Copyright 2011 by John T. Reed
On 8/6/11, Taliban apparently shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter killing 38 in Afghanistan. 22 of the 38 were U.S. Navy SEALS. Eight others killed were Afghan commandoes, a dog handler and his dog, and, one presumes, the Air Force crewmen of the chopper.
This was the greatest loss of life of Americans and their allies in one incident in the Afghan war, the longest in U.S. history.
Media coverage made much of the contrast between the relative failure of this SEAL operation—which killed eight Taliban—and the killing of Osama Bin Laden three months earlier.
Media reports say none of those killed on 8/6 were SEALs who were in the Bin Laden raid. In view of their obsessive secrecy , punctuated by zillions of self-serving public relations leaks, the public cannot really know whether any Bin Laden vets were on this mission.
The media said a number of SEAL Team Six were killed on 8/6/11. This is odd since the Navy denies SEAL Team Six ever existed.
The SEAL score board
The media did not point out, but I will, that the number of SEALs killed in the 8/6 raid was almost identical to the 24 who participated in the Bin Laden raid.
After the Bin Laden raid, many, most notably Bill O’Reilly, have celebrated the SEAL success against Bin Laden with a taunting scoreboard. In O’Reilly’s case, it is a tee shirt he sells that says SEALs 1 Bin Laden 0.
In a previous article, I noted the actual score of the number of people killed by Bin Laden compared to the number killed by the SEALs in the Bin Laden raid is Osama, 11,903; SEALs, about 400.
Bin Laden need not get credit for the 8/6 operation. He was al Qaeda, not Taliban. But the media connected the two events and the Taliban no doubt sympathized more with Bin Laden than the SEALs.
Bill O’Reilly ought to stop selling that tee shirt. War is not a sporting event. Taunting the enemy with a scoreboard is unbecoming, shows a lack of understanding of the nature of war, and, if it has any effect on the enemy, it is nothing but “bulletin board” material that motivates the enemy to work harder to kill Americans. Bill O’Reilly should not be doing that. If O’Reilly insists on taunting the enemy, he needs to enlist and walk point in Afghanistan. I assure you that if he does not, someone else will and is.
George W. Bush did something similar when he said, “Bring it on.”
He later admitted that was a mistake.
Stay out of range of the enemy’s primitive weapons
But the 8/6 losses point up a strategy that I have complained about.
The U.S. and its NATO allies have the Taliban greatly outnumbered. Furthermore, the Taliban only are armed with AK-47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades (RPG—the equivalent of what was called a bazooka in World War II), and artillery shells.
It was an RPG that brought down the U.S. Chinook helicopter. An RPG costs about $200. A chinook costs $35 million. An RPG is not an anti-aircraft weapon. It is designed to stop tanks and is also used against machine gun nests, humvees, and so on.
A number of readers have tried to get me to say that an anti-aircraft missile brought down the chopper, not an RPG. I shrug. The U.S. military says it was an RPG. They have an interest to say it was a missile. They would look less foolish if it was.
When the U.S. government says it was a missile, I will correct my story. But I do not do that for rumors.
Lucky shot?
The official U.S. military story is that while it was an RPG, it was “a lucky shot.” I don’t buy it. Plus it’s lame even if true. Has the U.S. military said they were lucky to get in and out of Pakistan alive on the bin Laden mission? It would be at least as valid. So when the U.S. has a success, it’s becaues of our great skill and strategy and superbly selected and trained men and all that. But when our enemy has a success, it just luck.
That is dangerous thinking that can get more Americans killed. If it was an RPG, and not a licky shot, procedures and tactics should be changed. If the brass is going to take refuge in denial of reality, more Americans will be killed unnecessarily.
Here is a section from the Wikipedia write-up on RPGs
Anti-Aircraft
Using RPGs as improvised anti aircraft batteries has proved successful in Somalia, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Helicopters are typically ambushed as they land, take off or hover. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen often modified RPGs for use against Soviet helicopters by adding a curved pipe to the rear of the launcher tube, which diverted the backblast, allowing the RPG to be fired upward at aircraft from a prone position. This made the operator less visible prior to firing and decreased the risk of injury from hot exhaust gases. Mujahideen also utilised the 4.5-second timer on RPG rounds to make the weapon function as part of a flak battery, using multiple launchers to increase hit probabilities.
