Comments by "Geoffrey Lyons" (@granatmof) on "China's newest heavy attack helicopter is like the US Apache" video.

  1. Oh no, China has copied like 40 or 50 year old technology.
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  2. Matching the current capabilities of your adversaries to be more on par with them isn't necessarily a bad thing. The US and Soviets did it for years with slight improvements to try to match and exceed performance in some cases. China developing a heavy attack chopper isn't surprising, just as the British, French or even Swedish militaries doing the same. Honestly I'm surprised China doesn't have an attack chopper before now. It's not surprising but also since it's really only a parity technology, it's not and overt new threat though. If anything it may push the US to figure out a heavy attack drone or something (since the US recently canceled the FARA project, probably in favor of an attack variant of the V280 down the road since the FARA helicopters would be unable to reach the speed or range to escort the V280) So far as form factor and capabilities, there's literal physics limitations that dictate some design choices.
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  3. There's plenty of reasons to make an attack chopper. If there's somehow an uprising in China (which is possible if the economy crumbles) they could be useful in suppressing civilians. The chopper also provides a useful training tool to plane for defensing against them and learning the limitations of US attack choppers. Honestly though, unless China extends past Taiwan, they're unlikely to see US Army attack choppers (Marines use a different Chopper iirc). Uktinayle I suspect this is more to balance out Indian pursuits. Honestly an India China war turning hot wouldn't surprise me that much. It's funny for Americans to think it's all about them, when in the evolving multi polar war, there's far more players. China and countries in the Euarsian mega continent have something the US fundamentally doesn't understand: regionally local peer threats. China has 4 neighbors with nukes: India, Pakistan, Russia, and North Korea. They have ongoing love-hate tensions with Russia and India.
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