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Soviet/Russian Attack Helicopter tactics for the Hind?


Andrei Dragovic

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Has anyone found any good documents or books describing how Hinds operate tactically-speaking? My limited experience it is not as easy as finding tactics for BLUFOR aircraft.

 

I once saw a Soviet training video or presentation of good amount of various tactics, but I have been searching it for years now... :cry:

It is challenging topic really, as they likely still use those.

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With my limited knowledge of Soviet era tactics was that the Hind would operate more like an attack aircraft than a Western helicopter. They were meant to be aggressive storming into the target hitting an getting out. Think rotary wing A-10. Also the Hind is a tactically flexible machine capable of landing a squad of troops as well. Combine it will Mil-8 Hip and Mil-26 Halo for air assault. It also carries IR Air to Air as well. These one assumes is for engaging enemy helicopters.

 

The Hind's armour and speed make it a formidable combat aircraft. Tactically the one word not to use about the Hind is fluffy. Would it have flown tactically similar to the say the American AH-1 or AH-64 with an observer helicopter doing pop up? I don't know but that is not the style of operations. And I am not sure if the Mil-2 Hoplite could have worked in that role.

 

Overall the Hind is an awesome bit of kit. Now imagine a mission with some friends suppressing a hot LZ while they go in a drop troops with Mil-8s. Or even a DIY one inserting squads of Spetsnatz to rescue some hostages or take out a high value target.

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How capable is the Hind of carrying a weapons load along with troops?

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How capable is the Hind of carrying a weapons load along with troops?

 

I think that depends a lot on ambient conditions (pressure, temperature). I heard that Hinds sometimes struggled to maintain hover out of ground effect when fully loaded in Afghanistan.

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the hind cannot carry enough troops to be a good combat troop transport.

so in Afghanistan they used it exclusively as a gunship to protect combat landings.

the troops got carried 28 at a time in mi-8.

 

they used the compartment to carry spare rockets for the pods or a couple of field mounted MG.

 

out of combat the space probably got used to carry all sorts of stuff. as armies never have enough helicopters and there is always ass and trash to move.

so a patrol may involve a few delivery jobs.

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Yea the Hind troop carrying capacity was only really used in emergency situations.

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The true worth of the hind is how it was used with the MI-8.

These two together are a very special combination, one range finding... the other carrying indiscriminate fire power.

 

With the high velocity dual cannon 30 mike mikes with a shockingly rapid rate of fire and all the rockets god would want.... you got a potent weapon system.

 

Of course comms and human pilots make this so.


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In the DCS context, you'll want at least one Ka-50 to scout ahead and eliminate any area denial threats and communicate the situation to the assault party (composed of Mi-24s and Mi-8s), and then these roll in with the Mi-24 blasting targets to clear the landing zone while the Mi-8 deploys troops. Usually the Mi-8 flew with two pods so they could perform as auxiliary air support to clear the LZ or to support the troops afterwards, but the Mi-24 was the main battering ram.

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Not a bad strategy.

A Ka50, Hind and Mi-8 delivery package of hate and absolution.

 

not a bad combo at all.

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I think that depends a lot on ambient conditions (pressure, temperature). I heard that Hinds sometimes struggled to maintain hover out of ground effect when fully loaded in Afghanistan.

 

Those were in the mountainous airbases, near their max altitude ceiling. Where they were they were easier to take-off by rolling.

 

The hovering max altitude is not so high, I have now faint recollection that it was 1500 meters or so.

 

This was as well reason for one of the accidents that happened between, was it Pakistan border, where patrolling helicopter crews typically met with the Pakistan partners, and they flew together the same route. And there they sometimes did play the "imitation game" where one side did something and other was to repeat that. And over a mountain it was to hover or something (don't remember exactly that what) and when it came to turn for Hind crew to mirror the move, they ended up to VRS and crashed to the mountain hill. Since then the operational command was that they are not to fly below 100 km/h speed in given altitude.

 

This similar thing was the problem for Mi-24 helicopters that were in Chechnya, where KA-50 was tested in 2001 and it was found to be superior to Mi-24 in mountains where severe gusts were trouble for Hinds, but KA-50 had great climbing rate and capabilities to hover at high altitudes, so it could perform missions that Hind was challenged or impossible because danger.

The KA-50 was meant to be replacing the Mi-24 fleet and could have been great one, but military loved the idea transport troops and cargo as well.

 

I don't remember that Mi-24 was so great with combination that it had a full armament (like 4x S-8 rockets + 4 ATGM missiles) and 8 men infantry squad, so it was more like either one. Why it was nicely combined with Mi-8 transporting troops that Mi-24 covered around the landing zone and engagements.

 

What comes to Mi-24 attack patterns, there were many all kind from the "star shaped" to various wings and other group attack formations, where attacks were performed simultaneously from different directions or as in waves, changing the amount of helicopters from 2 to 8-12 IIRC.

 

Combine it all with ground troops, so you have plenty of BMP-1/BMP-2, especially BTR vehicles with 20 mm cannons and then even more trucks. It would be a hell to be there where you are hit by attack helicopters with quick pop-ups and overflies, and same time under them comes the infantry with support from attack vehicles.

And if this happens after a artillery barrage, you start to be very weak in that moment.

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The true worth of the hind is how it was used with the MI-8.

These two together are a very special combination, one range finding... the other carrying indiscriminate fire power.

 

With the high velocity dual cannon 30 mike mikes with a shockingly rapid rate of fire and all the rockets god would want.... you got a potent weapon system.

 

Of course comms and human pilots make this so.

 

Combined with the fact it was pretty much bullet-proof - potent indeed.

 

....not particularly Stinger-proof thou..


