Helicopters in Ukraine

Ed Haywood said:
Too bad the Ukrainians don't have a similar capability. Really tailor made for their situation.
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Heartache that they don't. There are perfect remedies out there, but good soldiers (and civilians) are dying for the lack of them.
 
Piperonca said:
Buddy of mine was in the air that day, told me about it. That was many moons ago. I'll have to call him up and refresh my memory of what she was doing at the time. Main thing I remember was that she was his company commander.

Inevitable fact about the utility mission is there are times you are just flat going to be vulnerable. Resupply to field units might be one. Although I don't know if that was going on much in OIF or OEF, or even today in Ukraine. Hasty medevac is another. You have to slow down and hang in the air for a few ticks of the clock to get airspeed down and flare for an approach. Then bad guys have a nice target. That part never changes. Your generation has onboard nav so I would think low and fast is the order of the day. Less popping up and looking around to find your LZ. Oh, and NVG too. Different world from the age of biplanes.
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I remember one day departing Baghdad. We were hoping over wires and dodging whip antennas, while I look to my left and see a couple of 101st UH-60s climbing to altitude. Their thought process was the primary threat of small arms while our opinion, the threat was light weapons. Two completely different tactics and flight profiles based on what the command believes as the perceived threat. There’s an excellent book out called Strike Eagle (Gulf War) that details the problems of trying to let pilots fly their profile (low and fast) vs the inherent risk associated with that. It’s an interesting dilemma that commanders face on how much of a “leash” to keep their pilots on.

Nothing against Tammy but she was always in a bad mood. Probably because she was NG and didn’t want to be there. Came in one day after she just chewed out one of our female 2Lts over the phone. She sat there in disbelief at how disrespectful she was. She was always nice to me though. I think she new that as a warrant, I didn’t give a damn and I’d probably laugh at her if she went off on me. :D
 
tspear said:
The WMD justification for Iraq never existed; and we never should have been there. In terms of Afghanistan, we failed to conquer and could never conquer such a country without changing some critical beliefs.
Tim
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Hmmmm

Colin Powell was intellectually questionable and Bush and his VP were as well for sending many of us in under the justification they claimed. While using WMD as the excuse to go in was weak sauce, saying that WMD’s weren’t there was and is factually incorrect. This isn’t classified.

Remember the tanker wars? I was in High School then and had not yet joined the Corps. They were the driver behind giving our good allie Saddam Hussein WMD’s, including the means to manufacture - inconvenient little piece. We forgot to say that part out loud during the deployment - where WMD’s came from.

We literally advertised and screamed we were on our way to pay a visit prior to Desert Shield / Desert Storm and the subsequent XXF’s. Plenty of time to take all WMD’s we had provided or consulted on to be relocated to the wonderful land of Syria almost entirely.

During our nice stay in the sandbox, the Czechs were the first to locate and report WMD’s to us - all of this is public info.

While it was a lame excuse to get a bunch of us crayon eaters to go there and get sand in our thongs, the BC’s of the NBC were certainly and amply there. “No WMD’s” has to do with when you looked, not if they were there. Mincing words …

Now….the embezzlement of American money into the pockets of politicians while arguing moral virtue as the reason? That’s a reply that I’d rather skip….


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might not get locked... just some cleanup
 
Llk said:
Colin Powell was intellectually questionable and Bush and his VP were as well for sending many of us in under the justification they claimed. While using WMD as the excuse to go in was weak sauce, saying that WMD’s weren’t there was and is factually incorrect. This isn’t classified. Now….the embezzlement of American money into the pockets of politicians while arguing moral virtue as the reason? That’s a reply that I’d rather skip….
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You are channeling General Butler, a Marine of renown: two Congressional Medals of Honor. His words are relevant today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
 
Cool that they have a Black Hawk! That might prove a good demonstration that they can fly and maintain things other than the old Russian stuff, as per the linked article.

The front lines have been compared a bit to WW1 style fighting and there seems to be a lot of concern about landmines. Helicopters are pretty excellent in getting over landmines. Granted that doesn't help with most vehicles, but it might let some units jump over the front lines. Maybe not to the extent of how we would do it, but possibly on a tactical scale? And of course I mean with whatever they already have.
 
Albany Tom said:
Cool that they have a Black Hawk! That might prove a good demonstration that they can fly and maintain things other than the old Russian stuff, as per the linked article.

The front lines have been compared a bit to WW1 style fighting and there seems to be a lot of concern about landmines. Helicopters are pretty excellent in getting over landmines. Granted that doesn't help with most vehicles, but it might let some units jump over the front lines. Maybe not to the extent of how we would do it, but possibly on a tactical scale? And of course I mean with whatever they already have.
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Sometimes helicopters have to deal with the land mines, too. One time I was flying lift missions in Vietnam when an infantry brigade encountered an area with multiple booby traps. Casualties were all over the place. So we went to work picking them up, requiring multiple sorties. After the first landing I was always careful to place my skids in exactly the same spot every time. Didn’t want to set off more mines.
 
Albany Tom said:
Cool that they have a Black Hawk! That might prove a good demonstration that they can fly and maintain things other than the old Russian stuff, as per the linked article.

