LOW AND LETHAL

Flight Journal, Jun 2004 by Tillman, Barrett

THE RISE OF THE ATTACK CHOPPER

THE APACHES FLEW NORTHWARD from the Kuwaiti border, rotoring into Iraqi airspace in the March darkness. In the eerie, green imagery of night-vision goggles, the big, angular AH-64s were disassociated from human contact, seemingly of their own predatory volition. They were not new to Mesopotamian airspace; they had plied the desolation west of the Euphrates a dozen years before and left their mark on hostile armor as well as the enemy's psyche. Now they were back, and this time there would be no repeat of the halfway measures following Desert Storm. Their crews knew an essential truth: you negotiate with your enemy by placing your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat.

Desert Storm had been a live-fire exercise. This was a new century, and this time, it was war.

AN ARMED HELICOPTER ISN'T THE AS an attack chopper, but the distinction was necessarily blurred in the beginning. Nevertheless, France logged the first significant use of armed helicopters in what's now considered an obscure conflict. From 1955 to 1962, the Algerians fought for independence in a war in which outgunned rebels fought a technologically superior force to exhaustion amid increasing political division in France. About the time Paris ceded Algeria to the Algerians, the same situation began in South Vietnam.

Because of the remote and often rugged terrain of the Algerian battlefields, helicopters offered a significant advantage to the French armed forces. The navy was especially committed, establishing its first "in-country" helo squadron in 1956. Out of the 108 sold to France, Flotille 31 flew about 10 Piasecki H-21Cs as tactical transports. Subsequently, two more Flotilles stood up with Sikorsky H-19Ds and HSS-1s.

On the American-built helos, the Naval helicopter group used a variety of weapons, including guns, rockets and bombs. However, the French army sought a dedicated attack helo and mated the SS-11 antitank missile to Sikorsky H-34s and the Sud Alouette, which used the missiles on precision targets such as remote caves. The attack chopper was on its way to perfection.

THE VERSATILE HUEY

In 1955, the Bell company began work on the DC-3 of helicopters, the long-lived HU-1 ("Huey-1") Iroquois. The H stood for helicopter and U for utility, though the designation was changed to UH-1. Primarily a transport bird, it was capable of being armed. Many helos have been armed in the past 50 years, but relatively few have truly filled the attack role.

The U.S. Army's first UH-IBs arrived in South Vietnam in 1962. The concept was "airmobility"; helos delivered airborne troops to remote areas to surprise or cut off enemy forces. The experimental 11th Air Assault Division became the 1st Air Cavalry; this set the bar for professionalism and morale. The depiction of this transformation in "Apocalypse Now," while admittedly over the top, is not far off the mark. Arriving in country in 1965, air cavalrymen sported black Stetsons, yellow ascots and fostered the traditional cowboy image. Instead of being grouped into companies and battalions, they were organized into troops and squadrons.

Though other Army and Marine Corps units already had conducted airmobile operations, the Cav brought something different: mass. The nominal roster included about 450 choppers versus about 100 choppers in other divisions.

The basic Hueys were "slicks"-transport choppers capable of carrying up to a dozen soldiers. Gunships were armed with a variety of weapons that included externally mounted machine guns, rocket pods and grenade launchers. The highly capable CH-47 Chinook provided heavy lift. A section or more of "gunboats," used to prep the landing zone or to handle contingencies, escorted most missions.

The Huey worked well in Vietnam, as a transport and as an assault aircraft. But the Army wanted something more specialized-a dedicated gunship, and they found one at the Huey hatchery.

KILLER COBRA

In 1965, Bell began to look for better ways to deliver death from a hover. Development of the UH-IC led to the AH-IG, and two years later, the sleek, fast Cobra was delivered. It was a true attack aircraft, designed for a two-man crew in tandem (a pilot behind a dedicated gunner). The 334th attack-helicopter company introduced the new gunship to combat in South Vietnam, and the Marines also took notice. In 1971, the twin-engine J model with a 20mm nose gun instead of a 7.62 Catling appeared in HML-367. About 270 Cobras were destroyed in Southeast Asia; this was only a small fraction of nearly 3,100 Hueys that were lost.

Perhaps the Cobra's most significant contribution occurred in the spring of 1972 when Hanoi launched its "Easter Offensive," a massive attack against South Vietnam. This event was unprecedented in the seven-year war; the Communists committed 14 regular divisions, 26 independent regiments and an awesome amount of armor-more than 600 T-54, T-SS and amphibious PT-76 tanks. The Hanoi blitzkrieg bulldozed its way through Allied defenses bound for Saigon.