Well Poland was
correct in not having the
Mi-14PL/Mi-14 PL 'Strike' because they are the
NAVAL variants of the
Mi-8 which is the land version as used by the Russian military initially.
As I believe Don mentioned here we go again with
legacy issues as I would come across years ago when working through the
ABRAMS throughout the whole
USA OOB. It was so bad I couldn't even get it into the
Fastboat Patch Thread there was so much all the work was done within the MBT Thread when
Suhiir asked me to take on the
USMC M1A1 FEP.
Anyway we cleared a handful of slots along the way. And now we can do the same for all the other countries including Russia that has them (Mi-14PL/Mi-14 PL 'Strike').
About those other countries including Russia, they all have one thing in common they're all on major bodies of water the Baltic, Black and South China Seas, Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The
Mi-14-PL early in my Submarine career could've represented my worst nightmare-why?
Mi-14PL (protivo-lodoctinyi) (
'Haze-A'): Basic
ASW version; four crew; large undernose radome; OKA-2 retractable sonar in starboard rear of planing bottom, forward of two probable sonobuoy or signal flare chutes; APM-60 towed Magnetic Anomaly Detection (
MAD) bird stowed against rear of fuselage pod (moved to lower position on some aircraft); weapons include one AT-1 ASW or APR-2 torpedo,
one 1kT 'Skat' nuclear depth bomb or eight PLAB-250, PLAB-50-64 or PLAB-MK depth charges or OMAB-25-120 or OMAB-MK in enclosed bay in bottom of hull; VAS-5M-3 liferaft (in all versions).
Your head would "
spin" knowing how many naval tactical nukes were in the Med at any one time. The above info is from ref. 1.
Concerning the
Mi-14PL "Strike" the Kh-23 (AS-7 Kerry) was
ONLY used on these helicopters for
anti-ship operations.
Land use by the
Russian AF was on both the
Mig-21/24.
My further knowledge of this platform and weapons (And others.) comes from my several months of operating in the
Med in the Summer of'87.
https://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/mi-14.php
https://everything.explained.today/Kh-23_Grom/
https://web.archive.org/web/20240117...il_mi8_hip.htm
(From next to bottom of the ref.-"Mil has also produced a shore-based Mi-8 derivative as the Mi-14 Haze for a variety of naval roles including anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue and mine countermeasures. The most significant current operator is the Russian naval aviation.")
https://aviationnews.eu/news/2025/08...es-of-service/
Merry Christmas! Extra slots along with some aspirin with lots of water.
If I would've presented this helo to Don for
SUBMISSION he would've kicked my
!?!
Regards,
Pat
