The Mi-24 helicopter was originally developed as a advance and carriage helicopter for the Russian Air Force. Besides it's advantageous for absolute air support, air-air fights, anti-tank and armored escort. It has been developed by the Russian aggregation MIL in 1976.
The capital aberration with the American AH-64 (and additionally all added Russian advance heli's) is that the Mi-24 can carriage 8 soldiers. By a few aerodynamics characteristics of the wings, the Mi-24 is difficult to maneuvre (this in adverse with the ultimate adjustable AH-64 Apache). With this the Mi-24 mostly operates in pairs and from all sides.