Mi-24P HFS 80 (Germany)
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Contents
Description
The ◄Mi-24P HFS 80 is a premium rank VI German attack helicopter with a battle rating of 10.0 (AB) and 9.7 (RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision".
Being the only Warsaw pact helicopter available to German pilots, ▀Mi-24P shows a radical shift of doctrine when compared to NATO helicopters. Big, heavily armored yet fast, and armed with lethal payload when compared to its West German contemporaries, one can see why Hinds were nicknamed “Devil's Chariots” during their deployment in Afghanistan.
This version differentiates from its tech tree counterpart only by premium bonuses and addition of livery belonging to Heeresfliegerstaffel 80 (Army Aviation Squadron 80), helicopter unit belonging to Unified Germany's Heer that continued to operate Soviet helicopters after reunification.
General info
Flight performance
Big size and heavy armor for a helicopter, Hind can at times feel sluggish and slow to turn when compared to BO 105 helicopters. That being said, it can also fly incredibly fast, being the fastest helicopter in the German tech tree.
▀Mi-24P can achieve a whooping speed of 335km/h when flying at 50m altitude, without any problems. Be aware that at this speed, Hind behaves more like a plane rather than helicopter; sharp turns using only mouse control can take ages and helping yourself with keyboard controls can cause loss of lift, leading to crash.
Be aware that while you can exceed ▀Mi-24Ps listed maximal speed by as much as 30km/h without problems, once you hit 370km/h and above, your helicopter WILL flop to the right side. This is especially dangerous at low altitude flight as you won't have time to recover, even with experienced crew.
Also be aware that when hovering, ▀Mi-24P is prone to Vortex ring state, a dangerous condition leading to loss of lift and eventually, crash. It is of utmost importance to start moving in any direction, thus gaining lift, as soon as a warning pops up on your screen, otherwise you risk severely damaging if not losing your helicopter.
| Characteristics | Max Speed (km/h at 1,000 m) |
Max altitude (metres) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AB | RB | ||
| Stock | 311 | 293 | 4950 |
| Upgraded | 359 | 335 | |
Survivability and armour
While lacking some historical defensive features like titanium rotor blades and titanium tub around its crew, ▀Mi-24P is well protected for its rank.
Rule of thumb is to keep your distance, fly low, and break line of sight whenever possible.
Armor
Greater the distance, the more usefull your armor will be.
Critical components such as engines and transmission are protected by 4mm steel plates.
Crew sits in an armored tub consisting of 4mm steel plates on sides. Gunner position is upgraded to 8mm plates while pilot gets 4mm steel plates in his seat. Both crew members get access to 55mm armored glass in front of their position.
Armor layout can protect you comfortably from low caliber machine guns and at distance, from .50cals as those commonly used by NATO tanks.
Larger calibers, such as those found on IFVs, can at close range chew right through your armor.
Dedicated SPAAGs such as Shilkas or Tunguskas can get through your armor with piercing rounds, though they need to hit critical components or crew directly. You can withstand a few hits of their explosive rounds and shrapnel, but do not expect to hover over them and survive.
SAMs will almost always destroy most of your critical components in one hit, though you can sometimes survive smaller ones and make it back to the base.
Avionics
▀Mi-24P is equipped with a plethora of technologies which increase your survivability dramatically.
First, you have the option to install HIRSS, Hover Infrared Suppressor System that allows your helicopter to reduce or almost eliminate all infrared radiation emitted by exhaust gases of its engines to the surroundings.
Second, you can install IRCM, non-coherent flashlamps and infrared signal emitters that direct its energy towards incoming missiles in an attempt to blind the missile's infrared sensors and confuse its tracking. In-game, it also causes radar lock to “wiggle” all around your helicopter when viewed through enemy scope, increasing probability of miss.
