You’ve may have already read my 2023 review of the DCS: F/A-18C Hornet which helped set the stage for what I plan to be a series of reviews over the next several months. DCS reviews are a tricky thing as nothing is ever really finished. But at the same time its valuable to check in and review the current status of something. A future review can always provide an update on where the module is now. Hopefully a review like this one will help you make a decision if the DCS: Mi-24P Hind is a module that you want in your virtual hangar! For both helicopter fans and non-helicopter fans, this one might just be what you’re looking for.

A bit of history

Designed primarily by Mikhail Mil in the late 1960s, the initial concept for the Mi-24 helicopter was to offer a highly mobile helicopter gunship that would become the flying equivalent of an infantry fighting vehicle. Designed with speed and firepower in mind, the Mi-24 was also intended from the start to be able to carry infantry into battle and then support them from the air.

The Mi-24 entered service with the Soviet Union in 1972. It also became an extremely successful as an export aircraft with it seeing service in 58 countries. Many of those countries continue to use variants of the Mi-24 right up to the current day.

The Mi-24P that we have in DCS World is more focused on the gunship role and far less on the infantry fighting element. While most Hind’s have a flexible 12.7mm heavy machine gun in the nose, the P model has a side mounted 30mm GSh-30-2K twin-barrel autocannon . The cannon is operated alongside various other weapon types mounted on the wing pylons. A wide variety of rockets, gun pods, bombs, bomblet dispensers, and the 9M114 “Shturm-V” and 9M120 “Ataka” anti-tank guided missiles can be fitted. The Mi-24 can also employ the R-60 air-to-air missile.

The Hind’s combination of performance and capability have earned it a place in combat aircraft history and numerous appearances in movies and video games have earned it a reputation in the public consciousness. There’s even an old Call of Duty: Black Ops level where you fly a Hind in a explosive filled run through a river valley not to mention a Metal Gear Solid boss fight that involves a Hind. This helicopter has reach!

How hard is it to learn?

For a helicopter, the Mi-24P is probably right in the middle of the challenge scale being harder to fly than the Ka-50 and UH-1H but not as twitchy as some of the small and light civilian helicopters I’ve flown in other sims. If this is your first helicopter, you’ll have an initial steep climb ahead of you as you learn the quirks of flying an aircraft that has a spinning blade keeping you in the air.

Once over the initial challenges of flying a helicopter you’ll find Hind is manageable. Its easy to trim and a 4-channel autopilot system helps with stability. When flying in the middle of its speed range, the Hind is reasonably easy to manage and has a near airplane like quality to it. Some of that is in part to the wings which are lift generators and not just something to hang weapons and fuel tanks on.

This is also a fast helicopter with a top speed around 300km/h. That gives the Hind survivability against some threats and makes your time over target relatively short. On the other hand, you don’t want to get going too quickly or you’ll cause a retreating blade stall and the helicopter will roll into the ground without swift corrective action. It happens fast in the Hind so watch that carefully.

Too much of a pull back on the stick can cause the aircraft to pitch up violently making it difficult to recover from. Learning the Hind’s quirks is essential.

Systems on the Hind are relatively easy with most system toggle switches located on the left wall of the helicopter. They are a bit haphazardly arranged but you get to know the difference between the toggle for the IFF and the cockpit fan quickly. Yes, there is an English cockpit and a Russian cockpit so you have some options there.

Weapon selection is easy with a dial letting you select the weapon of choice. A display near the gunsight confirms the selection. After that, its point and shoot! A lead computing gunsight pipper with the auto ranging function on also makes it relatively easy to get a good bead on the target with some, but not all, of the weapons that the Mi-24 can carry.

A combination of Eagle Dynamics and Wolfpack345 videos cover off the official training regimen for different features while an official manual covers the basics and Chuck’s Guides adds all of the details you might need for training.

Combat capabilities

The Hind packs a serious punch as an attack helicopter and it does this through a variety onboard weapons.

The P model uniquely packs the 30mm GSh-30-2K twin-barrel autocannon and its terrific! Firing a 30x165mm shell at anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 rounds per minute at 870m/s makes this a potent weapon. I’ve destroyed trucks, APCs, and even some tanks with this cannon. Although it doesn’t quite match the A-10 with the iconic “brrrrrrt,” this cannon is definitely in the same realm sounding a powerful “brruuup” when fired.

