The experience of the Second World War has clearly shown the full power of mobile armored formations. In the considered variants of the military confrontation between the USSR and NATO countries, armored formations were assigned the leading role in the implementation of deep breakthroughs through the territory of Western European countries, with access to the English Channel in the shortest possible time.
The production of tanks in the USSR, dispersed during the Great Patriotic War, did not slow down much after the end of the war. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of tanks in service and in storage was, according to various estimates, about 63-69 thousand units, the number of infantry fighting vehicles (BMP) and armored personnel carriers exceeded 75 thousand units.
Of course, such a threat demanded from the armed forces of Western countries to search for solutions to neutralize it. One of the most effective ways to counter the Soviet tank threat was the creation of combat helicopters with anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM).
The first ATGMs X-7 Rotkäppchen ("Little Red Riding Hood") appeared in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, but their use was not systematic. Around the same time, the first serial helicopter appeared - the American Sikorsky R-4 Hoverfly. It was as a result of the "crossing" of the helicopter and ATGM that the most effective anti-tank weapon of all existing ones appeared.
Conventionally, combat helicopters can be divided into two types. The first includes combat helicopters, created on the basis of multi-purpose vehicles, on which, in the course of revision, they hung ATGM launchers and elements of the guidance / control system. The disadvantage of machines of this type is often insufficient security, a limited set of weapons and overweight due to the cargo-passenger cabin (if the basis was a transport helicopter). Examples of such rotary-wing vehicles include the German multi-purpose and attack helicopter Bo 105 or the British Westland Lynx.
The second type includes specialized combat helicopters that appeared later, originally developed as anti-tank helicopters or fire support helicopters.
The first such helicopter was the American Bell AH-1 Cobra, which was put into service in 1967. The design of the helicopter turned out to be so successful that its modified versions are still used by the US Marine Corps, the armed forces of Israel and other countries of the world. The Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopter was primarily intended for air support, but its anti-tank modifications could carry up to four TOW ATGMs, and in the latest AH-1W and AH-1Z modifications, the helicopter can carry up to eight quite modern AGM-114 Hellfire ATGMs.
The imperfection of guidance systems and ATGMs of that time ensured the probability of hitting armored vehicles with a rocket from a helicopter with a probability of the order of 0.5-0.6, but this was only the beginning.
The main threat to Soviet armored vehicles was the newest AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, which entered service in 1984. This helicopter was originally intended to combat enemy tanks at any time of the day and is capable of carrying up to 16 of the latest AGM-114 Hellfire ATGMs with a firing range of 7 km in early modifications and 11 km in the latest modifications. Several seeker heads are provided for the AGM-114 Hellfire - with semi-active laser or active radar homing. At the moment, the AH-64 Apache in "D" modifications "E" remains the main combat helicopter of the US Army and is not yet expected to be replaced directly. In the AH-64D modification, the helicopter received a nadulok radar, allowing reconnaissance and use of weapons from behind cover "from a jump", and in the AH-64E modification, and the ability to control a slave UAV.
Attack helicopters of varying degrees of success have been released by other countries, of which the Franco-German Tiger helicopter of the Eurocopter company, the Italian A129 Mangusta of the Agusta company and the South African AH-2 Rooivalk (Kestrel) can be mentioned.
Air defense (AA) armored vehicles
In principle, the title of the article "Helicopter against a tank" is not entirely correct, since in fact a tank cannot oppose anything to a helicopter, but consider an anti-aircraft machine gun of 12.7 mm caliber as an effective means of air defense. Even the installation of remotely controlled weapons modules (DUMV) with a 30-mm cannon will not allow the tank to effectively resist modern combat helicopters.
Exercises conducted in the 80s of the XX century showed the ratio of the losses of combat helicopters to armored vehicles as 1 to 20. In addition, reconnaissance and strike complexes (RUK) of the Assault Breaker type, capable of hitting clusters of armored vehicles with high-precision submunitions, loomed on the horizon. As a result of the appearance of the above threats, the opinion about the decline of tanks as a class of combat vehicles began to be heard more and more often.
The development of military air defense was a response measure that increased the survivability of armored vehicles on the battlefield.
Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (ZSU) of the "Shilka" type could not effectively fight helicopters due to their short firing range. The Strela-1 and Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM) developed in the late 60s - early 70s used the highlighting of a contrasting target against the sky (photocontrast mode) as the main guidance mode. This did not allow attacking targets against the background of the earth, which is important when repelling the threat posed by combat helicopters. In the Strela-10 air defense system, the infrared guidance mode was used as a backup, but for its operation it was necessary to cool the infrared homing head (IKGSN) with liquid nitrogen, which is in the body of the rocket container. If the IKGSN was activated, but later the launch was canceled, for example, in the case of a target leaving the visibility zone, then it was no longer possible to reuse the infrared guidance mode due to the lack of nitrogen. Thus, the above-mentioned air defense systems cannot be considered full-fledged protection against combat helicopters with ATGMs.
