Army aviation as part of air defenses of combined-arms large strategic formations.

Attack helicopters carrying antitank guided missiles are seen in the armed forces of all advanced world countries as a highly efficient weapon in the fight against armored targets. Russia's AN-64, for one, can kill as many as six tanks during one combat mission, while the relation of destroyed armored targets per one downed helicopter may average 12:1.

A number of U.S. army exercises showed that two army aviation brigade battalions of a mechanized (armored) division (48 helicopters with ATGM) may destroy as many as 300 tanks and other armored targets during one sortie in VFR weather. In the case of Apache Longbow attack helicopters, as estimated by U.S. military specialists, the number of engaged enemy targets will increase considerably, while practically ruling out erroneous strikes against friendly forces.

Thus, the course and outcome of operations mounted by combined-arms large strategic formations will to a considerable extent depend on results of confrontations between air defense weapons and enemy army aviation using advanced combat helicopters.

The efficiency of anti-helicopter warfare depends in great measure on timely detection of helicopters by reconnaissance equipment and precise target designation for the benefit of antiaircraft weapons. The main requirement to airspace reconnaissance geared to combating hostile helicopters is that they be detected in good time at a distance enabling maximum-range firing.

But the timely radar detection of enemy attack helicopters over the battlefield can be hampered by a number of factors, such as their very low flight altitudes, the difficulty in identifying helicopter blips on radar screens against the background of returns from local features, helicopters' comparatively small effective radar echoing area, and their short presence within the visibility zone of airspace reconnaissance radars. Maximum detection ranges, as demonstrated by the existing types of tactical air defense radars at altitudes of up to 50 meters in a situation where screening angles are minimal and there is no jamming, do not exceed 20 km. Where the enemy employs electronic jamming, the detection ranges will decline in proportion to its intensity. Moreover, continuous radar emission will be rendered impossible by the likelihood of enemy antiradar missile strikes.

Visual detection of flying helicopters will be practiced as well. To this end, all combined-arms elements and air defense elements should assign air observation posts equipped with different optical instruments. Aside from that, optical and television-optical detection equipment available to antiaircraft systems can be used on a broad scale. But visual reconnaissance capabilities are directly dependent on air transparency, smoke and dust screening over the battlefield, weather, season, and time of the day. Given minimal terrain screening angles, visual reconnaissance equipment makes it possible to detect helicopters at altitudes of up to 50 meters within not more than 10 km.

As is evident from insights into capacities of reconnaissance equipment available to Air Defense Troops, ground-based air reconnaissance radars, air-search radars and television-optical sights (TOS) of antiaircraft missile systems, as well as visual reconnaissance equipment all have a very limited capability to spot helicopters operating at altitudes of up to 50 meters, particularly so against the background of intensive electronic jamming and antiradar missile firing. In part the problem can be solved with the help of airborne (including helicopter-based) early warning systems, as well as air-based aerostatic multifunctional platforms, balloons and airships with radars using various detection and position finding principles.

It is air defense weapons of first-echelon combined-arms large units and units that primarily have a duty to deal with combat helicopters. A comparison of the maximum range of Hellfire ATGM, the main weapon on board attack helicopters, with maximum effective ranges of the existing tactical antiaircraft weapons, with account taken of their distance from FEBA, suggests the conclusion that ATGM-carrying attack helicopters need not penetrate the impact zone of tactical antiaircraft weapons and can fire their missiles from a safe spot.

A most important point in combat employment of helicopters, particularly their specialized attack variety, is that they spend a very brief time within the impact zone of antiaircraft weapons (from the moment of climb to 30-50 meters to descent after firing at a target). So-called dead time, as calculated for attack helicopters (includes time intervals spent in the climb, search and location of targets, aiming, launching and guidance of ATGM, and descent) is some 44-58 seconds for state-of-the-art helicopters. This indicator is even smaller (ATGM guidance time is dropped from the tally) in the case of Apache Longbow choppers which can carry "fire-and-forget" third-generation Hellfire ATGMs with active radar seekers. Moreover, their onboard Longbow radar can classify identified targets, single out 16 most dangerous ones and launch missiles. Consequently, visual target search and detection as well as missile aiming have to be dropped from the overall dead time where specialized attack helicopters of Apache Longbow type are concerned. Thus, their overall dead time is unlikely to exceed 10-15 seconds.

Apart from that, each Apache Longbow possesses an onboard radio-frequency interferometer that registers emitting objects (air defense radars) and automatically picks out the most dangerous targets, which are displayed on the VDU of its fire control system. The fact that its basic load of ammunition includes, aside from 16 Hellfire ATGM, two antiradar missiles, Sidearm, which have an effective range of 10 kilometers, considerably reduces the capability to address these targets, as inherent in tactical antiaircraft systems.

