Recently, India, a military power in South Asia, once again welcomed an air military equipment. This is the light armed helicopter independently manufactured by India, referred to as the "LCH armed helicopter". At the same time, Indian Defense Minister Singh and others participated in the armed helicopter enrollment ceremony. The scene was quite spectacular, highlighting India's high expectations for the new armed helicopter. The Singh helicopter is named "Prachand", which means courage.
India has made great progress in military equipment in recent years. In addition to the first domestically produced aircraft carrier in service, it also developed the Guanghui light fighter, and the new armed helicopter. It was under the advocacy of Indian Prime Minister Modi that it relied on self-reliance to enhance the national defense industry and developed the LCH armed helicopter. Indian Defense Minister Singh promotes that the LCH armed helicopter is an important ideal platform for Indian Army , which can adapt to complex environments and terrain operations and can operate fully oiled at high altitudes. The Indian military is full of expectations for the LCH armed helicopter and firmly believes that it plays an important pillar of the Army and Air Force strike system.
India has been coveting armed helicopters for a long time. At present, the Indian Army is equipped with Mi-25 and Mi-35 armed helicopters. At the same time, India has purchased 28 AH-64E armed helicopters from the United States to increase the Indian Army's air strike capabilities, but it has always lacked its own armed helicopters. During the Kagill War in 1999, the Indian Army lacked armed helicopters to fight unrestricted in high altitude areas, and decided to develop its own country's weapons to adapt to ground strikes at high altitude areas. At the same time, it replaced the Indian Army with the "cheetah" type helicopters to develop domestic 4-5-ton light helicopters, strengthen the demand for armed helicopters between the Indian Navy and the Army, and required transportation, patrol and fire support.
At the same time, the Indian Navy hopes to develop anti-submarine and anti-ship helicopters based on armed helicopters. According to India's requirements for new helicopter indicators, it has a large power load and adapts to the conditions for use of high-temperature plateaus. It is difficult for India to rely on its own strength to develop the standards. It decided to sign an agreement with MBB Company in West Germany at that time to cooperate in the development. MBB Company developed and designed the helicopter's body, transmission system and rotor system. At the same time, the engine uses a "cheetah" helicopter equipped with a TM333 turboshaft engine, but after tortuous development, the helicopter finally joined the Indian Army in 2000 and is currently equipped with about 100 ALH helicopters, namely the "Polaris" helicopter .
was inspired by the successful development of the "Polaris" helicopter. India decided to improve on the basis of the "Polaris" helicopter, build armed helicopters, especially plateau armed helicopters, and enhance India's maneuver combat capabilities in high altitude areas. According to the plan, India will install photoelectric turrets on the ALH helicopter head, and also carry a 20mm-caliber rotary turret, and deploy 4 anti-tank missiles and airborne aviation rocket pods on both sides, launching LCH armed helicopters. It can be seen that the LCH armed helicopter uses European helicopter technology, but has been jointly developed by India and Germany, and has mastered the helicopter manufacturing plan, especially the helicopter engines are jointly manufactured by India and France.
LCH armed helicopter inherited the delay in Indian military equipment, and the first flight time was also postponed. In addition, this armed helicopter has the same idea as Indian military equipment, with the label "Made in All Nations". The optoelectronic system and helmet display are Israeli , and the rocket comes from France. India announced the establishment of the first LCH helicopter squadron, facing the lack of weapons and defense systems of LCH helicopters, namely, the domestically produced "Herina" air-launched anti-tank missile and domestic defense system, which means that the LCH helicopter has always remained incapable of offensive capabilities, which is exactly the same as India's first domestically produced aircraft carrier, lacking radar systems and obstruction cables.
The so-called "Made in India" strategy promoted by Indian Prime Minister Modi decided to equip his own defense system, resulting in the lack of overall combat capabilities of LCH armed helicopters. The LCH armed helicopter adopts a longitudinal stepped layout, with a narrow overall fuselage, which is conducive to the aiming and launch of weapons. The maximum take-off weight of this armed helicopter is 5.5 tons and a maximum flight distance of 650 kilometers. In particular, India focuses on combating at high altitudes, has high plateau performance, and can use airborne weapon systems at an altitude of 5,000 meters.
