An interesting analysis of the US Army's helicopter plans

 

Many people were surprised when the US Army cancelled its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program last month.  However, those who'd been following the battlefield performance of helicopters in the Russia-Ukraine conflict were less so.  Following the decision, there's been a lot of speculation about the way ahead for the US Army, and for other nations.  Flight Global observes:

“We are learning from the battlefield – especially in Ukraine,” army chief of staff General Randy George said as the FARA requirement was cancelled on 8 February. “Aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed. Sensors and weapons mounted on a variety of unmanned systems and in space are more ubiquitous, further reaching, and more inexpensive than ever before.”

Rather than continue to plough billions of dollars into the FARA project, the service instead has opted to “rebalance its aviation modernisation investments across new and enduring platforms”.

. . .

For FARA especially, the army envisioned a platform that would capable of operating low and fast. Such traits would enable the service to keep its aircraft and personnel out of harm’s when facing advanced ground-based air-defence systems and man-portable weapons.

Yet to be flown, the FARA candidates – Bell’s 360 Invictus and Sikorsky’s Raider X – were designed to meet a performance requirement of at least 180kt (333km/h) ... Instead, the service will continue to employ the Apache for such tasks, in concert with assets including a future tactical uncrewed aircraft system (FTUAS) and so-called air-launched effects (ALEs) ... The service has already performed trials involving the Black Hawk deploying Anduril Industries’ Altius-600 UAS. Such a system could be employed as an ALE, extending platform reach by providing surveillance, electronic warfare capability or kinetic effect.

The army will later this year also begin fielding Rafael’s Spike NLOS long-range air-to-surface missile with its V6-standard AH-64Es. The weapon has a precision strike capability against fixed and moving targets from a maximum range of 27nm (50km).

“There are a lot of countries interested in the integration of Spike NLOS for Apache ‘Echo’,” Rafael says, pointing to lessons learned from the war in Ukraine. “Everybody is looking for stand-off [range], since the threat is much greater than it used to be.”

Questions remain around the complex task of managing airspace congestion and deconflicting assets in an era where manned rotorcraft will operate in the same battlespace – and in many cases at the same altitude – as multiple UAS and ALEs.

There's more at the link.

In the light of the last paragraph above, I find the article's references to the Altius-600 and Spike NLOS weapons intriguing.  Both of the latter aren't exactly UAV's, and aren't exactly missiles;  they can both be "handed over" to guidance from different platforms, loiter over an area in reconnaissance mode (in the Spike's case, looking for targets), and generally make a longer-term nuisance of themselves in areas where the helicopter that launched them might not be able to survive enemy fire.  We're seeing "crossover" technology in action, where UAV's and missiles are less distinct from each other, more dual-purpose and flexible.

In that light, it's obvious why FARA was canned.  Even at higher speeds, a 180-knot helicopter simply can't cut it over a battlefield saturated with anti-aircraft missiles capable of ten times that speed or more.  It's too big and slow a target, comparatively speaking.  It would do no better than existing helicopters - so why not keep the latter, and save money by not developing the former?  It's far more difficult to detect much smaller ALE's and missiles, and much harder to shoot them down, so it makes sense to let them handle the well-defended battlefield airspace and treat the helicopter as a sensor integration and launching platform.

However, this gives rise to another question.  If helicopters have to adapt to that role, what about tanks?  I don't think we've seen the end of the tank, but its role on the battlefield may change, making it too a sensor integration and launching platform for other weapons - not a primary weapon in itself.  Nobody knows right now, but I'd hate to be a tank crew on a modern battlefield.  Video footage from Ukraine shows why.

It's almost impossible to evade detection by such a drone, particularly when there are dozens, even hundreds of them saturating a battle space.  A helicopter, or even multiple helicopters, could never achieve such saturation coverage - it would be far too expensive to buy that many helicopters, and every time one was shot down, the loss of its highly trained crew and an extremely costly machine would drain defense budgets.

I'm glad my soldiering days are done.  I suspect the battlefields of the future will be far more automated, and probably far more lethal.

Peter