What was the first use of armed helicopters?
As early as 1940, the U.S. Army Air Corps explored the question of flexible machine gun mounts for self defense. The German Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 likewise incorporated a machine gun in the nose to ward off potential fighter attacks, though there is no anecdotal evidence that such an arrangement had to be used. The U.S. Army Air Corps experimented with mounting depth bombs on the R-4, R-5 and R-6 series helicopters during World War II, but given payload limitations and severe changes in the center-of-gravity when released, this provision was never implemented on operational aircraft. At least one WWII-era account exists of a crew chief arriving in a landing zone on a Sikorsky R-6 and firing into a suspected Japanese position with a carbine. At the end of the war, a U.S. Army Airborne Board evaluated the use of a 57mm recoilless rifle mounted on an R-6. The back-blast damaged the helicopter and the experiment was discontinued. The U.S. Marine Corps experimented with Korea saw the extensi
