Guest author Mr.
Bustamante returns with a fascinating and thought provoking post about attack
helicopters. This one will challenge your conventions. Enjoy!
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The High Cost of Ground
Attack Helicopters
Are they really
worth it? Are they survivable?
Just for fun: which aircraft has greater general flight performance characteristics?
 |
| Fieseler Fi 167 (circa 1938) |
 |
| Bell AH-1Z Viper (circa 2000) |
Source:
Wikipedia
Point in fact: the Fieseler Fi
167 dominates the AH-1; with a
maximum speed of 176 knots it was 20 knots faster, with a range of 703 nm it flew
over twice as far, its service ceiling was 8,200 m - almost 2.5 times higher,
and the Fi 167 could carry a 1,000 kg bomb or large torpedo, while the AH-1 is
rated for 1,134 kg, the weight and configuration of weapon mounting points
limits it to about a 500 kg ordnance loadout.
Purist will be aghast at this comparison, after all, the biplane lacks
the modern sensors, weapon controls, and communications of the AH-1, but the
performance characteristics of attack helicopters deserve closer scrutiny,
particularly given the high cost of procurement and operations (the acquisition
cost of the AH-64D Apache longbow at one point was almost $70 million - as much
as an F/A-18).
_________________________________________
Few weapon systems are as
enshrined in American military thought as the attack helicopter, but this
reputation has never been proven in high intensity war. In fact, considering the origins of the
attack helicopter, its performance relative to alternative aircraft, its
astronomical procurement and total ownership costs, the current and future
threat environments, and historical battlefield performance; we should be very
concerned about the tradeoffs made in buying attack helicopters. The attack helicopter is arguably a niche
airframe that is both costly, and deficient in performance relative to fixed-wing
alternatives. We must also consider that
field artillery, now can deliver both precision and massed fires at ranges
exceeding those of the attack helicopter. Justification of a weapon system is
not governed simply by whether the system can do the job, but whether it does
the job better than competing alternatives.
We have to remind ourselves that the mass purchase of attack helicopters
was driven largely by United States Army.
The Army is motivated to view Close Air Support (CAS) as "aerial
artillery" and it seeks to retain operational control of air power, in the
same way as it controls artillery. The
USAF won the “control debate” in WW2, while still a branch of the Army, and
then it won independence as a separate service.
The inter-service politics were nasty, but the Army was effectively
pushed out of the business of fixed wing tactical aviation to any great degree,
and saw the helicopter as a means for replacing assets lost to the Air Force.[1]
The wisdom or stupidity of this decision
is debatable, but the driving argument in favor of the attack helicopter was
not performance, but rather a bureaucratic response to the creation of the
United States Air Force! The few
advantages that helicopters have over fixed wing aircraft is the ability to use
terrain for cover and concealment, to take off, hover, and land vertically. I argue that those capabilities are not
sufficiently advantageous to overcome the huge performance and cost penalties, which
makes it very tough to justify the purchase of attack helicopters for tactical
aviation use.
Army and Marine doctrine puts attack helicopters in
competition with fixed-wing TACAIR. Both
services doctrine on attack helicopters is similar and assigns them the role of
attack, reconnaissance, and security operations, although the USMC adds “anti-helicopter operations”
and “… terminal control for …. CAS, artillery, mortars, and NGF.”[2] More troubling,
Joint Publication 3-03 Joint Interdiction,
and Army doctrine list attack helicopters as assets capable of conducting
interdiction
operations; that is operations to prevent adversaries from employing
surface-based weaponry and reinforcing units at a time and place of their
choosing. The interdiction mission has
traditionally been a fixed –wing TACAIR mission because it has generally been
conducted beyond the Fire Support Coordination Line (FSCL) – inside the FSCL,
fires from any source must be coordinated with the ground commander; beyond the
FSCL, any asset may attack without coordination. Helicopters
intrinsically have large acoustic and radar signatures, which makes them
excellent targets. This doctrine exposes
attack helicopters to the full spectrum of enemy anti-aircraft systems without
the raw airframe performance capabilities of fixed wing TACAIR (altitude,
speed, and range), the ability to carry effective standoff weapons to minimize
exposure to air defense systems, nor the sophisticated counters to protect
TACAIR from these systems (e.g. jamming pods, stealth, etc.).
The
issue of attack helicopters should be decided upon the merits, but any review
of airframe performance makes it clear that fixed-wing solutions dominate the
performance/cost debate; and this at a time when even vertical envelopment
supporters are calling for, and funding, platforms with performance
characteristics that exceed the performance envelop of any attack helicopter in
service or under consideration (e.g. the V-22 and the forth coming Army led
joint Future Vertical Lift program). Table
1 below compares U.S. attack helicopters with other tactical fixed wing aircraft:
Table 1. A Comparison of Common
Tactical Ground Attack Aircraft1
Source: Federation
of American Scientists, Wikipedia, and Global Security.
