How much of a difference would one Apache helicopter make in the Battle of the Somme?
Quite a bit, I imagine.
>>30613368
None aside from some potential psychological impacts. It's more about the munitions than the platform to some extent. You could fuck up a few people's days with your hydra pods and maybe your handful of hellfires would do some damage but after that you really wouldn't be much use. Maybe you could find some way of communicating targeting information from your longbow radome to help with counter-battery fire but comms would be a bitch and a half.
tl;dr next to no difference
I don't know mother fucker, what difference would a MG-42 have on the battle of Gettysburg?
>>30613437
You'd have a full retreat after it started shooting anything...
>some psychological
Try all
How does the mast mount work? The only thing I can think of it there has to be a rod going right through a hollow mast. Is this a common construction for helicopters?
>>30613437
M230 can slay for days
>>30613443
I guess little, Machine guns were already common in WW1.
>>30613493
More or less and yes it is a pretty common construction technique.
>>30613493
Mechanically, it's not uncommon to have hollow shafts, it's a pretty basic sort of engineering consideration to take into account. More stress being held by a smaller amount of steel, but lighter weight, can do pass-throughs as in this case (if that's what being used, I can't say), etc.
>>30613368
Not a lot 7.62 can down a Apache (you may need a lot of hits or get lucky but it will do)
>>30613368
Well, it'd probably take a fuckton of high-calibre rifle fire from both sides wondering what the fuck it was unless it stayed high. Not enough ammunition to do much serious damage that artillery wasn't already doing.
>>30613460
It was already raining explosives 24-7 during the Somme.
Would they even notice?
>>30613535
>>30613804
>stay on high
>fly over trenches
>decimate artillery positions
>attack supply routes and command posts
>get shots directly into trenches
There's lots of options until ammo runs out
>>30613535
>Gettysburg
>WWI
I hope you're just memeing, but I feel like you aren't.
>>30616210
>>decimate artillery
Do you have any appreciation for how much artillery both sides had?
A single Apache would have no meaningful impact for the same reason the British mines (among them some of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history) had no meaningful impact.
Both sides were totally content to just march hundreds of thousands of people into machine gun nests for months straight, and no single action would change that. Killing people a little more efficiently for a few hours of a single day is a drop of water in the ocean.
All you fuckers saying the Apache would make a difference with guns are retarded.
It's greatest assets are the thermal camera and higher flight ceiling than any contemporary fighter.
This means the Apache becomes an untouchable scout with extreme information gathering capabilities.
> find the enemy artillery and call down your own artillery on it, with the benefit of fire correction
> do BDA for friendly artillery. "First barrage had minimal effect, enemy infantry emerging to man trenches, hit them again.
> Use the thermals to find out exactly where the enemy has a lot of men and where they are stretched thin. Attack the weak spots.
The most valuable place to use the missiles would be railroad bridges behind the lines. Use the Hellfires to collapse a bridge and cripple enemy logistics, which really means artillery.
With that, one Apache can easily turn the tide of the battle at the Somme, likely decisively.
>>30613818
yes. its big, its loud, its fast, its like nothing you have ever seen before, its killing all your friends.
>>30616906
WW1 armies weren't organized enough to use artillery that way- at least to a greater degree than what they were capable of using observational balloons.
>>30613368
Honestly it'd be extremely likely to be hit by artillery.
I mean, hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds were going everywhere. If you took it to any place seeing heavy combat one stray round and it's going down.
>>30617001
The primary role of aircraft in the first world war was artillery spotting, protecting the aircraft doing artillery spotting, or killing aircraft doing artillery spotting.
Some notable and important secondary roles were killing aircraft protecting artillery spotting, killing aircraft killing aircraft artillery spotting, and taking photographs to decide what do hit with artillery supported by aircraft doing artillery spotting.
>>30616901
What if you took the Apache behind enemy lines and fucked up the ammo dumps for their arty?
>>30617236
All these people are forgetting the m230.
>>30613368
Depends. With a typical loadout (8 hellfire, 2 FFAR pods, 30mm cannon..)..
It depends on if the pilot or weapon operator is a military history buff, and if they know their geography.
