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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0100.PDF
98 FLIGHT, 23 January 1953 THE ARMY ^nd the HELICOPTER Some Potentialities yet to be Explored - By O. L. L. FTTZWILLIAMS, B.A. THE genus Helicopter is potentially a very large and diversified family of vehicles, lifting devices and mobile tools and weapons, nearly all of which ought to be of direct and even vital interest to the Army. And yet, in this country, it has been left to a civil airline to take the first step in fostering development of a type of helicopter capable of meeting some of the more obvious Army transport needs. Moreover, in public statements Army spokesmen have seemed to reveal a view in which the transport helicopter is regarded as luxury equipment, to be developed at leisure when required, but for the present to be placed at the bottom of the list of priorities. To those familiar with the current state of the helicopter industry, and the time needed for the development of new heli copters, this might seem to involve a considerable risk even if we could accept at its face value the current American doctrine which places emphasis on the use of transport helicopters in amphibious assault operations. This doctrine derives from the need to preserve maximum dispersal of an assault force in the face of a defence armed with atomic weapons, and if applied to our own military planning it might be thought to refer to the assault phase of a future war, sufficiently remote in time to justify a very low priority for the necessary preparations. If this is the real basis for our present military planning we may need to be reminded of the old maxim that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. In the present balance of power it is not we but our potential enemies who may be assumed to be planning assault operations. Also, a military doctrine which is valid for an assault by ship-based forces against strongly defended Pacific islands may offer a good chance of success for assault against tho United Kingdom, from a land base extending to within 30 miles of the target. As recent Studies have shown, the conventional shaft-driven helicopter can be developed, given adequate resources, as a complete range of vehicles from the small training and ambulance machines to the 200 m.p.h. transport carrying 100 troops and, for short lifts, up to 15 tons of equipment. Behind this conventional branch of the family loom the potentialities of the jet-driven helicopters, very much cheaper for a given payload, and ranging from the smallest single-seater to giants of unlimited size lifting upwards of 100 tons. Such vehicles may indeed be luxuries in relation to operations planned by the British Army, but they are the sine qua non of airborne invasion, and in the hands of a determined enemy they would present a serious threat to our security. As they require only a normal level of engineering skill to bring them into exist ence, the excellence of the Mig-15 may be regarded as a plain warning on this point. Should the Soviet forces roll to the Channel, accompanied by their formidable air power concentrated in a one-front assault, it is not difficult to imagine the devastation by modern explosives of areas anywhere along our Eastern and Southern coasts, into which an airborne invasion could be carried by fast transport and giant weight-lifting helicopters, carrying troops by the thousand and the heaviest tanks and equipment. The logistics of such an operation bear no relation to the lightly armed and scattered glider and parachute landings of World War II, which were without adequate support and depen dent on early relief by ground or seaborne forces. The helicopter- borne invasion, in spite of probable losses, can be based on con tinuing shuttle services bringing steady streams of reinforcements, with local build-up peaks possibly as high as an armoured division an hour. Against such forces, made independent of terrain by their accompanying airborne cranes and bridging equipment, effective resistance could hardly be offered by a defending Army caught with its lines of communication and supply still tied to the ground, and impeded in every direction by smashed bridges, roads and railways. There seems little reason to suppose that the losses suffered by invading forces would be prohibitive. Flying low by night in overcast weather and converging on the landing areas by separate routes from a large number of dispersed depots on the Continent, the transport fleets would present very difficult targets. Their rate of delivery of troops and equipment would also be such as to land the main striking forces in the course of a single night, so that THIS article conjures up some grim visions: but while the possibility of aggression remains, counter-measures must con tinue to be developed. The rftle which helicopters—and par ticularly those of unprecedented size—could assume is discussed in detail by Mr. Fitzwilliams, who is helicopter engineer to Westland Aircraft, Ltd. From 1944 to 1946 he was in charge of the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment, Beaulieu. by daybreak the defending fighter force would have its attention occupied by ground forces, and by enemy fighters and tactical bombers, as much as by the helicopters engaged in re-supply operations. To defeat an airborne invasion of this kind seems impossible for a defending army tied to movement on the ground. The mere speed of the initial build-up would ensure too dangerous an in jection of enemy land forces before the defence could be brought into effective action; and, in relation to the forces required to occupy the country, the supply of troops and equipment to maintain such a build-up may, in the case of the Soviet Union, be regarded as inexhaustible. To the layman it seems obvious that if we are to defend ourselves against such a threat we must be provided with defending forces as mobile as any invading force and possessing sufficient fire-power and tactical skill to ensure destruction of the invading fleets and their contents during the initial stages, so that the primary build up is rendered impossible. To do this we would need means of lifting powerful defence units from all over the country, direct from their depots to the combat areas without the delays inherent in ground transport. To do this on an adequate scale would mean the immediate and direct transport of many thousands of fully-equipped men, of anti aircraft and field artillery, of tanks, and of all the other parapher nalia, with their fuel and ammunition, required for any action of major importance. To do this efficiently would require the forma tion of specialized defence units based in convenient localities and fully exercised with the helicopter transports which will take them into action. To do this at all we would surely need a military air transport service with a fleet of helicopters adequate to permit successful defence of the country. If we could be assured that our home-defence forces were strong enough and mobile enough to prevent or destroy an airborne invasion, we might well take comfort from the American doctrine of the use of helicopters in amphibious assault. It represents a considered opinion that, against a defence armed with atomic weapons, invasion by sea is no longer possible on a major scale. Not only are invasion craft too vulnerable to assemble successfully at sea or in their home ports, or to expose themselves in battle order on the water, but the unavoidable troop-concentrations and port facilities at the landing places are no longer defensible, so that operations like those on the Normandy beaches may never again be attempted. For our security this is a most important consideration. It means that, with a sufficiently mobile home-defence force and an adequate supply of atomic weapons we can at least maintain our island integrity, even if we manage only to achieve something less than parity with the formidable air power which could be arrayed against us. To maintain ourselves free from invasion is only the first essential. If we are to carry out the role of unsinkable aircraft carriers which our Allies have assigned to us, how are we to continue an effective existence in the face of the tremendous destructive power of modern weapons and under the shadow of a hostile air power probably equal or superior to our own, pounding us with a force and for a duration likely to make the efforts of the Luft waffe appear insignificant? In these circumstances large areas of our major cities will be laid waste, together with their industries and the complex of road, rail and port facilities which they contain; and this process may continue until industry, transport and centres of population have been forced to disperse in such small concentrations or to such well-protected places as to render uneconomic the delivery of further atomic weapons against them. The level at which equili brium is reached might correspond—in Eastern, Midland and Southern regions—to dispersed-community concentrations not exceeding 100,000 persons, since technical improvements in atomic-explosive and guided-missile manufacture are likely to make these weapons available in quantity. In this modern Diaspora we will at least be in our own country side; and who is to say whether the population is to be pitied for
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