While much attention has been focused on the exploits of the AH-64D Apache Longbow in Afghanistan, the work of the Eurocopter Tiger in the east of that country has been largely forgotten. However, over the past two years, the Tiger — or Tigre as it is known in France — has won accolades supporting the troops of Task Force La Fayette.
Battle-tested in Afghanistan, where it has been patrolling the mountainous border region east of Kabul, the Tiger also went to war in the skies over Libya in 2011, where it flew escort missions to protect the French Army’s HOT missile-firing Gazelles.
There can be little doubt that the dramas, past and present, of getting this complex machine into service have contributed to it being somewhat overlooked now it is on the front line. Getting the EC665 Tiger into operation has been no easy feat, and, like other joint European procurements, technical problems and political wrangling have beset its development.
The Eurocopter Tiger has its roots back in a 1980s Franco-German requirement for an attack helicopter. The French and German governments were becoming increasingly concerned that their fleets of lightly-armed Gazelle and Bol05 attack helicopters would be simply unable to deal with the mass of armour that would flood across their borders in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
France and Germany decided that they needed a well-armed, manoeuvrable and survivable aircraft that could provide fire support and hold its own against new and emerging threats. Preliminary designs were understandably influenced by the AH-1 Cobra and the AH-64 Apache.
In 1984 the governments of both countries decided that a consortium of MBB and Aerospatiale would be best placed to produce the aircraft. The high cost of development bought a halt to proceedings in 1986, only for the project to be re-launched again a year later.
- See more at:
http://www.kamov.net/aviation/eurocopte ... XqytF.dpuf
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