R. Lee Ermey's SOUND OFF Forum

gary86 · Recruit

I have been watching the old Gunny for a long time now and have never has reason to doubt anything about a weapon that he said. However, on the recent show about the development of the military helo there was a glaring mistake.

It seams that Gunny overlooked the H-13 and H-23 attack helos from the Korean War. These were the standard two seat birds built by Bell and Hiller and were armed with two M87C 30 caliber machineguns. While they were not widely used they were the first armed attack helos. These were actually upguned to the M60 machineguns and used as armed scouts early in the Viet Nam war.

Thanks for all the good work Gunny and I will keep watching because you make it fun and interesting.

gary

Snafu · Sergeant Major of the Forum

I think the show was about the first purpose-built attack helicopter , I may be wrong.... Desert

The H-23 Raven performed as a utility, observation, and MedEvac helicopter during the Korean war. Model numbers ranged A through D, F and G (no model E was procured).

The H-13 was used for observation, reconnaissance and in the MedEvac role as a litter carrier in Korea, following initial fielding in 1951

What Im getting at is they were not built as assault copters

Superstallionsarge · Color Sergeant

I thought this one was interesting. It was a private venture aircraft built with Sikorsky R&D funds and was (to my knowledge) the first Blackhawk helicopter.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_s-67.php

http://www.helis.com/70s/h_s67.php

It has several innovations used on current attack helicopters and some rather unique features like the 'rotorprop.' It wasn't selected for the fly-off (which included the prototype AH-64) and was cancelled.

WillyVictor32 · Sergeant Major

Was that the helo of "Blue Thunder" movie fame? The star of that movie also was star in "Jaws" in which he played cop in the latter and a sequel. Names I forget -- Robert Scheider was it he?

Coast guard

Snafu · Sergeant Major of the Forum

The helicopter used to portray Blue Thunder was a French-made Gazelle helicopter with bolt-on parts to change its appearance. Most notably the chin cannon assembly was too heavy, necessitating a weight attached to the tail to keep the nose from dipping forward in flight.

Roy Scheider was the star and played Officer Frank Murphy