Although India has developed armed helicopters, due to its serious lack of military technology accumulation, it has to use foreign technology to enrich the armed helicopters. This has also led to the Indian LCH armed helicopters being unable to equip the domestic defense system. Their weapon systems are also patched together, carrying legal "Northwest Wind" air-to-air missiles and anti-tank missiles. The former has not been purchased from France.
India purchased the first batch of 15 LCH armed helicopters, including 5 Army and 10 Air Force. The most important thing is that Indian media claimed that the domestic production rate reached 45%, which is a major breakthrough in the field of Indian helicopters and is also a very remarkable breakthrough. At the same time, it emphasized that the plateau combat capability of LCH armed helicopters will play an important role in the Sino-Indian border area, ensure that India gains an advantage, and advocate that "China and Pakistan will panic."
Indian LCH armed helicopter is really that strong? How is the performance compared with China's deployment of the Marx-10 armed helicopter? First of all, the performance of the LCH armed helicopter is moderate, restricted by the engine, and lacks armor protection capabilities. Overall, it is lighter than the European "Tiger" armed helicopter , but it has very high maneuverability and lacks armor protection capabilities. Its battlefield survivability is worrying. Indian media claimed that the installation of LCH armed helicopters can reduce the cross-sectional area of radar and reduce infrared signals, aiming to reduce detectability, but it is also difficult to prevent low-altitude missile strikes.
日本-10日本-10日 is the first five-turn helicopter developed by China. It undertakes anti-tank combat mission and has excellent combat performance. It adopts the same longitudinal cockpit layout and narrow fuselage characteristics as the LCH armed helicopter. The fuselage is painted with composite materials to absorb longer radar waves and reduce its radar reflection cross-sectional area. The Martial-10 armed helicopter is known as the "treetop killer" and can engage in ultra-low-altitude combat.
Marine-10 armed helicopter has a maximum take-off weight of 6 tons, a maximum range of 855 kilometers, and can carry the Shangtianyan 90 air-to-air missile, AKD10 anti-tank missile, etc. During combat, the Marine-10 armed helicopter can be equipped with 4 quadrails, which can be equipped with 16 AKD-10 heavy anti-tank missiles to perform anti-tank operations, or 8 AKD-10 heavy anti-tank missiles and 2 19-mounted 57mm rockets to undertake assault operations; if it performs air combat, it can be equipped with 4 Tianyan-90 air-to-air missiles, 4 AKD-10 anti-tank missiles, and 2 57mm rocket launchers, which have very balanced overall performance.
India's LCH armed helicopter has a maximum ammunition load of only 500 kilograms. Compared with the Marine-10 armed helicopter, there is a big gap between the Marine-10 armed helicopter and the Marine-10 armed helicopter has a turboshaft-9G engine, which is fully capable of fighting at high altitudes. With the armor plate made of high-quality composite materials, it is light and bulletproof, allowing it to defend against large-caliber rifles at low altitude, which is incomparable to LCH armed helicopters. Overall, the weapon system and defense system of the LCH armed helicopter are incomplete, while the Martial-10 armed helicopter is a very mature army equipment, so the LCH armed helicopter is far from that of the Martial-10 armed helicopter.
At present, the Army of the Western Theater Command of China is equipped with the Marine-10 armed helicopters, which is deployed in the Tibet region, which means that the Marine-10 armed helicopters are available in high altitude areas. Compared with the Marine-10 armed helicopter, the LCH armed helicopter has no advantage. The limited avionics performance, insufficient loading capacity and weak protection are easily shot down, which will be its fatal flaws. Modern warfare is systemic combat. India is far inferior to China in systemic combat. If you want to rely solely on LCH armed helicopters to boast about its performance, it will be difficult to gain a comprehensive battlefield advantage. In the end, it may only be destroyed by ground air defense missiles or even shoulder-mounted missiles.