1. These
figures are for comparison only, actual combat loads, meteorology, and mission
profiles dramatically affect performance.
Costs are even more difficult to quantify.
2. No inflation adjustments have been made to this table.
3. The
GSh-30-2 is a dual barreled, recoil operated autocannon.
4. Other
AH-64 models (e.g. the AH-64D) can be equipped with launch rails for four
air–to-air missiles.
5. Ordinance
load outs for attack helicopters are challenging. The primary limitation is not weight but
weapons hard points. The AH-1 and AH-64
both carry an autocannon, and have four hard points for rocket pods (5” Zuni,
or 70mm), or for a four AGM-114 Hellfire missile launch rack. Additionally, some models add launch rails
for AIM-9 air-to-air missiles.
It
is worth noting that helicopter performance in “high hot” environments degrades
substantially faster than fixed wing aircraft.
From the table above it is clear that fixed-wing aircraft dominate
rotary wing attack aircraft in all measurable performance categories. Specifically they are:
1.
More expensive to buy; and are much more expensive to
operate and repair.
2.
Have lower performance (slower, less range, lower service
ceilings).
3.
Have lower sortie rates.
4.
Carry dramatically lower armament load outs compared to
fixed wing aircraft.
5.
Are less flexible than fighters or light attack aircraft
(fighters have been pressed into service as attack aircraft, and most light
attack aircraft can function as fighters, but attack helicopters cannot perform
the fighter role).
So
where exactly do attack helicopters excel? All of the aircraft in Table 1 have
been successfully operated from makeshift dirt or grass runways, and all have
excellent slow speed maneuverability, although only helicopters can hover, take
off and land vertically. I contend that that ability is of limited use as the
historical record of helicopter shoot downs demonstrates any low and slow
moving tactical aircraft will be hugely vulnerable. It is no surprise that the USAF prefers fixed
wing solutions to close air support and never purchased attack helicopters,
although it has acquired large numbers of rotary wing aircraft to meet other
mission needs. To summarize, when the
costs and other performance metrics are considered; rotary wing aircraft fare
very poorly compared to fixed wing tactical aircraft. The final judgement on any weapon system is
combat, so how have attack helicopters fared in combat operations?
The
presumption is that attack helicopters are effective combat assets; but historical
analysis does not support this. The
first mass employment of attack helicopters was in Vietnam; the Army and Marine Corps
lost over 5,000 helicopters as complete write-offs, of which 277 were AH-1s. This figure does not include aircraft that
were shot down, or put out of commission due to ground fire, but later repaired
to flying status. It also does not count
the number of UH-1s, AH-47s (they existed!), and OH-58s operating as attack
helicopters. Significantly, most of
these losses occurred over South Vietnam or friendly airspace where the enemy could not deploy his most
sophisticated air defenses. Still, the
AH-64, and to a lesser extent the upgraded AH-1s have benefited from a number
of protective features to improve aircraft survivability. So how attack helicopters performed in recent
combat operations? Consider the 2003 invasion of Iraq:
“During the
course of planning for ground operations in Iraq, the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and British Army all considered, and
actually planned for, air-assault operations in front of the advancing armored
columns. … Once operations started,
however, no air-assault missions in front of the leading edge of the armored
advance were conducted. [Emphasis added] Interviews with all three ground forces
indicated that the risks of these operations were seen as outweighing the
possible benefits, so the senior ground commanders elected to cancel the
planned missions.” [3]
It
is worth recalling that the Iraqi military in 2003 was broken. Yet the decision of the UK, USA, and USMC commanders to
cancel vertical envelopment operations against doctrine is profound. Commanders curtailed attack helicopter
operations, but even with these limitations, attack helicopters still suffered
serious losses against an enemy with no effective air force, and no organized
air defenses.
“During the
course of the roughly 25 days of major combat operations up to the fall of
Baghdad, the Army and Marine attack helicopter forces suffered considerable
damage. Several aircraft were effectively destroyed, and many others (for
example, 46 of 58 USMC Cobras) took battle damage, mostly from infantry-type
weapons, such as machine guns, RPGs, and small arms fire.”[4]
How
bad was the situation for attack helicopters?
On 23 March 2003, the 11th Attack
Helicopter Regiment was drawn into a fight where one AH-64 Apache was shot
down, and all 31 Apaches in the regiment took various amounts of battle damage.
Following the incident, PBS interviewed Thomas White, Secretary of the Army and
asked him to comment:
“I was disappointed
that we didn't do better. I mean, this
was an Apache [AH-64] raid. We have invested an enormous amount of resources in
attack helicopter operations in the U.S. Army. [Emphasis added] … We were very
fortunate we didn't lose more aircraft.”
