WelcomeUser Guide
ToSPrivacyCanary
DonateBugsLicense

©2024 Poal.co

1.3K

(post is archived)

[–] 1 pt

With helicopters flying nap of the earth, less than 50 feet above the houses, forest, etc, at 150 mph, you don't even hear them until they fly right over top of you. There is no warning. In this airspace helicopters are also especially difficult to target with any kind of radar, or heat signature, because that also takes time to lock on. Even ground fire doesn't have time to react.

This is also why the civilian cell phone videos of wartime helicopters are always when they are flying out in the open. When they are flying nap of the earth over the terrain, there is not enough time to record them on a cell phone video before they are gone again.

That said, there is no way you are going to fly into Mariupol that the Russians are not going to see you doing it. I don't know what the terrain around that city is like, but I suspect helicopters would have to fly at least part of that mission over wide open farm fields, totally exposed, and that whole area is surrounded by Russians with air defenses.

Those same air defenses might not have shot at the helicopters coming in because they may have assumed any helicopters seen would be Russian. It is Russian gear, after all. Going back out with everybody ready and waiting for you, that is a different story.

Yesterday a pair of Ukrainian attack helicopters flew into Russia and took out a huge oil storage depot in an attack on a Russian refinery. Same concept. If the Russians even saw these helicopters at all prior to the attack, they may have assumed they were Russian helicopters. These helicopters apparently were not shot down on the way out again.

Probably the Russians will now increase their fighter coverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ZUXNeBoHo