To: helmet fire
I contacted the Training and Documentation Command (TRADOC) of the US Army. They provided a condensed version of a report dealing with the ZSU-23-4 weapons system but it applied to the Cobra and not the Apache and it did not deal with any lies told to Apache pilots regarding the capabilities of the ZSU-23-4. In all sincerity I did see the article in which the US Army downplayed the capabilities of the weapons system and how it would be ineffective against the Apache. I just was unable to locate it.
I recovered this from my word file and although there is no attribution the facts in the two paragraphs accurately reflect the original article.
The US Army lied to the pilots of the Apache relative to its’ invulnerability to the ZSU-23-4 weapons system. This was the primary weapon that would be used against the Apache if it were to attack a group of Warsaw Pact tanks.
This weapon was also being supplied to all of the governments that were in league with the Warsaw Pact. The U S Army commissioned a study by a so-called ”Think Tank” to study the effectiveness of the ZSU 23-4 against the Apache. It was their considered opinion that the ZSU 23-4 was inaccurate, It had a low degree of reliability and that if the ZSU 23 did hit the Apache with one round, the pilot would have sufficient time to evade any further hits by dropping below the tree line. The uninitiated reader should understand that the ZSU 23-4 has a rate of fire of 1200 rounds per minute and that if one bullet hit its’ mark, there would be forty or fifty rounds right behind the first round.
The original article did not address invulnerability to RPGs nor were RPGs even addressed in the design specs for the Apache.
The original Apache invulnerability specification addressed tumbled rounds of various caliber’s (7.62 and 50 Cal.) and the engines, the transmission, rotorhead, rotorblades and the intermediate and tail boxes as well as the tail rotor had to be invulnerable to a single hit by a 23mm HEI round. The pilots and gunners compartments had to be invulnerable to a 23mm HEI round in that if one compartment were hit the other would still function. The two compartments were separated by transparent armor (Polycarbonate plastic).
Hopefully this is satisfactory.
