Ka-52 in Russian Air Force

And would mean further standardisation between the two types... which is a good thing.

It's been said before by others, but I really do think that the GSh-23 would be a great weapon to replace the 2a42 in both the Ka-52 and the Mi-28. 1000+ 23×115mm rounds would be better than having 460 30×165mm in the Ka-52.

I agree... the high velocity of the 30 x 165mm rounds is not really needed and vastly more ammo could be carried with the smaller round.

The internal load on the Kamov would be easier to increase capacity, while for the Mi-28 perhaps lower hull mounted long boxes with belted ammo inside could be fitted to carry a large amount of ammo for the nose mounted turret.

The smaller lighter gun with much lower recoil would offer less flight drag and would be more accurate in longer bursts, yet its heavy projectile would offer effective HE performance against most soft ground targets.

Why is the Ka-52 the only Russian attack helicopter without bullet-proof glass?

The curved glass is not bullet proof... neither is the curved cockpit on the top of the pilot and gunners positions on the Hind.

I don't know of any curved glass arrangements that are bullet resistant.

It is possible with the use of explosive bolts, the same ones that blow off the rotor blades in case of emergency, and I think that the same mechanism can be used to blow away the canopy.

They used to blow off the whole canopy but it turned out rather faster to just shatter the upper glass surface to eject through the canopy. If you look closely the top glass of the Ka-52 has a zigzag of opaque (not see through) material... that is actually explosive to shatter the material so the crewman can eject through.

Would not work with bullet resistant transparencies...

Are you sure about that? Bulletproof canopy glass is pretty much a must to have for today's combat helos, so why would be the Ka-52 an exception?

The screen fronts are 23mm cannon shell resistant... the curved top canopy is not bullet resistant.

BTW, there is no such thing as bullet proof.

The obvious downside is that the GSh-23 has an effective range of 1200-1500m against ground targets whereas the 2a42 has an effective range of 4km - more than 2x the range. The GSh-23 should have its rate of fire significantly reduced down to 800 rounds a minute.

With laser range finding and an accurate ballistic model for the round there is no reason why the GSh-23 could not hit targets at longer ranges than that.

Of course the adoption of Ugroza guidance kits for unguided rockets would mean HE rockets and HEAT rockets could all be precision weapons out to 5 or 6km range so a reduction in max range for the cannon would not be a huge problem.

Having a cannon able to carry thousands of rounds would be more use than a more powerful gun firing a few hundred rounds.

The HE power of the 23mm rounds makes them rather more effective than HMG rounds or 20mm light cannon rounds... against other targets 80mm rockets and ATGMs would be rather more effective.

The fact that you confuse the GSh-23 with the 2A14 and 2A7 is a point to begin with.

The twin barrel 23mm GSh-23 fires the 23 x 115mm AM-23 round specifically designed to be a low recoil compact round for aircraft to fire at other aircraft.

It uses the same projectile as the 23 x 152mm round as used by the two different guns used on the ZU-23 and the ZSU-23-4, but the shell case is much shorter and more compact, so it moves at much lower velocities.

Needless to say for firing up at fast moving aircraft the 23 x 152mm ammo makes sense to extend effective range, but to fire from the air at stationary ground targets the 23 x 115mm rounds are perfectly adequate and have enough HE power to do damage to the soft targets they hit or land very close by.

They are certainly not replacements for 80mm rockets in terms of HE frags.

The GSh-23 is actually rather accurate and quite a potent weapon that was regarded quite highly by South African pilots who flew the various aircraft it was mounted on (MiG-21, MiG-23, and inside gun pods and late model hinds).

Employed as a single gun it has a hard time trying to pinpoint selectively small targets.

Having four barrels would not change that very much.... for small targets like UAVs the Russians are going for guided 57mm and airburst 57mm and 30mm rounds...

The most importance is the 2A42 will keep Ka-52 and Mi-28 out of firing range of AA guns like Zu-23-2 or even manpads that are very popular, flexibly moving and difficult to detect in any confliction over the world.

That is the best reason to keep the current gun, but the introduction of guidance kits for 80mm and larger calibre unguided rockets together with ATGMs might represent a shift from being a "gun"ship to a rocket ship.

The low cost of the gun makes it useful but needing to get close to the target to use it makes it less useful.

Having guided rockets in large numbers at low cost could make the gun less useful for many missions.

The high power of the 30 x 165mm gun means long bursts move around the place a lot, whereas a lower power round (recoil) but still with a significant HE payload could make bursts more accurate and more useful... a burst of 10 rounds from the 23mm gun means a cluster of 10 explosions around the point of aim compared with a 2-3 round burst from the 30mm scattered further apart. The 30mm rounds with more HE but the greater distance and fewer rounds means perhaps less effectiveness.

Would be interesting to see an evaluation of the Mi-28 and Ka-52 in Syria compared with the Mi-35 Hind with the chin mounted twin 23mm guns.

