How attack helicopters proved themselves in the skies of Syria and Ukraine
The further the Russian troops advance in the course of the special operation in Ukraine, the more difficult it becomes to carry out operational strikes on reconnaissance targets and military facilities. Artillery does not always reach them or does not have time to cover them due to the rapid change of the enemy's locations. In such cases, army aviation is simply irreplaceable – including Mi-28N "Night Hunter" helicopters.
But, perhaps, more often, Ka-52 "Alligator" shock troops are sent on combat missions. They are the ones who most often get into the frames of the Ministry of Defense and are shown on TV.
What are the tasks facing this machine and how does it show itself in a combat zone?
TENACIOUS AS A CROCODILE
We will immediately explain that the army aviation within the framework of the special operation is engaged in escorting columns, destroying enemy armored vehicles, delivering troops and military cargo, performs the tasks of air support units, evacuation of the wounded.
We have seen more than once how Alligator crews destroy enemy control points, armored vehicles, and other targets with missiles. For example, the combat use of Ka-52 attack helicopters in ensuring the landing of tactical troops at one of the Ukrainian military airfields. For this purpose, work was initially carried out to eliminate firing points with portable anti-aircraft missile systems (MANPADS) and anti-aircraft installations. Also, with the use of Ka-52 and Mi-24 attack helicopters, Ukrainian armored vehicles covering the perimeter of the military facility were destroyed.
Another example. One of the Ka-52 helicopters was under intense fire. It was hit by 18 strikes from MANPADS and anti-aircraft guns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The car made an emergency landing. But the crew survived and engaged in battle with Ukrainian armed formations before the arrival of the second strike group of army aviation. As a result, the Ukrainian detachments were destroyed.
These are amazing examples of the survivability of the Ka-52. If we talk about tactics, then the use of aviation weapons by the crews of aircraft is carried out, as a rule, in pairs. Pilots launch missiles from a distance of more than 5 km, which makes the car virtually invulnerable. But even if heavy fire opens on it, it can reach the airfield "on my word of honor and one wing." We have repeatedly witnessed footage of a riddled car returning from a combat mission, being repaired in the field and returning to service.
What is this miracle of technical thought – the Ka-52 attack helicopter?
HISTORY OF CREATION
The Ka-52 "Alligator" (product "800.06", according to the NATO codification – Hokum B) is a new generation Russian reconnaissance and attack helicopter. The machine is capable of hitting armored and unarmored vehicles, manpower and air targets on the battlefield. It represents a further development of the Ka-50 "Black Shark" helicopter.
The ship-based version of the Ka-52K (Katran) can be equipped with a more powerful than most attack helicopters of army aviation, the Hermes-A guided weapons system (KUV) with a maximum firing range of 15-20 km.
The prototype Ka-52 first appeared at the MAKS-2005 air Show. In 2008, two more prototype Ka-52 helicopters were built at the Progress Aviation Plant. The first of them flew on June 27, 2008. Flight tests of the second, pre-production, were started in October 2008.
In the same year, Progress launched mass production of Alligators. On May 19, 2011, Major Andrey Volkov drove the first Ka-52 from the Progress plant to the 575th Army Aviation Base (Chernihiv airfield).
The crew consists of two people – which, as Sergey Mikheev, the general designer of the Kamov company, recalled, was advised to do by an experienced military pilot.
The helicopter will become more versatile and multifunctional, he predicted.
And although Mikheev conceived the Ka-52 with one pilot, he decided that the pilot was right. He created a two-seat cabin with a layout of the crew members nearby. The helicopter immediately acquired the functions of a training machine.
Another idea of the designer was to maximize the booking of the cockpit to save the lives of pilots. Previously, this was problematic because it weighed down the weight and worsened the aerobatic properties of the car. But the emergence of new composite materials has solved this problem. Moreover, the firing and control of the helicopter can now be carried out by both the crew commander and the operator of weapons systems.
EJECTION SYSTEM
The problem of ejecting crew members was also solved. Previously, it was believed that it was practically impossible: even if there was a firing seat, the pilot was hit by the rotor blades. For pilots, this gave rise to a bit of nervousness at work, since with a damaged car, the chances of survival were reduced to zero.
Back in the mid-1980s, Sergei Mikheev used an experimental ejection system on a single-seat Ka-50 combat helicopter. It was not possible to prove its effectiveness then. But in the Kamov Design Bureau, together with the developer of ejection systems, the Zvezda enterprise, this engineering task was solved. Which made it possible to create a system for saving pilots, which no one else in the world had before.
Now pilots can get out of the damaged car with the help of K-37–800M ejection seats at altitudes from 0 to 4100 m. How? First, explosive charges placed in the butt of the rotor blades are triggered, literally chopping them off. In a fraction of a second, under the influence of centrifugal force, the rotating blades fly apart, freeing up space above the cockpit.
And yet, the main changes, in my opinion, have occurred in the flight and navigation complex and weapons systems.
FRIENDLY INTERFACE
As part of the onboard radio-electronic equipment (avionics) Ka–52 is an integrated sighting, flight and navigation complex (PrPNK) with an open architecture "Argument-52". It includes avionics, including five multifunction displays (MFD) on the dashboard, plus one MFD in front of the left pilot. An indicator on the windshield of the ILS-31 is also installed in front of it. Night vision goggles of the third generation developed by NPO Geophysics-NV are used for night flights.
