NationStates Jolt Archive

The AH-91 Urban Combat Helicopter of Oslea

Overview of the AH-91

Recognising more needs for urban combat operations and seeing as how the current AH-64 is not suited for urban combat, the Oslean Army, along with Mirage Heavy Industries, developed the AH-91 "Wolverine" Urban Combat helicopter, specially suited to the task of supporting ground forces in urban territory.

Features of the AH-91

Unlike most attack copters, the AH-91 can engage targets regardless whether the helicopter is facing them or not; a second gunner sitting in behind the pilot operates the second-belly mounted weapon platform, which can swivel in any direction. The pilot controls the belly-mounted weapon platform eletcronically, and sees what the weapons platform sees through a camera mounted on the weapons platform. The pilot still operates the main armaments of the helicopter and the movement of the helicopter. To help decrease the size of the craft and help increase speed, the outer weapon hardpoints can be removed, although this results in the craft only having the main cannon and secondary turret and its attachments for armaments.

Armaments of the AH-91

The main heavy armaments, mounted on two "wings" on the side, may contain a combination of Hellfire Missiles, Stinger Missiles, and Hydra 70 FFA Rockets, just like the Apache currently in service with Oslea. The ideal weapons configuration for a mission is 6 Hellfires, 2 Stingers, and 1 Hydra 70 FFA rocket tube (with 7 rockets each) on each wing. Three hardpoints are on each wing. A chin mounted 30mm machine gun (700 rounds) with a limited degree of swivel is included, though this can be substituted with a 20mm Vulcan M61 minigun (1500 rounds with an ammo box).

The belly mounted weapons platform swivels in any direction. It includes a 30mm machine gun with 500 rounds, but this can be substituted with an M61 Vulcan as well, although it will only be able to hold 900 rounds. On the sides of the weapons platform, a Hellfire missle can be placed on each side, or Hydra 70 FFA rocket tubes on each side instead. The platform is about 0.5 m tall, so it doesn't obstruct the landing gear of the AH-91, which is longer than most helicopters' landing gear to accommodate the weapons platform.

Oslea also is currently developing napalm and chemical weapon missiles for the AH-91 to hold.

Special Notes on the AH-91

The AH-91 has a radar dome on top of its rotors to detect enemies and to help with target acquisition, IFF, and communicating between friendly units. Also, the AH-91 has infrared sensors and night vision sensors mouned right in front of the cockpit, which come up on the rightmost and leftmost display screens on the AH-91.

Within the cockpit, the pilot has a multitude of information at his command, from his altitude, fuel remaining, radar, and so on. Vital info is placed on the center screen, like condition of the aircraft, altitude, weapon rounds remaining; while night vision and infrared camera feeds go to the left and rightmost screens. The gunner has a screen in which he can see whatever the belly-mounted weapons platform sees, the platform, too, contains infrared and night vision cameras.

AH-91 Statistics

Crew: 2, pilot and gunner
Length: 20m
Rotor diameter: 15m
Height: 4m
Empty weight: 12,901 lb
Loaded weight: 19,110 lb
Max takeoff weight: 21,000 lb (9,500 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Mirage H1 turboshafts, (1,450 kW) each
Rotor system: 4 blades
Never exceed speed: 196 mph
Maximum speed: 163 mph
Cruise speed: 139 mph
Combat radius: 250 miles
Ferry range: 1,000 miles
Service ceiling: 4,900 m
Price: $22 million

[ooc: Comments and constructive feedback and criticism is encouraged and welcome. Also, the stat block was from wikipedia, since I had no idea what stats I needed. Some stats I don't even know what they mean or how I calculate them, so I didn't add them here. Also, this is my first copter design, so don't rip me to shreads >_>]

the federation is intrersted in purchasing 12 of these for testing and evaualtion

OOC:
A few things straight off, this is supposed to be an attack helicopter that operates in urban enviroments, yes?
To operate is such a role it would need to be able to pereform tight manuvers and be small enough to weave through buildings.

This thing however is larger and more heavily armed than the Apache you want it to replace. At the moment the Apache is better at Urban Combat than this thing. This is not something that could speedily dodge aropund skyscrapers whilst hunting its targets. What you have designed here is basically an Apache on steriods.

Something like the little bird ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-6 ) would be more suited to urban enviroments as it is small enough and manuverable enough to operate in the confined spaces of a city.

Don't get me wrong you are onto a good start, but you seem to have lost you way in which direction you want to take this.
You can't have the armour and firepower of the apache and expect it to do the things you want it to do.

If you're interested: http://draftroom.modernwarstudies.net

Perosnally i agree with Ato-Sara, you would proabably be best served with a small and agile platform, possibly a long the lines of an Airfox (gunship adaption of the alouette 3) possibly using coaxial rotors for extra agility and of course modern materials and dodahs to make it as nasty as possible.

The secodnary "turret" does seem more than a little complicated and not entirely nessicary, a decent nose/chin gun on an agile helicopter would liekly give you just as much coverage and would keep crew workload down (i'm not entirely sure how weaposn control is split on modern gunships but i imagine that the pilot wouldn't have control of any weapon bar the FFARs and possibly not even them).

Your weapon loadout explanation is a a bit muddled and doesn't seem in keeping with standard loading practices for the weapons mentioned (hellfire coems in 4 or 2 missile racks(or even 1 missile), stingers in twin missile launchers and Hydra 7 in either 7 or 19tube launchers.

if you were wanting an improvement over the apache in terms of wing hard points i would add a third light hard point on each wing for 2 hellfires, 2 stingers or a 7tube hydra pod so you would have:
inner station: 4 hellfires or 19 hydra
middle station: 4 hellfires or 19 hydras
outer station: 2 hellfires, 7 hydras or 2 stingers
wign tip station: 2 stingers
although i suspect this is what you ment anyway.

Of course if were to go down the light/agile route i would suggest strippign it down to:
inner: 4 hellfires or 19 hydras
outer: 2 hellfires, 7 hydras or 2 stingers
wing tip: 2 stingers.

Gun wise for your 20mm option you would probabaly be better off with the M197 3barrel gatling gun as opposed to the much large and heavier M61, the M197 is roughly similar in weight to the 30mm M230 while the M61 weights more than twice as much.

[ooc: I guess I could make an option for the "wings" of the helicopter be able to detach for a smaller build and lighter weight (therefore faster speed) , for the sacrifice of less firepower, but this wouldn't make it as small as the copter you put a link to.]

Mirage Heavy Industries Official Order Confirmation to Golddragons

Your order is confirmed. You will recieve your order in 3 (NS) weeks.

[ooc: Thanks for the suggestions. Again, this is my first design, so it's more of a learning experience. I'll probably make a new design with the improvements suggested instead of modifying the current helicopter.]