Everybody ease up and stick to thread topic please, and
@Twinblade's information has always been found to be factually correct and backed up by evidence.
Anyways, that apart, while all the talk of LCH and its subsystems are going on, the focus of the Army aviation is most probably shifting to how to effectively use these assets in coordination with other arms of the army.
Many people miss this, but at 179+33+71 (LCH+AH64D+Rudra) the Indian army is expanding from just 25 odd attack helis to 283 gunships. The IA will have to change/modify/improve many of their current tactics and doctrines to make proper use of this massive expansion.
And call me whatever anyone wants, I'll be very disappointed if the Eastern Army command does not get the largest share of these death angels . We demand reservation/quota/preferential treatment, but we want them. (pun intended)
use of increased number of attack heli on indian army doctrine
As part of the doctrine of maneuver warfare, the helicopter gunship has come to carve a niche for itself in the battlefield. With speed and range and altitude capabilities a rotary-winged platform lends itself admirably to the "top attack" mode especially against tanks and mechanized infantry formations in the plains and foothills.
However, they become vulnerable to shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in the close confines of high mountains and deep valleys.
India learned a lesson the hard way when it lost a MI-17 helicopter to a Stinger missile fired by a Pakistani soldier during the Kargil war.
In fact, a fixed-wing aircraft was also shot down with a Stinger missile. A Canberra aircraft on photo-reconnaissance mission was grazed by a Stinger missile but returned safely to base. There were at least two known near-misses on helicopters operating around Tololing Peak.
The fact that the Government of India has recently conceded the Army's demand for making the helicopter gunship as an integral part of its terrestrial support operations underscores its role in modern warfare.
With inbuilt capabilities of range and high altitude the helicopter gunship is a quick reaction platform that can help the commander in a battlefield, as varied as that obtaining in India-from the deserts and plains to the Himalayan foothills and its craggy crests-a great deal of flexibility in deployment.
An attack helicopter can accompany armored columns and mechanized infantry beyond 450 km from home-base and, with airborne refueling, that can be extended till crew fatigue, replenishment of weapons and munitions and maintenance requirements limits operations.
Force multiplier
With radius of operations in the hundreds of kilometers the helicopter gunship is a potent force multiplier in its ability to detect enemy tank and mechanized forces, enemy troop concentrations and artillery emplacements and engage them without delay.
The situational awareness that such range provides, matched with nape-of-the-earth flying techniques and slow speed and hover gives the local commander an advantage that cannot be gainsaid in a battlefield situation.
This kind of "organic relationship" between the air component and the ground forces makes for a high degree of combat mobility and flexibility in both attack and defensive operations.
Now that military operations are no longer circumscribed by daylight hours, yet, night-time operations by combined forces can mould the battlefield to full advantage.
"Top attack" against armored vehicles has proved to be the Achilles heel of tanks and infantry combat vehicles falling prey in droves to strikes by fixed-wing aircraft making steep dives to release missiles, dumb bombs or shoot high calibre cannon.
It is not always that an airstrike can be called to stop enemy tanks in their tracks. That is why helicopter gunships are desired by infantry commanders to be an organic part of their echelon.
Their role being to detect and engage enemy armor/mechanized columns well before the main force joins the battle to wrap up proceedings. Tank and mechanized infantry columns too have incorporated organic anti-aircraft/helicopter missiles intended to keep the predators at bay.
It is a cat-and-mouse game in which the helicopter has the advantage of swift movement in any direction and the ability to use the landscape to advantage, "popping up" from a decline to launch its rockets to devastating effect.
The Russians had developed the concept of helicopters as chariots for infantry to first shoot up the locale and then allow the infantry to dismount and hold ground.
India bought into that doctrine when it acquired the MI-25/35 helicopter gunships from the former Soviet Union. These attack helicopters can carry either eight infantrymen or four stretchers for casualty evacuation.
In the deserts, the plains and the foothills these helicopters have faced missiles, anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades during the war in Afghanistan and Iraq with mixed results.
In the mountains of Afghanistan, however, the attack helicopter was unable to escape the direct fire weapons in the hands of the Afghan Mujahideen because of lack of room to maneuver to take evasive action. Many helicopters were lost to ground fire.
With the reported contracted with the American firm for Apache helicopter gunships-which do not carry any troops-the Indian Army will slowly move away from carrying infantry to the battlefield by the aerial route.
It will not happen suddenly on the arrival of the Apaches but will be diminished gradually till the Russia-supplied fleet is decommissioned over the next decade.
Aerial warfare
Nonetheless, in the Indian context because both the India-Pakistan and the India-China confrontations will take place in extremely rugged territory in the Himalayas (as during the Kargil conflict), the ability to ferry troops to dominating features (or relocating them at short notice at heights below 15,000 feet which is their service ceiling) is an advantage that will be lost when only the Apache helicopters remain in the Indian fleet.
India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has developed what can be said to be a terrain-specific attack helicopter, the light combat helicopter (LCH) which with an inbuilt capability to climb to an altitude of 21,000 ft with a choice of rockets, 20-mm cannon, air-to-air missile, air-to-surface missiles and dumb bombs.
Its roles include high-altitude warfare, anti-tank and counter-air operations against other helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-insurgency and urban guerrilla warfare and search and rescue operations.
Based on the Dhruv utility helicopter, the Indian light combat helicopter is the product of the Kargil war experience where due to the inability the MI-25/35 armed helicopters were unable to take a full load of weapons up to a height beyond 14,000 ft.
The Pakistan Army Northern Light Infantry armed with Stinger shoulder-fired SAMs was ensconced at heights between 15,000 and 18,000 ft. The Indian Air Forces decided to use the MI-17 helicopter converted to a gunship role as was done during the Sri Lanka IPKF.
However, that did not come up to expectations because, in order to be able to deliver its weapons load, the helicopter had to fly to a point less than four kilometers of the entrenched Pakistani soldiers and thus it came within range of the Stinger heat-seeking missiles.
That was why also other fixed wing sorties had to be curtailed after the MI-17 and MiG-27 were hit by Stingers.
That was when it was discovered that using high-trajectory guns like the Bofors howitzer in a direct-fire role proved to be more efficacious than air attacks by fixed winged and rotary-winged aircraft till the Mirage-2000 and its laser-guided weapons began taking a big toll of the entrenched enemy.
Much of the Indian experience in the Kargil war was gained by trial and error-hardly a way to conduct aerial warfare more particularly after how the Soviets learned their lessons at the hands of the Afghan Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
One lesson was that all helicopters operating in the mountain terrain need to carry flares to decoy heat-seeking missiles.
However, it needs to be conceded that the threat to helicopters is not just from heat-seeking missiles but also from direct-fire infantrymen's guns.
Shooting the pilot or puncturing the fuel tank was an easy way of knocking down helicopters in the close confines of Himalayan Mountains. Standoff munitions usually fell far from the target.
In any future warfare many of the crucial tactical targets will be along the higher reaches of the Himalayas and appropriate lessons have been learned from the Kargil experience.
Helicopters are very useful platforms in high altitude warfare but a proper assessment of the weapons in the hands of the enemy need to be made before deploying the helicopter gunships in such terrain.
source:strategic affairs