Iran's recent announcement that it will purchase Russian-made Mi-28 armaments*** to replenish armaments was somewhat unexpected. Previously, the Ka-52 armament *** of the Kamov Design Bureau had been competing with the Mi-28, and many expected that the Iranian Air Force might choose the latter. However, the actual results show that the Iranian Air Force prefers the Mi-28. Given that the Iranian Air Force is likely to choose only one armed *** as the main force, the chances of the Ka-52 entering Iran are already very small. So why was the Mi-28 able to stand out from the competition with the Ka-52?To understand this, we need to look back at their early development.
In the last century, the United States launched the AH-64 "Apache" armament*** The Soviet Union urgently needs to develop a new armament*** to counter it. The Kamov Design Bureau and the Miri Design Bureau launched their products, respectively, and initially, the Ka-52 and Mi-28 were not yet called by their current names, they were called Ka-50 and Mi-28A, respectively. After the development and prototype phases, both models are in the final evaluation stage. However, during the evaluation process, the Soviets** believed that the Ka-50 had better overall performance and lower maintenance costs. This conclusion is completely contrary to the views of the military and very different from our impressions.
In fact, due to the complex coaxial twin-rotor structure of the Ka-50, it is a nightmare for logistics personnel, and there is no such thing as easy logistics maintenance. However, in the USSR at that time, political factors were clearly more important than military needs, so the Mi-28A was eliminated from the competition, and according to convention, it should have been shelved. However, the military did not give up easily, and they repeatedly demanded a reassessment of the results. After unremitting efforts, in 1987, the Mi-28A was already in a state of competitive failure, but after several years of lobbying, in 1990, the Mi-28A made a comeback. It was this resurgence that gave the Mi-28A a chance to regain its life.
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia faced financial difficulties and could not equip the Mi-28A and Ka-50 at the same time, a re-evaluation in 1996 once again confirmed the advantages of the Ka-52***, while the Mi-28 was gradually marginalized. Despite this, the Miri Design Bureau did not completely abandon this armament***, but laid the foundation for its later recovery. In the war in Chechnya, the Ka-50 was not as good as it could have been due to its complex structure, and the Russian military began to question its real performance. With the end of the war, the Mi-28A was upgraded to the Mi-28N, and the Kamov Design Bureau also improved the Ka-50 and renamed it the Ka-52.
Later, after a reassessment, Russia considered the technical level of the Mi-28N to be quite good, so it made a compromise choice and decided to equip both the Ka-52 and the Mi-28N*** Although the Mi-28N and Ka-52 are very similar in many ways, even using a common engine, the decision of the Russian army has caused controversy. However, in retrospect, Russia made this decision not entirely out of the abandonment of the Mi-28N series, but out of the need to preserve the domestic military-industrial system, and at the same time to preserve the talent team of the Miri Design Bureau. This seemingly unreliable decision ultimately created an opportunity for the Mi-28N's recovery.
Both the Miri Design Bureau and the Kamov Design Bureau are improving their respective ***, however, this is exactly the moment when the Mi-28N is ushering in a turning point. Due to the need to transform the Ka-52 into a carrier-based model, the Kamov Design Bureau invested a lot of manpower and material resources, which led to a serious lag in the improvement of the Ka-52 armament itself, so that the Mi-28N began to overtake. In 2013, Iraq decided to purchase 15 Mi-28N*** aircraft, followed by Algeria to purchase 42 aircraft. In 2019, the Mi-28N*** finally received foreign trade orders, a total of 98 aircraft, and finally won wide recognition from overseas countries.
Before the "special military operation" in 2022, the Russian army was equipped with more than 120 Ka-52*** and more than 160 Mi-28N***, and the performance of these two *** in actual combat can be said to be obvious to all. According to third-party statistics, the Ka-52*** has achieved remarkable results in destroying Ukrainian tanks, but it has paid a heavy price, with the number of confirmed losses as high as 58 according to ** and **. In contrast, although the Ukrainian military has managed to shoot down 13 aircraft***, including the latest Mi-28nm, the overall battle loss rate is much lower than that of the Ka-52.
However, this does not mean that the Ka-52 is not as tech-capable as the Mi-28nm, but that the Ka-52 itself is quite backward in technology and has not been extensively upgraded and maintained before participating in the "special military operation". Of course, it is also an undeniable fact that its battlefield performance is poor. The Iranian Air Force has made a choice between these two models at present, and obviously attaches more importance to the stability and advancement of the Mi-28. Although the Mi-28 has lost to the Ka-52 many times in history, it now has a chance to turn around. The reason for this is that the Mi-28 has a more stable performance in actual combat, and the improvement is more rapid, which is more in line with the needs of today's war.