Mi-28 & Mi-35.

This is coolbert:

Yet once more from a comment to the blog by Steiner:

 "Steiner said...
Almost ten years on and with billions of dollars in assistance and all the Iraqis are qualified to deploy is this glorified light transport?"

And from the excellent web site The Aviationist we have further on the Iraqi Air Force.

"Iraq is slowly rebuilding its military with new planes and helicopters: in order to support COIN and border patrol missions, it has just received the first of 40 Mi-35 and Mi-28N choppers." This particular web site entry as of 10 January 2014.

Those Russian choppers able to fire a variety of anti-tank-guided-missiles [ATGM] at least roughly equivalent to the American Hellfire.

These being the: "9M114 Shturm-C [AT-6], 9M120 [AT-9] / 9M121F [AT-X-16] Vikhr or 9A-2200 anti-tank guided missiles". Hind also firing cannon and rockets.

Understand the Mi-28 and new and improved version of the Mi-24 Hind. That Mi-35 a refurbished and modernized Mi-24.

That Soviet era Hind have a very good reputation. A few of these combat aircraft in the right hands able to suppress and destroy an adversary without a whole lot of difficulty. These are what the Iraqi needs and now. But where are they?

And again in conversation with an acknowledged aviation authority that firepower of a Hind in the right hands makes a very big difference:

"Just six determined pilots flying those Rooks would have destroyed the insurgents--little or nothing to oppose them.  Or a few helicopter gunships.  That's all it would have taken."

"South African mercenary pilot Neil Ellis flew Mi-24s and armed Mi-8s all over West Africa, putting down rebellions all by himself and that Mi-24 . . . the point was that just one pilot in an Mi-24 made all the difference in several serious conflicts that brigades of UN troops could not put down."

So! Where exactly are these Iraqi Mi-28 and Mi-35? NEEDED! And now!

coolbert.