Fighter aviation is not efficient enough in combating attack helicopters either. Simple calculations show that the fighter aviation is unable to beat back in good time an assault by specialized attack helicopters either from airfield alert duty status or from combat air patrol status over friendly territory. In addition, modern fighter planes, due to imperfection of their aiming systems, are hardly capable of engaging attack helicopters operating at very low altitudes from the hovering status. Consequently, different weapons have to be used and new methods of their employment have to be found if advanced helicopters are to be combated.

Our own attack helicopters can make one of these weapons. Earlier they were used for combat air patrol duty within the national air defense system to intercept targets at very low altitudes. In the course of combat operations, they were due to engage in air-to-air combat for self-defense. But there were no plans for purposeful employment of attack helicopters within the air defense system. Nor were there intensive studies in this respect. The latter circumstance can be explained by the fact that helicopters' limited capability to destroy air targets made any contemplated mission of that kind seem inefficient from the start.

Currently, however, new opportunities have emerged for organizing air defenses with the use of attack helicopters in operations mounted by combined-arms large strategic formations. The helicopters' state-of-the-art onboard electronic equipment (OBEE) enables night-time employment of organic guided and unguided weapons; it also enhances combat efficiency of weapons and safety of night flights at very low altitudes.

In addition, new advanced helicopters, with their inbuilt sophisticated all weather weapon control system, an onboard self-defense system, 30-mm cannon, ATGM and air-to-air GM, will be able to shoot down practically all aerodynamic manned and unmanned aircraft at low and very low altitudes. Moreover, in a duel situation involving a helicopter and a plane, the helicopter is at an advantage in using missiles with an infrared seeker, since IR signature of plane motors is three to five times higher than a helicopter's.

Thus, it makes sense to use attack helicopters within the air defense system of a combined-arms large strategic formation, more specifically, within fighter cover system. It ought to be called air cover system. In this case, what is meant by an air (fighter) cover system is a totality comprising a fighter force and an attack helicopter force, as well as zones (areas) of combat operations mounted by fighter regiments and independent helicopter regiments as they address missions designed to protect force groupings and facilities from attacks by air adversary.

An attack helicopter force means independent helicopter regiments organized in a system and deployed over terrain at primary and alternative airfields (landing pads) within the zone of responsibility of a combined-arms large strategic formation; zone (area) of combat operations of such regiments means a territory and airspace, within which independent helicopter regiments perform combat cover mission. This zone should be assigned for better coordination with fighter units, air defense troops, and EW units (elements); for rational disposition of reconnaissance and C-and-C equipment; and for delimitation of responsibilities for the cover mission. In zones (areas) of combat operations, army aviation should be assigned a zone (zones) where attack helicopters would perform airborne alert duty, independent sweep (roving patrol) area (areas), ground alert duty strip (strips), and ambush strips.

Committing "fighter helicopters" against the potential enemy's advanced combat helicopters, given the brief dead-time indicator of the latter, should be from the airborne alert status. Based on the width of defense and offense zones of combined-arms large units, helicopter airborne alert zones have to be assigned within a zone occupied by first-echelon combined-arms large units. The number of such zones will be determined by operational situation and the size of engagement zones of onboard weapons during the firing at air targets. The distance of airborne alert zones from FEBA will depend on maximum effective range of ATGM carried by enemy helicopters, the effective range of friendly air-to-air GM, and the distance from FEBA and effective range of enemy air defense weapons.

It makes sense to install on our helicopters air-to-air GM with an effective range of not less than 15 kilometers so that the distance between helicopter airborne alert zones and FEBA be at least seven kilometers. This will enable being at very low altitudes off engagement zones of enemy air defense weapons. Anyway, to increase helicopter battlefield survivability in the face of enemy air defense fire, helicopters have to be provided with not fewer than two antiradar missiles.

Then it makes sense to directly control airborne helicopters from a radar-equipped airborne command post, or, in an extreme case, from a vectoring and target designation post within the command center of a SAM unit of a combined-arms large unit. To guarantee flight safety within the range of tactical air defense weapons, coordination with the latter will be the duty of a combined air defense and aviation command center of a combined-arms large strategic formation and air defense C-and-C centers of combined-arms large units.

Using helicopters within tactical air defense system will make it possible to compensate defects of SAM-artillery and fighter cover primarily in the fight against the potential enemy's specialized attack helicopters and other low-flying air targets, something that will considerably enhance efficiency of tactical air defenses in operations.

Col. V.I. TKACHEV