On the contrary, I think the war in Ukraine has proven the viability of helicopters in a MANPAD rich environment, where attack helicopters are a primary source of Russian ground attack air power (I know that’s more down to how bad their fixed wing fleet is proving to be in strike, but the point is they are able to continue to viably use them despite Ukraine probably being the most densely MANPAD defended airspace in the world right now).
While they are taking looses, it’s hardly crippling and the losses are overwhelmingly falling on their attack helicopters rather than transports.
Their Ka52s do have an advantage in speed which is really useful, but I think the key to successful large scale air assault on the modern battlefield is scale.
The biggest weakness with MANPADs are short range and man-mobile.
That means you need to spread them out, which means spreading them thin; and it means they are limited to the speed of the man carrying them, which means you cannot realistically expect to be able to surge them to meet a fast approaching threat. That is why large scale air assault works while individual lone ship runs tend to get shot down.
The key is to have attack helicopters work as line breakers and escorts where the first thing enemy MANPAD operators see are waves of attack helicopters for them to expend their munitions against while the transports follow shortly after and runs like hell to their objectives.
If you throw in potentially operational future weapons like swarm drones deployed by munitions dispensers flying in ahead of the helicopter fleet and spamming the ingress and egress routes with loitering suicide swarm drones that can automatically navigate complex terrain like forests and ID and track humans in said terrain and the balance shifts overwhelmingly in favour of the attacker.
I do include the presence of attack helicopters as part of any prospective heliborne/air assault package. But that doesn't change my belief that large scale heliborne assaults in a Taiwan contingency (at least into the medium term future) are likely to be non-viable.
What I mean by heliborne assaults, is where helicopters help to transport, and ingress ground combat units (often light infantry) with support from other supporting assets (including but not limited to attack helicopters, fixed wing air support etc), to seize and hold terrain that are often behind enemy lines and/or which are not secured.
The US Army definition of air assault states it well: "an operation in which assault forces (combat, combat support, and combat service support), using the firepower, mobility, and total integration of helicopter assets, maneuver on the battlefield under the control of the ground or air maneuver commander to engage and destroy enemy forces or to seize and hold key terrain usually behind enemy lines."
I am stating that large scale heliborne/air assaults in a Taiwan contingency is likely very difficult to pull off and likely not worth the risk, due to a combination of:
- Proliferation of MANPADS and low altitude air defenses in the ROC military, even in a degraded air defense environment (due to the relative low profile and mobility of MANPADS and low altitude air defense systems).
- The geography of Taiwan island itself and the relatively high population density near most targets of interest that would be relevant to a large scale heliborne assault, which would greatly reduce if not outright neutralize the advantages of mobility and speed, which in turn places the deployed forces from the helicopters (aka basically light infantry) at significant risk of enemy counter in a manner where the enemy can outmass them as well as deploy much heavier units (again, even in an environment where enemy ground forces have been degraded).
- The sheer demands of ISR and constant fixed wing CAS capability (and in turn, the demands on SEAD/DEAD) to allow your heliborne assault forces to hold terrain against anything resembling a conventional military, is one that very few military forces in the world can do. Almost certainly, the PLA currently are unable to do so.
Individually, the above factors might be something that the PLA could deal with. But when you add all of those risks together as virtually guaranteed to be present in a Taiwan contingency, I think the only way in which a large scale heliborne assault would be worthwhile is if the objective of interest was of overriding, campaign altering value.
(And when I say "large scale" I mean operations involving multiple dozens of transport helicopters)
I believe small sized heliborne assaults/insertions most certainly could be viable, and medium sized heliborne assaults if done in close coordination with ground forces with ground forces able to rapidly relieve them, could also be viable.
Just for the record, I absolutely agree that attack helicopters in general are relevant in a Taiwan contingency. There are many fire support missions that only attack helicopters can do, and I believe that the fire support and airborne surveillance capabilities offered by attack helicopters is vital to support ground maneuver units. Close coordination of attack helicopters with ground maneuver units would be a major factor that would influence the outcomes of the amphibious and ground phases of the conflict.