Slater Posted September 9, 2022 Share Posted September 9, 2022 96 aircraft seems a sizeable force: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/09/09/poland-requests-apache-helos-to-pair-with-its-abrams-tanks/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 Wow, indeed! But frankly speaking what else should they do? Mangusta is to be replaced in the coming years, Tiger seems to be more a nightmare than success. (Apart from it's issues with Eurocopter regarding the last, failed deal...) Would not be astonishing if Germany is going to replace its castrated UHT with Apaches as well in the current climate! ( F-35, C-130J, Ch-47F, P-8....) Europe simply forgot to invest into its military during the last decade.... so others try to take advantage now it seems... for different reasons though 😞 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slater Posted September 10, 2022 Author Share Posted September 10, 2022 Leonardo has their new AW249, but I'm not sure how that compares with Apache. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julien Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 3 hours ago, Slater said: Leonardo has their new AW249, but I'm not sure how that compares with Apache. As the prototype was already 2 years late I would go with something proven? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 4 hours ago, Slater said: Leonardo has their new AW249, but I'm not sure how that compares with Apache. That one indeed looks interesting but is years away from anything the Apache offers now. Poland is a bit in a rush to get hardware fielded! Wonder why.... surely also a political move! Abrams, T-50, F-35s, Howitzers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daront Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 A sad side effect of the war in Ukraine is how countries are now viewing their current equipment and capabilities. Russia is using quantity over quality and they have taken ground whist employing mass artillery. Ukraine has now started to use quality over quantity and has had success in taking out key russian assets, (bomb dumps, airfield etc), but can they retake the ground? The question for many is what is the best strategy....... quality is expensive and takes time to build, quantity is cheap and can be massed produced. Most wars to this point has shown quantity wins, maybe exxcept the falklands. So for countries such as poland a middle ground is prehaps needed. Tried and tested mass produced weapon systems, ambrams, Apache, F18, F16, etc and do they actually need the F35?, But then being now massed produced is the F35 cheaper then other fighters? Ukraine has shown the world how to fight i think: Massed cheap small drones and the odd larger one are devastating for troops, ManPads are devastating to helos and low flying A/C, HIMARS gps guided are devastating to fixed positions, Antitank missiles are devastating to armour, We possibly havent seen anything Stealth yet in Ukraine so have no idea what contribution they will make but large numbers of drones, manpads, Himars and antitank weapon systems could be far more devastating to any low to mid tech mass armies. But ehat is clear is you still need a large number of highly trained troops on the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slater Posted September 10, 2022 Author Share Posted September 10, 2022 HIMARS in particular seems to be generating interest from various countries, although essentially similar systems have been on the world market for some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slater Posted September 10, 2022 Author Share Posted September 10, 2022 33 minutes ago, exdraken said: That one indeed looks interesting but is years away from anything the Apache offers now. Poland is a bit in a rush to get hardware fielded! Wonder why.... surely also a political move! Abrams, T-50, F-35s, Howitzers... Is the AW249 supposed to be a clean-sheet-of-paper design or is it a modified/upgraded A129 Mangusta? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pigsty Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 1 hour ago, Slater said: Is the AW249 supposed to be a clean-sheet-of-paper design or is it a modified/upgraded A129 Mangusta? New, by the look of it. And being two years late between 2020 and 2022 is only to be expected - we've all lost two years of our lives, after all. But going for a forty-year-old design instead ... imagine if someone had ordered a new helicopter in 1990 and the best on offer was the Dragonfly. You look at that, and how long the F-16 and the Chinook and the Hercules have been in production, and you start to wonder: are some designs just impossible to improve on? Has progress actually stopped in some areas - for all the best reasons? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 2 hours ago, Slater said: Is the AW249 supposed to be a clean-sheet-of-paper design or is it a modified/upgraded A129 Mangusta? Basically yes, double the weight but drawing heavily on some civilian design/components, and at least in the beginning on the Mangusta's weapons/ system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 On 9/10/2022 at 2:01 PM, Slater said: Leonardo has their new AW249, but I'm not sure how that compares with Apache. Some info: https://theaviationist.com/2022/09/14/new-photos-of-the-new-aw249-emerge/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lasermonkey Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 34 minutes ago, exdraken said: Some info: https://theaviationist.com/2022/09/14/new-photos-of-the-new-aw249-emerge/ My eyes! The goggles do nothing! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 56 minutes ago, lasermonkey said: My eyes! The goggles do nothing! It is not as eye pleasing as Tiger or Chinese Z-10, but don't be too harsh in Poland it would be a visual upgrade anyways Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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