Armed helicopter

An armed helicopter has two roles, which can be configured for each operation or mission. It has the capability to carry troops to be landed or that will be picked up, and it has various amounts of removable armament to protect combat operations with troops. It contrasts with an attack helicopter, which is not designed to carry any troops. A lesser contrast can be with the same basic helicopter used in an armed role, when it is appropriate, either because cargo capacity is more important than firepower, or the mission is one in which visible weapons are provocative or illegal.

History

There were experiments with armed helicopters in the Korean War, but their first serious combat use was by the French in the Algerian War.

The Vietnam War saw extensive use of armed helicopters, and limited use of attack helicopters.

After Vietnam, and especially into the 1990s, US Army, and some Soviet, attack helicopters became more and more optimized for the antitank mission. This is being reexamined to consider better use of armed and attack helicopters in light infantry and special operations.

Armament

The most common weapons on armed helicopters are machine guns on swivel mounts in the main door or doors. They may also carry small rocket pods carrying 7 or so unguided rockets, and, more recently, may carry light surface-to-air missiles adapted to an air-to-air missile role for self-protection.

Different nations have different design approaches for military helicopters. Russia/the Soviet Union did not emphasize attack helicopters, but their troop-carrying armed helicopters, such as the Mi-8 HIP or Mi-24 HIND are far more heavily armed than the armed helicopters of other countries.

Naval helicopters

Antisubmarine

The antisubmarine helicopter has become the key platform that will actually attack an enemy submarine. With the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of a major "blue water" threat from Soviet submarines designed as carrier killers, U.S. naval aviation found that dedicated carrier-based maritime patrol and antisubmarine aircraft, such as the S-3, took up carrier space that could better be used by other aircraft types.

While land-based maritime patrol aircraft such as the British Nimrod, the Russian Tu-142, and the U.S. P-3 Orion and its replacement, the P-8 Poseidon have their roles, the availability of land bases for these aircraft, and the number of carrier decks, is far less than the number of destroyers, cruisers and frigates that can carry a small number of helicopters.

While 2-helicopter capability is most common, Japanese, Italian, and U.S. new designs put hangars on surface combatants that can carry 4 or so helicopters. In a 2-helicopter configuration, there is typically one antisubmarine variant such as the SH-60 Seahawk and the special operations/surface attack MH-60 Oceanhawk.