April 2,2008:
Three months ago Turkey asked the United States for another dozen AH-1W
helicopter gunships. The Turks wanted the gunships real fast. Like now. Turkey
is heavily involved in a campaign along the Iraqi border, against Kurdish PKK
separatists. It has nine AH-1Ws, and they are being worked hard. At first the
U.S. indicated that this could be done. But then the U.S. Marine Corps, the
major American user of the AH-1W, indicated that it was using its choppers heavily, refurbishing others, and
had none to spare.
The seven
ton AH-1W is an upgrade of the Vietnam era AH-1. The new model was configured
for naval use, and has two engines and protection against sea water corrosion.
The major user of the AH-1W, the U.S. Marine Corps, is in the process of doing
a major upgrade on its AH-1T/Ws. Most of
these aircraft were originally manufactured in the 1970's, with some 44 AH-1W
models built in the 1980's. The goal of this program is not only to deliver a
much more capable aircraft, but also to have an 84 percent commonality of parts
between the two, thus greatly reducing maintenance costs. The goal is to
remanufacture 180 AH-1T/W attack helos into AH-1Z Vipers models. This upgrade
will give the aircraft a new 4 bladed composite rotor system, transmission,
strengthened structural components, and modern digital cockpit avionics. The
first ones will enter service next year.
Taiwan is
the other major user of the AH-1W, having bought 63 of them. The U.S. Marine
Corps could deliver a dozen AH-1Ws to Turkey on short notice, if the United
States believed it is worth the effort to be nice to Turkey. In 2003, Turkey
refused to allow American forces to advance from Turkey into Iraq, and has
never been happy with U.S. (and British) support of autonomous Kurds in
northern Iraq. The Turks know all this, and were hoping that the U.S. would let
bygones be bygones. Apparently, the U.S. saw supplying these AH-1Ws as a potential
problem with Iraq, which is not happy with the little war on its Turkish
border. The additional helicopters would simply enable the Turks to kill more
Iraqis (even if they are Kurdish PKK terrorists.)