Originally Posted by donscott
One thing I did on all the UH-1 helicopters was to increase the crew from 2 to 4, no Huey during this time except medevacs flew without a crew chief and door gunner with M-60s. I increased survivability from 0 to 5, Hueys were extremely tough aircraft and more went down from mechanical failure or stupidity than enemy action. I think it should be more like an armored vehicle except that it lands, the crew might escape and it catches fire. Out of 65 pilots in a helicopter company, only 16 flew gunships, they were hand-picked from the best, most experienced and motivated crews in the unit. The same goes for the crew-chief and gunner. When you consider rally and suppression, consider rally potential for two officers and two NCO’s.
Unit 903, UH-1B ARA, could also be a UH-1C and could be renamed “UH-1B/C Hog.” Aerial Rocket Artillery was unique to the 1st Cav Division, however, one of these aircraft was on the TO&E of each gunship platoon in Assault Helicopter Companies, my first gunship was armed this way. The M3 system with 24 rockets to a side was fired in pairs for aircraft stability. These rockets were armed with the 10 pound warhead comparable to a 75 mm howitzer.
Unit 862 UH-1B Maxwell, the reason I would suggest getting rid of it is that it was a one- time deal, there never was a second one and because of the shortage of targets for the SS-11 anywhere but Europe, it was a waste of a good aircraft. Adding the UH-1C gunship makes sense because it was the most common gunship available from 1966 on. For the first and second weapon lines I used weapon 192, the 7.62 mini-gun, the M21 system. I searched through the weapons long and hard trying to find something that would duplicate the effect of a 3 second 600 round burst hitting a 50 meter hex and the closest thing I could come up with was a claymore mine, the mini-gun was even more devastating than that. My suggestion would be six shots with HE of 20 for each gun. Only C models carried the mini-gun, B models remained armed with the 4 m-60s, it was a wiring issue.
In Assault Helicopter Companies the gun platoon was made up of usually 1 Hog, two 40 mm ships and 5 gunships. Types of aircraft were not mixed, either all B or all C models.
Unit 281, I only saw the SS-11 weapon demonstrated and I thought it verged on suicide, a helicopter’s survivability depends largely on the fact that it is always moving, mostly because our gunships were always overloaded. In the game I love this aircraft, the pop up from behind hills feature is great, but there is a problem in real life; when it hovers to shoot, it can be tracked by a tank’s main gun, all other helicopters move too much. There is an advantage though, in real life a mini-gun ship firing at a tank would drive off the supporting infantry and cause the tank crew to button up. In a buttoned up condition, the tank can no longer use its AAMG and cannot know when a missile has been fired at it so evading is out of the question. A combination of a gunship (or a LOH with a mini-gun) and an SS-11 ship would be a realistic tank hunter-killer team.The SS-11 remained important until the TOW came along.
Unit 894 UH-1C Heavy Hog and Unit 892 UH-1M Heavy Hog – let’s rethink this one. In mid 1968 the T-53-L-13 engine began replacing the T-53-L-11 engine that had been the mainstay. The L-13 engine equipped the UH-1H making it the most powerful single engine helicopter in the world. B and C models that had been stateside for rebuild began to reappear with the L-13 and were designated UH-1M. This engine would also power the Cobra. With the appearance of the M models, the M157 and M158 7 shot rocket pods standard on all gunships but the Hog were replaced with the M159 19 shot pods. This effectively made the Hogs obsolete and they were rearmed as gunships. You can create units for the UH-1M representing the upgraded power in 40 mm ships and mini-gun ships with the 19 shot pods. At this same time new rockets with 17 pound warheads were introduced, these had the same HE punch as a 105. The new rockets also had several fuse and warhead options but I am not sure these options would improve game play. Imagine a UH-1M 40 mm or mini-gunship with 2-19 shot pods carrying 17 pound rockets. Awesome. Sometimes we would add two more door gunners just for grins.
It might be possible to get by with fewer Cobra variants. The AH-1G Cobras when they first came out were armed all the same. The chin turret with an M134 mini-gun with 4,000 rounds and a 40 mm gl with 300 rounds was standard, although any combination of the two weapons was possible. Four M159 19 shot rocket pods were standard on the stub wings although there was one variant available that should be considered, the M195 20 mm cannon mounted on the inboard port pylon with a fixed sight. There were 950 rounds for this gun in faired boxes attached to the fuselage. Most of the other Cobra variants involved something other than major weapon options. The ARA units were re-established with Cobras but remained distinct in name only.
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