As part of the PrPNK, there are appropriate sighting and flight navigation subsystems. The gyrostabilized optoelectronic GOES-451 produced by the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant is used as a round-the-clock search and sighting system. It is mounted from the bottom of the fuselage, in front of the nose landing gear and includes a TV camera, a thermal imager, a laser rangefinder-target designator, a sensor of the anti–tank guided missile guidance system (ATGM) - a laser spot finder. As well as the nose sensor of the helicopter laser radiation warning system.
Many helicopter pilots who have mastered the Ka-52, note its "friendly" interface and good ergonomics. Sergey Mikheev confirms that special attention was indeed paid to this.
"The car is very saturated. The cabin is quite compact. Ergonomics should work in this regard... Therefore, the number of buttons there has even grown on the handles, there are many functions… I would say that the friendliness of the cockpit itself should help the pilots who work with it," says the general designer. And this is very important. A pilot must love a car in order to master it skillfully.
According to Mikheev, when creating the Ka-52, the successful experience of the "neighbors" – the Mil Design Bureau – in working on the Mi-24 attack helicopter was also taken into account. The forward-looking radar complex FH01 "Arbalet" is used as the onboard radar station of serial Ka-52 helicopters. The antenna and part of its modules are placed in a radio-transparent nose cone. The millimeter-range Crossbow radar provides timely detection of obstacles and identification of targets, helps to fly at extremely low altitudes, in terrain mapping mode, with the ability to indicate moving targets.
THE FRUITS OF MODERNIZATION
On February 11, 2019, Andrey Boginsky, CEO of the Russian Helicopters Holding, announced that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation had approved new technical requirements for the production of Ka-52 Alligator combat helicopters. As part of the modernization, it is planned to install on serial Ka-52 a digital PrPNK "Argument-2000", unified with other types of helicopters of the Kamov Design Bureau. It was noted that due to the modernization of the wing, the carrying capacity of the machine increased, and new radar equipment appeared in the nose.
The Argumentum-2000 sighting and navigation complex now includes: the Baguette-53 onboard digital computer (BCVM); the PNK-73DM piloting and navigation complex; the TOES-520 round-the-clock observation and aerobatic system; the GOES-451 search and sighting system (coupled with the Arbalet RLC); the Crossbow radar complex itself; the BKS-50 onboard communications complex; the defense complex; avionics using MFD and helmet-mounted target designation and indication systems (NSCI); dual control of the complex.
The new on-board defense system is designed to detect laser irradiation of a helicopter with the identification of enemy guidance and rangefinder. And also to counter guided missiles aimed at the car with infrared homing heads – and to warn about the facts of their launch.
"These design solutions bring the Ka-52 to a number of machines of the highest level," says Aviation Major General Igor Semenchenko, an expert in the field of flight safety, a former leading adviser to the Committee of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation on Defense and Security. – This is a unique multifunctional machine. A kind of universal soldier. She has the latest sighting and navigation system, the strongest electronic warfare system, which is directly related to survivability. And also a decent speed under 300 km / h and the ability to work from a height of 5000 m to extremely low."
But we must not forget that the Ka-52 has another trump card: very powerful weapons. Combat load – 2800 kg, including guided missiles 2× 6 ATGM 9M120–1 "Attack" and ATGM 9K113U "Sturm-WU", laser guidance system. There are also unguided missiles and bombs. The practical flight range is 460 km. Dynamic ceiling – 5500 m.
There are other variants of the Ka-52 armament. Among them, for example, a mobile installation with a 30 mm automatic 2A42 cannon and 460 rounds of ammunition. Blocks of unguided aviation missiles of 122 and 80 mm caliber. Aerial bombs, cannon containers, other weapons. Igla-V guided air–to-air melee missiles. The height of the targets being hit is from 10 to 3500 m, the launch range is from 800 to 5200 m.
The "Whirlwind" anti-tank missile system with 9A4172 missiles having a starting mass of 42 kg and a tandem cumulative warhead can hit armored targets (tanks, infantry fighting vehicles) at a range of up to 8 km and at the same time penetrate armor with a thickness of 900 mm.
In March 2016, several Ka-52s were transferred to the Russian Aerospace Forces aviation group in Syria. The helicopters worked from the deck of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and showed their best side.
The Ka-52M is a modified version of the helicopter, the first flight of which took place in August 2020. Improvements include a new communications complex, fire control system, sighting and navigation systems, additional fuel tanks.
In addition, the possibility of using a modified version as a carrier of the new cruise missile "Product 305" has been announced. As well as an upgraded optoelectronic system with an increased target detection and recognition range, a digital drive that increased the accuracy of firing from a cannon, a new radar complex with an active phased array antenna, more powerful anti-icing elements in the propeller blades, a reinforced chassis, LED-based lighting equipment. The ergonomics and interior of the cockpit have been improved, including taking into account piloting at night using night vision systems.
The GOES-451 multichannel sighting system will undergo a deep modernization. It is also planned to automatically pair the machine with the Sagittarius intelligence, control and communication complex. This will allow the ground forces to exchange information with the Ka-52M about the situation on the battlefield in an automated mode. And in the Katran modification, for the first time in domestic and world practice, an attack helicopter received X-31 cruise missiles and X-35 anti-ship missiles.
Testing of Ka-52M prototypes is planned to be completed by the end of 2022. The only thing that is missing in full is the pilots. This is the opinion of the president of the Board of Military Experts of Russia, Major General Alexander Vladimirov. This is fixable, but it will require a lot of time and money for preparation. Of course, this is a task for tomorrow, but we need to start working on it today.
As for the helicopter, it will continue to improve. So, to fly higher, further, faster. This slogan of the Russian aviation has been relevant since imperial times today.
Nikolay Poroskov
Oleg Valentinovich Falichev is a military observer.