Third, you are equipped with RWR, a radar warning receiver, from the get go. This piece of tech alerts you of active radars on the battlefield, be it ground or air based, and gives you warning when you get radar locked. It also lets you know the position of active radars relative to your helicopter and highlights which radar has locked you.
Lastly, you can equip a countermeasure launcher with a capacity of 192x of either flares, chaff or combination of both. Those are mounted right behind your wing pylons on the side of Hind. Flares work against IR tracking missiles, chaff works against both searching and tracking radar. Since there are currently only two AA vehicles in game equipped with IR SAMs ( Japanese Type 93 and Chinese PGZ04A), it is preferable to prioritize chaff over flares. This becomes more important with growing distance, since IR SAMs can't reach your maximum engagement range when you are using Shturms.
There is not one downside to having all of the above mentioned countermeasures, so keep all of them equipped, always.
Sadly, ▀Mi-24P is not equipped with MAW, missile approach warning, so you do not get alerted by missiles incoming in your direction.
Staying alive
Depending on the situation and payload, your approach to survival is radically different. Rule of thumb is that it is almost always better to stay low to the ground in order to break line of sight and to stay below altitude where proximity fuze on SAMs activates ( usually 25m above ground), but this will be covered more in Usage in battles section.
Also, you need to be aware that HFS 80 livery with its bright unnatural colors can aid the enemy with visual detection.
Modifications and economy
2 × 50 / 290 / 430 % 2 × 214 / 214 / 214 % | Flight performance | Survivability | Weaponry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
| Ballistic Computer | ||
|---|---|---|
| CCIP (Guns) | CCIP (Rockets) | CCIP (Bombs) |
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Offensive armament
The Mi-24P HFS 80 (Germany) is armed with:
- A choice between four presets:
- 1 x 30 mm GSh-30-2K cannons, cheek-mounted (250 rpg)
- 1 x 30 mm GSh-30-2K cannons, cheek-mounted (250 rpg) + HIRSS
- 1 x 30 mm GSh-30-2K cannons, cheek-mounted (250 rpg) + 192 x Flares
- 1 x 30 mm GSh-30-2K cannons, cheek-mounted (250 rpg) + 192 x Flares + IRCM
Suspended armament
The Mi-24P HFS 80 (Germany) can be outfitted with the following ordnance:
- Without load
- 80 x S-8KO rockets
- 4 x 250 kg OFAB-250sv bombs (1,000 kg total)
- 2 x 500 kg FAB-500M-54 bombs (1,000 kg total)
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 80 x S-8KO rockets
- 4 x 23 mm GSh-23L cannons (250 rpg = 1,000 total)
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 4 x 23 mm GSh-23L cannons
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 4 x 250 kg OFAB-250sv bombs (1,000 kg total)
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 2 x 500 kg FAB-500M-54 bombs (1,000 kg total)
- 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 2 x 23 mm GSh-23L cannons + 40 x S-8KO rockets
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 2 x R-60 missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 2 x R-60 missiles + 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 4 x R-60 missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 4 x R-60 missiles + 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 2 x R-60M missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 2 x R-60M missiles + 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 4 x R-60M missiles
- 40 x S-8KO rockets + 4 x R-60M missiles + 4 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 8 x 9M114 Shturm missiles
- 8 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 40 x S-8KO rockets
- 8 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 2 x 250 kg OFAB-250sv bombs (500 kg total)
- 8 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 2 x 500 kg FAB-500M-54 bombs (1,000 kg total)
- 8 x 9M114 Shturm missiles + 2 x 23 mm GSh-23L cannons
Compared to NATO helicopters in the German tech tree, ▀Mi-24P has the ability to perfectly tailor its payload to any battlefield scenario it can encounter.
GSh-30-2K cannon
Stock, ▀Mi-24P is armed with a 30 mm GSh-30-2K cannon, the same weapon that is wielded by Su-25 Frogfoots. It can shred any air target unfortunate enough to get in its range. With ground belts, it can make short work of any light vehicle or SPAAG, though main battle tanks will shrug your fire without any serious damage.
