Is it true that the Mil Mi-24 is so heavily armoured that the Mujahideen in the afghanistan war had to hit the tail rotor to down this one ? Regards, Che.
I find that unlikly When you consider the damage an RPG can do to an APC I fail to believe that these things could lift with huge ammounts of armour needed to resist RPG and stinger attacks. However they would be able to resist small arms fire and probably light and maybe medium MG's to some extent. FNG
Yes, the Hind was as vulnerable to a Stinger (or any SAM, for that matter) as any other aircraft. AAA would also take one out.
AAA did have hell of a problem with MiL-24. Main components (including most voulnerable like windsheild, rotorhead) were dimensioned on 23mm AA gun (most western wheeled APC's are still dimensioned on 7,62mm and/or 12,7 mm). Most casulties of Mil-24's were by RPG. Stingers did not kill so many Hinds as it is represented in western literature, but they did coused a significant change in tactics and improvent in countermesures ( which were nonexistant to that point).
Anti aircraft missile I very much that there is an aircraft in the World that can survive a direct hit by even a relatively outdated anti aircraft missile ( even a hand held one ), the kinetic energy of which, even it it struck without exploding, would be enough to severely damage sufficient on board systems as to render an aircraft incapable of either control or even flight. BG
I don't know, you would be surprised at how much punishment some of the older more airworthy planes and helos can take. Plus the kinetic energy from a hand held SAM or RPG is negligable as it is based upon mass. It's the same principal that bullets do not knock people back. FNG
Not exactly true. Few Su-25 survived a direct hit by stinger. When first Su-25's were doing combat testing in Afganistan, soviets analised the couses of losses. As it turned out a hit usualy blew an engine apart parts of which ussualy second engine and ruptured a fuel tank. Soviets modified the planes by placing a titanium armour plates between both engines and between the engines and fuel tank. After that Su-25's were coming back even when hit direcly to the engine. Up to aperance of stingers Mil-24's did not apply any countermesures (passive or active). Since mujahedeen any had 12,7mm HMG's (DsHK or Utes) and small arms fire no IR countermesures were needed. After that passive (IR dampers) and (active flares and chaffs) were employed. Tactics also changed.
Re: Anti aircraft missile The last NATO/ US assessment I saw on Ka-50 Hokum was that it is effectively immune to ALL hand-held SAMs with the exception of Starstreak (mostly kinetic penetrator rather than pure blast/ fragmentation). It has also been shown to to be fully resistant to 23mm autocannon fire in the cockpit area.
The most vulnerable areas of any helicopter are the sensitive and complex main rotor-assembly itself... and the tail-rotor-area. A hit in either region and that bird is likely going down. Tim
MI-24 is a working horse.A real machine,we can include there his younger brotther Mi-35.On western side it is not the unworthy flawed AH-64,it is A-10.AH-64 is to easy target for any hand-held weapon,and some decent AA system.In Ex Yu ,actualy albania and kosovo,3-4 apaches was downed ,US military claim that they crashed doing mechanical break,what was long shot (ok,1 can drop,maybe 2 ,but hardly more) A-10 surived direct hit by Strela 2M systems ,and alot AA direct hit by shell ,what is for any respect.
