Hello,
I have been gathering information on the Mi-24 (and other helicopter systems). I would like to pass on some of this material to those developing improved hinds for this sim. To start:
While hinds were largely immune to small arms and flown fearlessly they were not entirely invulnerable. Many military doctrines (eg. West German) state that any weapon is to be used against slow, low flying aircraft. It improves playability to have a hind version that is vulnerable to small arms.
Hinds in Afganistan often carried heavy machine guns and grenades for self defense. They also carried extra rockets so that the crew could partially reload their pods in the field.
Most Russian rocket pods have very high dispersion. This is often overlooked but very important for accurate modeling.
It would be nice to see hinds with doorgunners, 10 x 100kg bomb payloads, rocket dispersion, and a few other weapons in the future.
Some references that may be of useUpdated weapons information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi-24A discussion on rocket dispersion:
http://www.simhq.com/forum....2250210Pictures of the door gunner positions:
http://www.zajc.pl/afganistan.htmlVideo footage of the gunner positions in use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v....search=More rare footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v....search=Mi-35/24PN footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v....search=Some reading:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avhind1.htmlAn excellent set of articles (good weapon info can be found in other parts of this site):
http://www.airwar.ru/ah.htmlSome drawings:
http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw_c.htmlP.S. the Hind naturally looses some lift due to the stub wings when it is hovering. It peaks in forward flight where the wing anhedral easily pulls the helicopter into turns. There is a risk of the rotor striking the tail during abrupt maneuvers.