Just to their left were hundreds of Al-18 transport helicopters, dubbed Dragonflies by their crews, in close formation and each one carrying a dozen Paratroopers. The Hornet’s were along the outside of the formation, any interference from the ground during the landing would get their undivided attention. Not that a Dragonfly was helpless, far from it, some of them carried the same pods that fired the meter-long rockets that the Hornets did, while they weren’t filled with the anti-armor rockets that the Hornets typically carried, a rocket with a high explosive warhead moving at a 1000 meters per second would ruin almost anyone’s day. All of them had gunners with machine guns sitting in the doors as well.
Okay, the rocket nerd is calling shenanigans on this.
First of all, you don't put rockets on transports. The Dragonflies are, unless I'm mistaken, essentially early Hueys. There is no way you're sticking a pair of rocket pods that weight over 70kg
each on a early transport. Frankly I'm shocked you can even fly a dozen combat-loaded troops in a single helicopter at this point.
The US never stuck rockets on transports to my knowledge and the Russian Hind spent most of its time as a pure gunship. Even if you had the weight to play with, you'd be much better off taking the increased performance and not trying to stick around playing gunship.
We still stick rocket pods on Huey today, but only the little seven round pods so the helo can play armed scout.
Second, I'm not convinced the twin MG42 turret is a good idea. The US experimented with chin MG turrets on Hueys, they didn't really see any use. The later Cobra attack helicopters had machine-gun turrets, but those had twin Miniguns and usually swapped out a Minigun for an automatic grenade launcher.
Honestly I'd write this off as just early experimentation and expect the MG turrets to go away eventually.
That being said, early gunships did mount twin M60s and later single Miniguns outboard of the rocket pods.
Also, door gunners. Door gunners on early gunships were a thing, might not work if this is a dedicated gunship, but then you're way too early to have a dedicated gunship at this point. Some lessons you need to learn in combat.
Third your rockets are way way too fast. 1000 m/s isn't happening in 1960, not with your first go at air-to-ground rockets. In 1970 the US was using Mk.4 motors that went 700m/s. The standard motor today, the Mk.66, isn't much faster. The only rocket that goes a kilometer per second is the Canadian CRV-7, a late-70s project that generated
absurd amounts of smoke and had to be downgraded for helicopter use.
Fourth, the Hornets shouldn't be packing anti-armor rockets. Yes you should have them, but if there's enemy armor in the LZ you failed at recon and shouldn't be landing there. Also, you'd want mostly HE anyways to deal with enemy infantry and light targets.
Historically speaking, a helicopter crew had no way of selecting what they wanted to fire until the mid-1980s when the AH-1 Cobra got a rocket management system that split the rockets into five zones. That brings me back to being surprised that Germany has colored smoke warheads for their rocket system. The US had the XM152 (red) and XM153 (yellow) heads late Vietnam era, but they only show up in manuals 1968-1973ish
We didn't even have WP heads until the early 1970s either.
Which brings me back to "these rockets are in no way related to the Panzershreck", because you'd need to change literally everything about the rocket. Which, by the way, moved at 100m/s.
I'd be happy to elaborate on anything you need.
@Dan, I nerded out.
Sources:
OP 1734 2.75" Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket, 1954. First manual for the 70mm rocket system.
OP 2210 Aircraft Rockets, 1960. Overview of all aircraft rocket systems in Naval use at the time, with details on heads, fuzes, motors, complete rounds (the Navy used to designate an assembled rocket as a Mark XY rocket, they dropped it later in the decade), and launchers.
Aircraft Weaponization, 1968. Overview of all current helicopter weapons systems
TM 43-001-30 Ammunition Data Sheets for Rockets, 1981 Full listing of all Army rockets, rocket motors, and fuzes.
TM 1-1520-236-10 AH-1F Cobra manual. Details on Rocket Management System (page 133 of PDF)