One of the Hind’s other key weapons are the 9M114 “Shturm-V” and 9M120 “Ataka” anti-tank guided missiles. The Shturm and Ataka represent an evolution of anti-tank missiles with a few different versions of each represented including a Shturm variant that has an air-to-air fragmentation warhead. Together with Petrovich AI (or a human in the front seat), these weapons, can be precisely aimed and fired to pick off targets at ranges of about 4 to 6 kilometers.

Another common weapon on the Hind are rockets which come in a wide variety of formats. These include the S-8, S-13, and S-24B. While the S-8 is commonly fitted, its the 122mm S-13 that I find to be the most effective when attacking large soft targets as its flatter trajectory and bigger warhead make it both easier to use than the S-24B and heavier hitting than the S-8.

Gunpods can be fitted which can spray an impressive selection of bullets at the target in a hail of tracers. Its not subtle but light targets easily succumb to the barrage.

Bombs are also an option with 250kg and 500kg FAB general purpose bombs as well as bomblet dispensers. The Hind flies fast enough that it can employ these relatively effectively although they are far from my favourite weapon to employ with the Hind.

There are a few new armament options that have come out since initial release too. The biggest one is the addition of the R-60 which gives the Mi-24P the ability to engage aerial targets with an IR seeking missile. Although the missile is only rear aspect, it is usually able to lock helicopter and aircraft engines with some success. Flares can easily throw off the missile so strategic targeting will be required. Still, the R-60 packs a bigger punch than the Igla that we have on the DCS: Ka-50 Black Shark 3.

We’ve also seen the addition of a a side door mounted KORD 12.7mm heavy machine gun. This adds an interesting dimension to the attack helicopter configuration as it gives the Hind another method for attack. An orbiting Mi-24 can lay down fire from the side door. It’s a fun setup although in most cases the forward firing weapons seem like the better solution in higher intensity scenarios. This weapon can be AI controlled or manually controlled by a human.

Visuals and sounds

Eagle Dynamics and their artists are among the best in the business when it comes to the visual and audio work for their modules. The team has grown in capability and has offered increasingly impressive work over the years. The Mi-24, as a recently released module, is extremely impressive in this area.

Let’s start with the interior of the Mi-24 with both of its positions which are impressively detailed in every way. You’ll find a highly detailed cockpit all over including the materials, the 3D modeling, and the texture work. The Hind’s cockpit is represented extremely well.

The co-pilot/gunner has their own section and is just as impressive.

From an artistic point of view, they have aimed for and hit a middle ground between a cockpit that is easy to read while also being appropriately worn and dirty. It also sports the blue/teal scheme that is common in Russian aircraft which is supposedly less fatiguing than other choices and looks pretty nice on the eyes for me.

A cockpit 3D model of the pilot is still under development.

On the exterior, the story is the same with an impressively detailed exterior that holds up under extremely close scrutiny. From the wheels to the rotor mast, this is a beautifully detailed helicopter through and through. Animations for the crew and for the door gunner are also quite good.

Optional IR deflectors make it harder for IR missiles to lock on to the exhaust gasses coming from the MI-24’s engine. These are optionally set within the mission editor.

A small number of liveries are available with Russian, Iraqi, Syrian, Ukrainian and UN schemes all available.

Sounds are also great all around. The 30mm gun is appropriately boomy, the engine sounds both inside and outside are feel authentic, and the bloops and bleeps from within the cockpit are all well done. The rockets and various weapons are DCS standard and authentic sounding too.

Petrovich AI

To help make the two seat Hind fully functional in both single player and multiplayer scenarios where a human isn’t in the co-pilot/gunner seat.

The pilot controls most of the armament except for the ATGMs which is the purview of the gunner. With Petrovich in control of the gunner seat, the interface makes it easy to point, hold, and shoot on the target.

I suspect some may worry that the two seat configuration might make things harder but it actually makes most things easy with the front seat managing most of the setup for countermeasures, enabling weapons, the Raduga-Sh optical sight and the ATGMs. You can learn these features from the front seat if you wish but Petrovich is more than capable with just a little guidance.

