WI Airforces kept helicopters?

WI medium/small powersleft their helicopters (above the level of simple scout and comminucation) in the hands of their air forces? Would the RAF and RAAF for example have better luck with complex helicopters than the Armies seem to be having?
 

CalBear

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The USAF operates hundreds of helos. Their readiness rates are pretty much identical to that of the USN, Marines and the massive fleet operated by the Army.
 
The RAF does use helicopters. The Army Air Corps is pretty much restricted to Lynxs and Apaches, transport helicopters like the Merlin and Chinook have always been the province of the air force.
 
From what I've read the huge size of the US Army helicopter fleet allows it to reach a critical mass with regards to pilot training and retention and maintenence.

Anecdotally I hear that the British Army is struggling with Apache availability.

As for us it is arguable that the then new Blackhawks and old Huey gunships are battlefield assets and therefore work be with the Army alongside the Kiowa. But now the Army is looking at 7 Chinooks, 40 MRH-90s and 22 Tigers all of which are expensive and capable pieces of kit, far more so than the machines that were handed to the Army in the late 80s and the Army struggled to assimilate.
 

CalBear

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From what I've read the huge size of the US Army helicopter fleet allows it to reach a critical mass with regards to pilot training and retention and maintenence.

Anecdotally I hear that the British Army is struggling with Apache availability.

As for us it is arguable that the then new Blackhawks and old Huey gunships are battlefield assets and therefore work be with the Army alongside the Kiowa. But now the Army is looking at 7 Chinooks, 40 MRH-90s and 22 Tigers all of which are expensive and capable pieces of kit, far more so than the machines that were handed to the Army in the late 80s and the Army struggled to assimilate.


Regardless of which branch is operating them if you only have 10 or 20 platforms it is going to be extremely difficult to develop the knowedge base needed to keep the machinery in proper operation. This extends well beyond helicopters or even the military. A very rare piece of equipment will be vulnerable to serious service disruptions due to a lack of skilled technicians.

The U.S. Army (along with the other branches) does have a great advantage in that it operates a huge number of the SAME platform. This goes for vehicles of all types. If you have 30,000 mechanics trained on the UH-60 or the Cummings diesel engine used in a number of vehicles, the odds are you will always be able to keep the things in the air or running regardless of who is on leave or injured or rotating out of active duty.
 
True, but in the Airforce you have hundreds of gas turbine and avionics techos and whole structures set up to provide backup support appropriate to expensive and fragile aircraft rather than tough and simple trucks and AFVs. The critical mass is gained throughout the whole Airforce so the small numbers of helicopters by itself isn't an issue.

Another thing that didn't eventuate in reality was the wage/pension savings from using cheap Army NCOs instead of expensive RAAF Officers to fly helicopters. In reality the Army NCO didn't stay flying the the service nearly as long as RAAF career Officers, which created a training overhead so large that it cancelled the wage savings.
 
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