Ka-52 in Russian Air Force

flamming_python wrote:

DerWolf wrote:If Dircm protect against manpads then why ka-52 got shoot down? Perhaps shoot by a-a guns? Or Dircm is not 100% affective always?

The Ka-52 brought down near Gostomel airport has some 7 MANPADS fired at it before it was finally damaged and had to land. Don't remember if it was a MANPAD or AAA fire that brought it down in the end

Another Ka-52 I remember being shot down was by an ATGM, the Ukrainian Struna system or whatever its called. The laser designator would be offset a little bit while the missile is in flight to prevent the helicopter's warning systems from picking up on it. With the laser beam being directed at the helicopter at the last moment to secure a hit

There are many ways in fact to shoot down Ka-52s without using MANPADs. It can be from longer-ranged SAM systems by radar, from something like the British Starstreak or ATGMs via optically-guided means, or by 23mm AAA for example.

I think more Ka-52s were destroyed on the ground during idiotic deployments during the early stages, not all were destroyed completely and had to be towed away. Russians destroyed Ka-52 during retreat from Gostomel themselves, there is no way they could salvage it.



There are 2 videos of ATGM shooting down Ka-52s, this happened both times on April. One time Stugna operator was aiming offset and guided the missile last moment, another time other crew simply had Ka-52 in their sights all the time.

Not all losses on both sides are documented or clear, but could be even more than 15 or 25 what's not to believe? It's not US Vietnam helicopter losses. Check US helicopter operations and their losses and now imagine if their opponents had anything like what Ukraine has now.

Don't forget messy early stages when the front was wide and porous and AA teams were literally around them and helicopters were stationed in artillery range. Even according to Oryx list, the best antihelicopter weapon is artillery...

Ka-52 and Mi-28 are very active helicopters unlike Mi-24/35 which are relegated to escort missions (smart choice) and Ukrainians keep getting more and more AA weaponry that threatens helicopters than jets. They are very effective, but in the same time, they are working in very dangerous environments.

With 305 being used actively and no more idiotic forward deployments (I trust the current command in charge), it should be much safer now.

Can the Ka-52's radar easily detect tanks, artillery, SAMs, and other metal objects hiding around trees or bushes from standoff distances(15-30km)? Is ut sensitive enough to detect groups of men with AKs.

So what, two helicopters were damaged and explosives were found on an Mi-28 the next day... totally incompetent... attaching explosives should be done near fuel tanks to start fires and burn out the targets completely... what a joke... even their terrorists are two bit amatuers.

is it so simple for any saboteur to destroy a hardware in a russian(not ugandan) military base?

They are clearly dressed in military uniforms in the video, so I would think they probably had fake documents to approach the aircraft and the explosives they had to use were tiny to make them concealable which lead to damaging the targets instead of destroying them.

Can the Ka-52's radar easily detect tanks, artillery, SAMs, and other metal objects hiding around trees or bushes from standoff distances(15-30km)?

Easily is a strong word... moving targets would be easiest to detect and allow the system to draw the weapon operators attention to it with zoomed in optics to allow proper identification.

Easily is a strong word... moving targets would be easiest to detect and allow the system to draw the weapon operators attention to it with zoomed in optics to allow proper identification.

Well western SPGs are constantly moving. maybe those M109s were detected by the Ka-52's radar.

But trucks and cars and tractors and all sorts of other things are driving around the place in the enemy rear areas too... not all are military targets and you would seriously have trouble telling which is which from a distance... remember these vehicles can operate over enormous areas and still hit targets because of their firing range, and they really don't have to move very much... they will be camouflaged and move only when critical and likely move from covered areas likely inside large buildings like sheds of other large structures out to fire and then retreat back to cover where they can be supported and fixed or reloaded or whatever.

The period when they fire and then go back into hiding will be 5 minutes maybe... even with quite heavy drone coverage you might only have a drone every 20-30km, so when it fires you might have a drone 20km away that can turn and look with massive magnification zoom optics to look for the target... it could turn and head towards the firing but at 150-200km/h it wont get there very quickly and HATO will likely tell them when attack helicopters or aircraft are operating nearby so they will lay low when that is happening.

In a panic an artillery vehicle like an M270 or M109 could drive into the side of a house and from the outside would be very difficult to spot.

They might kill some civilians doing that but they wont give a shit and when they hear on the radio that the helicopter is gone they might pull out and drive off to somewhere else.

Of course as I have mentioned with HALE and MALE drones loitering around with super powerful cameras when the helicopters leave they might remain and watch and find targets and watch where they go so instead of killing that M109 they find the building it goes to eventually.

If the Orcs have any brains they will have dozens of different large buildings and sheds set up for these vehicles to drive in to hide like a halfway house for escaped prisoners... transport ammo to these places so when the vehicles arrive you can top up their ammo and fuel and do any maintenance needed and then they might put a tarp over the back and drive it to the next building and then on to another firing point and another building.

Different artillery vehicles moving constantly from safe building to another, keeping radio and phone conversations to a minimum so they don't alert enemy EW.

The orcs are not stupid.

This will be an excellent opportunity for the Ka-52s and Mi-28NMs to get operational experience against enemy equipment and the rear IR and radar signatures of enemy equipment can be captured and examined... they will have massive hard drives on board recording the signatures of everything they scan or view with thermals and digital optics so they can review what they spotted and use software to recognise automatically the targets they are most interested in if they have not done so already. With the real vehicles they can refine and improve the performance so it will work even better perhaps at much greater ranges.

Note the description says the improved Ka-52 increase the detection range of optics by double and that will be IR and digital video, which means the radar can already detect targets at good range but now they can zoom in and identify targets optically better with the upgraded sensors... likely at distances they might not even know there are helicopters flying around nearby.