Operator must be aware that the cannon has a high rate of fire and only 250 rounds available, so trigger discipline is must.
Last thing to note is that the cannon is fixed to the ▀Mi-24P right side and thus can be only aimed by turning the entire helicopter. This can sometimes be a problem at close range due to Hind's sluggish controls, and helicopters with cannons that can turn independently on the hull will have an edge over you.
GSh-23L cannon
▀Mi-24P is also able to equip gun pods containing 23mm GSh-23L cannon. It is the same cannon as one mounted in Mig-21s. ▀Mi-24P can equip up to 4x containers, each one containing 500 rounds of ammo. Sadly, you can't choose which belt to use.
S-8KO rockets
Another viable weapon, S-8KO rockets come in pods of 20, each missile is able to penetrate up to 400mm. They are also very vast, with a speed of 610m/s. Unfortunately, they contain only 1.32kg equivalent of TNT, so scoring direct hits is a must. Hind can load up to 4x pods at once, giving you 80 missiles to launch at enemies.
R-60 AAM
Another weapon found on Russian Mig-21s, R-60 are powerful missiles that are able to pull 30Gs, meaning no plane in game can dodge them without use of flares. They do not have as strong warheads as Sidewinders, but it is enough to severely cripple bigger planes and outright destroy smaller ones. Be aware as they can only achieve lock-in rear-aspect at maximum distance of 5km, meaning you need to fire them at planes and helicopters from behind. Seeing that you also have the ability to equip upgraded version, there are not many scenarios where you would take these instead of upgraded ones. You can equip up to 4x of them.
R-60M AAM
Direct upgrade to R-60, these are almost identical to the base version, but with slightly bigger warhead and ability to lock onto enemy planes and helicopters from any aspect at a distance of 2km (on top of 5km range in rear-aspect). You can equip up to 4x of them.
OFAB-250sv bombs
Another weapon more commonly found on planes, ▀Mi-24P can equip up to 1,000kg of OFAB-250s bombs. These are dropped individually, thus in theory allowing pilot to score 4 kills at least. Sadly, reality is different - as your ballistic computer lacks computing power to understand the sheer madness of mounting bombs on helicopter, it is thus unable to provide aiming cross for your bombs (as modern planes would). Your only hope of precisely dropping these is to attack in a manner similar to Stuka planes. While the thought of ▀Mi-24P stuka bombing Abrams tanks certainly is funny, it is far from practical, given the setting in which helicopters operate.
FAB-500M-54 bomb
Same story as above, except ▀Mi-24P can only equip two of them. On the other hand, their explosive mass is higher, thus you do not need to be as precise as when dropping 250kg bombs.
9M114 Shturm missile
Your weapon of choice when engaging enemy armor. Precursor of the Ataka missile, Shturms are fast, capable of reaching speeds of 400m/s (only slightly slower than Hellfires). They are able to penetrate only 560mm of armor at max and are not equipped with tandem warheads, making them weaker against composite and reactive armor, which are getting common at its BR. That being said, you can load up to 8x of them, which is one of the highest numbers of ATGM missiles any German helicopter can carry. They have a range of 5km, which is enough to comfortably sit outside of SPAAGs cannon range.
▀Mi-24P is armed only with a night vision, severely limiting its ability to acquire targets at longer ranges. Night vision devices are only available to pilot and gunner when using 3rd person and cockpit view - your ATGM sight does not get any, thus crippling your effectiveness in long range engagements at night.
Usage in battles
▀Mi-24P (or any helicopter for that matter) usually adopts tactics of either helicopter rush or sniping with ATGMs.
Longer match goes on, the higher are chances of enemy AA appearing. This means your chance to successfully employ helicopter rush tactic gets lower as the match drags on, thus making helicopter rush viable only in the early game.
From mid to late game, you might wanna go with tactic of sniping with Shturms ATGMs, picking off targets from maximum possible distance.
