UH-60 Black Hawk

[Bazul14]

IRL it depends on the combatants and the ones manning the RPGs. If the shooter is high from cocaine or hallucinogens, then yeah, its hard. But IRL if the gunner is trained and knows his weapon, he can hit an enemy chopper. For example an Apache was hit with an RPG(NOT AA/ Strela/Stinger) during Operation Anaconda 2002, in the Tora Bora Mts.

[Hunt3r]

RPGs can barely hit a still target at 500 meters away, why would it be able to hit an Apache at speed from as much as a kilometer away.

[BloodBane611]

IRL it depends on the combatants and the ones manning the RPGs. If the shooter is high from cocaine or hallucinogens, then yeah, its hard. But IRL if the gunner is trained and knows his weapon, he can hit an enemy chopper. For example an Apache was hit with an RPG(NOT AA/ Strela/Stinger) during Operation Anaconda 2002, in the Tora Bora Mts.

The fact that the apache was hit with an RPG says nothing about the difficulty of the shot, the skill of the shooter or the general ease of hitting moving aircraft with RPGs. It simply means that in one case, some shooter did in fact hit an apache with an RPG.

To address your original opinion on the damage to the blackhawk - the apaches that were damaged during Op. Anaconda all were able to RTB successfully. Here's a quote from the official AF report:

The AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in the fight all took damage. By the end of the day, four returned to the forward arming and refueling point (FARP), while three remained in action despite battle damage.

AH-64 Apaches delivered fires but were damaged by RPGs and small arms crossfire

In addition, the MH-47 that was hit three times by RPGs made it 4 nm before it had to put down.

One of two MH-47s was hit by three RPGs while attempting to re-insert the team, damaging hydraulic systems...That first MH-47 made it about 4 nm north of the landing zone before being forced down with mechanical problems.

There was a second MH-47 downed by an unknown number of RPGs, however all its crew survived the initial crash.


Of course, none of these are about blackhawks. However, the general gist I get from this is that it is harder to take down a helicopter than you might imagine. A single RPG in the right spot might bring down a helicopter in a single round - but you might fire a dozen in the wrong spots, and do only superficial damage, or at least non-critical damage, allowing the aircraft to escape or even continue flying normally. In addition, the crew and passengers of both the MH-47s that crashed lived through the landings - something PR cannot reflect at this time. There are too many variables to reliably say that someone firing an RPG should down a UH-60 every time, or even a majority of the time.



In addition, I think common sense dictates that hitting a moving target at a distance of multiple hundreds of meters using an RPG-7 will be difficult even for a skilled shooter. That doesn't directly address the original point of this thread, but the fact is that a 500 meter shot towards a moving helicopter is a gamble at best.

[Imchicken1]

Leave it as it is I say. Maybe modify the critical hit area's but other wise it's fine

Quad AAs are not op. They're very restricted in the few places they exist, plus it's very easy to kill yourself while on one. Shooting one also screams "hey I'm over here!"

[Bazul14]

I know it is hard to know the difficulty of hitting a chopper with an RPG just from a single hit, but the account of the people from the ground for the Apache incident says that there was a certain RPG shooter that fired several shots before actually getting a hit. The RPG hit one of the rocketpods, and it managed to RTB even tough all the oil in it leaked.

About the Chinook, that one that got killed received a shot in the rear engine then it landed , after which it received a shot in the cockpit area, missing the crew, but rendering its weapons systems useless.

I know that modern choppers can take some good dammage, but shouldn't then the Abrams, for example, be invulnerable to frontal shots(except TOWs)?!

[Bazul14]

Also, I did not say that one can easily shoot down moving choppers in PR with an RPG. It is very hard to shoot something that is in the air, 400m from you with something that you can't know where it is actually aiming(deviation and the other thing). To shoot a moving chopper is almost impossible unless it is following the same pattern repeatedly, and if its going very slow( like for sniping). With the exception of ATGMs, choppers can't be precisely shot with AT weapons. Also, remember that I ignored in my argument the very low flying choppers, but even those are hard to hit if you are unprepared.

[Operator009]

This is something i consider rather funny, if a little off topic.

So the BH Miniguns haven't been changed, except for the sound they make at distance (which sounds bad *** btw devs). The sound is so intimidating, in fact, that I see a **** LOAD MORE BH gun crews than i ever saw last patch.

Are people using the BH more as a gunship/support because of the new sounds?

If so, greatest mindf**k ever...

[BenHamish]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but how bulletproof are Kiowas and Blackhawks?

