Theoretical entry to the destruction of apache (and other antipersonal mass destruction helicopters)

I saw a short documentary on apache helicopters, there sure is a production line that suggests significant losses, in that sense my ideas may add nothing to existing expertise i have no knowledge of.

The apache is a volatile tool of destruction, under normal circumstances and with basic arms hardly anything can be done to counter them, let alone counter them efficiently.

Under almost any circumstances the apache helicopter will have significant informations of all potential targets within reach of it's armament. Ambushing them is probably not rili possible, (except under singular circumstances, wich include camouflage, surprise attack and single helicopters, (or perhaps pairs).

Except in very complex battlefieldsituations, something that hardly occurs these days, the mere options of detection make anything but a surprise attack unfeasible.

probably any attack will provoke a represaille, and in that sense there probably are no methods to negotiate apache helicopters or their close relatives, except in very mountaneous terrain, with advanced missiles, like stingers, by surprise, so from a camouflaged position,
very hard to do because next to bodyheat a lot of the militairy informations would refer to armaments, weapons.

I figure that the only situations in wich apaches can be really brought down somewhat effectively is in organised conflict, in confused battles, with at least sufficient airdefence to limit the helicopters operational freedom, (a limitation of their movement by like 20% of the airspace (and related landareas) may be enuf to
start fighting them.

Basically you would try to fight them from the periphery of your forces, yet it is equally attractive to lure single examples deeper into lightly occupied terrain.

I think in an assymetric struggle like any that fights apaches would be, it is very hard to attack even 2 helicopters at once, that being teh case tehy will usually operate in small groups i think. 2 of them already is a huge force to reckon,
unless you would strike first and fast, so i assume 3 is their usual basic combat formation.

That means that their offensive capacity's are most only limited to munitions and it's of great interest to find ways to deal with them peripherially (or unexpected).

I am under the impression that the best way to cope with them would be to use special weaponry and munitions.

advanced mancarried missiles are the only tool available i would think in the current arsenals that forms any threat as it is. ofcourse heavy to very heavy airdefense or jets may keep them away, concentrations of such airdefence can only incidentally be achieved, and thinking airpower other then nato would be superior in the medium term of any small or great conflict is more stupid then wishfull thinking.

The only two such options would be when all non-nato nations would fights all nato nations, and when us would engage in wars with the greatest other nations and unions,
so when it would loose european support from the nato.

the latter sceme is not as completely implausible as the first , but certainly not europe nor the us have an interest in that wich makes it remarkably improbable as well.

So the more probably combat operations of apaches to come, will probably be against
firstly single targets and small lightly armed formations, like in afghanistan
and gaza, and perhaps but i hope not , against bigger armys that could set up something of a defense in depth. These army's would probably under great pressure considering numbers in nato inventory.

It is quite obvious any more solid and indepth defence would be served by a peripherial perimeter that would cope with apaches. They have a great firerate, heavy weapons, a lot of munitions and advanced sensors and obervation tools, the sooner you'd stop them the better.

So let's get technical. In principle any weapon invented or adapted to peripherial defence could be usefull in ambush, however you would still need single, low flying helicopters to do something. chances appear somewhat slim, detection, arms control, infiltration etc. remain not much hidden to big brother.

Helicoptercrews would definetly get nervous of camouflaged personel and they are optimally equiped to deal with it.
Only in situations where the bloodlet of infantry is the ap. secondary task such camouflaged personel might get a shot in. if they have the weapon...

apart from it's miraculously reinforced transmission, that turns it into so to see the best aerial firing platform available, (very stable so very accurate) the whole thing is build to specifications, these would be generally available in the public domain i think, however i have read seen them a couple of times long ago, and i see no need for me personally to know this very precisely, so i might be a few mm or even more off in some calculations.

k so there goes, it must be theoretically possible to neutralise an ap. witha usual bullet, however such could only happen through the extremest of coincedences, seperation of 2 identical wires in the tail, or a lucky hit on some of the detail of the rotorconstruction weakest points , it may be possible to ignite the rocketmunitions it carries. Perhaps it's also possible by luck to damage a radar or something like that.

