SLATE: JUNK THE APACHE

The Pentagon should junk the Army’s main attack heli­copter, Slate says.
Apache Longbows were the cen­ter­piece of the only “dis­as­trous oper­a­tion of Gulf War II” — the March 24th attack on Republican Guard divi­sions near Karbala. The copters were routed that day, dri­ven back by small arms fire and rocket-​​propelled grenades.
According to Slate, it’s yet another exam­ple of the Apache being “too dan­ger­ous to the pilots who fly it and not dan­ger­ous enough to the enemy it’s designed to attack.“
THERE’S MORE: Over on the JO Forum list­serv, Bob Krumm writes that Slate is mak­ing “a ‘no-​​brainer’ asser­tion. After the first mis­sion where 30 Apaches were ‘shot up’ rarely did Apaches oper­ate for­ward of friendly troops ‘with­out the escort of fixed-​​wing air­craft fly­ing far over­head.’ If the first mis­sion was indeed con­ducted with­out the escort of fixed-​​wing air­craft, well we now know what the prob­lem was. Apaches are not designed to go for­ward with­out backup.”

April 24th, 2003 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.