The Bell AH-1 SuperCobra is a dual-engine attack helicopter created for and mainly used by the United States Marine Corps (USMC).
The twin Cobra family, which is a subset of the larger Huey family, consists of the AH-1J SeaCobra, the AH-1T Improved SeaCobra, and the AH-1W SuperCobra.
The Super Cobra was a development of the single-engined AH-1 Cobra, which was created in the mid-1960s as a temporary gunship for the U.S. Army.
The USMC showed interest in the aircraft but preferred a twin-engined configuration for enhanced safety during sea operations, as well as more powerful armaments.
Despite initial resistance from the Department of Defence, which aimed for standardisation across the military branches, Bell received an order for 49 twin-engine AH-1J SeaCobras in May 1968.
This variant was introduced towards the end of the Vietnam War, where it saw limited combat action.
The USMC quickly looked for increased payload capacity beyond what the original Sea Cobra offered, leading to the development of the AH-1T by Bell in the 1970s.
In the subsequent decade, when funding for the Boeing AH-64 Apache was denied, the USMC chose to acquire a more advanced version of the AH-1T.
This new variant, the AH-1W, featured upgraded fire control systems to accommodate new munitions like the AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile, and began being delivered in 1986.
Bell later decided to enhance the model even further, resulting in the development of the extensively redesigned and modernised Bell AH-1Z Viper during the 1990s and 2000s.
The Sea Cobra played a significant role in various major operations in the latter half of the twentieth century, including the United States invasion of Grenada in 1983.
Iranian Sea Cobras were heavily utilised during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, demonstrating their effectiveness in both anti-armour and anti-aircraft warfare.
Turkey, which operated numerous Cobras and Super Cobras, employed the type in multiple instances against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgents.
Throughout the 1990s, USMC AH-1s were deployed during the Gulf War, the United States invasion of Haiti in 1994, and the US intervention in the Yugoslav Wars in the late 1990s.
In the twenty-first century, the type also saw action in the multi-decade war in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In October 2020, the USMC retired the last of its AH-1Ws in favour of exclusively operating the AH-1Z.