We
need to be frank about casualties - they are inevitable - the real question is
value: combat effect versus the costs of alternative
options. By this metric, attack
helicopters were unable to perform their doctrinal role and did not deliver the
combat effectiveness that was expected of them during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
It
is now an open question how our rotary wing attack helicopter force would fare
against a well led, well trained, well-motivated, force with effective weapons
like the 2K22 Tunguska, which was designed to deal with threats like the AH-64
(see figure 2).[5] Nor do we know how attack helicopters will fair when
facing sophisticated artillery threats (modern multifunction fused tube or
rocket artillery projectiles) employed en masse by our potential enemies.
Figure 2. The
2K22 Tunguska Anti-Aircraft
System
Source:
www.ausairpower.net
To
re-state the situation, not only have attack helicopters proven to be costly,
and less capable than fixed-wing tactical aircraft, they have proven ineffective
and vulnerable. In fact, if the
justification for buying attack helicopters is for use as a middle-weight force (which I take to
mean COIN and ground attack in permissive environments), then the USMC has not
only purchased the most expensive, and least capable aircraft for the mission;
it bought into a weapons platform that it was unwilling to employ per doctrine
due to survivability concerns.
So
what conclusion can we draw? The U.S.
Army is constrained by long-standing policies on fixed-wing tactical aircraft,
but the Department of the Navy is unconstrained and is free to pursue better
alternatives. From a price performance
ratio, an amphibious task force would be far better served with two, or three
squadrons of fixed-wing aircraft like a 21st century A-4, operating
from an austere aircraft carrier (e.g. Midway class), than the current LHD/LHA
with attack helicopters, and VSTOL jets.
Any shortfalls in cargo space could be addressed by other sealift (new
AKA/LKA). Someone will scream about the
loss of vertical take-off and landing capability. My response is: 1) a small carrier could
conduct ground support flight operations to the limits of OMFTS – effectively
the combat radius of the V-22; 2) the logistics/maintenance penalties of
operating from FARPs will reduce sortie production to the extent that it is
more effective to operate aircraft from ships; 3) if the ground force is
operating so far inshore as to make carrier operations unfeasible, then fixed
wing aircraft are capable of operating from improvised runways ashore
(including dirt runways!); and 4) no rotary wing aircraft in production, or on
the drawing boards, can keep up with the V-22.
_________________________________
Mr.
Bustamante is a retired naval officer who served the majority of his career as
a Naval Special Warfare Officer; he also served as a Surface Warfare Officer
and Foreign Area Officer. He is a
graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in Systems Engineering. He also holds a Master of Science degree in
Defense Analysis (Operations Research) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. After retiring from the
Navy, Mr. Bustamante worked for the legislative branch as an auditor and
analyst, as a civil servant with the United States Department of State, and
also in the private sector as an analyst in information technology project
management.
[1]
The key point for this discussion is that the Army argued successfully that the
attack helicopter fulfilled its requirements for close air support, but the
origin of the attack helicopter is entangled in the larger inter-service debate
over air power, particularly as argued between the United States Army and Air
Force. The most extraordinary claims are
made by proponents on both sides of the issue; the two best summaries avoiding
the partisanship are: The Warthog and the Close Air Support Debate, by Douglas
N. Campbell, May 1, 2003; and Army-Air Force Relations: The Close Air Support
Issue, Rand R-906-PR, 1971.
[2] MCWP
3-2 Aviation Operations articulates USMC doctrine on aviation to include attack
helicopters; Field Manual No. 1-112 articulates Army doctrine on attack
helicopters. Significantly, the two
services organize attack helicopters very differently. The Army organizes, and emphasizes the
employment of attack helicopters in battalions
consisting of 24x AH-64 helicopters.
Typically two attack helicopter battalions are assigned to division and
corps in aviation brigades. The Army
also emphasizes that its attack helicopter battalions, even when conducting
independent battalion sized operations, are always employed to complement other
maneuver forces. Marine Light/Attack
Helicopter Squadrons (HMLA) mix utility and attack helicopters in a squadron of
9x UH-1 and
12x AH-1 helicopters.
[3] Rand
briefing DB472, “Assessment of Navy Heavy-Lift Aircraft Options,” page 87. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/documented_briefings/2005/RAND_DB472.pdf
[4] Rand
briefing DB472, “Assessment of Navy Heavy-Lift Aircraft Options,” page 87.
[5] In
addition to RAND studies, readers desiring more information
on helicopter survivability may wish to read the article: “Are Helicopters Vulnerable?” by Dr. Carlo Kopp, published in the
March 2005 edition of Australian Aviation.
