The bulbous section is a flip down lid that covers up a Raduga - F SACLOS and LLTV system under the nose. The Gun is a gattling style GSH-23.
The 1.75 G limit was set because of the problem of mast bumping and tail strikes. The hind also had a nasty problem called "pick up" in a recovery from a high G dive the main rotors could and many times did strike the tail boom.
If you combine that with high density altitude operation and an already heavy rotor disc loading - you have a craft that while fast - does not like to change direction and mush's in turns. 1 particular incident speaks to this during the cold war.
Before the AH-64 came into play, the Hind's main adversary was the AH-1 Cobra. In this encounter the Hind's advantages lay in its speed and rate of climb, while its weakness were poor horiziontal maneuverability. The Hinds usually met the Cobra's on opposite sides of the fences from East and West Germany. Most encounters were peaceful but in the early 80's a Hind was scrambled to intercept an AH-1G. The cobra pilot was really sharp - he would follow the boarder at low level, repeately accellerate, pitch up sharply to bleed off speed. The Hind crew had a hard time following the Cobra crew, when the Cobra pitched up and the Hind crew tried to follow by hauling back - it tumbled and mushed, the pilot did the only thing possible - he pushed the stick forward to unload the main rotors and to avoid hitting the ground back again. Seconds later the main's struck the tailboom and the crew was killed.
As for the Hind's legacy - it stands as the 1 aircraft that has seen continual combat for its entire operational history and is a very mature and robust weapons platform. I'd take it up anyday.
Wolfala