Shattering the railheads that supplied the lines could leave one side or the other unable to effectively reinforce or supply for several days, or as much as a couple weeks. If the opposing force realized the opportunity and acted quickly they could seize quite a lot of territory.
That's pretty much it though, and the sheer amount of people in that meatgrinder would mean they'd have little chance to break the lines with only the firepower they were carrying.
>Rifles or artillery would take it down!
Uh, no. Artillery wasn't nearly accurate enough and rifles would lack the range to engage one.
>>30617284
>Shattering the railheads that supplied the lines could leave one side or the other unable to effectively reinforce or supply for several days, or as much as a couple weeks
Try hours. Railroads are some of the easiest things to fix.
>>30613535
>>30613368
Munitions would probably not do much, relative to the sheer numbers of soldiers around.
Used as an ISR platform however...
You all forget that you can't fly a helicopter where artillery is being fired. Even today.
They'd never allow it to fly just like they wouldn't allow fighters to go out because they'd have to stop all artillery and doing that for the sake of one aircraft is more harmful than beneficial.
>>30616906
The Apache would consume so much fuel that they would see no reason to operate it
The only correct answer for this would be an attack on Berlin itself. Like all these anon are saying it'd do very little realistic damage on the front but I shock attack of an army parade in Berlin or an attack on the home of the kaiser could learn em good I says
>>30613437
>next to no difference
Night operations with FLIR for its M320 could change the course of battles. You could raid trench and supply lines for days without being seen.
>>30613368
Couldn't it of effectively covered a troop push by shitkicking the defenses in one spot, allowing the troops to cross the trenches thereby allowing a foothold into the enemies' defenses?
>>30613535
>>30617256
you act like it have unlimited ammo you fucking faggot
>>30613368
>>30617256
You really think a 30mm chain gun with 1200 rounds of ammunition is even a drop in the bucket in a battle where there were hundreds of artillery, firing tens of thousands of shells every day?
The British literally invented the tank for a battle like this. Neither side had the strategic organization necessary to take advantage of any kind of precision strike.
>>30613368
Let's have a more realistic discussion
How much would the battle of the Somme have changed if the French had 1 million lions and two hundred tomahawk cruise missiles filled with angry hornet's.
>>30617697
If there's a bridge you can take out, it could easily take more than hours to fix.
Depends on what it targets--and what the pilot's knowledge of enemy targets is. Its main ability is that it can go into the rear of the enemy's AO.
Limitations assumed:
>no GPS, all flying is by map, really going to limit night ops
>no ammo reloads, we'll assume it went back in time
>careful, high flying, to minimize maintenance concerns because no spare parts
>unlimited fuel because we'll assume the support guys are filtering/mixing it as fast as possible
You've still got limited number of daylight only sorties, not flying through arty, and limited strikes.
Targets that could make an impact:
- aboveground HQ: kill generals, support staff--causing confusion, demoralization, and slower response to attacks for a time
- political targets: kill high-level politicians to push their government to capitulate
- airfields: with the # of planes involved, could potentially eliminate an enemy's entire air force to eliminate their overhead recce/bombing and have far easier overhead recce/bombing yourself
- comm relays: slow down orders/reinforcements at crucial points
- trains: destroy the engines on the rails and in the yards, to drastically slow the movement of supplies to the front
- oil refineries/relays: disregard the battle and try to cripple the enemy's fuel production
It could also do superb recon once munitions are expended, until it was no longer flyable due to maintenance (which would happen sooner than you think).
A lot of those targets require good intel. Without it, the Apache is wasting limited flight time and possibly munitions on junk.
>>30619920
Oh, one other potential target:
- chemical weapon production facilities: let 1+ cities lose tens of thousands of people due to gas plumes, prevent production
>>30619894
We're not talking about modern flimsy concrete bridges though, they'd mostly be big wrought iron things, or solid rock bridges for smaller ones
>>30613535
>>30619953
>flimsy concrete bridges
No Apache is going to take out one of those either.
>>30619920
>You've still got limited number of daylight only sorties
>>30619997
>can't read the big LIMITATIONS ASSUMED block above it
Considering a swarm of even WWI vintage biplane stands a good chance of shooting it down, not much.
The Somme was way to big for any single piece of war machinery to matter that much.