The interface is mostly driven by pointing your viewpoint and through key commands. In my case I’ve set this up on a four way hat switch on my HOTAS (with press to activate the interface). A combination of long and short presses makes it easy to tell Petrovich to do different things such as activate the weapons system, reconfigure countermeasures, and select a target from a list of targets to engage.

The AI now spots targets at realistic ranges offering identification of their type and friend or foe status only at the closest of ranges. This is highly immersive as he’ll be able to ID a tank at longer ranges and then specify the exact type and coalition that they belong to as you close in. Of course if you know the target infront is hostile you can engage regardless.

Improving on the initial release, Petrovich AI now has his own voice overs available in Russian and in English with a Russian accent. Though he lacks the personality that Heatblur baked into Jester AI on the F-14, Petrovich still has a good number of recordings for the same operation. This gives him a bit of variety such as the occasional whoops of joy when hitting a target with the AT missiles.

He can also now fly the helicopter somewhat better than before too which is nice. Truth be told, I still don’t fully trust him to not run into a power line or some other obstacle but the ability to fly the helicopter does mean that you can swap positions and use the gunner position even as a solo human pilot.

On the whole, this is a really well implemented system which is reasonably intuitive and ultimately gives the two seat Hind full functionality even if you’re flying on your own. If you were worried about two seat functionality, don’t, this works great.

Navigating the Hind

The DCS: Mi-24P has some interesting features when it comes to navigation. I’ll be upfront and say that I tend to “cheat” a bit like a lot of virtual pilots do and I use the DCS F10 map for more precise positioning. But I do like to get to know the aircraft in and out and the Hind has a mix of ways you can get around in the battlespace without referencing the F10 map.

The Hind comes with relatively conventional HSI and it has an ADF system for radio beacons. It also comes with some unique systems like a paper map that plots the aircraft’s waypoints and course. It also has the DISS-15 Doppler system which is used to track the aircraft’s actual heading and detect degrees of slip based on wind conditions. It also, handily, gives you ground speed readings too! I’ve rarely used these features but they are there.

Single and multiplayer content

If this module has a weak spot, its that there isn’t a lot of content available for it though that is changing. The helicopter does come with a couple of instant action missions which are all pretty fun and interesting but it hasn’t picked up too many more since the modules release.

I really enjoy the South Ossetia Base Patrol, Disaster Relief Defense, H-4 Take Down and Kodori Storm. These are fun, quick, missions that get you going and into the action quickly. They are sufficiently challenging so as to get you to come back time and again to challenge yourself to complete them.

When I started writing this review there were no paid campaigns for the Mi-24, however, that has just changed as DCS: Mi-24P The Border – Prequel Campaign by Armen Murazyan has just come out with 12 narrative based missions. There are some free campaigns for it with the most notable being a conversion of the UN Pilot campaign for the UH-1 that has been converted for the Mi-24. A list of community missions has been kept on the DCS forums that can help you find missions too.

Of course multiplayer opens the door quite a bit and the DCS: Mi-24P can be found on popular servers like Enigma’s Cold War server and Rotorheads. It is highly vulnerable to faster jets but the available air to air missiles make it a danger to the unwary fixed wing pilot and even more of a danger to enemy helicopters.

Final thoughts

Eagle Dynamics have done a great job with the DCS: Mi-24P Hind for DCS World. I should point out that the Mi-24P is still, technically, in early access although it has hit a level where most of its announced features are already here.

This module succeeds by being both fun and reasonably accessible to players not needing the deep system learning that some modern jets require. It also looks fantastic and sounds great.

The module does have its problems, like any module in DCS, but I’ve seen very few if any in the last several months of flying it on and off and none diminished my overall enjoyment. We have seen the Mi-24 receive regular updates in open beta patches so I generally feel like the Hind is receiving ongoing support and that issues are being solved.

I really have no shortage of praise for this module as its come a long way since release but it’s always felt like it was standing on a strong foundation. The Hind is still in early access and it will continue to evolve but I can safely recommend it as a top module for anyone looking to add a Cold War era attack helicopter to the mix.

If you want the DCS: Mi-24P Hind, its available from the Eagle Dynamics webstore and on Steam for $69.99 USD and its frequently part of sales on offer.

Screenshots