I see you!

Combat losses: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-losing-attack-helicopters-because-it-lacks-air-superiority-2022-11

Tsavo Lion wrote:Combat losses: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-losing-attack-helicopters-because-it-lacks-air-superiority-2022-11

Just by reading the headline you understand it's a dumb article.

Manpads and shorads will keep existing even if they have total air control. They are the main threat to choppers.

True, but some, if not most, were shot down by non-MANPADs.
If they had air superiority, many of those AAA & ATGMs teams would be suppressed by their Su-25/34s.

Tsavo Lion wrote:True, but some, if not most, were shot down by non-MANPADs.
If they had air superiority, many of those AAA & ATGMs teams would be suppressed by their Su-25/34s.

Not really. Manpads can't be seen by aircraft until they are used. AAA covered in bushes even less.

You can't patrol the sky 24/7 to look for those weapons. They are impossible to track. You can destroy them only when they are used and tge pilits see them.

By the same token, how many AH-64s & AH-1s were lost after air superiority was established in the 2 Gulf Wars, differences between those & SVO in Ukraine notwithstanding?

Tsavo Lion wrote:By the same token, how many AH-64s & AH-1s were lost after air superiority was established in the 2 Gulf Wars, differences between those & SVO in Ukraine notwithstanding?

Iraqi had no moral to fight neother did they have good and maintained weapons.

If they had Igla-S and Kornet atgm as well as iranian modern ballistic missiles with chinese and russia satellite intel' in great numbers US losses would have been huge.

they had 100s of AAA pieces & plenty of ammo, not to mentin heavy MGs, all over the country!

Tsavo Lion wrote:they had 100s of AAA pieces & plenty of ammo, not to mentin heavy MGs, all over the country!

WW2 style stuff for the most with no targeting system.

That's not how you fight f-15 and f-16.

Also the iraqi territory is a big desert, it's hard to hide when you go out of towns so you can spot troops from far away.

And iraqi used to surrender without fighting.

I remember back then. Iraq had Soviet S-125, Kub, Osa, and French Roland.

None of it was any use after the US blew up the radars and command centers. They had extensive intelligence on it since a lot of the construction work was done by Western companies.

Isos wrote:

Tsavo Lion wrote:they had 100s of AAA pieces & plenty of ammo, not to mention heavy MGs, all over the country!

WW2 style stuff for the most with no targeting system.
That's not how you fight f-15 and f-16.

they could've engaged those low flying attack helos w/o any radars, just like LDNR forces vs. Ukrainian helos in 2014-15. The fact is, every few, if any, coalition helos were lost in the ground ops over Kuwait & Iraq.
In contrast, the Soviets lost many helos in Afghanistan, many to RPGs & AAA even after the insurgents got Stingers & Blowpipes; this confirms what I'm saying:  https://eurasiantimes.com/russia-says-worlds-best-ka-52-choppers-are-chopping-ukrainian/

Many of those Ukr. soldiers shooting at Ka-52s would be dead now, if Su-25/34s had a free reign over them.

The US wouldn't even take helicopters to the conflict in Kosovo because they feared MANPADS in the hands of the Serbs... in this conflict in the Ukraine it wouldn't matter which side the US was on they would not send helicopters or CAS aircraft to support either side because of the risk of getting shot down.

Americans don't like fair fights.

Americans don't like fair fights.

no military in the world does, but the US can afford the luxury of weeks long air wars so they don't have to fight fairly.
The Chinese too prefer to establish a local superiority to ensure victory, as Gen. Sun Tzu taught.

They lost 10 thousand if choppers in Vietnam.

They have nothing better than russian ka-52. Iraq army wasn't fighting because of lack of moral and it was a desert. Down one chopper and you have 6 f-15 carpet bombing the area. In ukraine you can just hide in the forest.

Ka-52 proved to ve very well protzcted against manpad but no defence protects you fully at 100%.

Combat losses: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-losing-attack-helicopters-because-it-lacks-air-superiority-2022-11

You need to put a disclaimer before you post such a propagandistic article, I do want to keep my eyesight sharp for another 20 years or so you know.

I mean they quote the British Ministry of Defense, the biggest liars of this whole conflict only next to the Ukrainian official sources, that 23 Ka-52s have been shot down. When in reality we have evidence for at best half that number.

British government propagandists are insidious because they take pains to make their claims and numbers look plausible. They don't say 40, or 50 like the Ukrainians do. But on closer inspection it falls apart.

NATO practically emptied their reserve stocks of MANPADs arming the hohols. You had choppers literally defeating missiles left and right in Gostomel - fuckers just spam fire the damn things like shits on tap, which it very much is, for a time at least. But now we know they can't replenish these supplies and more importantly, that their missiles suck ass.

Not a single russian helicopter was lost to enemy fighter jets. So much to "no air superiority". 

If they had air superiority, many of those AAA & ATGMs teams would be suppressed by their Su-25/34s.

This says it all doesn't it?

Air superiority means you have an advantage in the air and you can take control of areas of air space when you need to, so when you attack somewhere with ground forces air superiority means you can shoot down any and all enemy aircraft that rise up in response to your attack and your aircraft are free to support the ground attack.

The next level up is Air Supremacy... when enemy aircraft take off from where ever they are hiding they get shot down and anything they launch gets shot down too... that is pretty much what Russia has right now in the Ukraine.

It is also what HATO had in Kosovo... yet despite that from the first day to the last in both conflicts enemy AD systems operating on their own were still a threat.

There is no level of air superiority where the dominant side can destroy ATGM teams and soldiers with HMGs and light cannon pointing at air targets... such a level simply does not exist.