At the time, Soviet helicopters countered the threat from RPGs at landing zones by first clearing them with anti-personnel saturation fire. The Soviets also varied the number of accompanying helicopters (two or three) in an effort to upset Afghan force estimations and preparation. In response, the Mujahideen prepared dug-in firing positions with top cover, and again, Soviet forces altered their tactics by using air-dropped fuel-air bombs on such landing zones. As the U.S.-supplied Stinger surface-to-air missiles became available to them, the Afghans abandoned RPG attacks as the smart missiles proved especially efficient in the destruction of unarmed Soviet transport helicopters such as Mi-17.
Both of the Black Hawk helicopters lost by the U.S. during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia in 1993 were downed by RPG-7s.
The maximum range of an RPG is 1,000 yards. Its effective range is 200 meters. Effective relates to having adequate accuracy. I have no trouble believing a Taliban could get within 200 meters of a hovering helicopter delivering reinforcements to an on-going firefight, which is what happened on 8/6/11.
A Chinook is a big target. It is 98 feet long, 19 feet high, and has two 60 foot long rotors. It weighs 23,400 pounds empty and can weigh as much as 50,000 pounds on take off. It is often used for lifting heavy objects and can carry 28,000 pounds of cargo.
If the enemy can hit the broad side of a barn, which is about 20 feet by 40 feet, he can hit the broad side of a Chinook, from 200 meters away.
At top speed of close to 200 mph, it is hard to hit with an anti-tank weapon, but the one that was hit on 8/6/11 was hovering.
When I said that the Taliban had artillery shells, I need to add that they lack artillery. They use artillery shells as explosives for IEDs.
The Taliban also have mortars. Those lob relatively small explosive shells on a high trajectory over a relatively short distance. They are not artillery which is much longer range and carries more powerful warheads.
The U.S. military, in contrast, has myriad weapons of enormous range, extraordinary accuracy, a full spectrum of explosive power ranging from exploding bullets to nuclear weapons.
The Afghan Taliban are lagely illiterate. The U.S. and NATO allied troops are all literate, often possessing bachelor’s and college degrees.
We give up our advantages
How in the name of God do we lose skirmishes like the one on 8/6 given our superiority in every dimension?
In one sentence, we allow ourselves to be drawn into fights where we give up our advantages.
Special ops training irrelevant most of the time
I got special ops training, namely Army ranger and airborne training. One of the things the media and public, and too often, the military itself, do not understand is that special ops training is only narrowly applicable. SEALs for example, are trained in underwater and water surface movements and marksmanship.
But the vast majority of your time in the military is spent in situations where your special ops training is irrelevant. On 8/6, the SEALs and Afghan commandoes were killed while being passengers in a helicopter. Obviously, whatever their extra skills, they were utterly irrelevant at the moment their chopper was hit by an RPG.
World War II paratroopers look very glamorous descending to earth under their parachutes. Not very powerful if you know that their unloaded rifle is in a pouch attached to their leg, not in their hands Hollywood style so they can shoot. But before they jump they are mere passengers in a relatively slow-moving airplane. After they hit the ground they are not much less vulnerable than when they are in the air. They are extremely lightly armed infantrymen who do not have much ammunition, water, or food and who are behind enemy lines. Sound like fun?
Jumping out of airplanes is glamorous. So is SCUBA and rappelling down cliff faces, and all those other elite military stunts. But special ops guys, including SEALs, are just ordinary guys who have some extra training in exotic transportation devices, like parachutes and swim fins, and some extra training in marksmanship and demolitions. They are not supermen.
The SEALs who were killed on 8/6 were put in a situation where the American advantages were nullified. Guerillas and jihadists are taught to only fight Americans when the guerillas or jihadists have an advantage. Smart. So why are we so dumb as to go along with that?
