UH-1D Armament package positioning

I'm sitting here in Books A Million in Dothan, reading the latest issue of FlyPast magazine, and I came across a great shot of an RAAF Bushranger gunship.  There's an article on Australian combat ops in Vietnam and some greally good shots there.  Article starts on p.58 and the Bushranger shot is on p.59.  Just thought I'd let everyone know!

Jon

Hey guys,

The Company was known as the Hornets, but the lift platoon was the Wasps and the gun platoon was the Stingers.

DarienCharlie,

You could do it up as a US Army testbed, just wouldn't have been an operational bird.

Jon

The armament package that you are using was used by RAAF 9 Squadron "Bushmaster" helos. The 1st Cavalry, aka 11th Air Assault Division, tested the rigs in the US but it was determined that the troop carrying capacity outweighed the need to arm a UH-1D/H that heavily. With the UH-1C coming online and the AH-1G on the horizon using the D/H airframe in the same gunship role simply wasn't efficient. US UH-1D/H aircraft did get armed in special roles called FIREFLY and NIGHTHAWK. The Firefly had a cluster of aircraft landing lights and heavy machine guns mounted in the cargo area and flew with another aircraft which acted as a decoy. The missions were flown at night; the decoy flying with it's lights on and at an altitude designed to entice enemy fire and the Firefly flying very close by but completely dark. When substantial ground fire was encountered the Firefly aircraft would illuminate the source area with the light cluster and suppress the enemy fire with it's own heavy weapons. The more refined Nighthawk mission had a Xenon spotlight, nightvision scope and mingun/ .50 cal weapons in addition to the standard M-60D guns. The Nighthawk did not require a decoy as it could search for targets using the nightscope. The Nighthawk mission was exceptionally useful for finding the source of an enemy force that had friendly forces pinned down, trapped or were attacking a remote position. The heaviest weapon that was tried on the D airframe was a 20mm cannon that had been scrounged from an air force F-100. It was mounted below the center of the cabin and fed from inside. The first time it was tried the blast from the gun blew out the chin bubbles of the test airframe. After rigging some blast deflectors it was used for about three months before the hardpoints were shattered by the gun recoil and the idea was dropped. The particular aircraft used in that role was a bastard UH-1D made of parts from different aircraft and had no official serial number. It was operated by the 116th AHC gunplatoon "Stingers" and was named "BIG DADDY". The artwork that was painted on the side of the jump doors came up for sale on ebay last year. I bought it.

Chief Snake

Not really Gino, the D model became avialable in 1963, the contract for the Cobra was let in 1967, B and later C models filled the gunship role, while the D was used for troop transport

Yup, lots of different interesting weapons configurations were tested on the D model.  None were really put into operational use though.  UH-1D gunships weren't really needed since the AH-1G Cobra was available at about the same time as the D and took over the gunship role.  It was more effective at it as well.

As a general rule the Army did not arm D models, I have seen some pictures of armed D's used in testing the idea of arming them or as "firefly" or maintanence birds that carried a 50cal in place of the M-60

Hey guys... look what I found in some of my archive photos:

Here's an M60 rig on a US Army "D" Model.    It's one of those weapons configuration test photos (note the lack of lower ammo chutes) Bell made of the UH-1 series aircraft.    

Take care,

Frank

 

Thanks for that help too.  Maybe at this point I'll just finish building it as called out, put the armament on, and forward of the doors in line with the ammo box, and use the U.S. decals.  I don't think it came with Aussie decals but will double check.

Oh well, this is my first chopper and it really wet my appetite to do more of them.

Brian

Nope, Italeri goofed.  That configuration is a Aussia config, sort of.  Aussie  (RAAF) UH-1H "Bushranger" gunship setup was the miniguns up front, with rockets and dual M60D mounts at the doorgunners' stations.

More here.

 

The "Wasp", it is actually a Hornet (the name of the unit was Hornets, however the were also called Wasps and Stingers), UH-1D helo was from 1st PLT, 116th Assualt Helicopter Company, First Aviation BDE, Vietnam.  It was a standard slick with M60D doorguns.

From the Panda 1/35 kit, only pic I find of the helo.

 

Hope that helps.

 

The armament are rockets with a mini-gun over the rocket pod.

I already installed the amo box where indicated, which would correspond to putting the arms forward of the big doors.

I also started to pick up on that the D model was not armed too often, and not by the U.S.  Since the decals represent ( supposedly! ) some actualy U.S. squadron I thought well, maybe Italeri knows something that occured but not commonly.  I'm not at home now, can't say what the unit was.  I think Wasp is in the name an pictured in the unit emblem.

It's not too late to leave the guns off, but the amo box is CA'd on.  I have some desolve but am afraid would end up with a mess.

Well, maybe I'll hunt on the net and hopefully come up with substantiation for Italeri's configuration.  Or maybe will just have to make a decision on what to do and live with it.  Hey, there are more models to build!

Thanks for the replies.

Brian

Yep, the US did not use the D model as a gunship.  The Aussies did, I believe the unit was the 135th Assault Helicopter Company (The Emus), which was a composite US/Aussie unit.  Not 100% sure if they had gunship D models though.  I've seen a few D Gun birds, but never a US one.  I'd just go with 2 door guns.

Jon

Depends on what weapons and where they will be placed as to where the ammo box will go.  What weapons are you putting on it?  Looks like you are building it as a gunship, which is not really correct since Ds were not commonly used in this role.  Need more info to answer your question correctly.