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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| 'They cleaned everything up.' Ukraine is running out of helicopters |
| 2023-07-21 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov [REGNUM] As long as the West promises to supply American-made fighter jets to Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine run the risk of being left without helicopters. High losses in personnel and attack aircraft are forcing Kyiv to turn to the countries of the former "Eastern Bloc" for Soviet-made helicopters. Croatia and Estonia have already announced their intention to give the APU all the helicopters they have. Aircraft deliveries are carried out by Poland, North Macedonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. However, these reserves are not unlimited. Moreover, the Ukrainian Air Force continues to lose not only flight equipment, but also military pilots. The British newspaper The Times interviewed the crew of the Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter, who revealed not the most pleasant details of their service and complained about high losses. According to the pilots, helicopters are forced to make one sortie per day, saving aviation ammunition and the resource of equipment that needs to be repaired due to a high degree of wear. In addition, half of the personnel of the unit in which the pilots serve was destroyed in previous battles. The rest are aware that each sortie could be the last due to the activity of Russian air defense systems and fighter aircraft. “Russian planes are much better than ours,” Ukrainian pilots admit. The main combat vehicles of the attack aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are the Mi-8 military transport helicopters and the Mi-24 attack helicopters, produced back in the Soviet years. At the same time, the Russian Aerospace Forces use modern Mi-28 and Ka-52 helicopters to carry out air strikes. As an attack aircraft pilot, a veteran of military operations on condition of anonymity, noted in a comment to IA Regnum, each individual helicopter of the Russian Aerospace Forces surpasses the Ukrainian one in a number of indicators. “If you do not take our numerical superiority, do not take the average age of the vehicles for now, but take each specific vehicle and its combat qualities from us and from them. So, Ukrainian aviation is mainly engaged in "cabring." This is when a helicopter pilot lifts the nose of the vehicle and fires a salvo of unguided combat missiles. It turns out an analogue of a multiple launch rocket system for the poor. The accuracy of such strikes is very conditional. Our helicopters use a range of guided weapons. Here are the Vikhr anti-tank systems, which, by the way, are now precisely destroying their equipment in the Zaporozhye direction, and modern developments. For example, "Lemurs", as the pilots call them. This is a multi-purpose guided missile - LMUR, aka "Product 305". It has a range of over 10 km, which allows it to deliver accurate strikes while remaining outside the enemy's air defense coverage area. Therefore, even in this indicator, they are seriously lagging behind. Their attack aircraft now performs more auxiliary functions, and the efficiency of the flight of one Ukrainian helicopter is lower than that of ours," the expert notes. According to the analytical portal Lostarmour, whose users record losses in military equipment based on data from open sources, during a special military operation, the Ukrainian Air Force lost at least 14 Mi-8 helicopters, three Mi-24s, and one Mi-14 helicopter. The English-language analytical portal Oryx gives a figure of 31 destroyed helicopters of all types. In addition, a large number of helicopters were lost by Ukrainian aviation between 2014 and 2022. The real losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can be much higher, since part of the flight equipment was destroyed at home airfields. NATO countries were only able to partially make up for these losses. Croatia handed over 14 Mi-8 helicopters to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Slovakia handed over four more helicopters. However, some of them had to be delivered on tractors, since the cars were in a non-flying state. Poland agreed to transfer 10 Mi-24 helicopters to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but their condition also raises questions. Another 14 helicopters of this model agreed to be transferred to Macedonia. Another five Mi-17 helicopters (export version of the Mi-8) were handed over to the United States, taking equipment from the former Afghan Air Force. However, the interlocutor of IA Regnum draws attention , most of the vehicles transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not intended directly for combat operations. “Let's take the Mi-8/Mi-17. He has a task: to deliver a landing group, to cover it with fire if necessary. They do not carry heavy weapons. This is a task for the Mi-24/Mi-35. There are dozens of such machines, and even in a combat-ready state, in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There are different numbers, but I will assume that up to 40 pieces are usable. There is nowhere else to take it, everything has already been cleaned up,” the specialist noted. The expert also drew attention to the fact that Ukrainian pilots complain about the lack of ammunition for their helicopters. According to the specialist, the West is not able to compensate for the shortage of aircraft missiles due to the fact that their production is located in Russia. Earlier, the United States and Great Britain have already provided Ukraine with "smart" aviation missiles Hellfire (in the British version - Brimstone), Kyiv also received a batch of American-made Zuni unguided missiles. However, they are not used by the Ukrainian Air Force. “We are talking about the banal S-8 unguided aircraft missiles. They were always produced here in Samara, in my opinion, or in Kirov. Similarly with the heavier S-13s used by Mi-24 helicopters. There is no physical place to take them, because the stocks of the countries of Eastern Europe show the bottom. And all the missiles supplied by the West, at least until recently, were launched only from ground containers made by local Kulibins. This greatly affects their fighting qualities. It is possible that they will be used to arm the equipment that Kiev is waiting for from the West, but this is just guesswork , ”says the source. According to the Times, Ukrainian pilots hope to receive attack helicopters in the future, as well as missiles and other Western-made weapons. However, this option also seems highly unlikely. “Attack helicopters as such are produced by only a few countries. These are Russia, China, the USA and several European countries. European ones can be immediately dismissed for a number of reasons. Only the United States remains - this is either the AH-64 Apache, or the AH-1Z Viper, or the Black Hawk - UH-64. Apaches can be ruled out right away, because their Ukrainians will never be trusted: the reputation of this car in the world market is very important for the States. Lighter cars remain, but even they are on the balance sheet of the Americans, there are no extra ones. So if something “falls” to the Ukrainians, these are the decommissioned AH-1 Super Cobras, which, however, were developed for the wars of the last century, but in general can replace the Soviet ones in terms of their performance characteristics and act as carriers of the same Hellfires and Brimstones. But while they are being taken out of warehouses, while they are being re-equipped, these are months of work and tens of millions of dollars. Therefore, it turns out that now there are no Western helicopters that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can receive,” the interlocutor of IA Regnum notes. So far, the West has limited itself to transferring one UH-64 Blackhawk helicopter and three S-61 Sea King transport helicopters to Ukraine, which is clearly not enough to re-equip the air force of a belligerent country. Moreover, no deliveries of helicopters of other models were announced anymore. Therefore, while Ukrainian pilots are dreaming of new helicopters, their ground attack aviation is using up the last stocks of missiles and in the foreseeable future risks becoming a relic of the Soviet past. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 Slava Gaza! Enjoy the prison of your own making. |
| Posted by: Enver Slager8035 2023-07-21 20:38 |
| #2 Just in the last 24 hours the glorious ukie army has advanced 2500000 microns and seized 3 grains of sand. And it only cost 30,000 lives. Slobber ukraina! |
| Posted by: ACA JOE 2023-07-21 20:31 |
| #1 Cope. Looking at Oryx, I see 99 verified Russian helo losses w/ 38 Ka-52 losses w/o the ability to build more Ka-52s due to reliance on western avionics. Meanwhile Ukrainian losses are 31 with 20 Mi-8. The US have diverted 16 new Mi-17s meant for Afghanistan to Ukraine and European allies have given many more Mi-8, Mi-24 gunships and western utility helos. I would like to see AH-1s transferred to Ukraine, not only for the armor killing ability, but for the AIM-9 Sidewinders they can carry for counter helo ops. |
| Posted by: Enver Slager8035 2023-07-21 19:24 |