Ka-52 in Russian Air Force

Kamov vs. Mil: prospects for Russian chopper fleet

By the end of this year, Russia’s Far East air base of Chernigovka will be fully reequipped with new Mi-8AMTSh and Ka-52 attack choppers that will replace the obsolete Mi-8s and Mi-24s. Designed as a special forces' support helicopter, the Ka-52 is gradually growing to become the army’s main attack gunship.

Plans to launch Ka-52 batch production were announced as early as in 2006. Under the modernization initiative, Ka-52s were to make up only a small portion of the 300 attack helicopters – just several squadrons of 70 to 80 choppers – while the Mi-28N was to act as the air forces’ workhorse.

This situation has changed. Russia’s air forces and naval aviation units have already received the first batch of 80 to 90 attack helicopters out of some 400 choppers that are to join the nation’s air fleet by 2020, with some 100 Mi-28Hs, about 50 Mi-35s (the latest version of the Mi-24) and 140 Ka-52s still pending. Considering that the navy aviation is also to be outfitted with some 80 Ka-52 helicopters, the number of these choppers, which are slated to enter the Russian military fleet, can exceed 200 units, putting the Ka-52 on par with the Mi-28.

The Russian army has been on the quest to build its main gunship since the Soviet times (when it didn’t yet merge with the air forces), long before either Mi-28 or Ka-50 tried their wings in 1982. Both design bureaus presented plausible arguments to tip the scales toward their jet. At the end of the 1980s, the Kamov bureau finally emerged as the winner only to see military modernization stalled after the Soviet collapse. Just a few years before the country’s break-up, the rival Mil design bureau showed off its advanced Mi-28A version with a better sighting and navigation system and started developing its new Mi-28N all-weather attack helicopter that exceeded the original Kamov aircraft in its equipment capabilities.

In its turn, the Kamov design bureau, whose one-seat Ka-50 chopper critics slammed it for being too small for the pilot to simultaneously navigate and operate its weapons, came up with a two-seat variant, the Ka-52, which entered the 2006-2015 State Arms Program and later made it into its 2011-2020 edition.

Many military mavens believe that, having opted for both Ka-52 and Mi-28, the modern Russia has repeated the mistake the Soviet defense ministry made when it ordered the production of several different kinds of weapons aimed at fulfilling one and the same task. Still, there are quite a few arguments to justify this choice.

First and foremost, the Ka-52 and Mi-28 have a different range of capabilities. The Ka-52 has shown good performance in the mountainous terrain and at sea, making it a perfect onboard aircraft for “Mistral” warships, whereas the Mi-28N with its thicker armor and a top-mounted radar station is better suited for the European Theatre of Operations and its advanced anti-missile shield.

Despite all their external distinctions, the two helicopters have quite a lot in common, starting from their power plants and armament, which simplifies their simultaneous maintenance.

Russia’s current political and economic situation is also playing in the hand of the Ka-52, keeping afloat its producer, the Arsenyevsk Helicopter Plant, which is one of the few high-tech enterprises of Russia’s Primorye region.

In fact, Russia’s arms production remains its only industry that has a competitive advantage at the international level and has virtually set the benchmark for the rest of the world. Both the Ka-52 and Mi-28 are considered some of the best choppers worldwide, so it was only natural to seek for a compromise between the two of them.
The need to reequip the Russian military has become increasingly urgent after the 20 post-Soviet years effectively undermined the nation’s military capability. Today, neither the Rostvertol helicopter plant, the Mi-28 producer, nor the Ka-52 manufacturer, Progress, has enough production capacities to build large numbers of high-quality choppers. In this situation, putting all eggs in one basket could postpone the aviation revamp again.

At the end of the day the Mi-28N was chosen as the new Army attack helo.

The problem is that the Mi-28N is not ready and wont be till about 2015 when it becomes the Mi-28M.

In the mean time make both... they are different enough to both be useful, yet similar enough to not be a logistics nightmare to operate both.

Same gun, same engines, largely the same weapons, and likely the same EOs systems.

The different radar arrangements offer differing capabilities.

The altitude performance advantage of the coaxial design largely comes from the main rotor configuration which maximises lift without any power loss to a tail rotor assembly.

Lack of lift might not be a limiting factor for high altitude flight on some conventional helos... lack of directional control because of the thin airs effect on the performance of the tail rotor.

Of course that is critical in the hover ceiling of a helo but less important with a helo in forward flight where the air flowing over the surface of the aircraft help to keep the nose pointed forward.

Of course there are other factors too... the Mi-38 has very good altitude capabilities and it has a conventional main and tail rotor arrangement.

