Air combat at a height close to the ground, which is often called the height of treetops, has always been a world problem.

Although helicopter air combat has become the norm in the Iran-Iraq War, by the end of the war, neither side of the war has summarized feasible tactics.

During the eight-year war, both sides fought most of the time.

As for the highly anticipated helicopter air combat, it is basically an encounter battle.

Of course, this is not the fault of Bo Yi and Iraq.

The biggest problem with helicopter air combat is that the flight altitude is too low and there are strict restrictions on the maneuver range, which leads to many tactics not working at all.

It can be seen that the tactics of helicopter air combat are still being explored.

It is precisely this way that the Imperial Army Air Force formed the world's first imaginary enemy unit of the Air Force six years ago.

In order to better simulate enemy aircraft, the Army Aviation imagined that the enemy troops not only had several AH-1s and MI-24s, but also used their own "Zhi-7" transformation, recruited dozens of experienced pilots, and formed a team of instructors focusing on confrontation training.

Since then, all pilots of the Assault Brigade in the Land Aviation, especially armed helicopter pilots, have gone to the imaginary enemy troops for actual combat training every year.

That is, during confrontational training, the performance defect of "Zhi-10A" was exposed.

Because it uses a "Sign-7W" "WZ-6F" engine, the supporting "WZ-9" failed to mass-produce according to the plan, resulting in the output power of the power system far lower than the design indicators and the thermal load is relatively high, so the maneuverability of the "Sign-10A" has serious defects.

Of course, fundamentally speaking, the problem lies in the design.

When designing, we did not consider using a helicopter equipped with heavy armor to carry out air combat missions mainly to strike ground armor targets.

In fact, when designing the "Zhi-10A", the Imperial Army did not have a clear understanding of helicopter air combat.

Due to these factors, the air combat performance of "Zhi-10A" is indeed very average.

Of course, improvements were found through training.

The simplest and most direct way is to replace it with a more powerful engine to increase the power-to-weight ratio to improve the agility of the helicopter.

It is precisely this that the Imperial Army continued to invest in the "WZ-9" engine, requiring the improved output power to increase by 25% compared to the basic one.

If it can be done, then the agility of "Zhi-10" will reach a whole new level.

However, it was the confrontational training that made the Imperial Army more deeply realize that the "Z-10" was not a perfect armed helicopter.

This problem can also be traced back to the design stage, to be precise, the performance indicators proposed by the Army before design.

The concept of developing the armed helicopter was actually more than ten years earlier than the official launch of the "Zhi-10" project.

As early as the Poei War, the Imperial Army proposed to develop a combat helicopter that can accompany transport helicopters and cover transport helicopters, which is mainly responsible for suppressing the enemy's ground firepower and eliminating ground enemies that threaten the transport helicopter mechanism.

This is also a need to be beaten by the enemy.

At that time, the Imperial Army had already lost thousands of helicopters on the Boy battlefield, most of which were shot down by ground air defense fire.

The key is that most of them are destroyed by light air defense weapons such as anti-aircraft machine guns!

For emergency response, the Imperial Army has converted some transport helicopters into "gunboat helicopters", that is, they are equipped with machine guns or machine guns, and are hung with rocket launch nests to provide cover for other transport helicopters. In addition, they have also added armament to almost all transport helicopters, mainly installing hatch machine guns, which are used to suppress nearby enemies during take-off and landing to enhance the safety of the take-off and landing stage.

However, the effects of these measures are not very outstanding.

It is precisely because of this that the Imperial Army decided to develop a special "combat helicopter".

However, the performance indicators proposed at that time were too high, far exceeding the level that technology could achieve, so the development work was extremely slow.

In comparison, the combat needs are extremely urgent.

It is in this context that a large number of mature technologies and equipment are used, and the performance indicators are very average. However, the "Zhi-7A" that can complete the test flight within a few months and put into production stands out and gains favor from the army, and finally gets an order of 300 aircraft.

In the initial time, the Imperial Army only used "Zhi-7A" to respond.

At that time, no one expected that such "simple" armed helicopters would eventually produce more than 3,000!

In fact, it was only after the large-scale service of the "Zhi-7" and showed strong combat effectiveness on the battlefield that the Imperial Army had enough time to develop more advanced "Zhi-10", or that it was no longer so urgent, so that the design unit could calmly complete technical accumulation.

In addition, the end of the Boei War had a serious negative impact on the development of the "Zhi-10".

In short, after the end of the Boei War, about five years later, the Imperial Army felt that it was necessary to have a more advanced armed helicopter.

It was not until this time that the development of "Zhi-10" entered the fast lane.

It can be seen that the tactical performance indicators of "Zhi-10" were actually obtained by the Imperial Army in exchange for the painful losses in the Bo-Iran War.

This also creates "Zhi-10".

Simply put, the "Zhi-10" is a flying tank moving at the height of the treetops, with its fierce firepower almost all targeting ground targets.

As for air combat, I was not thinking about it at all.

Back then, the Imperial Army tested fighting missiles on helicopters, not against helicopters, but against attack aircraft that were also active at ultra-low altitudes.

If necessary, it must be used to deal with fighter jets.

