MI-24 is an assault helo not attack helo

[DmitriKozlowsky]

There is really no direct counterpart in NATO to MI-24. MI-24 is an assault helicopter, not dedicated attack helicopter like AH-64. Taking a guess the closest counterpart is MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator / "AH-60L". AH-64 is countered by Russian MI-28N

[AlphaOneSix]

Yeah but DAPs don't carry people other than the crew of four. Unless you're saying that, like the MH-60 DAP, the Mi-24 also has a cabin that could, in theory, be used to carry people, but in reality it never does.

[stuart666]

It once did though. I was reading the other day, they dropped desants in the Shield 79 exercise, seizing vital river crossings. It seems likely with heavy losses in transport helicopters, it would have done that more and more often in any conflict with the west.

 

Today, you are right, it seems never to be used.  Im guessing its at least partly due to it requring a fairly slow and careful landing approach.  The MI8 seems to be a lot better at assault landings, presumably due to its larger rotor disk.

 

All that said,  I was reading on Russiadefence.net that Russia may be looking at this again, for delivery vehicles for Spetsnaz teams. I think that might be the Mi35M though, which is modified to hover easier, and has other improvements like a rotor disk and transmission based on the Mi28.

 

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of that.

[Quadg]

read about the mission to rescue a missing soldier in Afghanistan where British marine commandoes rode to the target sitting on the pylons of the AH-64

 

they used it like a little bird.

 

That time when British Commandos rode an AH-64 Apache helicopter to combat - We Are The Mighty

[AlphaOneSix]

44 minutes ago, Quadg said:

read about the mission to rescue a missing soldier in Afghanistan where British marine commandoes rode to the target sitting on the pylons of the AH-64

 

This was something that was being trained for since the 1990's at least. My unit trained picking up downed aircrew with an AH-64 in 1990 during Desert Storm, thankfully we never had to try it out for real. I'm fairly certain that this was done as early as Vietnam using the ammunition bay doors of an AH-1 Cobra. Obviously it's something that would only be done in extremis and not as a preplanned action.

[Raptor9]

I think what it comes down to is the original design intent and the doctrine it was intended to support.  The Mi-24 was designed from the get go to have the capability to carry troops into a combat zone, whereas the MH-60 DAP was strictly a troop transport that was modified to carry weapons.  Further, the Mi-24 was mass-produced to support what Soviet doctrine existed at the time, whereas the MH-60 DAP was designed to undertake specifically-targeted offensive strikes by a special purpose unit.  So the OP is correct in his assertion there is no direct counterpart to the Mi-24 in NATO.

Doctrine evolves, and just because a lot of militaries use the Mi-24 as strictly an attack helicopter, that doesn't necessarily make it one by design (to be clear, I'm not calling it one or the other; I'm no Soviet historian.  I'm just saying that how a given country's military, or DCS player, chooses to use it doesn't dictate original design intent).  Just as strapping rocket and gun pods onto the MH-60 DAP or the Mi-8 doesn't make them attack helicopters, but armed transport helicopters.  They can be used as attack helicopters to engage ground targets, whether it be by a special purpose unit or by a small nation that needs an affordable solution for an airborne weapons platform.  Arguing about such semantics really doesn't affect how anyone uses a module in DCS of course, but to understand why an aircraft is the way it is you need to understand it's evolution alongside the doctrine of the military it served within.

[Moriarty]

Why limit ourselves to what some guy who wrote an operational requirement document back in the 60s could or couldn’t imagine? It’s the old turn fighter vs energy fighter debate dress up  in different clothes.

[SparxOne]

A few points in this thread that make me want to talk about my experience with the Hind so far.

 

Before the Hind was released, it wasn't unusual to see threads or different people talking about how the Hind would not sit well inside the DCS ecosystem that is (The typical scenarios you come across when playing MP, which is what i do 90% of the time). People were arguing about how hard or impossible it would be for the Hind to be usefull or effective in those MP scenarios, that simply put.

