Members of 662 Squadron, Army Air Corps have been visiting Scotland this week as part of Ex OLETHRION GREY in order to gain some valuable experience in flying their Apache helicopters in mountainous terrain.
Three helicopters from the Wattisham based unit flew up on Tuesday afternoon and joined their ground crew at their temporary base at Leuchars station.
They then spent Wednesday and Thursday flying through Fife and the Highlands, passing over many of Scotland’s famous landmarks.
“Designed to hunt and destroy tanks, the Apache attack helicopter has significantly improved the Army’s operational capability. The Apache attack helicopter can operate in all weathers, day or night and detect, classify and prioritise up to 256 potential targets in a matter of seconds. It carries a mix of weapons including rockets, Hellfire missiles and a 30mm chain gun, as well as a state of the art fully integrated defensive aid suite. In addition to the distinctive Longbow radar located above the rotor blades, this aircraft is equipped with a day TV system, thermal imaging sight and direct view optics.”
662 Squadron is part of 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps. The Regiment’s core role to provide an aviation deep manoeuvre battlegroup made up of attack, reconnaissance and transport helicopters – to 3rd (UK) Division, the British Army’s high readiness warfighting division.
‘direct view optics’… That will be the windscreen then…
Pete…. don’t be silly….. its the MKI eyeball….
It’s almosty like he didn’t watch Battlestar Gallactica which we all know is highly unlikely.
🙂 🙂 🙂 btw on another subject does anyone know if the QE group has formed up yet? I would have expected to see some photos by now
It mostly has. People have spotted the QE, Fort Vic, a Type 45, USS The Sullivans and a Dutch warship off the coast of Scotland. Just no group photos have been released yet.
Sunglasses
Nice to see such activity over Scotland’s fair land-ideal terrain for the broad range of military training and excercises. Formidable beast is the Apache!
this is one of the best pieces of equipment we have and we really do need more.
I am all for funding a larger force of these even if that means losing something else (like tanks) as I just think they are better
P27 makes sense….we end up with more of something…..
I think Technology is moving so fast more Apache and the retention of the Challenger 2 Tank force makes less and less sense.Looking at the Combat Footage of the Turkish incursion into Syria earlier this year and of the current Armenia/Azerbaijan Conflict its all about Drones.Tanks are sitting Ducks now,you dont need an expensive Gunship to take them out,and in contested Airspace an Apache wouldn’t last that long,why risk two crew when the same job can be done with something cheap and expendable.
That makes as much sense as saying because Colchester United beat Accrington Stanley 20-0 , Arsenal need to buy a new goalkeeper. Arsenal’s defence and midfield would protect their own half much better.
All those conflicts prove is that you wouldn’t want to be in a tank in any of those armies as they are unprotected from even basic weapons.
What do you do when you fight someone who takes out your cheap expendable drones with effective jamming or counter measures and sends in their tanks and gunships to wipe out your now undefended ground troops and APVs ?
Drones are fine if you’re flying in a non ECM environment. Once an enemy starts jamming GPS, comms, data links they will be useless.
How many Apaches are the AAC operating these days, 50?