Posted on 04/06/2013 3:52:53 AM PDT by autumnraine
Actually Russian helicopters, particularly older designs like the MI-17, literally will fly for decades with relatively poor maintenance, which for helicopters usually is the kiss of death. One can argue about the Pentagon usurping Congress. One can argue about giving American taxpayer money to a Russian firm. However, when it comes to large helicopters that are to be used in a foreign country by users who associate the word ‘maintenance’ with the same relish they associate with ‘pork’ then it is really hard to argue against the Mi-17. From Uganda to Uzbekistan it has proven its ability to fly in the hands of poor pilots, questionable fuel and really interesting fluids, and nonexistent maintenace crews for thousands of hours.
Should we hold it against the Russians because they are supplying the good guys in Syria? Just because Obama and Moran (or is it Moron) are backing the anti-American muslim terrorists in Syria doesn’t make those who are a bit more sane wrong.
You can say that again.
-PJ
When it is time for him to bypass the 22nd, he will. And not one peep will be uttered in opposition by those in authority. You can count on that if obama allows an election in 2016, he will have it rigged so that he will win.
Well they do have problems and crash but they also will fly at high altitudes and carry a large payload and they are easy to maintain and they are faster than the Chinook which is the only chopper we have that flies high with a big payload. As long as they are leaving them in Asaghanistan who gives a rats bazoo?
The only thing I’m ticked off about is that we are leaving anything there except the fleas and dancing boys.
Actually, in this case it makes sense. Almost all the military gear the Afghan army has is Russian made. US equipment is just not compatible with it. Russian stuff is also far easier to maintain. For example, the AK-47 has only three field-serviceable parts. Such simplicity is a philosophy with them.
Plus a great secret of Russian aircraft is that it is much simpler to operate. The old joke was that the Russian spaceship that took their Cosmonauts to the Moon only had three buttons. “Start”, “Stop”, and “Self-Destruct”.
The masters of kick backs mow have to pay the price.
Lets look at this thing from the beginning.
We have already bought these animals 70 helicopters form the russians Now we want to buy them 30 more.,
WTF are we doing buying helicopters for Afghanistan in the first place. The day we move pout of there they will go back to the 10th. century and a hundred-—nay— a thousand helcopters will not stop it.
The smart thing to do is tell them nothing and like the Baltimore Colts, move out in the middle of the night, and destroy anything we cannot carry with us —including the 70 helicopters we already bought them.
Reasons:
1. Obama feels more comfortable in communist equipment;
2. he stiffs Sikorsky, and
3. the Russian helos come with English speaking, Russian crews that cost less than U.S. military crews.
It's because of “sequestration” don't you know, you stupid Yankees.
We can't come up with a simple, durable helicopter?
There are pluses and minuses to every design strategy.
For instance, Russian tanks were so relatively easy to use, but had such rotten engines, that tank crews would form up in three man groups for training and run around pretending to be using their tanks. From the moment the engine was started, they were only good for some 300 operational hours before the engine needed a complete rebuild.
US helicopters were extremely high tech and deadly, light and fast, but every time they flew they had to get a lot of maintenance, used several minutes of flight pre-checks before the engine was started, and had to have highly trained pilots. This is expensive as all heck.
A Russian helicopter was much like a tank. Heavily armored, simple to fly, and could give and take much abuse of most kinds. Routine maintenance was much less. Pilots were a dime a dozen. A lot cheaper than anything the US produced.
Importantly, Soviet strategy was also weird, because nobody was supposed to do anything until ordered to. The Germans learned in WWII, if a unit commander was killed, the unit would just continue what it had last been ordered to do, unless they were fired on.
In one instance, a German battalion arrived on one side of a river to see a Russian brigade, about 10 times their size on the other side. Realizing the Russians weren’t shooting, the German commander quickly ordered his soldiers to hold their fire. Then he called in an enormous time on target (rounds landing all at once) artillery strike on the other side. Suddenly the entire other bank of the river disappeared in a giant cloud of dust and smoke, punctuated with detonating artillery rounds. They were wiped out.
Documentation File on the harmful impact of the Counterculture of Obamanation on America.
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Barry Soetoro, aka B. Hussein Obama, first Inaugural quote: I want to FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE AMERICA!
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Flexible Barry in action!
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