【Military Sub-Plane】Author: Le Le
Recently, the News on Social Media has been reported that the Ukrainian armed forces have used anti-tank missiles to shoot down the Russian Ka-52 gunship. The subsequent appearance on the Internet, the entire process of the Ukrainian army operating anti-tank missiles, also showed that indeed a Ka-52 was shot down, and immediately caused public opinion to heat up. On the one hand, shooting down an advanced helicopter gunship with anti-tank missiles is a very rare thing anywhere. On the other hand, as an advanced model of a large number of equipment of the Russian Air force in recent years, the Ka-52 has been very eye-catching in this special military operation of the Russian army. For the mainland, the reason why public opinion pays attention to the Ka-52 is more, that is, in the autumn of 2021, it was rumored that the Mainland Navy intended to introduce 36 Ka-52 carrier-based Ka-52Ks at a high price and carry them on the domestic Type 075 amphibious assault ship. Therefore, combing through the general process of the Ka-52 being shot down by anti-tank missiles, exploring the real reasons behind it and learning from the corresponding experience, is very meaningful for understanding the Ka-52K to a greater extent.
The Ka-52 has been recorded for multiple crashes
Judging from the videos circulating on the Internet, there are two important reasons why the Ukrainian army was able to successfully shoot down this Ka-52. First, the classic tactical actions of the Ukrainian anti-tank missile operator. In the video, the level of the operator of the Ukrainian anti-tank missile is very good, in the clear understanding of the laser-guided anti-tank missile used, it is easy to be detected by the Ka-52 alarm system, the operator waits patiently through advance pre-sighting, steady movement, and once the fighter appears, it does not hesitate to start, so that the Ka-52 was shot down by surprise. Second, the Russian Ka-52 made a fatal mistake before being shot down. As an aerial equipment, this Ka-52 gave up its vital speed and altitude advantages when hitting ground targets, and was actually at a low altitude and low speed disadvantage, which gave the Ukrainian army an opportunity.
▲Speed and altitude are important advantages of Wuzhi
For the operation of the Ukrainian army in this incident, there is actually not much to analyze, the operator's excellent operation method, after patiently waiting for the Ka-52 to enter the ambush circle and launch anti-tank missiles, the next thing has actually not much to do with the warring sides. Judging from the extremely short flight time of the missile in the video, the Ka-52 pilot actually has no time to maneuver and dodge, and the electronic jamming system it is equipped with is difficult to respond effectively in such a short period of time. What's more, the Ukrainian anti-tank missiles use laser guidance, which is undoubtedly more difficult to interfere with than the infrared-guided individual air defense missiles.
▲ The British "Starlight" is a relatively rare laser-guided field air defense missile
Of course, why the Ukrainian army will use anti-tank missiles against Russian gunships is actually a rather strange thing. After all, anti-tank missiles are actually very difficult to hit air targets, and if the Ukrainian army uses anti-tank missiles on a large scale against Russian helicopter helicopters, the results will be very limited. The reason why the Ka-52 was shot down this time was to a greater extent due to the Mistakes of the Russian Army itself. After all, single-soldier anti-tank missiles and field anti-aircraft missiles, although they are the main weapons of the ground individual squad, the main performance and appearance are also somewhat similar, but the difference between the two is actually very large. The reason is very simple, the main battle tank and the helicopter gunship in the driving speed, combat height and armor thickness and other fields, there is a very obvious gap, so that the missiles against the two, naturally there is a world of difference.
▲ The armor thickness of the tank is obviously incomparable to that of helicopters
The reason why the anti-tank missile shot down the Ka-52 is that the flight attitude of the Ka-52 at that time was actually relatively close to a tank. In other words, the Ka-52, which was flying at a low speed at "a tree high" at that time, was actually no essential difference from the tanks driving on the ground for the Ukrainian anti-tank missile. Just as in 1993, the experienced US special forces broke into Mogadishu, Somalia, under the light enemy, and their "Black Hawk" helicopters were shot down by local militants using easier bazookas, once the helicopter gave up its speed and altitude advantages, its shortcomings would be infinitely magnified, and it was easy to have problems with armor and electronic soft defense systems alone.
