Military Forum for Russian and Global Defence Issues
How much more expensive is the Ka-52 to the new Mi-28NM?
GarryB wrote:The Kamov design bureau did offer a two seat tandem for Turkey... they even called it the Erdogan.
I seem to remember it had an articulated cannon mount so it could be fired from the side normal position but could also be rotated down like an under nose weapon with a better field of fire.
Turkey was not interested of course so nothing really became of it AFAIK.
Very much Turkeys loss as I think it would have been a very powerful aircraft.
Originally the KA-50 was made a single seat helo because the job of the pilot was rather simplified and the fire control system has auto targeting so you could operate it like a fighter plane... this means with two crew you have two aircraft and twice the fire power.
Only problem was the Russian military was starting to demand all weather day and night capability and no matter how good your electronics and electro optics are flying at night is a full time job so they needed two crew.
They chose the side by side arrangement because of the better communications between the crew and to minimise the increase in weight caused by the larger crew compartment and extra armour.
Rmf wrote:you can put much better , wider and with less vibration radar in the nose of the helicopter.
Cyrus the great wrote:Ka-52 IGE: 5,500 meters
Ka-52 OGE: 4,000 meters
Compared to AH-64
IGE: 4,845 meters
OGE: 3,866
How effective would an advanced IRST be on the Ka-52 as a supplementary means of surveillance and detection? The PIRATE IRST can apparently track 200 aerial (subsonic) targets from 150 km from rear. I wonder how many ground targets it could track. Will the OLS-50 have comparable to superior performance?
GarryB wrote:If PIRATE can manage that sort of performance then why bother with a radar...
This would be 150 heat points above the horizon within its field of view and it would not have ranges for those targets...
Werewolf wrote:Cyrus the great wrote:Ka-52 IGE: 5,500 meters
Ka-52 OGE: 4,000 meters
Compared to AH-64
IGE: 4,845 meters
OGE: 3,866
How effective would an advanced IRST be on the Ka-52 as a supplementary means of surveillance and detection? The PIRATE IRST can apparently track 200 aerial (subsonic) targets from 150 km from rear. I wonder how many ground targets it could track. Will the OLS-50 have comparable to superior performance?
The numbers for HIGE and HOGE are wrong for both.
IRST was used on the first prototype of KA-52 since they lacked back than the Radar in operation. How well an IRST would do against ground targets is debatable based on the surface and much richer visual distracting environement it had to scan through unlike the clear sky.
GarryB wrote:What I was trying to say is that an IRST system is not the same as the thermal night vision equipment a helicopter carries.
An IRST just detects warm things like aircraft engines or the friction heated rotor blades of a hovering helo. The pilot wont know if it is the exhaust of an F-16s engine or a flare launched to defeat an incoming IR missile... or an IR missile whose nose is heated by the friction of flying at mach 2.
An IRST just locates the heat source... and for a fighter that is good enough because everything emitting heat above the horizon (ie in the air) is of interest... whether it is a short lived IR flare... which tells you an enemy fighter is somewhere nearby, or an incoming missile, these are things the fighter pilot would like to know about... an IR target would get him to turn his head to look at the threat... if it is close he can see what it is and if it is a long way away a quick scan with his radar will give him more information about it. Passing the information on to the local AWACS aircraft will get him even more info.
For a helo pilot operating at low altitudes however, an IRST is not good enough... 150 hot points on the ground could be 130 sun heated rocks that are warmer than the dirt around them.
An IRST just detects points of heat it does not create an image the pilot can look at and decide it is a tank or a tanks engine running or for that matter a small fire on the battlefield.
The thermal sights on a helo need to be imaging sights to be useful.
Newer Russian IRSTs include a TV and thermal channel for imaging targets so you can detect a warm or hot object and then look to see what it is. You can also turn the radar in the direction of the target to get information about its distance and speed vector without having to do a full scan of the area.
The advantage of IR systems is angular accuracy, the main problem is lack of ranging accuracy and therefore also lack of an ability to determine whether the target is moving or not.
A single radar pulse is changed if the object it hits is moving towards or away from the radar so distance and speed can be determined in one pulse... the problem is that without location information to begin with you need a broad scan of the air space to find it in the first place.
An IRST offers the chance to locate the target passively so getting more info is easier and less active. A small ranging pulse could be missed in the EM soup that is a combat area.
For an attack helo pilot finding targets using IR is more beneficial and being able to identify them based on the image created is much more useful than just having an IRST... but an IRST system can find points of interest over a large field of view rapidly so the thermal imager can then be zoomed onto the IR sources for identification without having to scan for hours at high resolution to find targets.
CM radar has the enormous advantage of range but is only useful for air targets and air threats. MMW radar is useful for ground targets at much shorter ranges.
A MMW only radar will lack range. A CM radar only will only be useful for air targets. Both are more useful than either one on its own.
They are talking about a radar and a thermal system for the UAV carried by Armata tanks... using a tether these will be very very interesting and probably useful for helos and ground attack aircraft too for collecting target data in real time.
It would seem that an IRST radar could perform the required tasks when tied with a thermal imager but it also seems that it would distract the crew;
An IRST radar requiring corroboration from a thermal imager would likely prolong the process of target identification and subsequent neutralisation.
How significant is the CM advantage on a MMW radar in terms of range for air over-watch mode?
Let's suppose that a foreign customer was impressed with the Ka-52 but specified that it required a variant with a conventional two seater stepped tandem cockpit configuration... would this be possible if Kamov used carbon fiber in lieu of steel to reduce the overall empty weight to 7, 000 kg? Composites comprise 35% of the platform, so this could be increased to create a tandem two seater variant.
"The Russian Space Systems is developing a new guidance system for artillery armament of the strike-reconnaissance combat Ka-52 'Alligator' helicopter in the framework of cooperation with the Russian Helicopters company. When creating a measurement system for the helicopter's artillery complex,… specialists used the groundwork of the rocket and space technology," the company's press service said.
My only real problem with the Ka-52's side by side configuration, is the fact that the glass on the sides is not adequately protected.
Great Ka-52 and Vikhr-1 combat footage with the crew's comms.
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