Editing MI-24 Hind (section)

==IRL==
[[File:Hind IRL.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Polish Hind]]

The Mil Mi-24 (Mi-35 for export models) saw its first flight in 1969, was introduced in 1972 with the Soviet Air Force. In the decades since, it has emerged as the helicopter of gunship of choice for just about anybody that doesn't like the Americans and/or NATO. Built around a completely different philosophy than Western attack helicopters, the Mi-24 is a flying tank. NATO's gunships are designed to avoid enemy fire at all costs. The Mi-24 is designed to not care. It was intended to play a central role in assaulting Western Europe if the order came, and the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all maintained a large fleet of them. A mean SOB of a helicopter, the Mi-24 can load so much ordnance onto its stubby wings and into the nose-mounted cannon that it loses the ability to take off vertically. A Mi-24/Mi-35 under maximum takeoff load has to taxi down some manner of runway to get started, like a plane, before it can get into the air. The Mi-24's unique blend of tough-as-nails-gunship and infantry transport has never been replicated before or since. Like many other Soviet weapons, the "Hind" has far outlived the demise of its original designers and operators (the Warsaw Pact) and will likely be present in fighting around the world for a long time to come.

Instead of taking on NATO in a dramatic battle to control Europe, the "Hind" got its combat debut when the Soviet Union barged into Afghanistan to introduce shared possessions and Party meetings for everyone. The Mujahideen could handle jet fighters and bombers- those would only be around for a short time before they had to turn around and go back to rearm and refuel- but this beast could stick around essentially forever, dishing out fire and death. As a result, the rebels nicknamed it "Shaitan-Arba"; "Satan's Chariot" and did their best to kill it with American-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles. This did not work as well as they would have liked, indeed, a Hind once ate a direct SAM hit on video, and the Mujahideen learned to move around at night to avoid finding out for themselves whether or not Satan really has one of these.

Soviet pilots would often leave the infantry behind during missions for a variety of reasons. One was that when they were forced to pull some pretty extreme maneuvers to avoid the Stinger missiles supplied to the Muhajadeen by the good ol’ US of A, anyone in the troop cabin tended to scream and tumble about, which was very distracting. Carrying soldiers around really weighed the Mi-24 down in any event, as did the armor fitted to the troop compartment. The preferred setup came to be to remove the troop compartment armor, fly the Mi-24 only as a gunship, and have dedicated transport helicopters like the Mil Mi-8 bring infantry in and out while "Hind" gunships covered them. 

A great many countries, especially former Soviet allies and Warsaw Pact member states, maintain Mi-24/Mi-35 gunships in their arsenal and the "Hind" has proved adaptable to numerous variants and roles. It is, however, gradually showing its age. Eventually, a large number of Hinds will be replaced by the [[wikipedia:Mil Mi-28|Mil Mi-28 Havoc]] and [[wikipedia:Kamov Ka-50|Kamov Ka-50]] (the former for the army, latter for special forces), both of which are gunships with no infantry transport capacity. As effective as the "Hind" has been in many roles, the infantry transport/gunship concept has not caught on in East or West and the Hind will likely be the first and last of its kind.

As stated above, the Hind D is more-or-less a flying tank (or IFV, to be more precise), making it mostly immune to small-arms fire and capable of dishing out as much punishment as one as well. However, the size and weight were also one of its glaring weaknesses; it was about as graceful as a tank while in the air. Its large' profile and heavy armour made it less agile in the sky, compared to other choppers of its class (The Hind was roughly 50% heavier than your average utility chopper and almost as heavy as a gunship,).

The most famous version is the Hind-D, featuring the iconic double-bubble cockpit. The earlier Hind-24A (as seen in the classic film "Red Dawn") featured a more conventional flat windows cockpit but it was replaced with the double-bubbles due to poor visibility. Battlefront's model and in-game stats represent the Mi-24 Hind V and not the D, an updated version which featured the deadly Shturm/At-6 missile which was capable of punching through all main battle tanks in existence during its years of service. Later models like the P and the VP would swap out the 12.7mm Gatling gun for a 30mm autocannon. Export Mi-24Vs went under various names in different forces, like the Czech Mi-35 the Polish Mi-24Ws.

The LAAT/i Gunship operated by the Galactic Republic in the Clone Wars, part of the legendary "Star Wars" franchise, bears a striking resemblance to the Hind, both in looks and in role. Two "bubble" cockpits, infantry transport bay, combination of the roles of gunship and infantry carrier all link the two machines. Though the LAAT/i is undoubtedly the one with the greatest resemblance to the Hind, gunships doubling as infantry transports are quite common in sci-fi.

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