NATO to charter helicopters for Afghan mission

Boy. Sure would have been nice to have those helicopters that Chretien passed up on. Even the Chinooks Mulroney sold would have been handy.

Is Harper buying any helicopters?

We're supposed to be getting 15-16 heavy lift Chinooks but it looks like their still barganning on the options.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3083375&C=airwar

Has everyone forgotten the mujahideen shot Russian helicopters down in Afghanistan using shoulder launched Stinger missiles? We may just see IEDs replaced by Stingers.

..except Stingers are US and, although China would be pleased as hell to sell them, the cost is high and they'd need to be walked in over the borders. We're doing a bang-up job of interdicting new taliban recruits commming in from Pakistan and I'd guess many would be blown up before they even get unwrapped.
Western helicopters also have extensive countermeasures and I'm sure the plume from a grail-eq. would be a big flashing arrow for the apache teams.

I expect either Al Qaeda or the Taliban still have a few Stingers left. They could get Anza missiles from Pakistan. If you think everything is locked down, why are we still fighting? If you think taking out a SAM team is so easy, try telling that to the Soviets.

Actually, only Chinooks Mulroney sold would be any good. The EH-101s were going to be ASW platforms, not troop carriers, so they wouldn't be any more effective than using the Sea Kings. And as Inverted has said plenty of times, we could be using the Griffons we have, but the brass is too scared to deploy them and then get told to make do with what they have.

Unless they bought new ones, any Stigners that the muhajadeen got from the US in the 1980s would be useless. Everything I've heard is that unless they are maintained very carefully, the batteries in the sight wear out quickly and I doubt the Taliban holding onto any this long just to shoot down Canadian choppers. If they had any, they would have used them years ago.

There are other shoulder fired SAMs that the Taliban/El Qaeda could use, but my guess is that they are difficult to acquire, or plenty more helos would have been shot down already. The big difference between the muhajadeen and the Taliban is that one had support from a superpower and the other has only clandestine low-level support from Pakistan.

Riderain


Be very cautious about unenlightened name dropping. are soviet era medium range SAMs generally vehicle mounted. They are the rough equivalent of the US HAWK or British Bloodhound. They are even bigger than the British RAPIER systems.

The Mujahedin aquired STRELLAs (Soviet shoulder launched) which the Soviets foolishly deployed against an enemy with no air assets. Any STINGERS have now long since lost any viability.

IR flares are very effective countermeasures against this small heat seekers. Nape of the earth tactics avoid most of these threats. Keeping off the skyline is important.

The biggest threat to helicopters are RPGs. Unguided rockets, they cannot be neither confused nor seduced.

I used the grail name but we're really talking about the Chinese version, and I never remember the name. The grail that I know is the SA-7 and is sholder launched. It's put on everything else but the original purpose was as competition for the US Redeye.

This is what I';m talking about:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-7.htm

Please show me what you are talking about.

RPG's are fine but they are unguided with severe range limitations.

The Anza missile was originally made by China, but was licensed to Pakistan. Now Pakistan makes them. I notice the Anza Mk 1 is described in your article about the Grail, but the Mk 2 is upgraded. Bigger, heavier, high G turn, harder to avoid. The Mk1 only performs 6g turns, an F-16 can pull 9g turns, but the Mk2 can pull 16g turns. The Mk1, 2 & 3 have ranges of 4, 6, and 15km. Since they're made in Pakistan, I'm worried they will get into Afghanistan.

Ridenrain


SA-7 is the STRELLA (arrow).
Grail= Strela2
It would seem that I am not up to date with the latest nomeclature. In my day a SA7 was the STRELA. But then many here have contradicted my own experience in A-stan with the Taliban and Al Qaida fighting Russians.....Oh well......we also have a mystical, magical molecule setting the skies on fire and melting Polar bears.

The point avoided here is that NATO's 26 members have so far only had 19 members deploy about 1% of their collective strength.

Heavy lift helos are in abundance in NATO but like the current participants with their caveats, none have any intention of deploying their helos.

Not a biggy but you had me wondering there.
Quite agree. Which Canadian officer asked how many battalions do you need to secure one airport. I was giggling when I read one of NATO partners were sending their special forces group.. to secure the same airport.
Once again, leave it to the Canucks to sholder the weight.