I think the glass can stand 2 cm machinegun rounds, and isnt penetrated by light grenades, the iron cage is still much stronger, grenades under 4cm probably dont get through. The tail appears slightly weaker, yet the most of the length is uninterupted, and systems and strengths would be redundant, the points where the tail
would be most vulnerable (besides the tailrotor that is allways a vulnerable point to some extend (5 cm should do the trick) 4cm has a chance i think,

I know this is not much help, since it's beyond the limits of targetting really, yet i first have to describe the structural quality's of the thing before i can show where what remains to be exploited as weaknesses could be.
(rotors are relatively easy to finetarget electronically i think).

For all i know they tried to make the back rotor of the ap.s extremely strong, it having allways been the weakest spot of helicopters, albeit one hard to target.

Unless we are sure our rounds will penetrate the skin and do sufficient damage to structurally impair 75% failure, the tail would hold, so the next points to aim for are not at the end f the tail but where the first servicing ports are in the rump.

There is more change to compromise the electronical and others at such places then in the mere tail itself, the monoqoque has only few exit and entry points for cabling and wires and tehse are well protected, however every major component of the helicopter is most bulnerable at such points, so when the rounds suffice it is possibly usefull to aim just outside the cage, and just outside components, )for example some 20 cn under the the point the rotor enters the skin the machine suggests
some conenctions, some 40 cm deeper again it appears to have some connections, etc.
So the main wiring is very well protected, and its probably better to try to neutralise components of the machine.

in no case the sheer metal parts of the thing need to be targetted, parts of the rotor close to the centre of it can stand much bigger shells then 5 cm (perhaps even more then 8 with inicidental hits), targetting that is in most cases useless.

Perhaps the lateral construct on it is more vulnerable then has been admitted, it sure looks like you wouldn't need 8cm to break it.(that small spider around the top-centre). You would still need a lucky hit, it wouldn't break by a simple hit on the shoulder i think.

So what remains to be seen is what are the weakest spots, connections, exterior munitions (i can think of munition countering munitions) , windows, (i think there is some chance they are one of the weaker points, yet they are pretty tough)
Also i think there are still stronger backup windows even when they reinforced the windows after the first versions. Apparently they fear a weapon that would exclusively or efficiently target the windows, not so strange where they are almost twice as weak as the rotor parts, repeated hits on single windows would cause it to break and let subsequent muntions enter the compartment, it is quite possible, that with generic and unsophisticated weaponry they are the best place to aim. However i am curious to the result of hits on the munitions, as they would at least also cripple it's tremendous capacity's of targetted destruction. For example some mobilised AA may be able to counter ap.s , without their missiles.

(the cannon it carries however destroys tanks so i don't think it's really worth trying.) In any case it's doubtfull that even discharging the munitions would persee be lethal to the helicopter, ofcourse really igniting its munitions would actually destroy it. ok i guess my antirotor bullets might just work here as well..

because, i found out one more weaker spot on the aps. the rotors.

2 man can carry one such rotor, wich goes to say that the titanium cover is relatively thin. i think i have seen heli's with damaged rotors tho, and as long as they don't break it doesn't matter a bit, so we have to break them.

Like the tail of the helicopter the weakest spot of the rotor is not close to where it attackes, yet its not halway the rotors either, ut depends teh precise construction of the rotor when it uses no glove the weaker spot could be between 50cm (bit more) - 1m of the center, when it does use some extended kind of sock it is more probably between 80cm and 1.40. Anyhow the point where the reinforced part thins to usual armour property of the whole rotor is the best place to break it.

yet with usual guns not much happens, titanium being harder then iron or steel, at huge speed, just reflects most of the metal that hits it.

so the firing system to achieve this should probably be dedicated (aiming electronically at that property of the rotors circle) like i said, such a system would function and be scary, it would not be sufficient with usual munitions.

