Comanche Downed

The Army is cancelling the Comanche helicopter program, the RAH-66 was to be a recon/attack helo that would support the Apache and replace the aging Kiowas and Cobras.

The Congressional Research Service report on the Commanche (served by the FAS) says:

Critics of the Comanche program argue that there is no need for a highly sophisticated, very low observable armed reconnaissance helicopter in today’s threat environment. They contend that Comanche’s capabilities and mission requirements were developed in response to a Cold War threat environment that no longer exists.

A GAO report concludes:

First, the Army does not yet know and it will not know until well after its low- rate initial production decision whether certain technologies being developed will fit on the helicopter and function as expected...

Second, as discussed earlier the Army does not yet know and may not know until well after the start of low- rate initial production, whether performance requirements can be met...

Third, as noted earlier, it is still uncertain whether the Comanche can be developed within cost and scheduling estimates...more experience and data is available, there is not a high level of confidence in the Army's production cost estimate

And here is the Army's page on the Commanche.

A shealthy helicoptor would be a great asset, no doubt. However, it would seem that our current threat environment is biased towards low tech, low intensity conflicts. Large scale conflicts at the Gulf War I and II levels demonstrate that America's armed forces are still extremely capable. The need for the Commanche, conceived in the Cold War year 1983, is not quite proven to me. The technologies developed are not lost to us, we can still apply them to other projects.