It is not me but the majority of experts. Look how many nations have bought the machine. Anyways …

If that’s your honest reasoning, then the T-54/55 and T-72 are much, much, much better tanks than the Leopard 2 is, along with the Centurion, the M60…

Why has it been so successful? Well, it must be because it’s just that great. This must not have anything to do with it:

As Defense News notes:

“How dramatic the [German] Army’s transformation really is can be seen in Structure 2010, to be adopted as of 2007. The service will reduce its fleet of main battle tanks from 2,528 to 350, infantry fighting vehicles from 2,077 to 410, artillery pieces from 1,055 to 120 and helicopters from 530 to 240…”

These figures help to explain how the Leopard 2 has become the modern-day standard European and Scandinavian tank via second-hand purchases and upgrades. Not to mention the remarkably inexpensive terms on which countries like Greece and Spain are acquiring them. While Germany will not sell them to just anybody (it refused Turkey, for instance), the fire-sale process for those countries that are on the approved list make serious consideration of new-built Western 6th generation tanks like the American M1 Abrams, British Challenger, or French LeClerc virtually impossible. Even far-inferior options like the T-72 make little sense in this context.

Go down this list and see how many were from Dutch or German stocks.

Similarly, why do you think the Abrams has been so successful in the Middle East? Its desert track record and the US military aid to countries in the Middle East must not have anything to do with it. You can only spend US gift money at US stores, so the Abrams is popular with those countries.

Sell your story to someone who’s buying it. It’s a great tank, I’ll give it that, but the number of operators of a piece of equipment don’t always support its claims of superiority. This is one of those cases.

Logan Hartke

Well, thats my point. The wings on an F-105 are great for high speed at low altitude, but they aren’t good for getting off of a runway, which you know.

That’s because it was a Republic aircraft. Pilots always used to joke that if they built a runway around the equator that Republic would build a plane that would have to go around more than once to take off. The runways kept getting longer, but from the P-47 to the F-84 to the F-105, they always used up every bit you could build.

Logan Hartke

It’s not a matter of just being self-contained. As weapons and ammunition expert Tony Williams pointed out…

A simpler alternative would appear to be to use existing turrets from army 155mm self-propelled artillery. BAe Systems proposed a weapon based on the British AS90 Braveheart SPG, intended to achieve 18 rpm. France also considered such a solution based on the turret of its GIAT 155mm/52 gun (19 tons unloaded) together with PELICAN guided ammunition, with a range of 85 km, but that now appears unlikely to happen. The Germans have actually mounted an 18 ton turret from their 155m PzH 2000 SPG to the F124 class frigate Hamburg for demonstration purposes (made easier by their MEKO modular armament system for warships). The concept is known as MONARC (which stands for the German for Modular Naval Artillery Concept for Naval Gun Fire), and is claimed to be capable of 10 rpm. Rheinmetall is also developing a new generation of 155mm ammunition which doubles the current maximum range to 80 km.

Army turrets need considerable modification to compare with purpose-designed naval guns. The MONARC installation requires the turret to be installed in a flexible mounting to help absorb the recoil. It is also necessary to fit a gun stabilising system to compensate for ship movement, and the ammunition storage and handling systems need to be modified. Perhaps the most obvious difference is that army guns do not use naval-style fixed ammunition (i.e. the cartridge case and projectile fixed together so they can be mechanically handled as one unit). This implies that either new cartridges (and thereby new guns) need to be developed, or it will still be necessary to have manual handling of modular propellant elements in the turret, something which naval guns moved away from several decades ago. The AS90 at present also has an air-cooled barrel, which means that although it can fire 10 rounds in the first minute, it can manage only 6 rpm for three minutes. BAe were presumably proposing to fit a new water-cooled barrel to achieve 18 rpm, which would account for the quoted weight of 29.5 tons (excluding magazine).

More recently BAE Systems have changed tack and are now offering a new concept, the existing 4.5 inch Mk 8 naval mounting with the gun switched to the 155mm L/39 from the AS90. This is known as the 155 TMF (Third generation Maritime Fire support). The existing mounting is apparently strong enough to stand the additional weight and recoil (and could also accept the 155mm L/52 if required). The weight of the 155 TMF mounting goes up from 22.5 tons (Mk 8 Mod 1) to 24.5 tons. although this is still lighter than the original 4.5 inch Mark 8 Mod 0 at 26.4 tons. Other modifications needed to the mounting include a double-loading cycle to fire the separated ammunition (which would presumably halve the RoF to around 12 rpm) plus some adjustments to accommodate the wider ammunition. It appears that the gun will use a single-module L10 artillery charge. Obvious advantages include commonality of gun and ammunition with the British Army, 80% commonality with the existing Mk 8 Mod 1 mounting, and greater destructive power than the 5 inch gun with a longer range than even the new 4.5 inch Extended Range ammunition (30 v. 27 km)

Logan Hartke

The main problems with Yefim Gordon are his lack of attention to detail and his fervent anti-Western bias.

I agree 100% with this. I find much of his writing to be the best on the subject (Russian/Soviet aviation). Without Yefim Gordon’s books, I think we would have a much shallower knowledge of Russian/Soviet aviation. That being said, he could do a lot better in a number of areas. He’s the best writer I know of on Russian aviation, but certainly not one of the best aviation authors overall.

I recently bought his Red Star book on the Il-12 and Il-14. It is a perfect example of both Gordon’s good and bad traits. The book is fairly thorough and covers a family of aircraft that wouldn’t ever have gotten an English language treatment had it not been for Gordon. Thanks to Gordon, not only can we get a book on a relatively boring and obscure aircraft, but a fairly good-sized book. This is no Squadron/Signal. This is a book with 127 pages devoted to the Ilyushin twins in all their glory. It has variants, scale drawings of every major variants, listings of all the users and their service history, rare black and white images – many never before published, and great color photographs.