I would add that the Ka-50 has better high altitude performance than the heavier Ka-52 despite having smaller wings.

As was found on the original models of the Hind that large wings greatly reduce the load on the rotor disk during forward flight, but the cost is reducing lift in the hover by blocking some of the rotor downwash.

It was decided that the lift was of more value than the penalty in the hover as the helo spends most of its time in forward flight.

I think the pods sticking out on little pylons are for UAV control, and I suspected that the differently shaped forward facing wingtip components were to control the ATAKA missiles, but we have since learned that later models of ATAKA include laser beam riding guidance, so the thimble nose of the Havok is now no longer needed and I would expect forward facing fairings on Hokum wingtips would become equally redundant.

I don't think it is part of the President-S system.

Just looking at the photo... the right hand pod seems to have an optical port... laser/IR/optical sensor. This would suggest that the other pod might contain electronic sensors listening for radar signals or datalink signals that might betray the presence of a threat.

The SA-13 had all sorts of electronic boxes to detect terrain following radars and electronic emissions to alert the crew to the presence of an enemy aircraft... this could be similar.

Yes, I realise they are different, and it is probably because they have different roles within Army Aviation.

The Ka-50 is largely like an Su-25... in that combat will result in a ground unit getting pinned down or coming to an enemy force they are having trouble dealing with so they will call in a strike. The strike might be helicopter or CAS or both, but assuming the problem is an enemy unit that can't be seen is lobbing mortar rounds over a mountain at the small Russian unit but the support vehicles with the enemy mortars mean a direct attack with infantry would be vulnerable, so call in a helicopter strike. With as much info about the enemy in the area plus the coordinates of the problem mortars the Ka-50 would approach and attempt to detect the targets and fire on them at max range and then leave.

Very much like a Hind unit would in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Ka-52 however has much more sophisticated sensors and equipment and would be more like an Su-34 in that while performing an attack mission it will continuously be collecting intel on enemy forces, their positions and activity levels.

Because the Ka-52 is a hot and high aircraft for use in mountains and also a recon bird as well as an attack chopper I think that it will have a wider range of sensors than a Ka-50. The Ka-50 pilot is concerned with staying alive and killing their target, the Ka-52 crew also want to stay alive, and kill targets but they also want to collect info about enemy positions and equipment to find strengths and weaknesses etc etc.

I think the small wingtip pods on small fins will be datalink pods for controlling UAVs and receiving and transmitting signals. A single forward facing antenna on one wingtip would really only be useful for detecting things coming from the things you are firing at/facing.

Perhaps one sensor is specifically to detect the very low laser emissions of a laser beam riding missile like Starstreak, and the fairing we are not sure about is looking for MMW radar emissions from incoming MMW radar guided weapons?

Or perhaps it might be optimised to detect the weak radio altimeter signals from low flying aircraft/cruise missiles?

Nice photos.

In the first photo the large pod underwing in my opinion is one of two things.

Either it is a standard transport pod with the tools and minor spare parts needed to operate the helo for a few days or weeks.

This is often carried when taking the aircraft out to a forward airfield and would be removed when it gets there and the tools and small spare parts used to keep the aircraft flying for the days or weeks it would be forward deployed.

The other option is that it carries UAVs that are released vertically downwards and controlled by the gunner to scout ahead, perhaps into a dangerous valley to find targets while the helo remains somewhere safe. The box can carry about 6-8 UAVs in each pod and each UAV is a flying wing with cameras used to fly into areas that are too dangerous to take the helo but can be used to find targets and even mark targets with lasers for engagement by other platforms like Krasnopol etc.

Regarding your coloured ring photo I agree with TR-1 that the green ring are small cameras for filming weapon launches to look at weapon release and trajectory changes... mostly created by rotor effect. This sort of data can be used to improve the accuracy of unguided rockets as no ballistics program can tell you the effect of rotor wash at launch.

The red ring objects I think are datalink transceivers for the UAVs the Ka-52 can launch and control, because earlier model Ka-50s had RWR and they didn't look like this.

As you identify yourself the yellow rings are President-S DIRCM turrets with lasers to defeat IR, IIR, and EO guided weapons.

This leaves the purple and blue circles.

The Purple is rather boring... it is a fold down head light used to illuminate the ground in front of the helo during landing at night.

The blue circle I am not so sure, but there is another one in line behind it at the rear which is clearly related.

The Mi-28N has a thick fin there in the forward position but not a rounded projection like this, and while it does have a second fin thing further back it is not underneath the air craft... it is above the rear tail boom near where it meets the aircraft body.