Bolt 5.0

[JDR Dragoon]

I also still wonder why some of the Pact and NATO members didn't have combat helicopters, e.g. the Poles, Netherlands, the Danes, the Belgians, the Austrians, the Italians. Was it really only the US, Soviets, West and East Germans and the Czechs who had them?

Easy. They were very expensive, very vulnerable, had limited loiter time and could not physically defend or attack a given piece of terrain (they could of course dominate it by fire). These facts meant, that most of the above nations took a long hard look at the funds available and decided that they would rather have more ATGM launchers on some kind of vehicle instead of on helicopters.

The danish army decided to procure an AT-Helicopter company for the Jutland Division in 1987 (to match the germans who had a similar unit for the 6. PzG Div. and because the terrain on the Jutland peninsula and the likely task of mobile defence meant, that a very mobile ATGM equipped unit would be useful). The helicopters (12xAS550 equipped w. 4xTOW each) was procured by 1990 and the company ready in 1992. But by then it wasn´t really that important anymore.

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Belgium, Dutch and such had very few helos, the ones they had were mostly outdated and only for observation or liaison.

Not necessarily outdated, but yes

Thats all they had, the soviets didnt trust any Pact members with the hind so they only had a couple dozen each.

They trusted them plenty. But by the 1980s the soviets wanted cold hard cash (preferentally western cash) for their hardware, and the various satellites often couldn´t afford too many of the expensive items. Attack helicopters and modern jets like the MiG 29 is pretty much as expensive as it gets (East Germany definitely wanted more of the latter to replace MiG 21s, but simply couldn´t afford it in the short term).

Nato tank values have gone down, the big loss is anything with the 105mm gun, the 105mm round could not penetrate the front arc of a t72 and up intill 1989 when a new round was introduced that most tanks couldnt use except the original M1. Along with defense going down on most of these same tanks its gonna help that initial push. Your Leo1s and M-60s and such took a hit

You might want to qualify the above a bit. The statement is very much dependent upon which type of ammunition is being fired from the 105mm gun against which type of T72.

Salut!