The following link provides an interesting and full report with information and many photos about the use by the major military powers of helicopters during Second World War, undoubtedly, a rare theme and little explored in topics. The article can be viewed by visiting the link below:
http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/asas-rotativas-na-segunda-guerra-mundial.html
Greetings!
thanks for the link, some early german model not the safest 
Obrigado again, pampa14 - very interesting photos. The advantages of helicopters are obvious. The disadvantage is that if anything goes significantly wrong, the thing drops like a stone, often with fatal consequences. Some of these designs, particularly the small, single-person whiribirds - look particularly hair-raising. Best regards, JR.
And as The United States Army and Marine Corp found out in Vietnam starting at The Battle of Ap Bac, they can be quite vulnerable to groundfire if the enemy manage to keep their heads and are trained to properly lead and shoot-up airborne targets. Predictable LZ’s can be another disaster all-together…
True, but the US and other heli troops in Vietnam had a capacity rapidly to deny ground to the enemy and to attack the enemy in its rear, sides and front that were and still are impossible by ground based troops. Not to mention supplying troops on the ground even when encircled by the enemy, which would have been and still is impossible in standard ground warfare.
Against that, the VC and NVA demonstrated that a determined guerrilla and regular army of not terribly well equipped ground soldiers whose leadership was prepared to accept great losses over many years could defeat the militarily superior local and imported forces.
One of the great and still popularly misunderstood lessons of Vietnam is that SVN and its various allies showed they could and did defeat NVN around 1968, but for various political reasons pulled their punches in later years and duly lost the war against a more determined and ruthless enemy.
The NVA trained their people, as well as the Cong, and any sympathetic locals to properly engage Helos, and other aircraft using infantry rifles and whatever weapons were around at the time. Teaching judgement for deflection, direction, altitude and speed. As well the most vulnerable points on aircraft to shoot for. (U.S. troops were also taught to engage planes, even fighters with the M-16 ) Once enough fighters learned it, the loss rates of Helos in particular went up a considerable degree. Areas thought suitable for landing zones were booby trapped with both obstacles, and explosives using thin wire crossing back and forth in the zone to initiate the traps if a Helo happened to catch on them. these traps involved the Daisy-Chain method of successive detonations around the perimeter of the zone.
Some examples further down this page
http://www.navy.gov.au/history/squadron-histories/ran-helicopter-flight-vietnam-history
We weren’t trained in anything to do with anti-aircraft and especially anti-heli in that era, but perhaps that was something which would have been done for those going on to active service in Vietnam. Or maybe it was thought unnecessary because our side had all the aircraft in that war.
An officer in my unit, who I didn’t know at the time but who subsequently has become a mate of mine, did a short service combat placement in Vietnam but didn’t receive any training in anti-aircraft infantry or cavalry / armoured tactics. The first instruction he got was maybe ten years ago when he was invited to a unit function for former officers, which included playing with modern electronic guns and film screens used to train current troops (including my son). After his attempts to shoot down a helicopter were observed by instructors, he was told to fire at the centre of the rotors, which worked rather better than firing at the fuselage.
IN WAR – STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN
The only slight funny side to this very tragic mission was when on the ground Garry saw a VC point a rifle at him and the helicopter…. fearing he was going to be shot, Garry’s was surprised to then see the VC move his aim and lead the helicopter by 1, 2, 3 … The VC had been trained to lead a helicopter by 3 to allow the impact of the bullet trajectory to hit the airframes. Problem was… the helicopter was on the ground. The VC had gone into immediate action and started to shoot way into the forward space in front of the helicopter. Garry got to live another thanks to this weird act in a serious situation…
The Australian pilot in the above quote was recommended for a Congressional Medal of Honor for, among other things, clubbing a couple of VC to death with his pistol when he’d run out of ammunition, but didn’t get it essentially because he got caught in the gulf between American and Australian valour awards and government bullshit in both countries.
Did any of the choppers survive and restored plus can be flown today? Such as like wwii planes?