Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Huh?? I don't see that. Where do you get that data from?

Very, very rough figures. - anyone with good technical numbers please chip in.

Say I have a Brigade of 3 INF BNs of 4 COYs = 12 Companies, or 36 Platoons. None of the INF has any vehicles and all are FOB based.

20-24 Platoons will be at Rest, Prep, or guard. Actual tasking will be for about 12 Platoons, so you'd be fine 8 CH-47 and 8 UH-60. You'd probably have 5-6 of each type available in any 24 hours, for about 200 men, including aircrew.
Really? So no reserves?

You should better put an infantry Coy's worth of helicopters on QRF as well.

You need another two as MedEvac reserve, preferably with proper equipment for the role.

The helicopters would run the resupply of all outposts and patrols.

The fuel consumption of rotorcraft is horrible. A normal UH-60 flying hour costs about 1,700 - 2,700 $/hr (= four indigenous mercenary-months), but fuel is many times as expensive as normal, thus it's probably more than 4k in AFG.
All that fuel needs to be transported into the country on roads full of corrupt officials, locals and Taliban checkpoints. The additional Taliban income generates additional Taliban mercenaries.

The environmental conditions (hot, high, dirt) require a robust mechanics crew for all helicopters. A CH-47 needs about 45 maintenance man-hours per flying hour under normal conditions.

Since I'm already discussing environmental conditions; your brigade will likely not be able to fully exploit their rotorcraft's nominal performance in hot&high conditions, for the payload is reduced under such conditions.

Now add in additional overhead for the aviation component above brigade level. The additional aviation personnel also requires additional overhead at at least one base.

Finally there's the issue of flight safety. Many birds fall down over there. The additional accident KIA need to be subtracted from the saved IED KIAs.