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It's safer to be in a firefight than to be in a helicopter

post #1 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:17am
Thread Starter 
ANOTHER chopper went down, this time in Afghanistan. What is up with these things?

The govt claims this latest chopper was NOT shot down.
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post #2 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:24am
I swear it seems SO like cover-up shit. As if we can't admit getting bested in any way. That said, if they are accidents then they must be using people from Atlanta highways to pilot them.
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post #3 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:25am
Thread Starter 
They've been crashing a bunch here in the States, too. Maybe the warranty is up?
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post #4 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:27am
Maybe their training eats ass.
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post #5 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:43am
maybe the sandstorms are rough on the equipment.
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post #6 of 12
3/24/03 at 2:44am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I bet no one ever took deserts into the equation when building our equipment.
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post #7 of 12
3/24/03 at 3:07am
Well, our choppers are mostly 20+ years old. The WSJ did a piece about the age of our chopper fleet, and it is amazing. The youngest is the Apache Longbow at 9 years, followed by the Black Hawk at 15 years. A majority of these crashes have been Sea Kings, Hueys, Cobras, etc. that are over 20 years old.

So yes, Devin, I would say the warranty is up.
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post #8 of 12
3/24/03 at 3:08am
Thread Starter 
What the hell are we pouring money into the military for? Jesus, instead of dropping untold billions on developing the sickening Mother of All Bombs, why didn't we update our fleet, which can be useful for stuff other than endlessly killing people?
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post #9 of 12
3/24/03 at 3:12am
Quote:
Devin hates Saddam, hates the war:
Yeah, I bet no one ever took deserts into the equation when building our equipment.
I'm sure they did but the weather and sand combined can lead to some of the crashes.
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post #10 of 12
3/24/03 at 3:16am
We are pouring money in, but it doesn't seem to help much. Part of the problem is we start a project (for example, the RAH-65 Commanche), then immediately start pearing it back. These were supposed to replace our current recon choppers, but they won't be ready until at least 2008, by which time those choppers will be about 30 years old. Add that to us not getting enough of these systems (ex. the Black Hawk replaced the Huey, but we didn't get enough, so we are still using a chopper from 1965). It seems as a lot of our force is pretty old, and modernizing everything is cost prohibitive. Instead, we do a little of this and a little of that. The peace dividend in the 90s sucked money away from modernization that we really needed.
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post #11 of 12
3/24/03 at 3:17am
Quote:
Anyawatcher:
Quote:
Devin hates Saddam, hates the war:
Yeah, I bet no one ever took deserts into the equation when building our equipment.
I'm sure they did but the weather and sand combined can lead to some of the crashes.
Especially with the choppers. Sand + engine heat + rotor sucking it in = glass coated engine and a crash.
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post #12 of 12
3/24/03 at 5:09am
This has been a pretty major news story in the UK leading up to the war, with many UK troops speaking out and saying that if we rush into another desert war now, faulty and outdated equipment will lead to a string of accidents and death. Wonder why it didn't get much coverage in the US? Hmmmm...

Basically, the vehicles and equipment are old and past their best, new guns for the UK army are prone to jamming and clogging (and that's here in the UK, where sandstorms are fairly rare), and the desert sand speeds up vehicle corrosion a hundred-fold. Some of the UK tanks, before the conflict, couldn't even move on sandy surfaces. Good thing they tested it before they shipped out. But how much other stuff wasn't tested?

I doubt this is a cover-up of Iraqi strikes, just more examples of the World's Most Advanced Military Machine not being quite as a well-oiled as we're led to believe. As with the first Gulf War, I fully expect more British troops to be killed by faulty equipment and "friendly" fire than by the enemy.
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