It seems that nowadays they are used mainly as airtanks, invulnerable to small arms. Yesterday the Mi-18 (cow thing, whatever it is) hovered over my entire IDF squad as we poured small arms into it from cover. It had a pop at us with it's .50 cal and then retreated. We moved into other cover, and it did it again, TWICE.

My fault, for not having the LAT or AA in my squad, I know.

Also, later on, I was in a squad defending a cache on an Ins map. The Blackhawk came in, hovered on the roof of the building the cache was in (taking fire), dropped C4, and flew off, detonating the C4 and taking the cache (to be fair though it was downed afterwards).

I have also seen numerous times the Kiowas on Karbala [?] royally taking the piss and hovering/swooping/being l33t over the Northern caches that appear. The just keep coming, and dodge all the RPG's (sometimes going vertical/swooping and zooming over the same spot.

Really, are they that invulnerable that the pilots aren't afraid of small arms?

[BenHamish]

Hmm revisited this thread to say that today a Blackhawk landed in front of me, 100m away, and dropped off troops. I smiled like a cheshire cat, and hit it slap bang in the engines with an rpg (from the top, I was on a hill).

It took off, did some rotations to put me off (i was actually reloading), and then flew around the hill I was on, and then [very slowly] did a victory lap so that it's minigunner could get me. I fired, don't think I hit though (the supression effect worked well on me).

Bit frustrating really. I thought he was royally taking the mickey..

[Zoddom]

you guys seem to think jsut because rpg causes a big boom it would destroy anything. they work the same way as HEAT rounds, they fire a small metal jet through the target. to down a black hawk you really ahve to hit the right spots and keep in mind that the "cargo bay" is a pretty big hole in the model....

I myself dont have any problems with 50 cals. to me, it seems most of the players just dont have the "aiming skills" (sounds a bit l337) with AA guns. on a Fh2 server some hours ago i had 30-5 stats with the challenger AA tank.
most of the players just dont aim far enough in front of the target. (correct english? lol i hope you undertand waht i meant)

[Bazul14]

you guys seem to think jsut because rpg causes a big boom it would destroy anything. they work the same way as HEAT rounds, they fire a small metal jet through the target. to down a black hawk you really ahve to hit the right spots and keep in mind that the "cargo bay" is a pretty big hole in the model....

I myself dont have any problems with 50 cals. to me, it seems most of the players just dont have the "aiming skills" (sounds a bit l337) with AA guns. on a Fh2 server some hours ago i had 30-5 stats with the challenger AA tank.
most of the players just dont aim far enough in front of the target. (correct english? lol i hope you undertand waht i meant)

Yo dawg, I'm gonna let you finish, but FH2 is not like PR from lots of points of view, so that claim is both useless and uneeded

I aim fine, with both Tandem and simple. Its just that the simple RPGs have become useless against BHs and other choppers. Also, AA is really bad, today I only killed a chopper with the AA bc he chose to do a fancy maneuver and got scared after he got hit. He actually did a backflip after getting hit and fit a hill Tandems are really the only thing that can be currently used to get a relatively sure kill on the enemy choppers.

[BenHamish]

I was really frustrated at the time, but came on here and did a search for 'helicopter damage' and ironically found the same thread I posted in before.

I accept that these helicopters were designed to have a capacity to take a hit from RPG's, I did calm down a bit.

That said, I would still be interested to know how many .50 hits the blackhawks can take, or if the BH has a simple damage model or a complex one like the tanks. Hitting a BH in the engines with a LAT should be game-over.

[BenHamish]

Just done a little Googleing, unsurprisingly details on the UH-60's armour were pretty scant, but the impression I get is that critical components can take moderate .50 damage, but an RPG to the cockpit/engines or fuel cells would take one down.

http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Helo-Mar-05-P.pdf

^ Interesting read. But it doesn't mention RPG hits. I accept that an RPG may just punch a hole through somewhere with redundant control systems (or similar non-vital equipment), but is it possible to model certain parts as damage multipliers?


http://www.witu.mil.pl/www/biuletyn/zes ... 97p/15.pdf

^ More relevant?

[Zoddom]

Yo dawg, I'm gonna let you finish, but FH2 is not like PR from lots of points of view, so that claim is both useless and uneeded

that was referred to someone who said he cant kill a BH with a .50 cal.
and there FH2 and PR are all the same cause in both mods you wont hit anything if you dont aim far enough in front of the target and that should be clear to everyone. everytime someone shoots at a BH i see the tracers passing the BH far behind its tail and then i think "i bet hes flaming soon"

[Ninja2dan]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but how bulletproof are Kiowas and Blackhawks?

