Page 48 - HeliOps Frontline Issue 26

48 HELIOPS FRONTLINE / ISSUE 26 / 2019

Thus, with Block II enhancements for the CH-47F and MH-47G
coming down the line, the US Army has kicked the can of a new
Heavy Lift helicopter down the road by another decade or so? Well,
errrr, actually, no… they haven’t.

CREDIT CRUNCH

The US Army it appears is facing a bit of a ‘credit crunch’ when
it comes to funding its re-equipment program. Much like the 1970s,
the Army is undertaking an ambitious modernisation program
to refocus from counterinsurgency (Vietnam) to conventional
peer-peer warfighting (Cold War in Europe). Today, the Army’s
commitment to the wars in Afghanistan and The Middle East is
considerably scaled back, and attention is switching rapidly back
to a resurgent Russia and an expansionist China, as well as their
increasingly well-equipped Proxy Nations. These rival nations have
not stood still in their efforts to improve their own weapon systems,
especially in respect to Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) capabilities
designed to make Western militaries fight hard to even enter
the contested areas through layers of Surface to Air Missiles and
Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) dominance, including the liberal
use of cyber-attacks. In the 1970s, the US Army invested hard in the