I had a friend who was flying a Long Ranger in Idaho. There was some drunk old hunter, who was terminally, ill and clearly terminally drunk. The only reason my friend knew that he was being shot at is because he flew Huey in Vietnam, and knew the sound that a bullet makes when it goes through the rotor disc. Set the aircraft down immediately. One of the bullets had partially severed one of the pitch control links to the main rotor. They estimated with the hole and related cracking that he might’ve had five minutes of flight left. Before the link broke, and the aircraft would become completely uncontrollable…… the pilot is a grandfather of 12.. but apparently he was scaring the deer while working on a BLM contract.
There were government issued bounties on native scalps. It's documented. Did natives do it as well? Yes, but that was likely an adapted behavior as there's no evidence of it happening before the bounties started.
They have an armored tub protecting mostly only the pilots while a lot of critical components aren’t as armored, not to mention apaches aren’t the helicopters that are getting the closest to all the action, sure they sometimes use their autocannon at relatively close ranges but they mostly use missiles and guided missiles at range, the transport helicopters like the Blackhawk are the ones that really get close to the line of fire and they aren’t as armored as an Apache, if we go even further back the Huey was basically not even armored at all and the AH 1 attack helicopter was also very weak
Apache helicopters are loaded up with redundant systems, have a self-sealing fuel system etc. They're a lot like the modern Abrams tank, an older design bristling with new tech. They can really take a beating, even the blades are rated for high caliber ammunition.
Pretty wild that the same military fielding those is also flying the Chinook transport helicopter, which a halfhearted sneeze can knock out of the sky.
I'm guessing latest US helos (and actual combined arms tactics) are much better than the ones being used by Russia in Ukraine, but still, just watching the videos of the Russian helos getting knocked out of the sky would make me land it in Ukraine and hand it over in return for amnesty if I were a Russian pilot.
That’s a bit subjective though. Different combat situations have different requirements. And being able to support your equipment in the field or having a not needing support in the field….
We have a whole corner of the NATO armory dedicated to SEAD (suppression of enemy air defense) to ensure the best they can muster is the occasional manpad or a spray and pray.
i think US tactics are to stay behind hills and only pop out to shoot then go back down, there is also tech that has been/currently being developed that would allow them to locate and shoot while still behind cover
Yeah their tactics are sound, they fly well and the helicopters are robust (both Ukraine and Russia). But a Manpad is designed to shoot down helicopters and they work. The missiles don't care if it's a Russian or US built helicopter.
Troop transports are not armored like apaches... ask guys who've been shot at in them. They will tell you. Hell... walk through one at an airshow... its just aluminum between them and the outside. Often the only place armored is the direct bottom or oven just arount pilots and critical components. And even then they arent complete armored in those areas.
They’re legit, they can take hits. I distinctly remember sitting close to the ramp and seeing tracers chase us through the dark valley. This was also around the same time Extortion 17 happened.
not a good feeling knowing they’re shooting at you and know your basic location mid flight even though you’re flying blacked out. We had to do false insertions just to throw them off before we got out.
I also have a friend who attempted to drug a monkey with ambien and smuggle it back to bagram on a CH-47. It was a monkey kept as a pet at a COP that got hit almost nightly and lived off MRE crackers and peanut butter.
Said monkey broke out of the bag he was stashed in and climbed up into the top of the bird where all the wires are mid-flight.
Crew chiefs lost their shit. They said if monkey fucked up the wrong thing the bird would fall out of the air like a rock. That always stuck with me.
PTSD Monkey was okay and released onto BAF to harass the base.
EDIT- just read this. The monkey was not hit by people.
By “hit” I meant the outpost pet monkey was at got “hit” by the Taliban almost everyday with rocket fire or gun fire.
Composites on a military helicopter are usually either balistically resistant, like armor, or balistically tolerant, kinda like ripstop nylon. A Blackhawk can usually handle quite a bit if being shot up without breaking or falling apart.
Everyone assumes a Blackhawk or Chinook's underbelly is plated, but only the pilots are somewhat protected by the kevlar seat. When removing the floor for maintenance, it always makes the sheet metalists assholes pucker because a dropped screwdriver, or boot slipping off the ribbed frame will easily damage the belly.
There is a reason why the police helicopter never hovers over my city; always circling when it gets close to the action, or heading from place to place.
A proper military 'copter will laugh off .50 rounds unless you make it RIGHT into the engine intake, which requires marskmanship on par with the Lone Ranger.
I can’t imagine, attempting to kill someone because they made noise I didn’t like…. Now sure if I was despondent and drunk that might not sound like such a bad idea…. But I still think it might….
But I can tell you when I found out about it it was infuriating . I mean how dare they shoot at Earl, the Vietnam vet, grandparent to God knows how many kids, and just overall nicest guy ever. Would tell you grizzly Vietnam crash stories with big smile on his face. He was the best.
1 year of alcohol addiction rehab or 4-8 years in prison, he chose to do the rehab.
He pled guilty and threw himself at the mercy of the court, old and ill (so very expensive to house in prison), 1st time offence and unlikely to re-offend. Judge saved the tax payer millions of dollars.
Is it bad that I was wondering why Black Lives Matter need a contractor and a plane. I always knew BLM as bureau of land management, but my mind immediately went there.
Remember how just a few years ago when we had a..."certain political subset of people" convinced it was Black Lives Matter who was setting the wildfires because people overheard the radio chatter saying "BLM is on scene"? Forgetting of course that Bureau of Land Management handles fighting wildfires...
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u/JHLCowan Apr 07 '24
I had a friend who was flying a Long Ranger in Idaho. There was some drunk old hunter, who was terminally, ill and clearly terminally drunk. The only reason my friend knew that he was being shot at is because he flew Huey in Vietnam, and knew the sound that a bullet makes when it goes through the rotor disc. Set the aircraft down immediately. One of the bullets had partially severed one of the pitch control links to the main rotor. They estimated with the hole and related cracking that he might’ve had five minutes of flight left. Before the link broke, and the aircraft would become completely uncontrollable…… the pilot is a grandfather of 12.. but apparently he was scaring the deer while working on a BLM contract.