A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine driven rotors. In contrast with fixed-wing aircraft, this allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards and laterally.
Helicopters in Worldwar[]
Helicopters or gunships were vertical lift aircraft used by the Race during their invasion of Tosev 3. They had a crew of two and were armed with a nose cannon, missiles, and machine guns. They were capable of carrying eight infantrymales into battle, and were used to land many Race soldiers in the opening days of the war. They were also used as search and rescue vehicles for downed pilots.
Helicopters were particularly useful against partisans and armor since the human soldiers often lacked the weapons to destroy these machines. A Race gunship wounded Rance Auerbach, an American cavalryman fighting in the Great Plains. However, Race gunships were vulnerable to human aircraft due to their slow speed and because human pilots were more eager to engage them than killercraft.
The German Army learned to keep infantry crewed light anti-air guns on the front line at all times to dissuade helicopter attacks, and the US employed similar tactics with vehicle mounted machine guns. Even without purpose built weapons, helicopters sometimes fell victim to humans' unorthodox fighting tactics, with at least one instance of a gunship being destroyed by an anti-tank rocket and another shot down by the cannon of a German panzer.
The losses became so bad that Race commanders hesitated to use helicopters except in emergencies, and even then not always. After the war, the machines were used to suppress uprisings and urban unrest in the areas of Earth which the Race controlled. During the second Chinese uprising in the 1960s, Soviet-supplied anti-air rockets were able to effectively neutralize Race gunships in Peking and other cities.
Literary Comment[]
The Race helicopter appears to be based on the Soviet Mi-24 gunship.
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