Light ARH Attack

National Guard, May 2007 by Matthews, William

New Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter will replace Guard Apaches, but only if it overcomes financial and operational obstacles

The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter "is kind of a Cadillac," says Tennessee Army National Guard Col. Terry Ethridge. It's big, it's fast, and in the minds of its pilots, it's the ultimate Army helicopter.

Armed with a fearsome array of missiles, rockets and a 30mm cannon, the Apache was designed more than two decades ago to take on-and take out-Soviet tanks and armored vehicles.

It never got the chance. The Cold War ended.

The Army, however, used the Apache to destroy Iraqi radar sites and kill hundreds of Iraqi tanks, personnel carriers and trucks during the first Persian Gulf War.

Today, the aircraft protects ground troops, escorts convoys and strikes when insurgents threaten in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But like a big-finned Cadillac, the Apache is seen as a relic from a bygone era.

It's expensive to buy and maintain. And its size and speed-benefits in a battle against Soviet armor on the plains of Europe-prove troublesome in Iraq's tight urban settings. There, it offers the enemy a large, less maneuverable target.

But if the new Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) can overcome some financial and operational obstacles, it will be the Army and the Army Guard aircraft more suited for today's battlefield-and Colonel Ethridge will say goodbye to his Apaches and hello to the new helicopter.

The Army calls the ARH a "light attack" aircraft. It's a military version of the Bell 407 helicopter-a compact, agile aircraft also known as "the sports car of the air."

In 2005, the Army contracted with Bell Helicopter Textron to build 368 ARHs for $3.6 billion by 2013. Later, the number increased to 512 helicopters for $4.7 billion, with at least 150 helicopters to go to the Army Guard (box, page 31).

The Tennessee Guard's 278th Regimental Combat Team will get the first of them in 2010. Tennessee is already planning to send Guard pilots and mechanics to training schools in 2009, according to Bob Godwin, the National Guard Bureau's deputy chief for aviation and safety.

Then, for the next four years, ARHs will go exclusively to the active-component Army to replace OH-58D Kiowa Warriors, originally slated for replacement by the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, a project the Army cancelled in 2004.

As an OH-58 replacement, the ARH is designed for "escort missions, protecting convoys, close-air support when people are taking fire," says Mike Cox, a Bell spokesman.

It will also carry more ammunition and fuel than its Kiowa predecessor and have substantially more attack capability. From 2014 to 2016, four battalions worth of new aircraft are then scheduled to join the Guard. Industry and Guard officials say they will replace Apaches in four states: Idaho, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas.

At the Guard Bureau, however, Mr. Godwin wouldn't confirm that pan of the plan last month.

But he acknowledged the plan is to reduce from eight to four the number of Guard Apache battalions. And the states losing Apaches would gain the ARH.

The four states retaining Apache battalions will eventually receive AH-64D Apache Longbows in place of their A models. The exception will be Arizona's 1st Battalion, 285th Aviation, which already flies Longbows.

"The Army decided that the best long range plan for the National Guard was to 'purefleet' its Apache units," Mr. Godwin said.

Purefleeting means reducing the AH-64 fleet to one variantthe more advanced Longbow.

The ARH will be less lethal but more adept in today's urban warfare settings than the Apache is.

"If you're in an AH-64 in a fight in an urban area, you would want someone out in front spotting for you," Colonel Ethridge says. "That's what the ARH is designed to do."

It will carry the same precision-guided Hellfire missiles as the Apache, but just four instead of the Apache's 16. It also will have the same 2.75-inch Hydra rockets as the Apache. One armament difference is its 2,000 round-per-minute .50 caliber Gatling gun instead of the Apache's 30mm chain gun.

Besides its Hellfire missiles, Hydra rockets and Gatling gun, the ARH "has room in the back for two passengers," Mr. Cox adds.

Pilots see this advantage immediately.

"If you have a high-value target, you can take two ARHs with two Special Forces guys in the back," says Maj. Christopher Burt, an Apache pilot from Idaho's 1st Battalion, 183rd Aviation, who spent most of 2006 in Afghanistan. "You could land and do a kick and knock, and you have an air asset that's on station covering these guys."

The same mission with Apaches-which have a crew of two and no space for passengers-would require a separate helicopter or a Humvee to carry the Special Forces troops, he says.

In addition, the ARH boasts an all-digital "glass cockpit," more user-friendly than the Kiowa's digital cockpit.

Its communications suite will provide "net-centric connectivity," Mr. Cox says, keeping the helicopter in constant contact with ground commanders, other aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles. ARH pilots may even be able to control unmanned aerial vehicles as they fly.