting your temp in Nevada at 45C or 113F degrees lol. My squad mate accidentally had that set for weather yesterday and I had trouble hover taxiing with only M60 gunners on board and 40% fuel. My two buddies both had rocket pods and mini's in the doors and couldn't do anything to get it off the ground; I do not know what fuel they had. I didn't get a chance to try myself because he reset the server with fixes, but it looked like a rodeo down there!!

 

~S

[Marsvinet]

I wouldn't say that the 19 hydra tubes replaced the smaller amounts. I remember that certain groups flew gunships with only 19-tubes and a grenade launcher (and gunners, off course) while other groups flew with 7-tubes and pilot controlled miniguns. This is simply because they couldn't just strap on all the weapons they could because of the enviroment in Vietnam, and lighter loadouts made them able to actually fly.

[Kang]

Gunships actually carried a lot of different loadouts, including automatic grenade launchers, which we don't have in DCS, miniguns, different types of rocket pods and 20mm cannons.

 

Concerning the different rocket pods it should be noted that they in fact do differ and thus aren't a direct replacement (Mk5 vs Mk151 rockets for example).