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The AH-64 Apache Thread


Piffer

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They're constantly talking about AH-64 Apache in Russian side. :) Sometimes I wonder about what they're typing

 

It's mostly a raving war about the Ka-50 being better/worse than the Ah-64 :-)))

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It's mostly a raving war about the Ka-50 being better/worse than the Ah-64 :-)))

52

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That Ground Fire Acquision System on the "E" Apache sounds really useful. Multiple cameras can detect gunfire, and larger rounds and pinpoint their location slewing weapons to the target.

 

That makes it a real beast IMO, along with the other upgrades.

 

 

Details on systems here:

 


Edited by Invader ZIM
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How will it behave on battlefield with multiple gunfires from everywhere?

"Я ошеломлён, но думаю об этом другими словами", - некий гражданин

Ноет котик, ноет кротик,



Ноет в небе самолетик,

Ноют клумбы и кусты -

Ноют все. Поной и ты.

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How will it behave on battlefield with multiple gunfires from everywhere?

 

Depends on the situation right? By everywhere do you mean all around it? Are you talking one helo?

 

If its alone and surrounded I imagine it would behave like any helo in the situation and crash with battle damage ;)

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Based on the explosion of development seen in that area, I imagine it's a pretty neat piece of technology. If the camera coverage is complete, I'm sure available processing power is more than sufficient to handle the data. How the pilot uses that data, as always, is up to the pilot.

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As there's unlikely to be anyone around who actually knows or can tell something about the GFAS beyond press releases I feel free to speculate.

 

As it uses cameras as sensors, it will most likely find the origin of the muzzle flash by using camera to find the direction and using terrain database to find the intersection of the line from chopper to the terrain and then display the source of fire on TSD. Whether the system can be overwhelmed is a matter of processing power as the cameras will see all the muzzle flashes and the system just needs to analyze the frame and recognize correctly all of the sources before next frame. As it can supposedly differentiate between incoming and other fire it will probably differentiate those on the screen somehow. I would think all the detected fires will be logged so that if there's lots of fire at the same time you can sort through the data when you have time.

 

I don't think it's the hardware that gets overwhelmed but the pilot. I can't come up with any really neat way of presenting the information to the pilot in a way that wouldn't be a mess when there's lots of shooting around. But then again that's the nature of that kind of situaton regarless of technology used. Maybe you could make the system prioritize and target the most lethal enemies first or just yell the pilot to extend and find cover.

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Depends on the situation right? By everywhere do you mean all around it? Are you talking one helo?

 

If its alone and surrounded I imagine it would behave like any helo in the situation and crash with battle damage ;)

Friendly forces fire, enemies, friendly helos, enemi heloes. A-10 somewhere nearby, etc.

"Я ошеломлён, но думаю об этом другими словами", - некий гражданин

Ноет котик, ноет кротик,



Ноет в небе самолетик,

Ноют клумбы и кусты -

Ноют все. Поной и ты.

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Friendly forces fire, enemies, friendly helos, enemi heloes. A-10 somewhere nearby, etc.

 

Ah ok, got ya, I didnt think about friendly fire... I would think they would be aware of other helos and aircraft, but ground forces, that could be tricky....

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As there's unlikely to be anyone around who actually knows or can tell something about the GFAS beyond press releases I feel free to speculate.

 

As it uses cameras as sensors, it will most likely find the origin of the muzzle flash by using camera to find the direction and using terrain database to find the intersection of the line from chopper to the terrain and then display the source of fire on TSD. Whether the system can be overwhelmed is a matter of processing power as the cameras will see all the muzzle flashes and the system just needs to analyze the frame and recognize correctly all of the sources before next frame. As it can supposedly differentiate between incoming and other fire it will probably differentiate those on the screen somehow. I would think all the detected fires will be logged so that if there's lots of fire at the same time you can sort through the data when you have time.

 

I don't think it's the hardware that gets overwhelmed but the pilot. I can't come up with any really neat way of presenting the information to the pilot in a way that wouldn't be a mess when there's lots of shooting around. But then again that's the nature of that kind of situaton regarless of technology used. Maybe you could make the system prioritize and target the most lethal enemies first or just yell the pilot to extend and find cover.

*speculation mode: on* I could imagine that some sort of priotisation of the threats is possible. Criteria could be: distance, location in relation to helo movement (flying towards threat=high thread, away=lower threat), time passed since detection (the older it is the more likely it is a lesser threat than the guy starting to fire at you right now), maybe even weapon type categorisation (small muzzle flash=small arms, big muzzle flash=aa cannon, etc.)

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Ah ok, got ya, I didnt think about friendly fire... I would think they would be aware of other helos and aircraft, but ground forces, that could be tricky....

I would think that that system is not meant to be the magic bullet (Airwolf anyone? :o). I would expect some sort of over view display - threat markers all around you, but you have to know (anyways) where friendlies are and which threats are real threats.

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I would think that that system is not meant to be the magic bullet (Airwolf anyone? :o). I would expect some sort of over view display - threat markers all around you, but you have to know (anyways) where friendlies are and which threats are real threats.

 

Yup, I agree, but fog of war and all that, with an evolving battlefield, you would want some sort of fail safe, do troops carry anything that could identify them to a system like this? I dont know enough about it...

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It will work to increase SA, working in conjunction with off-board data sources as well.

 

It might or might not report friendly fires (for example, a tank and an A-10 might be data-link equipped).

 

Fires might be displayed on your map, which may also be annotated with positions of friendly forces, making it easy to figure out what your sensors are looking at etc.

