American-based think tank RAND Corporation has an interesting article published this February about how Chinese military analysts interpret the russian experience of using Ka-52 attack helicopters in a full-scale war against Ukraine.
Ka-52 performance could be interesting to the Chinese from several perspectives, U.S. experts assume. For example, there is data suggesting that China ordered 36 Ka-52K Katran shipborne helicopters from the russian federation in 2021, so the experience of combat application of practically the same helicopter is important for the Chinese military. Besides, there is every reason to expect that a hypothetical Chinese invasion of the island of Taiwan would entail a massive deployment of helicopters by the People's Liberation Army.
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RAND Corporation notes that Chinese analysts in their assessments proceed from the data of the British Ministry of Defense that during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the russian army lost at least 39 Ka-52 helicopters, which is critical to understand their conclusions.
Chinese commenters assume that the reason for those losses was the imperfect tactics, requiring the helicopter pilots to enter the airspace controlled by Ukrainian air defense. High casualties caused a "sense of astonishment" among Western observers, who expected the russian Ka-52 to be much more effective.
However, as Chinese military analysts further claim, during the fighting in Southern Ukraine in the summer of 2023, the russian invasion forces were able to develop a new tactic for the Ka-52 right on the battlefield.
This tactic can be described as an aerial variant of "shoot-and-scoot", it relied primarily on firing standoff guided missiles with an attack range of approximately 10 kilometers. With targets no longer within reach, Ukraine's helicopter hunt became many times more complicated.
Then the conclusion that the Chinese experts for some reason had drawn is that the russian military-industrial complex was apparently working on an improvement enabling its Ka-52 to hit launch strikes at targets from a distance of 30 to 50 kilometers, although no such announcements came from the russian side.
This discourse is illustrative in terms of the lessons China is drawing from the experience of russia's war against Ukraine, and how the United States keeps its finger on the pulse, too. At the same time, Defense Express notes that there is no confirmation yet that russia has started supplying China with the naval Ka-52K helicopters.
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