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The need to be ready to face illdefined military threats, and the reductions in defence spending, are defining new strategic and operational principles. A new way of waging war is emerging, one based on technology and air power.
Air power when properly applied can provide a tremendous leverage to resolve crises rapidly and at low cost, as was proven on a number of occasions. Air power helps control the sea, occupy land, support armies, and supply other forces.
An important and indeed essential element of air power is the helicopter. In particular, attack helicopters are attracting increasing attention from a growing number of countries worldwide, perhaps because of their flight performance and firepower. In the view of many observers, the attack helicopter is now joining the tank and the infantry fighting vehicle as the third basic weapon system for combined arms combat. Although the attack helicopter has already proved itself in various actions around the world, its basic principle is regarded as still offering a considerable development potential, and new employment concepts are being developed. The extent to which attack helicopters can enhance mobility on the battlefield is expected to have an impact as great as that exerted by tanks in overcoming the stalemate of trench warfare.
The Roles
Despite their above-mentioned significance as a key element of air power, in most armed forces combat helicopters are currently regarded (and deployed as an item of the ground forces equipment, which operates in a land environment as part of an all-arms formation.
Attack
This role, which has nowadays established itself as the single most important combat mission for helicopters, embodies the application of firepower using on-board weapons of all types. The main targets are AFVs and most particularly MBTs, but also soft-skinned vehicles, field fortifications, air defence radar sites, surface-to-surface missile batteries, and more in general all the targets of opportunity that can be identified in the framework of joint air attack team operations.
In the anti-tank role, attack helicopters would probably be more effective when used en masse to achieve a shock impact; but for other applications there will often be occasions when just a few helicopters rapidly deployed at a critical moment can achieve the desired effect (as demonstrated by the attack by...