Russians losing significant number of attack helicopters

 AFP:

Is the war in Ukraine sounding the death knell for attack helicopters? The large number destroyed has sparked a debate among experts over whether the aircraft are under-performing or being used poorly by Russian forces.

Saturated with anti-aircraft defences, both long-range systems and short-range missiles that can be carried and launched by a soldier (Manpads), the skies above Ukraine are deadly for helicopters.

The numerous videos on social media of Russian helicopter gunships being shot down are very public evidence of the extent of the losses.

Russia has lost at least 42 helicopters since its February 24 invasion and Ukraine seven, according to specialist blog Oryx, which has recorded material losses from photographs and videos taken from the battlefields.

Attack helicopters were designed to aid troops and tanks on the battlefield.

They are armoured themselves and heavily armed, but as the conflict shows, they too are extremely vulnerable.

Experts are divided as to why.

"Since those early days of the war, the air defences of both sides have had a clear deterrent effect on helicopter operations," according to Sash Tusa, an aerospace and defence analyst at Britain-based Agency Partners.

"These unpleasant reminders of the realities of high-intensity warfare against near-peer adversaries are in turn undermining the case for further investment in and maintenance of Western air assault capabilities, whether fixed- or rotary-wing," he wrote in the specialist magazine Aviation Week.

In other words, the future of the helicopter as an assault craft is in question, according to Tusa.

- 'Russian fiasco' -

Other experts point to Russian mistakes, such as the helicopter assault on the Gostomel airport near Kyiv at the opening of the invasion, which Ukrainian forces repelled.

Joseph Henrotin, a researcher at the Paris-based Institute of Comparative Strategy, called the operation a "Russian fiasco" that had nothing to do with the capabilities of the helicopters, but with how they were used.
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The Russians have not been very smart in this war and the Ukrainians have had the air of US and NATO that has made the choppers and Russian tanks more vulnerable.  The Russians do not seem to have an equivalent to the A-10 for attacking ground units.