Really, are they that invulnerable that the pilots aren't afraid of small arms?

I'm guessing you are asking about the helicopters in PR, not their real-world counterparts?

If so, I'm not aware of what the PR values are or how much damage they sustain from different weapon hits. But the real aircraft are not going to be an easy thing to bring down, let alone seriously damage.

Just done a little Googleing, unsurprisingly details on the UH-60's armour were pretty scant, but the impression I get is that critical components can take moderate .50 damage, but an RPG to the cockpit/engines or fuel cells would take one down.

Interesting read. But it doesn't mention RPG hits. I accept that an RPG may just punch a hole through somewhere with redundant control systems (or similar non-vital equipment), but is it possible to model certain parts as damage multipliers?

First, from what I understand (and what other staff has stated in this topic and others) is that the helicopters in PR either do not have or are not capable of having the wide variety of "hit boxes" that would be necessary to simulate correct strong- and weak-points of the aircraft. We're talking about literally hundreds of different areas that would need separate sections of hit detection.

Also of note, the UH-60 family of aircraft can still operate on a single engine, more than enough to RTB as long as other critical systems permit the pilot to maintain control. Vital components of the UH-60 are also protected by internal armored panels, most of which can withstand up to 23mm projectiles. Other unprotected systems are often used in duplicates, so if one fails there is a backup. Regarding the cockpit, both crew members have armored seats. In general, the UH-60 can withstand a shitload of damage before being downed, but it is possible that a single rifle round and a one-in-a-million shot could bring it down too.

An RPG round, depending on the warhead and where it impacts, might or might not bring the aircraft down. In the "Black Hawk Down" scenario, what brought the main Blackhawk down was the tail rotor damage, which will immediately cause most helicopters to enter an uncontrollable spin. But even heavy small-arms fire could have had the same effect in the event it damages the rear rotor enough to off-balance it.


Examples of what might actually cause an RPG to bring down a UH-60?

* An OG-7V warhead bursting inside the aircraft, permitting fragmentation to kill/injure the crew or cause critical damage to avionics, flight controls, or other vital components
* The explosion causing distraction to the pilot, in addition to fear/shock of being hit, leading to the pilot losing control of the aircraft
* The force of the blast being sufficient enough to temporarily destabilize the aircraft and force it into colliding with another object/terrain
* The explosion removing one or more rotor blades, causing enough instability and/or inability to maintain flight

And in most of those cases, the pilot will still have control long enough to make a landing.

In general though, an RPG hit or near-miss against a Blackhawk in most cases is going to cause some damage but most likely not enough to drop it out of the sky.


As for even being able to hit a UH-60 in flight, or ANY flying helicopter in general, it would be a very rare chance to score a hit. Even against a perfectly hovering helicopter, chances of hitting one with an RPG-7 beyond 100-200m is slim because, like it or not, RPG-7 rockets are not the most accurate. I've fired them first-hand, and they often zig-zag like a *****. Maybe not as bad as an FFAR, but they sure as hell aren't a precision weapon.

If you do happen to score that lucky shot though, don't expect it to suddenly fall from the sky. In my opinion, PR is being very lenient towards RPG users when it comes to aircraft damage.

[BenHamish]

Thanks for the typically well written and comprehensive reply Dan - I understand what you mean.

As you mention it should be very hard to hit helicopters in PR, and to be honest I feel at the moment that it isn't particularly hard.. So I suppose the trade off [for me personally] is that i'll need to hit them at least twice, and I can accept that.

That said, I see a lot of overconfident pilots 'getting away with it' too often.

[Decafeiner]

In real life it is very rare to have an rpg or any kind of weapon hit it anyways. The only times they've ever been hit is when they where flying low in a urban terrain so the insurgents could get on roof tops and fire at the low/slow moving chopper, and even then its not easy.

Considering a RPG rocket barelly go straight.... yes it is.

[Stealthgato]

I've seen the Blackhawk getting hit by Strelas and Stingers often and it never gets downed. Only starts smoking at the max, only occasionally catching fire a minute after, but it never gets downed straight away. By anti-aircraft missiles. Sigh.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

I watched Black Hawk down with the soldiers commentaries switched on, well worth doing very very interesting, I recall that they said when the first heli went down there where loads of RPG's firing far more than shown in the film.

The one that hit was like 1 in 20 kind of thing....

[BenHamish]

Just to be devil's advocate Plod, that one went down!