Why Do Apache Use Hellfire, Instead Of TOW Missile? #shorts
52,578Why do Apache helicopters use Hellfire missiles instead of TOW missiles? Well, Awl you need to know here is an interesting story. The AH-64 was developed just to address one issue, the Fulda Gap. The Fulda Gap, an area between the Hesse-Thuringian border and Frankfurt am Main. If the cold war went hot, the Soviets would send divisions through Fulda gap towards west germany. The Soviet armor consisted of Heavy Machine Guns such as the DshK, with maximum range of 2.1 miles. The Fulda Gap engagement from a helicopter would require extensive Nape of the Earth.Β But the TOW system at the time required an operator to guide each missile to the target, and commands are sent to the missile through the wire.Β The system standards are approximately 30 seconds per missile, which means for a payload of 16 missiles, the aircraft would have to spend 8 minutes guiding the missiles, simply putting the helicopter in range of DshK. Due to this the TOW missile was not an optimum option. But the laser designation capabilities of AGM-114 Hellfire missile removed the trailing wire and extended the range. Also the AH-64 can rapid fire 16 missiles with 1 second launch intervals, with improved warhead yield, fire and forget feature and faster velocity made this a perfect weapon for the Fulda Gap engagement.
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