The first effective military air defense systems capable of combating combat helicopters were the Tunguska anti-aircraft missile and cannon system (ZRPK) and the Tor-M1 air defense system. A feature of the Tunguska air defense missile system was the ability to defeat targets both by anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAM) in the amount of 8 pieces, at a distance of up to eight kilometers, and by two paired 30-mm automatic cannons, at a distance of up to four kilometers. Guidance is carried out both according to data from a radar station (radar), and according to data from an optical-location station (OLS). The supersonic flight speed of the missile defense system ensures the defeat of the carrier (attack helicopter) before the ATGM, which our opponents have for the most part subsonic, will be able to hit the target. In the event that ATGMs are not equipped with an autonomous homing head and require a target to be accompanied by a carrier throughout the entire flight of the rocket, this makes it unlikely that they will hit the protected armored vehicles.
Complex "Tor-M1" can hit targets with vertically launched missiles at a distance of up to twelve kilometers.
In general, the Tunguska air defense missile system and the Tor-M1 air defense system allowed for some time to significantly increase the combat stability of armored formations, protecting them from air threats in general, and from combat helicopters with ATGMs, in particular.
Modern trends in helicopter versus tank confrontation
However, time does not stand still. In the confrontation between armored vehicles and combat helicopters, the latter had new advantages.
First of all, the range of ATGM use has significantly increased. For the new American ATGM JAGM (Joint Air-to-Ground Missile), designed to replace the AGM-114L Hellfire Longbow ATGM, a launch range of 16 kilometers is declared when launched from helicopters and up to 28 kilometers when launched from aircraft, which allows it to be used outside the range of the military Air defense. ATGM JAGM includes a three-mode seeker with infrared, active radar and laser guidance channels, which makes it possible to hit targets with a high probability in a difficult jamming environment in the "fire and forget" mode. The purchase of ATGM JAGM for the US Army is planned from 2020.
Starting with the appearance of the AGM-114L Hellfire Longbow ATGM, equipped with an active radar homing head, the AH-64D Apache helicopters were able to hit targets using the "jump" mode. In this mode, a combat helicopter briefly gains altitude to search for and lock on a target, after which it launches an ATGM with an ARLGSN and immediately descends, hiding in the folds of the terrain. In the ATGM homing mode, continuous tracking of the target by the carrier is not required, which significantly increases the survivability of the latter.
Thus, the use of long-range ATGMs with multi-mode homing heads, allowing combat helicopters to operate from a "jump", largely negates the capabilities of military air defense based on the Tunguska air defense missile system and the Tor-M1 air defense system. The appearance in the troops of the Sosna air defense system will not change the situation, since the tactical and technical characteristics (TTX) of this complex do not exceed the performance characteristics of the Tunguska air defense missile system and the Tor-M1 air defense system. The situation can be partially corrected by the development of a military air defense missile system / air defense missile system based on the promising Pantsir-SM air defense system, which has an extended-range missile defense system and a potentially hypersonic missile defense system. Also developed for SAM / ZRPK "Pantsir-SM" small-sized missiles, placed four units in one container, can be effectively used to defeat already launched ATGMs such as Hellfire Longbow or JAGM, since the latter have a subsonic flight speed.
A radical solution could be the use of anti-aircraft missiles with ARLGSN capable of hitting helicopters hiding in the folds of the terrain. Only the development and use of such missiles as part of the Tor family air defense system or the Pantsir-SM air defense missile system (or any other short-range air defense missile system) will effectively deal with helicopters capable of attacking targets from a “jump”. The absence of air defense missile systems with ARLGSN as part of short-range complexes will require the involvement of at least medium-range air defense systems to solve problems of protecting armored vehicles from attack helicopters, which can hardly be considered an effective solution.
An alternative option is to move the radar to the air defense missile system at a height sufficient to detect hidden targets, while the problem of controlling the missile defense system outside the ground radar must be solved (transfer of the task of target tracking and missile guidance from the ground radar to the radar stationed on a drone of a quadcopter or helicopter type) … The advantage of this solution is the lower cost of hitting a target, since the cost of an air defense missile system with an ARLGSN is higher than the cost of an air defense missile with radio command guidance. The downside is the limited number of channels of simultaneous tracked targets.
The active defense systems (KAZ), which are gradually gaining their place on tank armor, can partially protect the tank from air strikes. Given that most of the potential enemy's ATGMs are subsonic, they may well be intercepted by KAZ. The most difficult target for KAZ are ATGMs attacking into the upper hemisphere, and of course the problem of oversaturation of the capabilities of the active defense complex to repel a simultaneous attack with several ammunition will not disappear.
Do not forget that the United States is actively developing projects for promising combat helicopters capable of moving at a speed of about 500 km / h. At the moment, these machines are at the testing stage, but their appearance in service with a potential enemy can be considered only a matter of time. This means that after the launch of the ATGM, they will be able to quickly change their position, which will allow them to get out of the capture zone of the ARLGSN before the missile defense system approaches the distance of confident target acquisition.
The prospect of the emergence of high-speed combat helicopters emphasizes the importance of creating a missile defense system with hypersonic flight speed over most of the trajectory. In the section of ARLGSN operation, the speed can be reduced in order to exclude the formation of a plasma layer that prevents the passage of radio waves (if the problem of the permeability of such a layer has not yet been solved).
At the moment, the main threat to armored vehicles is not enemy tanks, but disguised manpower and aircraft. This situation has been persisting for a long time, and it is unlikely that it will change in the near future. Ultimately, this can significantly affect the composition of weapons, the structure of active protection systems and the booking schemes for main battle tanks, which we will talk about in future materials.
