TOW v Hellfire

[Army of One]

Dear all. ....I want to westernise some Russian attack helo's.  I would like to see the pro's n cons people have for these missiles or if any others come to mind. Def a 2000 onwards bird. I have Hinds, Havocs n Hokums...as well as an Alligator or two. I am aware I will have to change the sensor suites as well......many thanks for any ideas......H

I know/have read of advantage/disadvantage of wire guided and laser guided..

[Mr.Creak]

TOW, being wire-guided, requires that the firer remain in view until the target is hit. If anyone shoots at the launch vehicle then it's either a lost helicopter or a dodging one that has lost track of the target and a wasted missile.
TOW is slower (320 m/ sec cf Hellfire's 425 m/ sec).
It's shorter-ranged, ~4 km versus 8.
Hellfire is fire and forget, including LOAL, and has a number of available warheads.
Hellfire's warhead is (approaching) about half the weight of an entire TOW - definitely more bang.
Hellfire has differing guidance/ homing options: millimetric radar, semi-active laser.
Hellfire can be used air-to-air.

[pyro-manic]

The upside is that TOWs can't be jammed.

I'd say Hellfire for the gunship/tank killers (harder-hitting), and TOWs for general fire support (Less sensor suite needed, cheaper)?

[Mr.Creak]

(Less sensor suite needed?

I'm not sure.
Since Hellfire is semi-active then, possibly, all you need is the wiring for a light on the dashboard to let you know it's locked on.
With TOW you NEED the sight and associated gubbins for sending signals down the wire.
I'd guess there's less additional (i.e. over and above the missiles themselves) weight involved in fitting Hellfire as opposed to TOW.

[pyro-manic]

For SALH you need a designator too. That might be somewhere else (hand-held, another aircraft), but it's still needed. And a laser-only Hellfire setup would be a bit of a waste IMO. You'd want the whole lot if you were going to shell out for a missile system.

Another upside is logistics commonality. Your ground forces may also be equipped with TOWs, whereas they definitely won't be toting Hellfires.

I do think Hellfire is the more potent weapon. But it's much bigger, heavier, newer, more expensive, so it had better be! And TOW is by no means bad - it wouldn't be so widely used otherwise.

[Weaver]

TOW can be jammed too. SACLOS guidance relies on a goniometer in the control unit tracking the missile via an IR flare in it's tail, and the various jamming systems (such as the Russian Shtora, for instance) try to spoof that system by putting out powerful coded IR pulses of their own.

[Mr.Creak]

For SALH you need a designator too. That might be somewhere else (hand-held, another aircraft), but it's still needed.

Yep.
I explained myself incompletely.
Presumably the helos are going to be used in support of ground troops (or at least in conjunction with scout helos).
That way the designator function - and weight - is palmed off on someone else.
The brown jobs may not like the extra weight, BUT it would give them some flexibility in bang size when asking for support: Hellfire, LGBs from the fast pointy things, Copperhead-style arty...
Or, if fitted to a scout helo, then one scout can designate for multiple gunship types.

[scooter]

The brown jobs may not like the extra weight, BUT it would give them some flexibility in bang size when asking for support: Hellfire, LGBs from the fast pointy things, Copperhead-style arty...

That's what TACPs are for (or the WP equivalent).   And some of the new laser marker/designators are no bigger than a pistol, like L3's LA-10u/PEQ HLM.

So they're not really humping an AN/PEQ-1 series SOFLAM (or equivalent) any more.

[Go4fun]

I signed on as a TOW gunner in the Army and as usual it ended up the recruiters had signed, the trainers had trained and the gurus of Personnel had sent more than every unit could possibly use. So I ended up with a secondary Method of Service of Supply Specialist.
Even without firing rounds in anger and 99% of the gunners never firing an actual live round, (These things are made up of recycles $500 bills ya know!), just normal movement and bumping around usually led to a massive turn in of wonky units after every field exercise. I have to admit this was with the TOW I and we didn't hear as much of this when we got the Improved Tow Vehicle equipped with the TOW II sets and missiles.
But like Gus Grissom replied when a reporter asked what he thought about while strapped in the capsule waiting for launch
"I'm sitting here on top of thousands of pounds of explosive fuel preparing to be hurled into space in a machine made of millions of parts all built by the lowest bidders".

[PR19_Kit]

But like Gus Grissom replied when a reporter asked what he thought about while strapped in the capsule waiting for launch
"I'm sitting here on top of thousands of pounds of explosive fuel preparing to be hurled into space in a machine made of millions of parts all built by the lowest bidders".

One of THE best quotes out of the whole space programme. 

Or indeed of ANY programme!