Indian Army wants 11 AH-64E Apache for its Army Aviation Corp

[WMD]

Indian Army requests more Apaches​

The Indian Army has asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in India to acquire a further 11 Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters for its aviation corps, supplementing the 22 Apaches the MoD has agreed to buy for the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The Army Aviation Corps (AAC) has stated an overall requirement for 33 Apaches, and declared in a recent letter to the MoD that there would be no procedural problems in the ministry exercising the option to acquire 11 AH-64Es via the Foreign Military Sales route at the same cost as the original 22.

The IAF selected the AH-64 over Russia's Mil Mi-28N 'Havoc' for India's heavy attack helicopter requirement in August 2012.

Indian Army requests more Apaches - IHS Jane's 360

India; Army Wing request its own Apache Squadron

 

[drkrn]

more fireworks coming at our borders:cool2:

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Interesting development..

 

[kaustav2001]

Well it's good if they got Apaches (especially with the longbow radar), however for the Army I really would've liked to see the Mi-28 over the Apache. The Mi-28 are more rugged, faster (I think) & can carry some serious payload. Apache's on the other hand are better networked & have better optronics.

 

[sob]

so IA is no longer putting a claim on the first 22 machines.

This is interesting.

 

[TrueSpirit]

tug-of-war between IA & IAF

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Media slogan and portrait, It show Armed forces in bad light which gives them better ratings..

In real, there was only one agreement which stops Army from having attack choppers was now diluted by Defense minister..

IAF has no issues, These will reduce the workload on them, I am saying coz i had talked about such issues with some high ranking IAF personals..

tug-of-war between IA & IAF

 

[SilentKiller]

I too believe majority attack and light helicopters ALH, LCH etc must move to army.
but airforce should retain heavy and medium helicopter with few in attack and light roles.

hope every agrees with this.

 

[JBH22]

Dear Army Aviation corps please induct a dedicated CAS plane in your inventory, preferably the cheap and rugged SU-25 and its derivatives.

 

[DivineHeretic]

Media slogan and portrait, It show Armed forces in bad light which gives them better ratings..

In real, there was only one agreement which stops Army from having attack choppers was now diluted by Defense minister..

IAF has no issues, These will reduce the workload on them, I am saying coz i had talked about such issues with some high ranking IAF personals..

Actually, there was indeed a bit of a tussle between the IAF and the IA over helis. The public statements made by the Air Chief sometime back does reflect this. Media only turned this into a fullblown war between the two services.

The IAF had the primary defence that all flying assets should be under their control. When that failed to satisfy the Saint, the next line of defence was that the IA was unable to maintain the heli fleet.

For sometime, the IA owned and controlled the operations of the helis, but the pilots (army pilots) were trained by the Air force and the maintainance was carried out by the IAF personnel. This became the flank that was used to try and cling on to the gunships.

The IA responded that now they are fully capable of training pilots and even conducting ground maintainance of the helis. This argument won them the LCH, and now I suspect will slowly win them the Apaches as well.

 

[mikhail]

Media slogan and portrait, It show Armed forces in bad light which gives them better ratings..

In real, there was only one agreement which stops Army from having attack choppers was now diluted by Defense minister..

IAF has no issues, These will reduce the workload on them, I am saying coz i had talked about such issues with some high ranking IAF personals..

Sir recently i read somewhere that the IAF will have to transfer all its attack fleet to the AAC in the near future,suppose this happens in the near future then what will the IAF do with the 65 or so LCH that it has made a firm order with HAL in addition to 20 or so Rudra armed helos?

 

[DivineHeretic]

Can somebody suggest to me as to how the figure for 11 or 22 or 33 was reached?

The AH-64E Longbow will preferably be used in pairs, largely to exploit the tightly networked capability but more importantly to use the hunter killer capability that the Longbow radar provides.

As such for the 14 Corps, the min number would come out to 28 Apaches @ 2 per Corps, which would really restrict them to only air battle management operations. In essence, the most powerful gunship would be transformed into a C2 asset, with its radars feeding data for the LCH.

At such low numbers, the corps can commit the Apaches only to one area, one division at a time, leaving several divisions without this newly aquired support. (The Longbow radar has a range of 8km, meaning it sweeps out an area of 200 km2. Thats just about a mid sized city). What does the corps do when more than one division is in desperate need for effective guidance? The LCH can perform strike missions, but without a mounted MMR radar, it will not be able to generate the situational awareness the commanders will want.

It would be better if every division were to have their own pair of gunships. That would mean a requirement of 34*2 Apaches. i.e. 68 Ah-64Es. Now, a certain number will have to be kept in reserve. That woyld be around 4-6.

Thus IMO, 72-76 would be an ideal number for the gunships. But of course the IA should have better understanding of the requirements.

Btw, the Saudi Arabian Armed forces have 94 Apaches

 

[Neil]

^^ what about Mi 24...?? where does it fit ...??

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Ground reality is different from Chief words which are more like from desk job IAF officers at MOD..

Actually, there was indeed a bit of a tussle between the IAF and the IA over helis. The public statements made by the Air Chief sometime back does reflect this. .

 

[Kunal Biswas]

The First batch of 22 AH-64 will be with them, The rest of the 22 will be trasfered to IA and now if 11 more sanctioned then the count will be 33 for IA..

About IAF LCH and Rudra they are tasked for providing escort duties to VIP Choppers and other recon and UAV hunting missions..

Sir recently i read somewhere that the IAF will have to transfer all its attack fleet to the AAC in the near future,suppose this happens in the near future then what will the IAF do with the 65 or so LCH that it has made a firm order with HAL in addition to 20 or so Rudra armed helos?

======================

Afaik, these will be replaced by AH-64 and these are under IAF..

^^ what about Mi 24...?? where does it fit ...??

 

[Kunal Biswas]

About Rudras in IA >>

This is the first of the 60 armed helicopters provided to the Army by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) after the defence ministry handed over the control of all attack helicopters to the land force.

Bharali said a total of 60 Rudras would be inducted into the Army and the machines will be part of six squadrons.The Army has plans of having a squadron-each of weaponized choppers in each of the pivot corps and a full-fledged attack chopper squadron with each of the three Strike Corps.

Source : :: Bharat-Rakshak.com - Indian Military News Headlines ::

 

[sayareakd]

They should first ask for 100 LCH and 100 Rudras, then they should go for foreign maal.

 

[drkrn]

They should first ask for 100 LCH and 100 Rudras, then they should go for foreign maal.

they already did give their commitment for 165 odd lch which can be delivered fast because of being indigenous while apaches take longer as foreign and also prone to cancellation on economic situation

 

[WMD]

I think after this initial procurement of 11 gets the nod of MoD, IA will go for further batch of Apaches.
Anyways we are getting the 1st sqdn of our own Rudras next month.

 

[pmaitra]

Can somebody suggest to me as to how the figure for 11 or 22 or 33 was reached?

The only explanation that makes sense is that the person who decides on the number of these helos is an electical engineer, is obsessed with the form factor, and likes to keep everything a multiple of 11, like 1100 Volts, 132 KVA, 220 Volts, 110 Volts, etc..

Jokes apart, I think people are just throwing numbers around.

Let the IA get all the Mil-24/35 and HAL LCH, while IA can get all AH-64D, HAL LCH, and Mil-17 mods and keep it uniform. We need to prevent our forces from getting into this stupid diversity mania.