For the USSR it was the Stinger difference, in case you forget.

If the Talibs got Iglas or Stingers, Coalition rotorcraft are big time screwed.

I’m talking about Polish Mi-24s in the present Afghan war flying with the Coalition – and you’re right – the coalition would be screwed if the Taliban got their hands on a few hundred Stingers or Igla-2.

Edit: MSphere, already the Mi-24’s greenhouse was designed to withstand .50cal. I’m sure the Mi-28, as a battle/CAS helicopter is protected better than that.

More Mi-24Vs have been lost to Taliban ground fire in Afghanistan in the last 10 years, compared to Apache losses. The Polish AF have lost 3 HINDs altogether in Afghanistan to all causes, compared to 10 AH-64 losses. The greatest negative effect to Mi-24 survivability is probably its 12.7 mm rotary gun, which forces the Mi-24V to get in close to the enemy (and the enemys’ return fire). I think the Americans made the same mistake with the 7.62 mm minigun on its Cobras during the Vietnam war.
Stand-off attack ability is probably the method of surviving light ground fire – All gunships need a minimum of 20 mm gun, along with the necessary targeting and aiming equipment.

Somehow I don’t think you would have these doubts if the results were opposite :p

Well, Russians have often complained about been stereotyped, bears running wild in the streets etc, but there are also a whole load of ‘positive’ Russian stereotypes such as that Russian hardware is so much more tougher, durable more reliable simpler can work in harsher conditions, and so on. That’s certainly the case with a lot of Soviet and Russian army weapons firearms and what not, but with aircraft it’s a totally different ball game. The AH-44 is a complex beast, and it does take a lot of man-hours and servicing to keep it flying, but no other machine is equipped to take on a regiment of battle tanks in the morning and then fight the Taliban in the evening, like an AH-64…:cool:

Two AH-64s (86-9029 and 86-9033) were supplied from USAREUR stocks in Hanau, Germany for four-week evaluation in Linkoping and later over Northern Military District in 12 August 1995. Two months later, Russians supplied the third Mi-28A prototype numbered 042. In live test, the Mi-28 was flown with Russians at the controls with Swedes in the WSO/gunner position.

So, in fact both Apaches were being flogged to death by the US army in Europe for the previous 9 years – they both probably had about 2,000 hours flying time per airframe – in which case it’s hardly surprising that they may suffer the odd gammy clutch or software bug.

Curiously, no night mission scenarios were flown.

That kind of defeats the whole point of having this kind of assessment,doesn’t it? What time of the day do you think most of today’s heli gunships like the Apache, Tigre or Mi-28 are optimised for? Clue – the ‘N’ in Mi-28N stands for ‘Nochnoi’. Seems a bit unfair against the AH-64 – it’s a bit like entering Fred Astaire in a talent contest but then forbidding him from dancing!:rolleyes:

high vulnerability to hostile fire

How would they know that, did the Swedish army fire a few Bofors 40 mm rounds at both helis? AH-64 seems survivable enough in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On one occassion the Havoc experienced an engine problem caused by rocket plume ingestion but the control system engaged successfully and throttled it down automatically.

Interesting to read that. 2 Mi-28s have crashed in serious accidents. One of them was due to the engine ingestation of the unguided rockets’ exhaust during a weapons trial. Seems to be a serious problem with the Mil.

Not a single mission was called off in 30 hours of flight.

As apposed to the Apaches’ 100 hours flying

There were few problems with the weapons. Swedes had reservations about production quality of the prototype and also of Shturm and Ataka missiles (some rockets hit the targets but failed to explode). The 2A42 gun could not be used at that time due to bad boresighting.

So basically the testing of the Mi-28’s weapon systems were unsuccessful or were never carried out at all – and you’re somehow criticising the AH-64’s abilities!!:eek::rolleyes:

Night systems were lacking completely..

Of course they were, but I guess it helps avionics reliability. Like they used to say about the old Citreon 2CV: nothing could go wrong on it – because there was nothing to go wrong on it..

have kazakh mig-31s been upgraded to BM standard?

No.

I don’t think the Al-31 re-engining will happen. the russians did test one item if memory serves right but IAF seems to have decided re-engining is not cost effective.
you are correct about the fuel economy, the current flogger engines are unreliable to some extent and fuel guzzlers, being turbojets.

It’s interesting that the IAF won’t consider re-engining the MiG-27 with the AL-31, as that would probably cure the reliability problems and probably also improve fuel consumption for better range. I dare say re-engining the Mig would be a lot cheaper than re-engining the Jaguar with twin Adours or Garretts (a project which I believe is still going ahead?)?:confused: