Is there anyone who is trying to upkeep an ORBAT of various units with helicopters?
Here I primarily mean the Army's stuff, but also Navy's and to a lesser extent Air force's units would be welcome.
Trying to do it myself is not really giving me much to celebrate.
Scramble.nl does have some ORBAT but I can neither tell how accurate they are nor how many of each type of helicopters there are in a brigade they list.
(counting the number of types and brigades Scramble.nl mentions i get 4 units of Z20, 21 units each of Z9 and Mi17, 14 units of Z19, 15 units of Z10 and 19 units of Z8)
Knowing a brigade has a certain helicopter type doesn't mean much. When a single brigade was known, in the past to have just smaller detachement of certain types (like just 6 Z9s) or double units for some types - at least two times 12 of a certain type. And also, it appears some units have even more than 12 airframes in a single subunit. Is there even a standardized count? 16 perhaps?
CDF forum also has great work by kcandrew, trying to report all known serial numbers in all brigades, but even that method does not give a clear picture.
For example, I counted 13 brigades mentioning Z9WZ use, 15 mentioning Z10 use, up to 9 mentioning Z19, 10 mentioning Z8, 4 mentioning Z20 and 15 mentioning Mi-17 use. But without actually knowing how many helos per each brigade might be out there - those figures, even if true and complete (which they may not be) are not enough for a clear picture.
Counting just the known serials only gives a very partial view of the situation. Basically, bottom possible numbers.
So far, kcandrew compiled a list of at least 71 known Z9WZ serials, 125 known Z10 serials, 89 known Z19 serials, 91 known Z8 serials, 15 known Z20 serials and 175 known Mi17 serials.
all the figures above are for PLA only, and pertain to situation of 2019 and later.
Here I primarily mean the Army's stuff, but also Navy's and to a lesser extent Air force's units would be welcome.
Trying to do it myself is not really giving me much to celebrate.
Scramble.nl does have some ORBAT but I can neither tell how accurate they are nor how many of each type of helicopters there are in a brigade they list.
(counting the number of types and brigades Scramble.nl mentions i get 4 units of Z20, 21 units each of Z9 and Mi17, 14 units of Z19, 15 units of Z10 and 19 units of Z8)
Knowing a brigade has a certain helicopter type doesn't mean much. When a single brigade was known, in the past to have just smaller detachement of certain types (like just 6 Z9s) or double units for some types - at least two times 12 of a certain type. And also, it appears some units have even more than 12 airframes in a single subunit. Is there even a standardized count? 16 perhaps?
CDF forum also has great work by kcandrew, trying to report all known serial numbers in all brigades, but even that method does not give a clear picture.
For example, I counted 13 brigades mentioning Z9WZ use, 15 mentioning Z10 use, up to 9 mentioning Z19, 10 mentioning Z8, 4 mentioning Z20 and 15 mentioning Mi-17 use. But without actually knowing how many helos per each brigade might be out there - those figures, even if true and complete (which they may not be) are not enough for a clear picture.
Counting just the known serials only gives a very partial view of the situation. Basically, bottom possible numbers.
So far, kcandrew compiled a list of at least 71 known Z9WZ serials, 125 known Z10 serials, 89 known Z19 serials, 91 known Z8 serials, 15 known Z20 serials and 175 known Mi17 serials.
all the figures above are for PLA only, and pertain to situation of 2019 and later.