I know that ZSU23-4 do not use the GSh-23 cannon, but the shell (except the propellant charge with its own case) I believe is the same, sharing the same basic aerodynamic characteristics. The slower velocity of the specific ammunition employed by GSh23 should only make precision a little worse, at least on longer ranges.

Extreme accuracy and muzzle velocity are not important for helicopter mounted guns... just look at the 30mm gun on the Apache.

The compact ammo would allow rather more ammo to be carried so using it in bursts of more than 5 rounds would make it more effective while not taking up more space on board than the much bigger 30mm rounds. The much lower recoil would also make bursts more effective.

Maybe in the 70ies and in the 80ies a GSh-23 was a pretty precise weapon, but by today's fairly extended engagement's ranges it could find itself at strain.

The weapon has very low recoil because of the very low muzzle velocity (normally about 700m/s) so very high rates of fire result in bursts creating clusters of fire like a shotgun blast. This made it very effective in the short range AA role (200-600m at most), but also in the air to ground strafing role too and it was found to be rather accurate in the latter role... it is also in gun pods for helicopter and fixed wing aircraft use.

Individual rounds lack the HE power of the much heavier 30mm rounds but a cluster of 3-4 rounds would actually be more effective against unprotected targets.
Especially on the ground.

The explosive shell by itself, anyway, had a short letality range, this is quite well known.

Very true, but that is also a criticism levelled at the 30mm cannon... the main reason the BMP-3 carries a 100mm rifled gun to deliver real HE fire power against soft targets.

I'm pretty sure that I read in the past some comment from officers belonging the Russian armed forces that the choice to ditch Gsh-23 on helicopters came after the experience in Afghanistan.

There were no helicopters in Afghanistan (1979-1989) that had 23mm cannons except mounted in gun pods under the wings.

My understanding is that the first Hinds there either had the first model single barrel 12.7mm gun or the 4 barrel 12.7mm gatling. The first gatling was criticised because of overheating... it was a light weapon. The improved model could fire the entire belt of ammo in one burst without over heating.

Either way the 12.7mm ammo didn't outrange the ground fire that included 12.7mm and 14.5mm HMG weapons and the odd 23mm gun (23 x 152mm).

The response was going to be a chin turret mounted 30mm but the ammo was too powerful to mount in a chin turret so the scabbed the gun to the side of the aircraft in a fixed mount. In the 1980s they managed to develop a chin turret as fitted to the Mi-28A, but was not until the mid 1990s that they managed to develop a 23mm chin turret... mainly because of the low recoil of the round they managed... the main issues AFAIK was ammo feed which was tricky because of the rate of fire of these weapons. The 2A42 on the Mi-28A and Ka-50 has a much more sedate rate of fire in comparison, but vastly more recoil issues.

There the old 12,7 mm gatling gun of Mi-24 proved totally inadequate on taking down enemies entrenched amid rocky terrain, mud walls and the likes, and Commands opted to rearm the Mi-24 with the GSh-23 as a stop gap measure.

The gatling was popular and found to be rather useful, but it lacked range as mentioned. The only GSh-23s on Hinds were in Gunpods AFAIK... they were also popular on Su-25s.

It was the reason behind of the choice of the 30 mm 2A42, because the single shot has far better letality, and the gun with its ammunition has far improved accuracy to engage selectively small targets, as a single AT team or similar entrenched, at long ranges, improving the helicopter's own security.

The Mi-28A and Ka-50 and the model of Hind with the twin barrel 30mm cannon would fire in single rounds where possible because the enormous recoil meant bursts were not very accurate... it is a very powerful round.

A long range target would likely be engaged with shturm or ataka ATGMs...

It was my understanding that it took rather longer to get the ammo feed working properly and while they were working on that they introduced the scabbed on 30mm twin barrel cannon. The chin turret model was not an option during the Afghan war because it was not working properly until the 1990s.

Before they put the 30mm gun on the side of the Hind they tried to develop a chin turret... it didn't work.

If you say they got it working by 1985... that is OK, but the fact that they kept making the 30mm model for 4 years after they got the chin turret 23mm gun going suggests there were problems.

They wanted a chin turret so the gunner could operate the weapons and the pilot could concentrate on flying the aircraft... with the fixed 30mm the pilot controlled the gun and the unguided rockets and any wing mounted gun pods while the gunner operated the guided missiles only.

With a chin turret, the gunner could operate the gun and the missiles...

With the Ka-50 the pilot was the gunner too so it was not an issue but the Ka-52 pretty much has the same issues in needing the pilot to aim the rockets and gun.

In reality, Soviet force in Afghanistan was most happy with Mi-24P due to its powerfull gun

It is a very powerful weapon... look at werewolfs signature to see how much the recoil throws the whole aircraft around during firing... In comparison the 23mm gun is much more suited to the role.