What started as the US Army's AAFSS (Advanced Aerial Fire Support System) requirement eventually resulted in the first purpose-built helicopter gunship ever made, the Bell AH-1 Cobra. Sharing the designation of the venerable Huey, the Cobra was a revolutionary design which shares virtually no resemblance to its counterpart. The new narrow fuselage had a tandem two-seat arrangement which put the gunner in the nose and the pilot behind and slightly above him for better overall vision, stub wings were also featured allowing it to carry a wide array of weaponry including air-to-ground missiles while a rotating gun was installed below the nose in later versions. With its devastating attack capability and its small and difficult to target airframe, the AH-1 quickly demonstrated its worth during the Vietnam War where it was hurredly pressed into service as well as the Gulf War where Marine units scored a tally of 97 enemy tanks destroyed. Although largely replaced by the more advanced AH-64 Apache with the US Army, it continues to equip the USMC as well as a host of foreign nations including Bahrain, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey, and Japan (where it is license built domestically by Fuji) with newer and more advanced versions still being built.

The Cobra was designed largely as a result of the failure of the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne and as such, began as a private venture design known as the Bell Model 209 Huey Cobra which first flew on 7 September 1965. It entered service in 1967 and quickly rushed to Vietnam where the first AH-1G units saw action. A number of these were eventually fitted with TOW anti-tank-missiles and redesignated AH-1Q while a different engine installation led to the AH-1R (without TOWs). A combination of these two became known as the AH-1S which featured both conversions from earlier models as well as new-builds which also included the AH-1P with new avionics and the AH-1E with a 20/30-mm cannon replacing the earlier 7.62-mm miniguns. The final and definitive Army version was the AH-1F which incorporated all previous enhancements. USMC versions began with the AH-1J Sea Cobra which entered service shortly after its Army counterpart and was generally similar to the AH-1G. Subsequent airframe improvements led to the AH-1T and finally, the AH-1W Super Cobra which ironically was built for Iran but ended up being acquired by the USMC after the fall of the Shah in 1979 and is currently the main version of the Cobra in US service. An early dual-control trainer variant was known as the TH-1G.