BAE Mi-24 can have Sidewinders (idk which ones these are)
Either AIM-9P’s (Export J’s), G’s (What the UK uses) or either the All Aspect P’s or L’s
true, would love to see a in tree rooivalk with more advanced missiles would be awesome
Nice photos, I’m long overdue a revisit, probably my favourite museum I have been to.
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Difference between ah mk1 and ah mk2 engines can be pretty huge on some specific maps. In other cases, the difference is less dramatic, although it is still a pity that the ah mk2 was not equipped with the same rolls-royce engine.
Im confident that ALL american aircraft can simply be made better by fitting Rolls-Royce Engines.
P-51, Sabre, Phantom, Apache, all way better with RR fitted and now they are fitting B-52s with RR engines :D
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An experimental 12.7mm/.50 cal M3 nose turret using HMS to aim, that was developed by Lucas Aerospace for Lynx and other helicopters
Part of “British Aircraft Armament, Volume 1 : RAF Gun Turrets from 1914 to the Present Day” by R. Wallace Clarke
Mentions that such turret systems were also tried on AB-412 (pictured), Bo.105 and A129. The turret is actually already ingame on the old premium A129 International
Would be an interesting addition to G-LYNX I think
@Godvana’s Bo.105 BSH-1 suggestion talks about the Lucas turret system being used for Stinger launchers as well the Browning .50 cal.
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I both want and need the new Leonardo UK AW149, here are a couple of head liners;
Weapons;
Seems the Thales rocket system is used to FZ275 A2G and FZ123 A2A rockets;
Hellfire/JAGM/Brimstone
Render only right now.
Full DAS & and a search radar;
Leonardo’s SEER series of RWR can be seen here, same unit from the AH-64E in UK service, so SG-200D.
And the hype reel;
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Several defence commentators have raised the point of converting Wildcat into an AH-1 sort of aircraft.
Would be very interesting to see the Wildcat with a 20mm/.50cal chin turret, retain the sighting system on the nose, and then mounting the Seaspray radar on top of the rotors like on Apache, with the wing hardpoints fitted and you could have a very capable maritime helicopter.
LMM, torpedo’s, brimstone could definitely go on there too and potentially some other things like APKWS.
Its a gorgeous looking helicopter, the more we have of them the better.
Could be the new Blackhawk.
Well this was nearly dropped in favour of Blackhawk. But Labour turned that around and decided Leonardo was worth the investment.
Can also see the threat warning panel in the hype reel;
Oh they confirmed the contract, neat!
Always liked the AW149, It’s a very good looking Helicopter, much better than the Blackhawk.
Laser guided airburst right? Be good for bullying other helicopters.
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Yeah, I think this will be a core feature of most modern medium helicopters now due to the obvious utility at dealing with one way attack drones.
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The AW149 also has loads of benefits over Blackhawk with the only drawbacks being price and MTOW, and I’d wager with new engines the MTOW difference wouldn’t be much.
At the last minute on the day of the offers limit when the entirety of the UK defence industry was literally melting down over the stupidity of the delays to the DiP and refusal to meet essential contract dates.
Without going into politics the treasury would’ve been finished if they hadn’t have selected AW149 And let the MoD order it.
How does FZ123 compare with APKWS
Both are 70mm SAL rocket systems. They’re very similar.
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In that case, then APKWS is a BAE product, so might as well fund BAE and standardise with Typhoon. But have both integrated so if some supply chain issues exist we have alternatives.
It’s almost come full circle with starstreak on apache when you think of it, laser guided AA munitions what a time.
This appears to be a specific C-UAS (VT, HE-F) warhead, APKWS is a (distributed) laser Guidance system (detectors are imbedded in the forward surfaces, not the nose to allow for existing fuses to be reused) and so is effectively Warhead & fuse agnostic and so would need novel fuse + warhead combinations.
The AGR-20F (FALCO) (see attached report) is specific configuration that uses a novel proximity fuse + regular M151 HE warhead and a standard 70mm Hydra compatible rocket motor.
Though there was some signs of An SAL/IIR seeker being developed for the APKWS to permit the target to be handed off to prosecute the Terminal phase of an engagement and speed up re-attack / a swarm since modern EO system (such as Late AH-64’s M-TADS can perform visual multitrack ).
compare (latter may be a notional / mockup seeker since it’s from BAE’s SAS-2025 booth)
Yeah, the current reports about FZ123 are a bit confusing. A lot of recent ones are saying it’s a CUAS version of the guided FZ275. But the warhead pictured in all those articles was previously displayed at trade shows, clearly stating FZ123 is an unguided rocket warhead
Some older articles said it was a programmable airburst warhead to engage UAS and swarms of UAS. Basically a 70mm rocket version of a V/T shell or AHEAD. Others say it’s proxy fuzed.
The warhead section for the guided rocket is the green part, which is significantly smaller than what’s been displayed as FZ123.
As you pointed out, the design of FZ275 LGR is an all-up weapon with the laser seeker and guidance section at the front. So it needs purpose-built warhead sections to thread on to, where APKWS’s wing-mounted seekers allow it to use the full array of hydra warheads and fuzes by having the seekers and guidance section aft of the warhead.
At least initially, FZ275 was supposed to have a base impact-fuzed F277 warhead
I suspect that Thales newest development is simply a Mod. version of FZ275 that has leveraged technology from the FZ123 warhead to replace the FZ277 warhead with one optimised for the C-UAS role. And reporters are confused by the two designations they were presented with.
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