 

Of coarse you had people from both sides of the opinion, the ones on the positive side were very right by saying that no one is forcing us to fly the Hind in a very contested air quake server only to receive a Fox-3 minutes following takeoff, or flying the Hind in a dense SAM/AAA environment trying to squeeze between all those AA threats. I'm also no historian but i'm fairly certain the Hind was never meant to fly in those types of environments, which of coarse meant a pretty high chance of being taken out. I think the Hind was like many have said here already a chopper meant to escort troop transports, convoys or serve as a deterant to any ground attacks not having proper AA defences, (Plus all the other tasks i can't think of right now that simply doesn't involve flying against SAM/Anti-Air threats).

 

Slowly getting to what i'll try and explain from my experience so far... The other part of the opinion was of coarse the more pessimist ones saying that the Hind was gonna have a hard time surviving the typical DCS ecosystem because of all the things mentionned above (Fast movers, SAMs, AAA, laser aiming ground unis etc etc), which is what you'll come across with the vast majority of populated MP servers.

This is where i'll start discussing what i've felt so far flying this Hind

 

As i don't fly within any virtual squadron or anything consisting of a group of dedicated players organised towards specific flying sessions or created scenarios, i am simply left with MP servers when i wanna fly around other human players. And this is where you slowly understand the limitations of the Hind in those populated MP servers. 

The longest session i've had so far was on the Caucasus 4YA training server, fun scenario with a lot of human players all fighting against the AI. It was a good training ground for me to try and get into using the armament of the Hind.

During those hours i spend flying there, i don't think i ever got downed by Air Threads more than once, so fast movers clearly wasn't a problem.

The biggest problem i came across almost constantly while doing ATGM runs of ennemy airfields or any sort of defended areas was the AAAs... I got shot down by them more than i can count of. The AAA in DCS is really insane, the range they have and accuracy is something you have to be very careful of, especially the Gepards, their range is almost the same as the range of your ATGMs, therefore forcing you to find the best line of attack to use your ATGM to its maximum range so to not get into that AAA range. Since there's almost always a line of trees or buildings blocking one or the other possible attack run, you're typically left with few options and therefore almost always in their firing range when doing that ATGM run.

Of coarse those ATGMs arn't fire and forget, so the moment you go into an attack run, you're forced to fly in a straight line to that Gepard already shooting at you until Petro either hits it or misses and therefore back to square one hoping for the best to survive the next attack run. 

The Hind cannot be used like the Ka-50 going into a hover miles away and picking targets of one by one while staying out of the AAAs range, so you are forced to fly towards them hoping Petro gets them before they do. Didn't think it was useful to mention it but i'll do it anyways, no need to try and do rocket runs on those AAAs, at best you'll die both, so pretty pointless to do.

If by great skill you actually manage taking out all AAAs and SAMs in that AO, you feel confident going in for rockets runs now, but damn, here comes the second part of how crazy the ground vehicles become ! APCs, Tanks and IFVs will engage you long before you get into a proper firing solution with your rockets, yeah because those .50 cals or whatever serves them right as an MG or HMG they will put to good use with lazer precise aiming straight into your cockpit ! Once again, i cannot recal the amount of times i've been taken out that way...

I was unable to take out a convoy of 4-5 Tanks/APCs because of how easy they had it to take me down with their MG/HMGs...

 

All in all, i know there is probably better ways to do what i was doing, i do not consider my tactics to be the best but still feel like i did not have the right chopper for the right task, Hind against anything consisting of AAA defence, or anything that has laser aim against air threats, not good, the Ka-50 on the other hand seems to be the best tool as of right now for these kind of tasks (Until the Apache is out, will probably do just as good as the Ka-50).

 

So yeah, my conclusion so far would be to say that the Hind is a great chopper to fly in many different tasks, from the moment there isn't good anti-air defences and or laser aim ground units. This is where it felt short of its capability to survive.