Lucky for this planet they have me, and i just invented the tungsten tipped hollow charge composite destructor round. (perhaps its even possible to use agressive fluids like toluene for the 'hollow' charge.)

The point being, a: we have to penetrate the titanium. tungsten tipped should achieve that, b: with penetrating into the rotor 'composite honeyrate layer'
a hollow charge with properties that for example melt or disintegrate the composite content of the rotor (perhaps aluminium it worked against some tanks) or it's tungsten all the way and actually one could apply their own D>I>M>E. munitions concept to rotors. I am not quite sure, and i don't want to improve on the rotors.
however if they improve on them, there is no other option then to use similar materials like eg. industrial diamant or what they will start using when they also think of it, and if they don't use it yet. (its bad for the environment)

It does matter since i think a more complex composit might have you want to fire a more complicated, multiaction charge and i wasn't inventing that. however it shud be possible if one uses films or in another way, films ofcourse work best.in the very far future all charges will be composites constructed partly through films, logically.

I am not sure, can they nanotube the whole thing for the price it takes (63k)?
i don't think so, but it cud be they have special deliverys, i saw tennisrackets with nanotubes that hardly costed anything extra.

so my first guess would be to enforce the tungsten with nanotubes and still try to destroy teh composite by heat or chemical reaction.

Assuming we can create such charges, how will we create a sufficiently effective targeting system. Ofcourse we need a digitalised fire system, the optimal would be a completely robotic hmg, or perhaps a high firerate machine cannon. it would then target at the rotor on a set and specific distance form the center (eg. 90 cm would probably work but if closer to the centre the structure is equally strong closer to the centre is better,

next we could calibrate the fire to the rotors rotations, to maximise the nr of hits.
(note from the ground it's usually much easier to have a line of fire to the main rotor then to the tale one)in that way perhaps even a 1.5cm mg could down any chopper in 20 shots.

okay so much for the conventional tools, we could ofcourse defeat the enemy by it's own means and use drones instead.

okay so drones against helicopters,
impact drones an impact drone would chase a helicopter, or even wait for it to position itself and then charge it, and try to destroy it by the means of its impact,
Allthough a good chasing drone could destroy a helicopter in that way, teh drone would be little but a ameliorated rocket, and as such have less effect on the helicopter then repeated hits with hi-energy rounds, simpler rockets or...

the utterly annoying drone, different from the impact drone the annoyance drone doesnt aim to destroy the helicopter on impact but after impacts, for example molten metals that alloy with exterior moving parts, variety's of "paint bombs" (that could for example enlarge the radar shadow, or restrict the weapons in their accuracy.

Some of these could be promising, but most of them would probably result in mobility kills only.

Then there is the drone aerial combat vehicle, any kind of drone that tries to hit its target with submunitions would be that. I think this is also promising,
but its costy and for now the target it would provide the nato is to big.

then it's better to use smaller radio controlled vehicles or homing drones, as these would be much more costefficient.

For drones ofcourse it is imperial to think of sound attack methods, you don't want to loose a couple 100 dollar drone for nothing.

Fortunately helicopters are not build to defend against drones, the cannon can hardly be expected to engage multiple small targets at high speed on very different angles, assuming a slightly sub sound drone for example, even an apache would not turn fast enough to destroy multiples of them when they would angle in from behind.
It could have a tough time with one if the drone habitually manouvers.
(flys (some 20 cm) irregulary)

There is probably a lower limit to when the rockets the ap. carry's can catch teh drone. against this its either perhaps an option to use dummy drones, to use drones that cost much less then these rockets, or to build a speedier drone.

since the drones only need to home in once, certainly attacks with several drones would destroy helicopters, the anti airmissile the heli fires should be somewhat luckily aimed to engage a system that locks in at a speed comparable to it's.

oh well i guess just hate helicopters, i do, tehy are the typical sluaghter tool kind of weapon, the killing endless numbers of innocents and defenceless indiscriminately, and surpress any kind of resistance kind of weapon.
repressive weapons for "crowd control".