Pakistan needs Attack Helicopters

[melb4aust]

Abs,

I would like to see a reliable source to support your claim. As far as we know 40 Cobra's have been delivered to PA sofar.

40 , i thought we have around 20 of them so far.

 

[Mercenary]

We have 20 Cobra Gunships and they were delivered during the Reagan Era in the early 80's

They for the most part are obselete

 

[Muradk]

we have 70 cobra gunships and they are far from being obselete, they serve pakistans purpose well.

in addition to these pakistan is also looking for another attack helicopter, possibly the rooivalk.

Neo, Abs is right we had AH-1S 20 of them 2 crashed than we got AH-1F 30 of them in early 90s and then we got 20 more plus spare parts. Bugti blew 1 so now we have 67.
The delivery was not announced by GOP for God know what reasons. If we goto the Cobra gunship website it still says that we were delivered 50 and 20 is still on order but the order went threw along time ago.


And on this forum some one said that PAF got 3 South African Cheetah - attack fighter plane -no that is wrong yes we were interested in them but realised that it is based on existing Mirage body/hull, better electronics, artillery, bombs. It had a longer nose cone to house electronics. but were expensive. So we picked-up mirages from different countries in middle-east. Some of them had less than 50 hours of flight time.

 

[blain2]

We have 20 Cobra Gunships and they were delivered during the Reagan Era in the early 80's

They for the most part are obselete

Not true with regards to obsolete. We received additional Cobras besides the initial 20. All of the Pakistani Cobras have been C-nited for night operations. In addition, the Cobra's are also receiving upgrades to their TOW launchers to use more advanced version of the ATGM.

There is also another option on the table to upgrade the AH-1Fs to Super Cobra standard. Not sure if PA will go for it though.

 

[falcone]

Here are some specifics (the dates) from the DSCA website on the AH-1Fs Pakistan was allocated under Excess Defense Articles:

40 helos (all AH-1Fs) were allocated (8/19/2003) and accepted (5/31/2004).

 

[Janbaz]

40 , i thought we have around 20 of them so far.

I read many came from US after 9/11 as goodwill or maybe business deal.

 

[nawabzadah30]

I think if we look back at the first post, we will realize how we much we have lost focus from the main issue. The main issue is that pakistan needs Helis to fight the Al Qaeda and Taliban. Now we all know that till date, they haven't used any anti air weapons capable enough to threaten our cobras. Plus the US is not funding us to buy weapons to fight India rather it is only helping us for our war against terror. Hence to do justice to the funds we are getting, we should get some helicopters.
The recent incident of Fort in Sararogha, where the militants captured our fort and killed many soldiers is a case in point, which justify the requirement for such systems to give an effective response to them.
Regards,

 

[ejaz007]

Due to high price of AH-64D it is worth considering the Chinese Z-10 attack helicopter. It is believed to be in the same class as Rooivalk, and German Tiger attack helicopter. If this is true than it is worth considering.

 

[Blackpearl]

Cobra and Super Cobra helicopters are two different breed of aircraft.

1. Cobra
Its the Army version cobra. It started as AH-1G, single engine back in 1966. over the years, it has developed into various models and last production model is AH-1F.

2. Super Cobra
Cobra helicopter was inducted in 1966 bu US army, straight in Veitnam war. US Marine Corps was so impressed with the capability of the helicopter, that they ordered a twin engine varient, of cobra, called AH-1J. As Marine chopper has to opertae over water, so they prefer twin engine varient over single engine. Over the years, this twin engine varient has undergone various upgrades. Now the production model is AH-1W, Super Cobra. The latest version of this family, AH-1Z, Zulu is in the procees of induction in US marines corps.

My Point--------> AH-1F cobra cannot be upgraded to AH-1W/1Z, super cobra, because of there fundamental difference (single engine / twin engine). It requires detail modification of fuseladge section, engine intakes, exhaust, trasmission system.

US Army has retired all its AH-1F helos, and using AH-64 as dedicated attack helicopter. USMarines Corps has no AH-64, and using super cobra. Please visit Janes site for details.

Pakistan Army Aviation, has initial batch of AH-1S(MC) or later renamed as AH-1F, 20 helicopters. Recently Pakistan has received 12 more, AH-1F helicopters. As of upgrades of anti tank missile system, Cobra is only designed to fire TOW missile, and cannot fire Hellfire missile as used on Appaches.