 

Remember that this is my own experience so far, not trying to dimiss the Hind in any way, i can already see certains replies coming. Other people are probably doing much better than me or using much better tactics than how i used it, but here was my feelings so far.

 

Cheers if you read all the way

[AlphaOneSix]

1 hour ago, Raptor9 said:

I think what it comes down to is the original design intent and the doctrine it was intended to support.  The Mi-24 was designed from the get go to have the capability to carry troops into a combat zone, whereas the MH-60 DAP was strictly a troop transport that was modified to carry weapons.  Further, the Mi-24 was mass-produced to support what Soviet doctrine existed at the time, whereas the MH-60 DAP was designed to undertake specifically-targeted offensive strikes by a special purpose unit.  So the OP is correct in his assertion there is no direct counterpart to the Mi-24 in NATO.

Doctrine evolves, and just because a lot of militaries use the Mi-24 as strictly an attack helicopter, that doesn't necessarily make it one by design (to be clear, I'm not calling it one or the other; I'm no Soviet historian.  I'm just saying that how a given country's military, or DCS player, chooses to use it doesn't dictate original design intent).  Just as strapping rocket and gun pods onto the MH-60 DAP or the Mi-8 doesn't make them attack helicopters, but armed transport helicopters.  They can be used as attack helicopters to engage ground targets, whether it be by a special purpose unit or by a small nation that needs an affordable solution for an airborne weapons platform.  Arguing about such semantics really doesn't affect how anyone uses a module in DCS of course, but to understand why an aircraft is the way it is you need to understand it's evolution alongside the doctrine of the military it served within.

 

Totally agree with this post 100%. The only thing I will add is to emphasize that there really is no direct counterpart in NATO to the Mi-24, since it was developed based on Soviet doctrine, not NATO's. And that's okay. I feel like too often people try to make comparisons where there really shouldn't be. If anything, an Mi-24 is what the Soviets envisioned as a mash-up of a UH-1 and an AH-1 into a single helicopter. At least that's my opinion based on basically nothing other than the timeline of its development.

[Quadg]

well it is sort of like the huey gunship, in that if you load it down with weapons then it cant even take a full tank of gas, let alone troops..

especially hot and high in Afghanistan.

[Apok]

You can call it helicopter for delivering joy and happines if you want. It is what it is. Puting it in a group or another wont change it.

[BeastyBaiter]

Indeed, what you classify it as is irreverent along with what it was originally designed to do. What matters is what it can do and how it's used. In practice, it's an attack helicopter best compared to an AH-1J or W. I think it just does fine in that regard.

[Nealius]

13 hours ago, Moriarty said:

Why limit ourselves to what some guy who wrote an operational requirement document back in the 60s could or couldn’t imagine? 

 

Because gamers put it in situations where it's unlikely to survive, then moan about its lack of "usability."

[CrazyGman]

Look guys. The Mi-24 was designed in the late 60s, and it's primary role is attack. It was designed to carry and fire atgms as it's primary weapon system, which has been shown in the east german war doctrine posted multiple times here. At the time it came into service it's was mainly going against Patton and eary M60 tanks, and relatively primitive AA. As mentioned it's equivalent contemperary at the time was the AH-1G and AH-1J sea cobra, that were armed with rockets guns, and TOW missles, and had the same sophistication in regards to sensors and avionics but no one ever seems to question if the AH-1J was an attack helicopter, considering it had pretty much the same capability, with the Hind just being able to carry 8 troops or some door gunners from time to time. It was made narrow though to have a smaller profile like the cobra. And was also armored unlike other helicopters (including the cobra) to help in the attack role (like with the Su-25)

 

Troop transport was always a tacked on secondary role, which had uses for time to time.

 

As for use in game we have a ton of cold war assets if people would bother to use them. I've flow the Mi-24 now multiple times on cold war servers and with a decent crew and tactics it does very well vs bradleys, llinebackers ,vulcans m-60s, avengers, and even the odd Abrams. 

Edited June 26, 2021 by CrazyGman