Using helicopter ATGMs is always a struggle between staying low thus surviving longer and climbing higher thus getting a view on the battlefield unobstructed by buildings, hills and trees.
If you decided to go with helicopter rush:
Recommended loadout: 80x S-8KO rockets, ground belt for your cannon
While you can equip 4x250kg of bombs instead of rockets, delivering those precisely is difficult due to lack of aiming reticle. Your ballistic computer is also unable to provide a firing solution, leaving you guessing more than aiming.
S-8KO rockets present much more precise and overall better choice of arment for this strategy.
Since your rockets are launched in pairs, aim for the roof armor on the back of the turret when approaching from side or slightly off the center if approaching from front or back. This will allow one of your rockets to score direct hit onto critical components of enemy tanks.
Tactics:
Let's get this out of the way first - helicopter rush tactic is a gamble, since it can lead to either great success (destroying several tanks from the enemy team for the price of one helicopter) or catastrophic failure (getting slapped by ADATS halfway to the combat zone), depending on whenever the enemy team has active AA at the start of the match.
Thankfully, ▀Mi-24P, thanks to its ballistic computer, speed and armor can helicopter rush at the start of the round well. Be aware that it is more often than not a one way trip and one needs to adopt a mindset of “I'm going to hell, but I will take you with me”, since any half decent player will spawn dedicated AA after getting killed by rushing helicopter and will delete you from sky. Sometimes, you won't even get a chance to do that - some players anticipate helicopter rushes and start a game in AA vehicles, thus probably shutting down your helicopter even before it can do any damage.
That being said, when helicopter rushing at the start of the round, you need to approach the battlefield as low as possible, in order to confuse enemy radar and break line of sight by putting terrain, trees and structures between you and enemy. Select heliport spawn closer to the battlefield, and start approaching either spawn or capture point; those have the highest chance of enemies being concentrated there.
Try to gain as much speed as possible before reaching your destination.
Once nearing 1km distance from your objective, pull up and convert speed into attitude. While this will put you in the killzone of most dedicated AA vehicles in game, chances of those being active at the start of the match are low. You will also position yourself outside of most weapons carried by main battle tanks and IFVs - tank guns and most machine guns can't elevate high enough to effectively target you, putting you away from harm's way. This will also allow you to easily target roof armor of enemy vehicles, which is usually thin and not protected by ERA, allowing your unguided rockets to slice right through.
As you climb, use your RWR to determine whenever the enemy team has AA or not - if you get pings from RWR, try to find and dispatch enemy AA before it can fire at you - this will allow you to stay alive for a little longer. Only then you can switch your attention to enemy tanks.
One last thing to note is that you will be heard before seen, as helicopters are usually very loud, and some skilled players can anticipate your direction from sound alone and can counter you as soon as you appear above horizon - tanks like M1A2 are equipped with proximity fuze HEAT-FS shells designed to take down low flying helicopters, and most IFVs can elevate their guns high enough to engage you when you first emerge from behind the horizon. Thus gaining altitude is vital to success when helicopter rushing.
If you decided to go with sniping with Shturms:
Recommended loadout:
If there are no enemy planes active on the battlefield, pick loadout with the maximum number of Shturms ATGMs possible - these are your best choice at dispatching armored targets.
If there are enemy planes active, pick loadout with R-60M missiles, those help you with clearing the airspace of any threats to your helicopter.
You can also pick secondary armament to go with your Shturms - either GSh-23L gun pods or S-8KO rocket pods.
GSh-23L cannon pods help you defend yourself at close range from air targets.
S-8KO rocket pods are not used in the conventional role of attacking ground targets in this loadout - instead, you use them defensively, to prematurely activate proximity fuze on enemy AA missiles. Simply fire a salvo in the way of an incoming missile and it should trigger. This is of utmost importance as skilled players will guide SAMs to your position manually, without use of radar, making traditional countermeasures useless.