It can be seen that it only gave the helicopter a barely enough means of self-defense.

During the Boei War, the Imperial Army's helicopters had never encountered air threats!

In addition, when designing "Zhi-10", many new technologies, or new tactical ideas, have not yet been born, and it is impossible for designers to adopt them.

The most typical one is invisibility.

The stealth combat aircraft represented by "Occurrence-11" was born after the design of the "Zhi-10" was completed. It has proved through actual combat that it was 4 years ago.

The result is that "Zhi-10" has no consideration for invisibility at all.

In the past few years, the Imperial Army was still entangled in the question of "whether helicopters need to be invisible", or they did not want to follow the crowd.

These are all shortcomings of "Zhi-10".

However, it has also become the direct motivation for the Imperial Army to launch the "Zhi-X" project, or the tactical performance indicators set for the "Zhi-X" project.

Although this advanced armed helicopter that is still in the process of designing is not a "Zhi-10" but a "Zhi-7", the performance requirements put forward by the Imperial Army are actually aimed at the defects of "Zhi-10". All problems with "Zhi-10" must be solved on "Zhi-X".

Compared with the "Zhi-10", the most prominent feature of "Zhi-X" is that it is positioned as a "medium-sized multi-purpose combat helicopter".

Unfortunately, the "Zhi-X" is still in the design stage. Even if it is fast, it will take several years before it can be expected to join the Imperial Army combat sequence.

Just like the development of "Zhi-10", the main reason for the slow progress of the development of "Zhi-X" is that the tactical performance indicators set by the Army are too high and the existing technology cannot be achieved at all, so it takes a lot of time to solve technical problems or other related technologies are mature.

As for now, we can only use "Sign-10A" that has not yet reached the complete state.

Of course, Lian Mingyang and the others were not completely unsure.

By conducting confrontation training with imaginary enemy troops, pilots such as Lian Mingyang have long known that when encountering enemy helicopters, especially more agile armed helicopters, the ideal way to fight is to fire at as far as possible, and try to avoid fighting with enemy aircraft.

If it is really impossible to avoid it, you also need to seek a quick battle.

Simply put, try to avoid fighting against enemy aircraft that are more flexible than yourself.

Fortunately, the helicopter's fighting tactics are still in the exploratory stage.

To be precise, there are basically no tactics to follow. The only principle is to fire in front of the enemy and not give the enemy a chance to fight back.

In fact, after entering the range of the machine gun, helicopter air combat is almost a one-shot kill "flash kill".

Not to mention medium-sized armed helicopters, even the "Zhi-10A" can't withstand a few 30mm shells.

Because the climbing performance is too poor and there is no space required for dive attack, in air combat, helicopters mainly maneuver horizontally, that is, they try to avoid the shooting range of the opponent's machine gun, go around behind the opponent as much as possible, and then shoot down the opponent.

Here, the key is the helicopter's machine gun and the weapon operator who is mainly responsible for controlling the machine gun.

This is also the most outstanding advantage of "Zhi-10A".

The 30mm machine gun specially developed for "Zhi-10A" not only has great power, but also has the most open fire boundary among all armed helicopters today. Its horizontal rotation angle is positive and minus 120 degrees, and the vertical rotation angle is positive and 15 degrees to minus 75 degrees.

Under the control of the weapon operator, this machine gun can attack almost all targets except the 120-degree range behind and directly below.

In addition, 30mm shells can be instantly killed against targets like helicopters.

In comparison, the "tiger"-style machine gun is significantly worse.

Although the "Tiger" type also uses a 30mm machine gun and its power is not bad, it is installed on the head of the machine, to be precisely under the nose of the machine.

Obstructed by the body, the directional firing boundary of this M781 type machine gun is much worse than that of the "Zhi-10A".

As for survivability, the two are not on the same level.

The key parts of the "Zhi-10A", such as after the rotor is hit by a 30mm shell, can work for 30 minutes, providing pilots with the opportunity for emergency landing. The two engines installed on both sides of the fuselage are separated, so the probability of being destroyed by one shell is very low. Even if there is only one engine, the "Zhi-10A" can allow another engine to work for 15 minutes in an overloaded manner.

These abilities are not available in the "tiger" style.

Simply put, if both sides hit each other, the "Tiger" style will crash immediately, and the "Zhi-10A" has a high probability of flying for at least 15 minutes.

Don't underestimate these 15 minutes.

On the battlefield, this means being able to fly to the rear of your own front and then land in your own controlled area, so that the pilot can obtain a higher probability of survival.

Of course, these are not the issues that Lian Mingyang considered.

At 7 o'clock in the evening, Lian Mingyang took the team to set off.

The latest reconnaissance report shows that the enemy's vanguard troops have advanced dozens of kilometers south from Akhtubinsk, and are still about 80 kilometers away from the defense line of Dongluosha's army.

At the speed of the enemy's advancement, you can launch an attack from 9 to 10 o'clock at night.

Even if you encounter trouble during this period, such as spending some time preparing for the offense, you will definitely be able to launch an offense before 0 a.m.

In addition, the armored forces of the 4th Mechanical Division cannot arrive after 1 a.m.
To be continued...