helicopter, especially armed helicopter , has always been a powerful weapon for the army to provide firepower support to ground forces. However, in many cases, we only see the characteristics of the helicopter's strong firepower and superior maneuverability, and forget the vulnerability shortcomings of the helicopter. In this year's Russian-Ukraine War, the Russian army suffered a similar big loss in Ukraine.
According to the news released by the "War Zone" column of the US The Drive website, the British Ministry of Defense believes that in the eight months since the conflict broke out between Russia and Ukraine, the number of Ka-52 armed helicopters lost by the Russian army accounts for about one-quarter of the total number of the Russian army equipped. The British believe that the Russian army has a total of 90 Ka-52 equipment, and has lost about 23 aircraft (accounting for 25.56% of the total), more than one-quarter! The implication is that it implies that Russian armed helicopters have lagged behind in performance and suffered heavy losses.
(top view of Ka-52 helicopter)
Ka-52 is a two-seater, twin-engine heavy armed helicopter developed by the Kamov Design Bureau of Russia. The aircraft is optimized and upgraded from the card-50 armed helicopter . It is the only armed helicopter in the world that adopts a parallel two-seater design and is also the only coaxial reverse twin-rotor armed helicopter in mass production ( card-50 is not mass-produced). The Russian army is currently the only army equipped with coaxial anti-propeller armed helicopters.
(Ka-52 has strong firepower, especially the aircraft is designed by the Kamov Design Bureau , which is good at developing carrier-based helicopter . Therefore, there have been rumors that my country plans to purchase a batch of q-52 to equip the domestic 075 amphibious assault ship q-4)
Objectively speaking, the performance of q-52 is quite good. The aircraft adopts a coaxial twin rotor design, so its size is much smaller than that of the conventional q-3 aerodynamic layout q-4 helicopters. And most importantly, the aircraft rotates counter-directly to offset the force on the aircraft when the rotation of the rotor is each other, thus canceling the tail rotor design of conventional helicopters.
You should know that tail rotor generally needs to consume about 10% of the power of the helicopter engine, which means that under the same technical conditions, coaxial anti-pad helicopter is naturally 10% greater than conventional helicopters. The Ka-52 is a heavy armed helicopter with a normal take-off weight of more than 10 tons and a maximum take-off weight of 11.4 tons. Compared with the Martial-10, which has a maximum take-off weight of only 6 tons, the Ka-52 undoubtedly has obvious advantages in load, armor, etc.
(Ka-52 is a heavy armed helicopter with extremely powerful firepower)
Ka-52 helicopter is designed with 4 wing external points. Generally, it can carry 12 "Cyclone-M" laser-guided anti-tank missiles and 2 20 rounds of 80mm rockets launch nests. The fixed weapon of this aircraft is a 30mm single-barrel cannon, but since this cannon is installed on the right side of the fuselage, it can only strike the target on the right side of the aircraft, and it seems a little powerless to do anything about the target on the left side of the aircraft (it can only control the steering of the aircraft if you have to fight).
This is mainly because the Ka-52 helicopter adopts a coaxial dual rotor design, which leads to the large height of the aircraft. In addition, the nose is "occupied" by the radar and the photoelectric detection system, so the Ka-52's cannon had to be placed on the right side of the fuselage. But overall, the Ka-52 is a relatively excellent armed helicopter, which is one of the few heavy armed helicopters in the world that have direct confrontation with the US AH-64 "Apache".
(Ka-52, which was injured and forced landing on the Ukrainian battlefield, has not been seriously hit from the appearance)
So the question is: Why does an excellent heavy armed helicopter suffer more than one-quarter of the heavy losses in the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield where the intensity of the war is not particularly high?
First of all, there are frequent problems with the command and cooperation of the Russian army, which is the main reason for the heavy losses of the Ka-52 helicopter. Although the
armed helicopter has strong firepower and strong maneuverability, it is also very fragile. Helicopters all have a pair of huge rotors, which once rotates at high speed, it looks like a huge disc, which undoubtedly increases the area of the helicopter being bounced, causing the helicopter to be easily hit and injured or even crashed.Therefore, when armed helicopters provide fire support to the ground, they must also receive cover from ground troops, otherwise the helicopter will be easily attacked by the enemy's air defense weapon . In the 2003 Iraq War, there was a record that the elite US AH-64 helicopter was shot by the old farmer of Iraq with AK-47 rifles. Ukraine's air defense power was much stronger than Iraq in 2003. The West also assisted a large number of individual air defense missiles (the British emphasized that the portable air defense missile caused special losses to the Russian military), so it was not surprising that the Ukrainian army shot down a certain number of Russian military Ka-52s.
(USA AH1G Huey Cobra Armed Helicopter on the Vietnam battlefield)
Secondly, the British Ministry of Defense deliberately covered up the fact that the helicopter has "high combat loss ratio" in order to discredit the Russian army.
Since the vulnerability of helicopters exists objectively, the loss ratio of helicopters in actual combat is astonishing. In global history, the first large-scale investment of helicopters was Vietnam War . According to statistics, in the 12 years from 1961 to 1973, the US military lost a total of 4,892 helicopters in Vietnam, an average of 1.1 per day.
(For the US military, the helicopters of the Vietnam War during the Vietnam War can be said to be well-known and well-known)
In comparison, the Russian army lost only 23 Ka-52 in the Russian-Ukraine war over 240 days (the Russian army lost a total of about 54 helicopters of various types, with an average of only 0.225 per day, which is far smaller than the record of the US military 1.1 per day during the Vietnam War). This loss ratio is far smaller than the level of the US military in the Vietnam War. However, in order to cover up the incompetence of Ukraine and even the entire , NATO , the British Ministry of Defense specifically emphasized that the loss of 23 aircraft by the Ka-52 was more than one-quarter of the total number of aircraft equipped by the Russian army. This is undoubtedly a psychological warfare. The purpose is to imply that the Russian army has poor combat effectiveness and much loss of equipment.
(the convoy that transports supplies to the Russian army)
Finally, there is another point, Western countries , especially Britain and the United States, always fantasize that after encountering major setbacks, Russia will "retreat" and give up the war against Ukraine, and then let Britain and the United States' plan to contain Russia succeed. Nowadays, Western media continue to exaggerate the Russian army's "heavy losses" on the Ukrainian battlefield. In fact, they fantasize that the Russian army will shake the morale of the military because of the huge losses. However, when it comes to its own national security and future, will anyone give up easily? At least Russia won't.
(The Russian army has strong artillery firepower, so it is enough to pose a threat to the Ukrainian army)
is contrary to the hope of the West. Although the Russian army is not fighting beautifully today, it still has the initiative in war strategically. With the newly mobilized 300,000 troops in Russia heading to the front line, the Ukrainian army's situation will only be more difficult. It can be said that even if the Ukrainian army destroys all the Ka-52s of the Russian army, it cannot change the situation.
