Black Shark
Junior Member
That does not raise any concerns about the self defense suite, it only raises the concerns how stupid some countries are to not buy proper self defense suite for their helicopters that are purchased for one reason for direct and rapid battle deployement like in Iraq case. They tried to safe money and did not upgrade even their Mi-28NE with MAWS sensors which now have to fly blind without pilots getting even an alert in case of incoming MANPADS. They were advized to purchase President-S Systems for at least Mi-28NE, but they tried to safe money now they are flying useless with LWR and RWR against MANPADS.
The Self Defense Suite on Mi-35M is good the problem is new MANPADS with Image Infrared seekers that can only be effectivley intercepted with DIRCM, IRCM like ADROS or any other IRCM have no effect on more modern seekers and flares are also filtered by the seeker as false target. Overall there is a big gap between Ukrainian helicopters that never recieved upgrades since late 1980s and the current Mi-35M or Mi-35M2 versions, just not comperable.
Through the Positioning of IRCM it also depends on which angle MANPADS are coming in. IRCM do cover 360° in azimuth and at least 35 or 60° in evelation but the rotor usually blocks 30° and leaves a blind spot.
Also like Soviets had experienced with early models of MANPADS such as Strela and Stinger, IRCM had shown effectiveness of 35% up to 70% for reducing the hit probability of MANPADS towards helicopters equipped with such device. Read full report is very interesting what beating the Hinds took up to 40mm HE-Frag grenades and survived sometimes.
Here is the link for that source.
I quote from it,
Short translation, For fighting with "Stingers" the crew used standardized equipment: IRCM "Lipa".
Using flares was a weak help: Missile was deflected from the Helicopter in only 27% of the time, against for example 54% deflecting of the "Strela" (older). With the help of IRCM the rate was 70% from the IRCM impulses.
All Mi-24 were equipped with IR-suppressors, the best of its kind in the world (during that time).
Also, in this case the lockon capability of Stingers fell beneath 1800m against Mi-24. The exhaust gases temperature with use of IR suppressors fell down to 370° C, deflecting the hot air with the main rotor and blurring out the ir contrast of the helicopter by two times.
Note here is that the IR suppressors reduce the exhaust gases from roughly 940-1060° Celsius to 370° C (afghanistan conditions) which is the same level as Blackhole IR Suppressors on Apaches which reduce 860° C to 320-360° C.
Flares are more helpful when starting to flare and entering an enemy zone to make it difficult for MANPAD operator to lockon instead of trying an already locked MANPAD to intercept with Flares, this tactics were used in Afghanistan were MAWS did not exist and they increased survivability greatly, but flares are not special there are no helicopters that are involved in combat without flares.