Edited by VampireNZ

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....not particularly Stinger-proof thou..

 

http://europauniversitypress.co.uk/auth_article416.html

 

SUMMARY: The alleged performance of STINGER missiles in Afghanistan in the 1980s was grossly exaggerated. By comparing the number of STINGERs provided to the Afghans with the number of aircraft downed, the impossibility of the accepted claims about effectiveness is shown. The success rate of the STINGERs against all aircraft is calculated to have been, at best, in the 20% range. Even after the STINGERs arrived in Afghanistan, the majority of aircraft continued to be downed by less sophisticated weapons, and the maximum total number of aircraft that may have been downed by STINGERs is calculated as 150 over three years, with the actual number most likely less than that. A well documented chronology of events shows that the STINGERs did not initiate, or increase the rate of, the decline in air attacks against the Afghan Resistance in the latter years of the war. Logical analysis refutes the idea that the relatively small military and economic costs that resulted from the STINGERs had any significant influence on the course of the war, or on the Soviets’ decision to withdraw from Afghanistan which evidence indicates had been made before the deployment of the STINGERs..
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How capable is the Hind of carrying a weapons load along with troops?

 

I read somewhere - maybe on the NVA Flieger website - that the Hind could not realistically carry troops together with the ATGM / rocket pods. It was either or... I also read that initially the Hind was supposed to be rearmed by the crew chief in the field with additional ordnance carried inside the chopper, but that was also practically impossible as the helicopter could not carry a second set of weapons inside due to weight limitations when armed up.

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I can use Google search too...

 

Afghanistan’s storied history of anti-aircraft weapons (known as Man-portable Air Defense Systems — MANPADS) centers around the American Stinger missile, which played a decisive role in the U.S.-funded insurgency that ended nine brutal years of Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Prior to the arrival of the Stinger, none of the weapons procured and distributed to the Afghan rebels by their three main benefactors — the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia — had proven effective against Soviet aircraft, which bombed villages, attacked rebel strongholds, and strafed supply caravans with impunity.

 

That all changed in September 1986, when a newly trained mujahideen missile team fired its first Stingers at three Soviet Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships attempting to land at Jalalabad airfield. Locked onto the infra-red signatures of their targets, the five-foot-long, 35-pound missiles raced after the ill-fated helicopters at speeds of over 1,500 mph, smashing into them with "the kinetic force of a mid-sized car traveling at sixty miles per hour," according to a 1987 article in the Arizona Republic. The stricken helicopters fell to the ground and burst into flames, marking the advent of a new chapter in the war.

 

Over the next three years, the mujahideen, who received Stingers from Washington and extensive training on their use in Pakistan, staged dozens of attacks that brought down nearly 270 aircraft, contributing in no small part to the Soviet Union’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989. While no single factor can be credited for the triumph of a rag-tag militia over the formidable Soviet military, the Stinger missile was a game-changer, destroying hundreds of multi-million-dollar Soviet aircraft, killing dozens of highly trained pilots, and disrupting and degrading Soviet counter insurgency operations throughout the country. So pervasive was the Stinger’s influence on events in Afghanistan that analysts coined a term around it: "the Stinger effect."

 

BY MATTHEW SCHROEDER | JULY 28, 2010, 8:52 PM

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With my limited knowledge of Soviet era tactics was that the Hind would operate more like an attack aircraft than a Western helicopter. They were meant to be aggressive storming into the target hitting an getting out. Think rotary wing A-10. Also the Hind is a tactically flexible machine capable of landing a squad of troops as well. Combine it will Mil-8 Hip and Mil-26 Halo for air assault. It also carries IR Air to Air as well. These one assumes is for engaging enemy helicopters.

 

The Hind's armour and speed make it a formidable combat aircraft. Tactically the one word not to use about the Hind is fluffy. Would it have flown tactically similar to the say the American AH-1 or AH-64 with an observer helicopter doing pop up? I don't know but that is not the style of operations. And I am not sure if the Mil-2 Hoplite could have worked in that role.

 

Overall the Hind is an awesome bit of kit. Now imagine a mission with some friends suppressing a hot LZ while they go in a drop troops with Mil-8s. Or even a DIY one inserting squads of Spetsnatz to rescue some hostages or take out a high value target.

 

Yeah it was flown more like a a10 or harrier than western helos is my understanding.

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they used the compartment to carry spare rockets for the pods or a couple of field mounted MG.

 

That'd be interesting to be able to reload some stores (limited ofc) by landing and letting the crew do that, without having to go to a FARP.

dcsdashie-hb-ed.jpg

 

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Reading the NVA web, it seems they were used just as the old Il-2 Sturmovick in WW2. Don't you think?

 

What part of your reading in NVA site make you thinking like that?

 

All depend what kind of targets and situation.

 

You are reading a professional life experience about military equipment about an attack helicopter from 80s. They are not telling you how penetrate the weakest Iraqi defenses in a open desert. Because was not tactically the same... also was not the same weapons Era.

 

What do you want to hear?

 

You leave a chopper with ATGM only in Europe battlefield and probably you will be downed with 12mm.


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I guess you have some experience in Ka-50. if you do, Then you know rocket attack with speed give you more option to survive in a heavily hostile battlefield where a simple rocket man can be hidden in bushes.

 

As I have mentioned before. Don’t take the experience of DCS so seriously. Infantry is deadly in frontline combat. DCS have a huge lack of infantry and the best weapons for that threat is multiple rockets launch.

 

Situation: After you your wingman been hit by a rocket that was shoot from that hill what is the weapon you will use against. Your super modern guided missile or a bunch of 20 rockets so called by you old school WW2.?? The response Should be the fastest one...

 

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