copied comment from other thread on this community

A 30mm cannon on attack helicopter with say 600 rounds of airburst ammunition could conservatively down 100 shaheds with 6 shots per kill on average costing the enemy $75k per shahed*100 shaheds = $7.5 million in a matter of minutes. Thus an attack helicopter used for c-uas even when factoring in logistics, per hour flight costs and fuel costs could pay for itself in a handful of mass shahed attacks… and is it not a disposable tool, using an advanced attack helicopter for c-uas tricks the enemy into financing an extremely advanced hands on helicopter pilot training and R&D program.

Given an AH-64 costs somewhere between $30 million to $70 million, you can see how the costs quickly run out of control for an enemy employing the shahed strategy against a competent c-uas tool such as an attack helicopter. Further in the case of using helicopters after the war is over all of that institutional expertise in pilots in low altitude difficult flying (and associated logistics) with a helicopter can be translated to search and rescue, emergency airlift, firefighting and any other number of emergency/natural disaster contexts.

Additionally if a helicopter like a UH-1Y or AW149 is used than that same C-UAS armed helicopter that took down a shahed could be used as an emergency airlift vehicle to bring victims to a safe evac point/a hospital helipad. Thus you are making the enemy eat even more efficiency cost because your “counter” is just a further investment in the general quality of your emergency response services whether they be for war or for other things.

There is definitely an affordability myth here with Shaheds. What makes Shahed like flying bombs radically different than other aircraft is that kids can build them and fly them and they can be deployed from almost anywhere with very little infrastructure. They are however, when you take into account the natural efficiencies of scale that come from more imaginative, coordinated solutions than mass producing small shitty flying bombs, NOT cost efficient. They are in a way, maximally cost INEFFICIENT because you have atomized everything about your strategy and can’t extract any efficiency of scale from focusing advantages into systems other than sidetracking your entire economy to focus on producing the same model of flying bomb over and over again that is only useful for terror and murder.

If you doubt an attack helicopter could knock out shaheds/flyinb bombs at a high rate, see this example of video of an AH-64 eating shaheds for breakfast from the last couple of days.

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?__goaway_challenge=js-refresh&__goaway_id=e352439154746d31b8813ae8095d2607&__goaway_referer=https%3A%2F%2Finv.nadeko.net%2F&v=q-MC8B4fjfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-MC8B4fjfc

This is presumably without airburst 30mm ammunition either.

Another from the UAE

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=Q_gvkeRNFX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_gvkeRNFX4

Good article about recent AH-64 use for C-UAS .

https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/us-apache-pilots-drones/

See this recent post I made about an airshow/celebration demonstration by the Hellenic military with AH-64s and F16s to see an analog visualization of them working closely together as air defenses against mass unmanned vehicle attacks.

https://sopuli.xyz/post/42233560

Recent article about testing of 30mm airburst C-UAS ammo fired from Apaches at the Yuma Proving Grounds.

https://www.army.mil/article/290943/apex_round_for_apache_tested_at_u_s_army_yuma_proving_ground

Related recent article on helicopter c-uas

https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/03/09/apache-merlin-wildcats-the-drone-destroying-helicopters-shooting-down-irans-arsenal/