Assault and attack helicopters

The mainstay of U.S. Army assault units in Vietnam was the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, popularly known as the Huey. As early as1962, army aviators added turret-mounted automatic 40-millimetre grenade launchers, skid-mounted rocket pads, and remotely trainable 7.62-millimetre machine guns. These experiments, which proved effective in supporting helicopter assault operations, led to the AH-1G Huey Cobra, deployed in 1967 as the first purpose-built helicopter gunship. With its pilot seated behind and above the gunner, the Huey Cobra pioneered the tandem, stepped-up cockpit configuration of future attack helicopters.

After the Vietnam War, the lead in gunship design passed to the Soviet Union, which, in the Afghan War of the 1980s, fielded the Mil Mi-24 Hind, the fastest and possibly most capable helicopter gunship of its time. A primary role of the Hind was to attack armoured vehicles; to this end, it mounted guided antitank missiles on stub wings projecting from the fuselage. In addition to the two-man cockpit configuration of the Huey Cobra, it had a small passenger and cargo bay that gave it a limited troop-transport capability.

The successor to the Huey Cobra was the McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apache, a heavily armoured antiarmour helicopter with less speed and range than the Hind but with sophisticated navigation, ECM, and fire-control systems. The Apache became operational in 1986. Soon afterward the Soviets produced the Mi-28 Havoc, a refinement of the Hind that, with no passenger bay, was purely a gunship.

Naval helicopters

Helicopters were used extensively in antisubmarine roles, “dipping” sonar sensors into the water to locate their targets and launching self-homing torpedoes to destroy them. Ship-borne helicopters also served as firing platforms for antiship missiles and were used to carry warning and surveillance radars, typically sharing information with their mother ships. By firing heat-producing or chaff flares to confuse infrared and radar homing systems, naval helicopters could serve as decoys for antiship missiles.

Essential vocabulary:

1. assault– атака, нападение

2. turret–mounted - со сменными боеголовками

3. grenade- граната

4. launcher– пусковая установка

5. skid- салазка

6. pad– панель, буртик, подушка

7. remotely trainable– управляемый на расстоянии

8. to deploy- развертывать

9. armoured vehicle– бронированное средство передвижения

10. missile- ракета

11. stub wing– обрубленное крыло

12. to project from - выступать из

13. cockpit- кабина

14. cargo bay – грузовой отсек

15. troop- войско

16. sophisticated- сложный

17. refinement– усовершенствование

18. extensively– широко, усиленно

19. to dip– погружать

20. to destroy– разрушать

21. sonar sensor– гидролокация, сонар

22. warning – предупреждение, сигнал об опасности

23. surveillance – наблюдение, слежение

24. to share– делить, разделять

25. chaff flare– легкая вспышка

26. to confuse– спутывать

27. infrared– инфракрасный

28. naval – военно-морской

29. decoy – приманка

30. mainstay – главная поддержка, опора, оплот

31. to mount – прикреплять, устанавливать