What if the Bell 47 in WWII

[Xen]

The helicopter seen in the opening scene of MASH is a relatively simple design and was first flown in March 1946, what if it had been in March 1944 instead? What kind of effect would this have on the war in Europe? In the Pacific? Perhaps even on the Eastern Front?

 

[TheMann]

The Bell 47 is far too fragile. Machine gun fire would damage it, and helicopters are somewhat fragile to begin with.

 

[Xen]

The Bell 47 is far too fragile. Machine gun fire would damage it, and helicopters are somewhat fragile to begin with.

Yeah but you still cant ignore the role they played in Korea, Im just wondering how many lives could they have saved, I doubt the west could have used them to beat the Soviets to Berlin.

 

[DocOrlando]

They would have been exceedingly useful for near-front line recon, post-Normandy.

 

[Riain]

Helicopter development is accelerated so that by Korea the helos of the late 50s are already in service. Korea sees large scale vertical envelopments at Inchon from experimental LPHs, and during the mobile phases of the war after that. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis the US Army 1st Cavalry Div (Air Assault) with its UH1, AH1, CH47, CH54 etc deploys to Key West, threatening the nuke sites with effective direct assault.
BOOM......

 

[TheMann]

The possibility of a nuclear war won't be changed much with the helicopters in service by 1962. It will just make sure the Cubans are on their guard that much more. It's not far between Cuba and Florida, but if the jets couldn't take them out don't hold up hope for special forces operations with helicopters......

 

[Michael B]

The helicopter seen in the opening scene of MASH is a relatively simple design and was first flown in March 1946, what if it had been in March 1944 instead? What kind of effect would this have on the war in Europe? In the Pacific? Perhaps even on the Eastern Front?

It would have just what the Americans would have needed for casevac during the landing sin Japan late 1945/early 1946.

 

[Berra]

It's one of the PODs that gets pretty hard to predict. A lot of people would survive and some might have done something interesting, but what?

 

[Tom Veil]

One of the helicopter's best uses could have been simply to scare the crap out of the Japanese. From firebombing to innovative carrier setups to the A-Bomb, our military innovations in the Pacific served 2 purposes:
1) improve military performance
2) propaganda to convince the Japs that no matter what they do, we will always innovate faster than they will.

Imagine the chaos you could create during island-hopping if you begin the invasion with paratroopers flying in on a totally new aircraft. The paratroopers themselves are dead meat, but they would provide enough distraction to clear an opening for the Marine infantry -- kind of like the Gummipuppen incident at Normandy.

 

[Mark AH]

Because the Bell 47 is a small unarmed helicopter it wouldn’t be very useful in the pacific, but as an air ambulance, like in Korea, it would be more suitable. Although with massive wounded forces it’s value decreases, especially with limited control of the air.

 

[Michael B]

One of the helicopter's best uses could have been simply to scare the crap out of the Japanese. From firebombing to innovative carrier setups to the A-Bomb, our military innovations in the Pacific served 2 purposes:
1) improve military performance
2) propaganda to convince the Japs that no matter what they do, we will always innovate faster than they will.

It won't scare the crap out of them. On the contrary, it would merely demonstrate that they are better than their enemies because the latter don't fight like men, but hide behind whizzy toys.

I have heard precisely this sort of argument on the news from Arab and Afghan interviewees who think the Americans and Israelis were cowards because they fly aircraft and bomb them instead of fighting hand to hand. But then their philosophy with respect to warfare is different to ours. Mind you we are starting to changing it for them!

This does not apply to the A bomb, however. Here the Americans demonstrated that they could destroy a city with one bomber instead of a thousand. Given the number of cities that Japan, it is not surprising that the Emperor called uncle. Even then some in the military had wanted to fight on.

 

[CDurham]

Actually the Japanese used helicopters in the Pacific for ASW (well, maybe it was autogyros), as well as for artillery spotting