Z-19 armed recon helicopter

Replacement parts fair enough, but entire helos?

It costs many times more to ship something like an attack helo but air compared to by land, but that is still only a tiny fraction of the cost of replacing an attack helo. Now, if this story was in 2003,4 or 5, it might have been more believable, but by 2009, there had been many instances where NATO supply convoys have been hit while transiting through Pakistan that you really would have expected all high-end equipment to be transported by air.

With things like unexploded tomahawks, stealthhawk rotors and other captured US/NATO kit, the US lost those over someone else's territory and was not able to recover or destroy them. That is a very different thing to actively deciding to ship importanting and sensitive equipment via a known dangerous route. The former could not really be helped, whereas the latter very much could.

Now, I'm not suggesting that it is impossible that something like this did happened, I just find it very improbable, and as such would need to see some very good evidence before i could believe it.

You said the Americans asked for the Apachie back, are there any sources to support this? Maybe an attritional report for AFM for the lost Apache?

I am not questioning the suggestion that Pakistan and China are good enough friends that Pakistan would be wiling to share such a prize if it did indeed get it. I am just finding it hard to believe that the Americans were so careless as to not have seen the possibly of this happening as late as 2009.

I'm pretty sure those are just replacement parts, not sure an entire Apache air frame can fit inside a standard commercial container. A lot of things can benefit China's attack helo programs, replacement Kevlar armor, gear box, Disco Ball, FLIR, or possibly entire Hellfire missiles. Even if all those are true I don't think Z19 benefited from any of those though. It's suppose to be an entirely domestic effort and it's aim is simplicity and affordability, a shrunk Z9W like the AH1 is a shrunk Huey.

vesicles said:

How did you figure it's small? I don't see any references in the pics...

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Since it's based on Z9/WZ9. Most Western attack helicopters are much bigger,usually around the weight of Apache, or at least the Super Viper.

---------- Post added at 04:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:34 AM ----------

asif iqbal said:

back in the summer of 2009 it was reported that Pakistan had got hold of a Apache helicopter found in 2 disassembeled 40ft containers from the Nato supply convoy, these were handed over to the PA which were then sent to China

When US asked for them Pakistan said they were destroyed in a attack on the convoys, a year before that Taliban got hold of parts of 3 US helicopters from similar containers and actually even showed a video of them, the parts were from 2 Blackhawks and 1 Chinnok

this has also been highlighted in Carey Schofield's book, "Inside Pakistan Army" , over the years Pakistan has made "missing" many containers which passed through Pakistan en-route to Afghanistan, and if you ever visit the gun and bazars of Peshawar you can routinely find US equipment, from US uniforms to manuals for helicopters, even tinned food!!

there was one guy who owned a American military Humvee, he had it converted to run on 4 gas cylinders!!

there is a possibily therefore that China has access to the very best American military equipment and some of which will be benifical to WZ-19 and WZ-10 attack helicopter programmes

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But the thing about those helicopters is that they are extremely hard to copy. Just like all other military hardware, the shell is the easiest part to manufacture. China imported 24? black hawks and few chinooks, along with C130s in the 80s. But to this day, China still haven't built anything coming close to performance level to these three models. The inner engine and avionics dictates what you can build upon it. When you have the engine, you can easily assemble together a fearsome weapon in very short time. The US airforce was testing countless super avant garde prototypes in the 60s and 70s, some even to this day cannot be replicated by the Chinese counterpart. It is because of their solid foundation in knowhow of engines of avionics.

The Chinese tried to copy those vehicles in the 80s and 90s, but were unsuccessful. It's not that they can't make them, just not as good performance and quality. It's like you smuggled a Ferrari and tried to copy it, but ended up with something like a Lada.

I know news of breakthroughs in weapon and instrument parts are not that exciting, often either not reported or went unnoticed by the public. But those things are the most important.

Blackhawks I know but does China have Chinnoks and C130, I doubt it

getting ur hands on ur adversary is never a bad thing, copying or not copying

these things dont make it to newpapers or articles, they are leaks from liveleaks and wikileaks, the Chinnok parts the Taliban showed were from liveleaks, it seriously compromises US missions in Afghanistan when things like this are reported to the world media

same as the Stinger story, in 1980s Pakistan shaved off the top many Stingers missiles which were destined to the Mujahideen funneled by the CIA, they ended up in the hands of the ISI and in 1989 when US was paying up to $100,000 for each ones return no less than 50 were returned

a massive explosion was set up by Pakistan ammuniation dump in May 1989, this was in a warehouse just outside Peshawar, in the blast Pakistan said all the missiles were destroyed, next day a US military satellite flew overhead the blast sight, all they seen was a big massive crater, this info was only released few years ago by CIA documents, only for the Anza Manpad to emerge in mid-1990 which did confirm Pakistan did have Stingers, Anza uses same friend and foe, and identification technologys as Stinger

what im trying to say is things dont come public as soon as they happen, it takes years even decades

things like engines, transmisison, rotor blades even radar absorbing paint, make for valubale information, you probably re-call the high profile "theft" of the 4 US helicopter engines from transit en-route to Afghanistan, it prompted Senior spokesman for the Pakistani military, Major-General Athar Abbas to make a public annoucment in May 2008 saying they never reached Karachi port in the first place!

btw Carey Schofield is a reputable journalist who has very close contacts within the Pakistan army and ISI, going back almost 20 years, in her book she talks about that helos have gone missing

asif iqbal said:

Blackhawks I know but does China have Chinnoks and C130, I doubt it

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Note the Boeing 234 showing doesn't actually belong to China but a Boeing marketing tool, China did get several CH47s from Vietnam.

cool didnt know that, interesting!

But I think China now is more interested in getting more Mi-26.. Trying to get a BlackHawk similiar type one is probably not on high priority list... Mi-26 is a monster. Able to have the same payload as a C-130..

Mi-26 is too much, something between Mi-26 and Sea Stallion is what Chinas heavy lift will do

They can try to locally build S92 if they wanted too, Jingdezhen has the whole blueprint.

rumored to be instrument mock up