 

Not to say that confusion couldn't happen ... there's always danger, and nothing is perfect.

 

Friendly forces fire, enemies, friendly helos, enemi heloes. A-10 somewhere nearby, etc.

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http://www.army.mil/article/55420/

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Army News Service, April 22, 20110) -- Apache attack helicopters will soon field a new, high-tech Ground Fire Acquisition System, which uses cameras and infrared sensors to instantly identify the source location of ground fire, service officials said.

 

"GFAS (Ground Fire Acquisition System) detects ground fire. It allows us to take information about incoming fire, get our sensors on it and identify and prosecute ground targets," said Maj. Justin Highley, Assistant product manager for the Longbow Apache.

 

The infrared sensors built into the GFAS system detect muzzle flashes from the ground, allowing Apache pilots to get their sensors on potential targets and immediately know the location, and distance of ground fire, Highley explained.

 

Next spring, 1-101 Aviation out of Fort Campbell will become the first unit equipped with GFAS, he said.

 

The cameras on the aircraft detect the muzzle flash from ground fire - and move the information through an Aircraft Gateway Processor into the cockpit so pilots will see an icon on their display screen, said Lt. Col. Jeff Johnson, product manager, Longbow Apache.

 

"The beauty of this system is that we are not changing the aircraft software. We are not adding displays. It's integrated through an Aircraft Gateway Processor," he said.

 

Upon receiving the information about the ground fire on their display screens, the aircraft crew can move their Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensors, or MTADS/PNVS, onto the target at the touch of a button, Johnson said.

 

"The crew sees the point of origin where the muzzle flash was detected,"

he said. "It is not just about the aircraft, but about getting information to guys on the ground who are in the fight. Apache has led the way for other platforms with net-centric operations and situational awareness."

 

The GFAS effort - called an Early User Evaluation - has undergone a range of key tests at places such as Mesa Ariz., and Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., Johnson explained.

 

Pending successful outcome of the User Evaluation, the Apache Program Manager will look at expanding GFAS' capabilities, including integrating the technology with Blue Force Tracker display screens, Johnson said.

 

"Crews often return from missions in Afghanistan with small-arms damage to the aircraft," Johnson explained. "GFAS is an offensive targeting system. It is not a piece of aircraft survivability equipment. It helps us fulfill our mission of closing with and destroying the enemy."

 

"How many of those forces who've been trying to shoot down our helicopters with small arms would have been eliminated by now if we had been able to pinpoint their locations'" Johnson said. "A recent historical example of why we need GFAS is the battle for Camp Keating in October 2009. We lost eight Americans and and had 24 wounded in one day because we could not locate an attacking enemy during the daytime."

 

"Medevac could not extract our wounded until (9 p.m.), when it was dark and those small-arms weapons had finally been located and destroyed -- after 8 or 9 hours of fighting," Johnson said. "To me, that's unacceptable. Our Soldiers deserve better."

 

So, Thermal IR detection.

 

Additional info:

 

http://www.gizmag.com/longbow-apache-attack-helicopters-gfas-ground-fire-acquisition-system/18527/

 

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2012/04/boeing-to-adapt-weaponwatch-ground-fire-acquisition-system-from-radiance-to-apache-attack-helicopter.html

 

Not only does this enable the aircrew to immediately move their Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensors onto the target at the touch of a button for immediate prosecution, it also offers the same information to ground forces via the net-centric battlefield information system, giving everyone in the fight vastly improved situational awareness.

 

GFAS also fully integrates with all existing communications systems currently in use and can transmit the location of the fire threat to another aircraft, a tactical Operations Center as well as to ground forces.

 

Current acoustic sensor capability cannot pinpoint an enemy fire target zone better than an area about the size of ten football fields. GFAS can detect weapon fire detection in light and dark conditions across a 120 degree field of view within a five meter target zone, well before the sound of the enemy weapon reaches the on-board sensors.

 

http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/issue/feature/Eyes-On-Shooters_76593.html#.UvE3uPldW8o

 

Radiance Technologies uses broadband mid-wave infrared detectors and hypertemporal processing to look at the characteristics of the weapons flash, both to reject false alarms and to classify firing events as small arms, RPGs, mortars, MANPADS or artillery. The Army fielded the technology in the sniper-detecting WeaponWatch system at checkpoints in Iraq in 2004. For the Army’s OverWatch Advanced Capabilities Technology Demonstration, Radiance developed a weight-saving field-programmable gate array processor with embedded software. Some of the leave-behind systems went on to accumulate more than 30,000 operating hours in-theater. Weapons classification capability was added to WeaponWatch after the ACTD, and hostile intent logic enabled the system to tell if weapons were shooting at the sensor or simply in the sensor field of view. The time to locate the shooter is 5 ms to 50 ms. - See more at: http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/issue/feature/Eyes-On-Shooters_76593.html#.UvE3uPldW8o

 

Pretty slick, the engine and other upgrades like the ESM for the Longbow radar to detect anti-air threats at longer distances are impressive, but this GFAS thing changes the game.

 

Covers almost all hemisphere's too, and there's two of them on the wingtips.

 

ed69448e-4be9-4593-915c-679f4b27c7da.Full.jpg

 

Company that makes them:

 

http://www.radiancetech.com/

 

Video of an early ground version from years ago to give you idea of how it might be implemented in the Apache:

 


Edited by Invader ZIM
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So if someone's watch on the ground catches the sun the wrong way and creates a reflected flash of light, boom, they're dead? This should precipitate a whole new industry of matte-faced Rolexes. <g>

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