Tactics:
Approach battlefield flying at low altitude, keep distance of 5km (maximum range of your ATGMs). Bleed speed and start hovering. Finding any cover to hover behind and to break line of sight trendemously helps your survival - even trees can become your best friend.
Pop above the cover for a few seconds, launch a missile or two, then go back. Change position, rinse and repeat.
Check your RWR regularly in order to spot any active radars, be it airborne or ground based. Note that lack of active radar ping does not guarantee that the enemy team has no AA spawned - skilled players often turn off their radars in order to lure helicopters out of cover and guide their SAMs manually to you.
Stay around an altitude of 25m when not engaging enemy tanks. You won't get detected by radar in most cases and proximity fuze of SAMs is disabled below 25m. If you are higher and you detect incoming SAM, deploy countermeasures and try to duck below 25m as fast as possible. Be aware that direct hit can and will obliterate you, but those are harder to pull off when dodging.
Staying in one place not only helps the enemy team to locate you sooner, but some tanks with laser range finders might able to shoot you down with tank guns at a range of several kilometres, since you present almost static target.
Shturms have mediocre penetration when compared to some high-end missiles and may find themselves unable to defeat modern composite or reactive armor, which are getting common at ▀Mi-24P BR. While destroying light tanks and SPAAGs and many older main battle tanks frontally is doable, your ATGMs simply don't have enough penetration to go through Challengers 2 turret cheeks or T-72B3s Relikt reactive armor for example.
That being said, that does not mean you cannot destroy those enemies. You just need to be smart about deploying your Shturms.
You should avoid engaging enemy tanks from the frontal arc. More often than not, a tank's strongest armor is its turret face and frontal plate on the hull. For example, Leopard 2A5s turret front is able to resist chemical munitions with penetration of up to 1300mm. On top of that, enemies can spot incoming missiles aimed at them when they are coming from the front, allowing them to take defensive measures, such as moving behind cover or deploying smoke grenades.
Instead, exploit Hind's high speed to get on flanks and hit enemy tanks from the side. Even with reactive armor, a well aimed hit below the turret of T-90A can detonate its ammo carousel and destroy it in one hit. While most players do check their corners and flanks, they usually wont spot missile coming from an elevated position until it's too late.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Has R-60M All-Aspect missiles that very effective against most aircraft.
- Durable air-frame against small calibre rounds
- Competitive speed for a helicopter
- Has AAMs and ATGMs together in a loadout
- Ability to equip 8x Shturm missiles at once
- 30 mm can be deadly against air targets
Cons:
- ATGMs are have quite low penetration
- Handles sluggishly at most speeds
- Quite big and easy to spot
- No thermal sights, only infrared night vision
- HFS 80 bright and colorful livery can aid enemies in visual detection
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the helicopter in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).
Media
- Skins
- Videos
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the helicopter;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant | |
|---|---|
| Attack | Mi-4AV |
| Mi-8AMTSh · Mi-8AMTSh-VN · Mi-8TV | |
| Mi-24A · Mi-24P · Mi-24V | |
| Mi-28N · Mi-28NM | |
| Mi-35M | |
| Export | ◊Mi-8TB |
| ▂Mi-24D · ◔Mi-24D · ◔Mi-24V · ◔Mi-24P · ◊Mi-24P · ◄Mi-24P HFS 80 · Superhind | |
| Mi-28A | |
| ▄Mi-35M | |
| Germany helicopters | |
|---|---|
| Attack | |
| Hip | ◊Mi-8TB |
| Hind | ◊Mi-24P · ◄Mi-24P HFS 80 |
| Tiger | EC-665 Tiger UHT |
| Utility | |
| BO 105 | BO 105 CB-2 · BO 105 PAH-1 · BO 105 PAH-1A1 |
| Alouette | ◄SA 313B Alouette II |
| Huey | ◄UH-1D |