The front lines have been compared a bit to WW1 style fighting and there seems to be a lot of concern about landmines. Helicopters are pretty excellent in getting over landmines. Granted that doesn't help with most vehicles, but it might let some units jump over the front lines. Maybe not to the extent of how we would do it, but possibly on a tactical scale? And of course I mean with whatever they already have.
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Unfortunately they bought a stripped down, old UH-60A model. It would be like asking for F-18s and get sent a Legacy Hornet in Blue Angel colors. All the important hardware has been ripped out. Gonna take a lot to convert this to a combat aircraft. First thing is, get a tactical paint scheme.
 
Velocity173 said:
Unfortunately they bought a stripped down, old UH-60A model. It would be like asking for F-18s and get sent a Legacy Hornet in Blue Angel colors. All the important hardware has been ripped out. Gonna take a lot to convert this to a combat aircraft. First thing is, get a tactical paint scheme.
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Yeah, I don't see one additional helicopter helping much, except as proof of concept of use of western helicopters. My thought was using existing helicopters to try to avoid landmines, while still being close enough to protect armor. Way way out of my area of expertise, but it does seem like the comparisons to WW1 tactics miss that there is a lot of tech out there that did not exist in ww1 - drones, helicopters, satellite imagry, etc.
 
Piperonca said:
Sometimes helicopters have to deal with the land mines, too. One time I was flying lift missions in Vietnam when an infantry brigade encountered an area with multiple booby traps. Casualties were all over the place. So we went to work picking them up, requiring multiple sorties. After the first landing I was always careful to place my skids in exactly the same spot every time. Didn’t want to set off more mines.
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Off topic, but I have a few friends around here who owe their lives to guys that could get a helicopter from point a to point b in that country during the war. Thanks for helping do that. I'll still assert that helicopter pilots are a bit nuts, but nuts can go hand in hand with helpful.
 
Llk said:
Hmmmm

Colin Powell was intellectually questionable and Bush and his VP were as well for sending many of us in under the justification they claimed. While using WMD as the excuse to go in was weak sauce, saying that WMD’s weren’t there was and is factually incorrect. This isn’t classified.

Remember the tanker wars? I was in High School then and had not yet joined the Corps. They were the driver behind giving our good allie Saddam Hussein WMD’s, including the means to manufacture - inconvenient little piece. We forgot to say that part out loud during the deployment - where WMD’s came from.

We literally advertised and screamed we were on our way to pay a visit prior to Desert Shield / Desert Storm and the subsequent XXF’s. Plenty of time to take all WMD’s we had provided or consulted on to be relocated to the wonderful land of Syria almost entirely.

During our nice stay in the sandbox, the Czechs were the first to locate and report WMD’s to us - all of this is public info.

While it was a lame excuse to get a bunch of us crayon eaters to go there and get sand in our thongs, the BC’s of the NBC were certainly and amply there. “No WMD’s” has to do with when you looked, not if they were there. Mincing words …

Now….the embezzlement of American money into the pockets of politicians while arguing moral virtue as the reason? That’s a reply that I’d rather skip….


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No idea what public Chech information your are referencing.
Here is the NPR timeline: https://www.npr.org/2005/11/15/4996218/iraq-wmd-timeline-how-the-mystery-unraveled
And the BBC Report: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64914542
And a 20 year look back: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-mass-destruction

If Chech forces found WMD, it would have been all over the press. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair both had extensive political damage due to a lack of finding WMD.

Last point, I cannot find any reference to Check forces in Iraq as part of Dessert Storm.


Tim
 
The Halabja massacre in 1988 and the chemical weapons program during the Iran/Iraqi war are pretty well documented…NPR is the last place I would look for an accurate accounting as a participant in Operation Ernest Will I can tell you it was at the forefront of every briefing…
 
Warlock said:
The Halabja massacre in 1988 and the chemical weapons program during the Iran/Iraqi war are pretty well documented…NPR is the last place I would look for an accurate accounting as a participant in Operation Ernest Will I can tell you it was at the forefront of every briefing…
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Yeah, all that was way before the 2nd gulf war, and the justification of WMD for the invasion. There was no WMD found after the second gulf war. If there was, Like I said above. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would have been all over it. They both lost massive political capital domestically and internationally because no WMD was found.

As the NPR article states, there was a fair amount of WMD in the 80s, until Iraq used it against the Kurds. At which point, UN and international pressure took fifteen years but did eliminate it.

Tim
 
There were a few WMDs found in Iraq after the initial stages of OIF, just not the stockpiles that were claimed. Not the amount or type (nuclear) that we were lead to believe, only left overs from the Iran-Iraq war. Of course there’s the whole theory that massive amounts of chemical weapons were sent to Syria though. ;)
 
Be interesting to get all the exact details on losses etc when this is all over
 
Johnny Costello said:
Be interesting to get all the exact details on losses etc when this is all over
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full and accurate details won't happen.

The anti-war zealots will over count. The pro war pukes will under count.
 
Velocity173 said:
There were a few WMDs found in Iraq after the initial stages of OIF, just not the stockpiles that were claimed. Not the amount or type (nuclear) that we were lead to believe, only left overs from the Iran-Iraq war. Of course there’s the whole theory that massive amounts of chemical weapons were sent to Syria though. ;)
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Preeeecisely.

My pump was 90/91….

Now let me go back and get indoctrinated by NPR….that’s where I go for all my news.

they say the laptop was Russian misinformation and that hookers peed on Trump in Russia…(swoon)


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