The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter's vulnerability to small-arms fire, shown during fighting in Iraq, has sparked questions about U.S. Army tactics, and this may have jeopardized the future of the new scout/attack RAH-66 Comanche. Military and industry advocates of attack helicopters argue that the Army's outdated tactics and inability to innovate, not armed rotorcraft, are to blame. The latest criticism springs primarily from one glaring example in which 31 out of 32 Apaches, launched for a mission near Karbala in central Iraq, came back damaged, and one did not return at all. The incident mirrors a mishap in Afghanistan in which Apaches were bad- ly shot up, forcing the military to rush Marine Corps AH-1W Cobras to the fight to press the attack.
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