Quaking in my boots - Iran's new helo
From
DefenseTech:
Introducing Iran’s Newest Attack Helos, Wait a Second…
Continuing it’s tradition of reverse engineering and fabricating its stockpile of 40-year old American weaponry, Iran announced that it is about to unveil its first ever domestically produced Cobra attack choppers.
Yup, nearly 50-years after the U.S. introduced the Cobra, Iran has figured out how to make its own. Kinda reminds me of Iran’s Saeqeh fighter jet — a Northrop F-5 knock of featuring some Iranian modifications and a paint job that resembles the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels’ color scheme. The Iranian army flies American-made AH-1J Sea Cobras — some of which have been rebuilt in Iran as the Panha 2091 — that were delivered before the 1979 revolution.
Iran’s locally-grown Cobras will be armed with “different types of home-made caliber guns, rockets and missiles,” according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency. Yup, “different types of home-made” weapons. Apparently, these home-made weapons and other modifications to the Cobra design will make it “preferable to Apache Choppers (sic).” I’m shaking.
The Cobra was introduced in 1967. Not a bad helo as helos go but seriously outdated. Iran will upgrade the avionics and engine but they are still limited by the basic overall design -- maneuverability, etc. Plus, the airframe stands out like a sore thumb on radar...
More on this variant of the Huey here at Wikipedia:
Bell AH-1 Cobra
Things like this make me positive that Russia is behind their rush to Nuclear weapons and that we need to get back to a hard-line relationship with them. They are pragmatists and if we show enough balls, they will back down.
Their interest in the area is the oil -- they started with grooming Yasser Arafat and funding this Egyptian son of a Dentist into being the "leader" of the "palestinian" "people". The Russians are still very much active here. Considering that the oil is running out (40 years tops before the fields need to sit idle and replenish), it's almost like the head of the KGB dinosaur was cut off but the body is still operating.
I say wall the whole area off (except for Israel!) and toss in a cell phone with a note attached:
Whosoever survives, give the Western world a call in 2062.
They could have been great but they chose the path of idolatry and madness.
Posted by DaveH at May 26, 2012 10:53 PM