"Blockhead" with a propeller: will land land mines on combat helicopters
Previously, these munitions were considered incompatible with the Mi-28 and Ka-52The Ministry of Defense revised the weapons system of combat helicopters. The Mi-28 "Night Hunter" and Ka-52 "Alligator" will receive "doodles" - this is what the unmanaged heavy explosive bombs (FAB) are called in aviation. For a long time it was believed that they are generally not compatible with these helicopters, which mainly use guided and unguided missiles. Train pilots to start bombing in Syzran. It is assumed that under certain conditions helicopters will be used instead of front-line aircraft, this will reduce operational costs.
As told to Izvestia in the Ministry of Defense, in the next two years, 22 helicopters will be upgraded to use bombs. These combat vehicles will arrive in Syzran - in the branch of the military educational and scientific center of the Air Force "Air Force Academy named after Professor NE Zhukovsky and Y. Gagarin." Here the pilots will be trained in bombing. The decision to install heavy FAB was taken on the basis of the combat use of army aviation in Syria.
Upgraded helicopters will receive a special girder holder, which is usually equipped with Su-30, Su-35 and MiG-29 fighters. This suspension system is designed for transportation and forced dropping of powerful aerial bombs of various modifications - up to FAB-500 inclusive. In addition, the standard aiming system of the helicopter will be improved. In the computer will download data that will take into account the speed of the helicopters, the distance to the ground and weather conditions. Such a modernization will allow to attack with an accuracy close to the guided weapon.
The FAB-500 is one of the most massive domestic aerial bombs, which is still in service with the air forces of many countries of the world. This is the main ammunition used in Syria. The bombardment is dropped from a height of 200 m to 10 thousand m. The mass of the FAB-500 is 540 kg, the explosive is 300 kg in TNT equivalent. The land mine is intended for the destruction of military-industrial facilities, railway junctions, vulnerable and lightly armored vehicles and military field constructions.
In certain conditions, helicopters can be used as a light bomber, while the cost of departure will be significantly lower than that of front-line aviation, military expert Anton Lavrov told Izvestia.
“Bombing from helicopters is especially effective for carrying out local operations against terrorists, as, for example, in Syria,” said Anton Lavrov. - The combat attack helicopters, for example, the Mi-28, are armed with a modern navigation and aiming system, which allows navigation bombardment. The on-board computer is actively involved in aiming, which provides access to a given point using satellite coordinates. FAB can be reset not only with a hang. Helicopters will bomb as planes, speeding up and completing a pit. In the future, helicopters will also be able to use guided bombs.
At the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, helicopter pilots actively used aerial bombs. They were used mainly for the destruction of well-protected targets. To hit a firing point in the mountains or a separate house, six Mi-8s were required with four OFAB-250 high-explosive fragmentation bombs or four helicopters with two FAB-500s. Such low efficiency was explained by the fact that the helicopter pilots had strong height restrictions, the failure to comply with which threatened to be hit by shrapnel from their own bombs. As a result, the machines had to climb to a height of 900 m. For comparison, when firing unguided artillery rockets, a height of about 50–75 m was considered safe.
In addition, bombs in Afghanistan were usually used with the installation of detonators for slowing down, which made it possible to go a safe distance from the place of impact. All these measures led to a significant decrease in the effectiveness of bombing.
Afghanistan also did not have the necessary special sights. The helicopter pilots used a modified aircraft bomb-sight of the Great Patriotic War - OPB-1P. The device was a periscopic tube with a sight, mounted next to the navigator's chair. The pilots complained about the inconvenience in the work and the low accuracy of aiming. It was possible to bomb only when the helicopter was hovering in a horizontal position, while becoming a good target for enemy air defenses.
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