Its evident the deal for 22 AH 64 Block3 will be signed very soon. In Army Aviation Circles air is Hot that Number will increase to atleast 60. Purely from creation of Air Cavalry would like to know views of Members on Force Multiplication. No Bubbish comments please.
This competition is for IAF, to replace older Mi 35s, so no relation to IAs airwing. IA now gets Rudra and in future LCH to provide their ground forces the needed fire support, be it against enemy troops, armored vehicles or tanks. So they are not dependent on IAF helicopters anymore, which mainly rules our the use of these Apaches in such normal roles.
IAF instead might want to use the upgraded avionics and radar capabilities of the Apache for reconnaissance, command and special attack roles, because these are the fields were it will offer credible advantages over Rudra and LCH, especially with the Block 3 features, although it must be seen how compatible these features are to Indian forces systems and how much customisation is possible wrt CISOMA and other US restrictions.
So main fire support will be done by indigenous combat helicopter, which will be procured in high numbers of IA and IAF, while these Apaches are meant as a proven and high tech addition for certain roles, which don't require similar high numbers.
I would have prefered Comanche helicopters for these special roles, but the Apache will be a good addition to IAFs capabilities too. However, way more important they adding them would be adding armed drones and that's a field were we still lack behind!
