Could well be incomplete information regarding canvassing demand for a series of optional Aural / laser / optical fusing options in order to downselect, taken out of context.
It hasn’t yet been certified with all of them, it still needed a novel APAM(HEAT-F) design instead of using the existing M247 HEAT warhead, I don’t know why though.
M247’s been out of production for decades. It was developed as one of the warheads for old FFAR/Mighty Mouse type rockets.
Likely there’s simply not enough remaining in reserve.
Even though M247 would still be accepted on Hydra motors as the US rocket inventory moved on from FFAR to WAFAR (Hydra), that warhead was largely replaced with M261 MPSM from the early 1980s onward. But MPSM has been drawn down as well because it’s a cluster munition with no self-destruct feature on the M73 submunitions.
As such, a new warhead was needed to bring back the anti-armour capability
Seems weird since the M72 LAW uses a similar warhead to the M247 5" HEAT explosive train and nose fuse. Reintegrating production can’t have been that hard considering that the -A8 & -A9 is in active acquisition by the USMC / MOD, and the TDP exists.
Heavy armor targets would probably rate a Hellfire, Maverick, CBU-105 or similar. So to some degree it would be fairly redundant with how ubiquitous Anti-Armor PGMs are.
It still seems like such a weird direction to go in. In place of restarting production since M282 should provide Structure defeat, too.
M72 warhead design has also changed a lot, since the 1990s M72A4 version. The US largely moved on to higher penetration variants like the A4, and enhanced blast variants like A6/A7/A9.
M72A5 is the last version produced with the original low-penetration M72A1-A3 type warhead.
The current US production A8 anti-armour rocket is entirely new. Among other things, Nammo say it’s a PD fuzed design rather than PIBD like old LAW warheads were.
So even re-integrating LAW production for a successor to the original M247 would probably lead the US on a path to looking at a better performing warheads, rather than simply opting for the M72A5’s low-penetration warhead.
Buying a straight HEAT warhead for 70mm rockets just hasn’t been attractive since the 1980s until today. Now that it’s possible to ensure that it hits what it’s fired at, rather than firing a lot of them and hoping for the best
i think Britain should get a ah1 of some form, although im struggling to find information on it, apparently we tested a pre production version in 1967 but unsure what variant and then found something saying we tested a modified venom cobra in 1990 so unsure, just wondered if anyone has more joy finding more information as always wanting to learn more. apparently these later cobras could carry hellfires or brimstones but again this is the first ive heard of this fact
The 1990s one was what ultimately became AH-1Z “Venom”. But GEC-Marconi was to do the cockpit systems, where in the end it was Lockheed Martin once we picked Apache Longbow instead.
Fundamentally it was an AH-1W Super Cobra with a 4-blade main rotor and a new cockpit.
There was an AH-1W in the UK for the evaluation, and it was shown off in London in 1996
Previously in 1990, Bell had mocked up a helicopter with 4 blades for Farmborough as part of the initial response to the UK’s Attack Helicopter RFI, and also Germany’s efforts to replace the Bo 105 that led to UH Tiger.
oh i see that’s good would love to see that added to the game for Britain as maybe in tree, but what of the earlier type that i assume was a pre production model ah1f maybe or something earlier? that would make sense due to the noise 2 blades create for the reported noise complaints
AH-1G was the only AH-1 in production at the time, if the 1967 date is correct.
Next version AH-1J went in to production 1968.
AH-1F is from 1980s - weirdly the AH-1G’s modernisation to AH-1F, started with Q then went backwards through the alphabet Q-S-P-E-F
i assume that would be with the 7.92 miniguns and not a upgrade to 20mm. either way have 2 cobras in the tree would add something until they can be bothered to add the sa heli tree other than 1 premium
Prototype Rooivalk with Ingwe+Darter would be good for 10.0, much better than AH-1F (and a gimped W depending on the optics).
true but would be nice to have the cobras too, be a far better choice than the early lynx we have