Then there’s what SOC was talking about. Both of those traits come out clearly in just one paragraph. One paragraph devoted to hurting his credibility as a historian and annoying the readers most likely to buy his book.

“The military service history of the IL-12 includes one more sombre page. An unarmed aircraft with 21 passengers on board became a victim of wanton aerial piracy. On the last day of the Korean War, 27th June 1953, an IL-12 performing a flight 300 km (186 miles) north of the border between North Korea and China was attacked and shot down by a USAF North American F-86G Sabre jet fighter flown by Ralph Parr which had intruded into Chinese airspace. Its pilot could presumably see that he was attacking a defenceless passenger aircraft.”

That passage comes from the book to a punctuation mark. First, is the unarmed comment. While technically correct, just nine pages earlier in the book he goes on for paragraphs about how the military version of the IL-12 had provisions for over 6.5 tons of bombs and a machine gun turret on top of the aircraft. Furthermore, it had firing ports in its windows for use as an assault transport. Then he acts like the aircraft was impossible to have been confused for an armed military transport.

Second, it didn’t have 21 passengers, it had 15 passengers and 6 crew.

Third, the end of the Korean War (and the kill) occurred on 27th of July, not June.

Fourth, I don’t know where he gets that 300km figure from, but he acts as if its undisputed or undeniable. It’s a matter of one person’s word against another unless remains of that exact aircraft are found near that position. Personally, I find it hard to believe that Parr penetrated 186 miles into Chinese airspace, shot down an airliner, then made it back without anyone trying to intercept him. On top of that, the normal combat radius of the F-86 was just a bit over 400 miles and the distance from Kimpo to the Yalu plus the Yalu to where Gordon claims it was is just a hair under 400 miles. Obviously, Parr took off without having to wait to form up with anyone,, flew directly to his target, shot it down instantly, and flew straight back and landed with dry tanks. Yeah… I’m not saying the flight crew of the Il-12 took them for a trip over Seoul, but acting like they were just minding their own business hundreds of miles north of the Yalu in a pseudo-neutral country is just as preposterous.

Fifth, F-86G? I doubt it. Even Corgi could have told you it was an F-86F flown by Capt. Parr on that day. Joseph Baugher is kind enough to freely tell us on the web that it was an F-86F-30. This isn’t just a case of another person mixing up F-86Es and F-86Fs in Korea, the F-86G wasn’t even produced, just proposed then redesignated. Big foul-up.

Sixth, “Ralph Parr”? Had he no rank? Typically, military pilots are preceded by their rank, but I guess since he was a “pirate”, not a heroic defender of the motherland, he doesn’t count. That’s Captain Jack Spa… I mean Ralph Parr.

Seventh, “intruding”? If China was neutral, how would Gordon explain all the “intrusions” by hundreds of Chinese MiG-15s on a daily basis?

Eighth, “[its] pilot could presumably see that he was attacking a defenceless passenger aircraft.” Says who? First of all, I’ve already discussed how Gordon talks about the significant weapons-carrying capabilities of the IL-12 just a few pages earlier. Second, even if he could see it was defenseless, how was he to tell it was a passenger aircraft, especially with the pseudo-military nature of all the Communist countries national airlines at that time, something even Gordon admits to later on in an unrelated section of the book.

Gordon would be a superb author if Russian and Soviet aviation existed in a vacuum…but it doesn’t. It evolved throughout history taking many pages from Western designs, not just the DC-3 (Li-2), PBY (GST), and B-29 (Tu-4). Gordon constantly eludes to the West, especially America, stealing design elements or entire configurations from various Soviet aircraft, even when chronologically illogical.

He’s a great author in many ways and has added much to aviation literature, but he’s not the best, not by a long shot.

Logan Hartke

Very neat, 21Ankush. Thanks for the clarification. What are the two AT missiles on the outer pylons in that pic of the LCH that you posted? Mine just had rockets and Mistrals if I recall correctly.

The Dhruv WSI is the one like the PZL Głuszec. The LCH is the one like the Ansat, got it. Thanks for those WSI pictures.

Logan Hartke

Why they copy Hughes 500 and early Mangusta ?:eek:

You can’t be serious.

I have been following this helicopter for a couple of years now and am really quite impressed with the design. It seems to be one of the most practical and advanced helicopters coming out of Russia right now. It could be a real good way to break into some Western markets if they start advertising well.

The Ansat-2RC seems like an especially good option for countries like the Philippines that need a few cheap attack helicopters that are real attack helicopters but have a small pricetag and low operating costs. It’s actually fairly innovative and, if they play their cards right, it could be a serious competitor to the Dhruv. Kazan needs to start offering them bundled with Mi-17s to get them out on the market. Some Ansat-Us could be offered with Mi-17s in a “training package” or some such.

I’d head that the Ansat-2RC was displayed under a different designation at MAKS 2007 and that they’re planning a new version with higher stub wings and wheeled landing gear (the higher stub wings are needed), but I haven’t seen any photos of such a configuration. Does anyone have a picture of a model or mockup (or better) of that layout?

One of the things that is about themost innovative of the armed Ansat is the compartment for one person at the rear of the airframe. See the door and porthole?

As we’ve seen from recent British Apache operations with Royal Marines, sometimes there’s a need to extract one or two men and all you have available for the mission is attack helicopters. If another Ansat-2RC crashes, two Ansats can immediately land and recover the crew to get out. That way it’s not another helicopter coming to retrieve corpses 30 minutes later.

Here’s some more photos of the Ansat-2RC:

http://www.photoka.info/ansat-2rc/index.htm

Logan Hartke