'The Fighting Scout'

[FLOZi]

Fascinating video on armed versions of the Westland Scout, claims to be circa 1973

 

 

[shep854]

Nice flying footage.  That looks to be a good series.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ive sat in one at the museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop. A really lovely little helicopter.

Great video, thanks for sharing. Year I was born.

[FLOZi]

Would love to know when they started mounting the SS.11's. I'd always thought it was early 70's, but I've also read that naval Wessex's were mounting SS.11 in the (very) early 60s ( c.f. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060020532 ). I know that the ATGW kit required airframe modifications and so ATGW models can be used for liason duties but not the other way around (even though they were all designated AH1), but I don't know if these were as manufactured of post-hoc. There's an image dated as 16th September 1968 of a Scout firing SS.11 at Farnborough Air Show ( https://www.helis.com/database/cn/44956/ ). 

 

There's some shots of scout possibly with SS.11 at farnborough '66 (edit: may be 72 ) here: https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4028149/2

And google suggests behind the paywall https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/eb034193/full/pdf?title=farnborough-report-1966 might be saying traverse and controlled by a gunner. An alternative armament store is four Nord SS-11 wire controlled air-to-surface missiles. The range of the Scout may be.

 

The rockets, minigun and 50cal were trials only.

 

edit 2: Would suggest SS.11 was (still) in trials in 1970/1 on scout  https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060046223

Edited February 9, 2021 by FLOZi

[arcweasel]

I've never seen anything definite/reliable.  It's often hard to seperate trials from service dates with modification kits.  Often official trials continued after multiple conversion kits were available and could have been used operationally if required. 

This is what I have for notes on Scout armament:

  2x7.62mm Minigun(trials only), 2x70mm rocket pods(trials only), 4xSS.11(not by 1967)

1970 - SS.11

3xGPMG used in ADEN in 1964 (no passengers)

[shep854]

I've always associated the SS-11 with the early '60s.  I had not seen much mention later than that.  The '70s saw TOW and Milan fielded.

[FLOZi]

SS.11 on Scouts was used in the Falklands for sure, so it certainly soldiered on past the 70s.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Cue my personal Walt moment....