▲ Stills from the movie "Black Hawk Down" showing a failed scene
Of course, the "Black Hawk" was shot down one after another at that time because it wanted to support the operation of ground troops, and in the densely built city, reducing the height and speed was almost the only way to do it. The area where the Ka-52 was shot down this time was obviously not a city but a forest, and in theory, low altitude and low speed were not essential combat needs, however, it was eventually shot down like the "Black Hawk" over Mogadishu. For now, the outside world generally blames the low-altitude, low-speed attitude of the Ka-52 on its old missile, due to the sensitivity and accuracy problems, so that the Ka-52 needs to remain relatively stable, and finally seized by the Ukrainian army.
It is very irrational to give up height easily
Due to the lack of sufficient information to support it, this is only a speculation and has not been confirmed. More importantly, even if this speculation is true, it is obviously a bit of a generalization to infer that there are problems with the Russian military's military weapons in advanced ground weapons, or pilot training, etc. However, the actual combat performance of the Russian Ka-52 is indeed puzzling, in fact, in the early years of the mainland and the Russian joint military exercises, there were similar stories. At that time, the pilots of the Russian attack aircraft did not stop when attacking ground targets, and left after fighting, compared with similar fighters on the mainland, there was a significant gap in the results obtained after accurately striking the target after slowing down. However, when reviewing the attack after the end, the Russian personnel said very directly that although our ground attack was accurate, this kind of speed reduction practice was easily attacked by ground weapons in actual combat, and it was the safe way that the Russian army was really tested in actual combat.
▲ Russian Air Force Su-35S fighters who have just returned from the Syrian battlefield
Therefore, it is difficult for the Russian army, which has relatively rich experience in actual combat, to make such mistakes in actual combat. Whether this is an accident or whether there are indeed problems with its airborne advanced weapons or other fields is still unknown. In fact, if there is really a serious problem with the Russian helicopter unit, then in the future, it is bound to pay a greater price in the face of the new batch of anti-aircraft missiles obtained by the Ukrainian army, otherwise, the probability will not appear again.
Ukraine has recently acquired a batch of "Stinger" air defense missiles
For our military, because the current domestic Wuzhi-10 still has not shown the posture of transforming the ship, the navy does have a certain demand for the Ka-52K, a heavy ship-based helicopter with a maximum take-off weight of more than 12 tons. But it is undeniable that since the beginning of the war, the Ka-52 has a record of four crashes supported by clear data, compared with the number of crashes of the American "Apache" helicopter gunship in the regular war phase of the 2003 Iraq War. Considering that the number of recent Crashes of the Ka-52, which was also fighting the US military at that time, was also a regular Iraqi force, the number of recent crashes was significantly high, indicating that there were indeed some problems while it had excellent take-off weight data and a mighty appearance.
▲ Wuzhi-10 has not yet shown signs of large-scale ship
Therefore, in the case of a serious lack of relevant accumulation in China, it is almost impossible to introduce a card-52K assembly production line and replicate its coaxial double helix technology, if only a batch of card-52K is introduced as a transition to ensure the smooth birth of domestic heavy-duty Wuzhi. Then, based on the problems exposed by the Ka-52 in actual combat, and the price that will never be cheap (the rumored $20 million unit price on the Internet is impossible, too cheap), whether it is worth buying is still debatable. However, if the Russian military industry can make targeted improvements to the shortcomings exposed by the Ka-52 in actual combat after the end of the war, and derive a mature model of actual combat that has truly passed the test of gun smoke, then it is a more cost-effective approach for the mainland navy, which lacks both heavy ship-based gunships and almost no relevant actual combat experience.