BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter was shot down Tuesday near the western Iraqi town of Habbaniyah — the third helicopter downed in the region in less than two weeks.
The two crew members of the AH-64 gunship were safe, and the U.S. military secured the area, military spokesman Col. William Darley said.
“It was apparently downed by enemy fire,” Darley said. “I understand they were not hurt.”
The helicopter belongs to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which operates the air base north of Habbaniyah. A U.S. military quick-reaction force rescued the crew members.
The region west of Baghdad is a hotbed of anti-U.S. guerrilla activity and the scene of several previous helicopter downings
This is pretty interesting - the Apache isn’t as soft a target as the Blackhawks are - they are designed to operate for 30 minutes after being hit by 12.7 mm heavy machine guns anywhere from the the lower hemisphere plus 20 degrees above, and has many components proofed against 23mm cannon fire.
Plus the Apache has highly sophisticated anti-missile countermeasures, which should give it a good chance against the SA-7s manpad SAMs common in the Iraqi Resistance’s arsenal.
And unless the pilot was doing something dumb, I’d find it hard to believe you’d manage to hit it with an RPG.
All this means that someone out there in Iraq still may have some badass firepower…
Mad Scientist is right, bringing one of these things down is supposed to be tough. The planned upgrades probably would not have changed much.
On the other hand helicopters are notoriously fragile machines. An RPG is designed to penetrate a tank, so a good hit on the tail rotor would take down the chopper. Pictures of it show it upright, so it was not destroyed.
Hey i thought Saddam was directing the resistence and with his capture and humiliation it was assumed by the Americans that the resistence would just pack up and retire. Seems like all the fan fare and celebration was just a waste of time because the attacks have increased and so have the successes.
So whose organising and co-ordinating the resistence? Maybe the muslims of Iraq want western forces out of their country and will not rest until this happens.
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*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *On the other hand helicopters are notoriously fragile machines. An RPG is designed to penetrate a tank, so a good hit on the tail rotor would take down the chopper. Pictures of it show it upright, so it was not destroyed.
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I don't think it was a tail rotor hit.
[thumb=E]apache6298_6824251.JPG[/thumb]
The tail structure appears relatively intact, whereas if you look closely it seems as though the starboard engine took quite a substantial hit.
*BAGHDAD, Iraq - The good will of Iraq Shiite majority, so crucial to the success of U.S. policy, may be eroding. Strong opposition by a top Shiite cleric to key parts of a U.S. political blueprint for Iraq and the spread of violent protests in Shiite areas suggest a dangerous trend.
…
In Kut, a mainly Shiite city 95 miles southeast of Baghdad, Ukrainian troops fired in the air Monday to disperse about 400 Iraqis who rioted to demand jobs. One Ukrainian soldier, four Iraqi policemen and one protester were wounded.
British troops and Iraqi policemen clashed with Iraqi demonstrators Saturday in the southern, predominantly Shiite city of Amarah, killing six people and injuring 11. People in both cities were protesting the absence of jobs and alleged favoritism by Iraqi authorities in hiring practices.
Many Iraqi Shiites, who revere their top clerics as saints and look to them for guidance in all matters, say they still feel betrayed by the United States for not coming to their aid when they rose in 1991 against Saddam, whose army killed tens of thousands of them. They say they would take up arms against the Americans if clerics like al-Sistani so order.*
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*Originally posted by Madhanee: *
Yeah but there’s a lot of development going on which the Douglas and Northrope Gruman are not going to share with you, Maddie.
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Unlikely to produce anything in the next 10-15 years. The US Army has little requirement for a new mainstay helicopter gunship at this time. If Northrop Grumman or McDonald Douglas put a new helicopter gunship into production within the next decade, I'll resign my modship. Boeing have the next US Army attack helicopter purchase pretty much wrapped up with the forthcoming RAH-66 Comanche, but even that fills a different battlefield niche than the Apache, and is vastly more expensive. The Apache easily has another 2 decades of shelf life, maybe even longer, in its design, in various upgraded forms.
Errr.. there is no newer or more sophisticated gunship in production anywhere in the world than the AH-64 to replace it with. It's state of the art.
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Mad Scientist, I had not seen the photo above. It appears you are right, hit to the right engine. Could be a SA-7 that went down the pipe, but an exterior blast by an sa-7 would not cause that type of damage. Funny thing is that the Apache is single engine capable, so transmission must have been damaged too. Best guess is a very good, or very lucky RPG. Anything else and some bigger Soviet stuff has leaked out.
The good news is that the rest of the systems worked and the crew walked away.
First deliveries are scheduled for 2006, with the Comanche program reaching full production by about 2010. Plans are to manufacture 1,213 RAH-66s for U.S. Army service.
In October 2002 the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) approved the Army’s restructuring plan for the Comanche helicopter program - the sixth so far in the program’s history. The new Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) formally approving the plan added about $3.4 billion to the Comanche’s $3.1-billion development program. The program’s original procurement level of 1,213 aircraft was cut to 650,
Time to blow my own trumpet… looks like I was right.
*Army officials were particularly concerned by findings that on at least one occasion, the guerrillas used an SA-16 shoulder-fired missile, which has an advanced guidance system that is difficult for pilots to evade. *
OH-58 Kiowa this time - it's a soft target, a scout helicopter, I don't think it's armoured. You could probably bring it down with a Kalashnikov if it flew low enough and you had good aim.
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*Originally posted by mAd_ScIeNtIsT: *
OH-58 Kiowa this time - it's a soft target, a scout helicopter, I don't think it's armoured. You could probably bring it down with a Kalashnikov if it flew low enough and you had good aim.
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Just head on news this is the 4th shot down this month.