‘British, you lose the toss’
Bill Cosby used to do a comedy routine where he imagines wars being fought like football games and he illustrates with a coin toss before the Revolutionary War. Speaking as the referee, he explains to the opponents, “Okay British, you lose the toss, you lose the toss. That means you have to wear red coats and walk in straight lines out in the open. Americans, you win the toss, you win the toss. That means you can wear camouflage and hide in the woods.”
So why are we now walking in straight lines out in the open and flying slow moving helicopters within range of enemy RPG’s?
More than a year ago, I wrote a web article titled, “Are helicopters viable within range of enemy weapons?” My article concluded they were not, but sometimes must be used in hot (under enemy fire) rescue missions in spite of the danger.
We can kill every Taliban on earth by firing at them weapons that have ranges that exceed the ranges of all Taliban weapons ad using robots and drones that result in no American casualties when hit by the enemy. (The pilots of many of our Afghanistan drones are actually high school grads with no traditional pilot training doing that from Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas!) That means the Taliban has 100% casualties and we have zero. So why are we not doing that?
Because the enemy accuses us of killing innocent civilians and we fall for that.
In World War II, the civilians were told to get the hell out of the way of the war, and they generally did. (Far more civilians were killed in World War II than military—probably because of strategic bombing of cities which I oppose.) In Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy yells “hold your fire, we have civilians,” and we do.
Either fight a war as a war or get out. Do not let American military get within range of enemy weapons. I am aware this makes it harder to avoid killing civilians.
Tough. We’re having a war here—declared on us by al Qaeda and Taliban.
In Africa, when they have their various civil wars these days, millions of refugees free to adjacent countries. But in wars against Americans, the civilians stay next door to the enemy barracks or tanks and often volunteer to be human shields e.g., Libya, knowing they are totally safe in doing so because the Americans never shoot when a civilian might be hurt.
Fight the war like a war and use our advantages to kill them while suffering few if any casualties ourselves. Is that so hard to understand?
Stated simply, we should not fly choppers full of American troops within range of Taliban weapons. We do not need to, except possibly in the case of a pilot rescue—or—too often, to rescue some damned group of special ops guys who are in over their heads—like the rangers in Mogadishu (Blackhawk Down, 18 dead) or SEALs in Operation Red Wings (Lone Survivor, 14 dead).
Gotta have thick vegetation and no dogs
Subsequent reports in the 8/6/incident revealed that the dead SEALs were not the raiders. Rather, they were a rescue party for a a group of special ops rangers that tried to approach the target house on foot. They were spotted by a Taliban patrol, pinned down by fire from that Taliban patrol, and called for help. Reportedly, none of the pinned-down rangers were were wounded.
In my article on Army rangers, I noted that they can only operate at night and need thick vegetation and an absence of dogs in the area in order to function. That also applies to other types of special ops troops like SEALs. The 8/16 operation was at night, but not in thick vegetation. I have seen no mention of dogs. Unless they are cultuurally forbidden, I would expect there were some dogs in the vicinity. They would bark at the rangers. Been there. Done that.
The rangers were walking in a desert, small-village setting where they can be seen from hundreds of yards away if there is any moonlight or artificial light.
The Moon phase in Afghanistan on 8/9 is waxing gibbous (almost full moon). Also on August 9 in Afghanistan, the moon rose at 3:28 PM and set at 12:35 AM (after midnight. I do not know the moon rise and set times for Afghanistan on the 16th.
Every time we went out on a patrol in ranger school, we were given the phase of the moon and the moon rise and moon set times. If you think that’s nutty, trying walking all night in the woods, supposedly behind enemy lines, for a couple of months. There is almost a night-and-day difference between having a moon and not having one if you’ll pardon the expression.
In view of the lack of thick vegetation and the possible proximity of dogs, the ranger commander should have refused the mission. If you think he has to follow orders, read my article on the morality of obeying stupid orders.
Brave talk from the lard ass, rear-area brass
A 8/9/11 Washingoton Post story said,
Military officials said the crash would not deter them from deploying Special Operations forces in aggressive night raids against Taliban fighters.
Oh, really. Well, how about the next time these “military officials” deploy Special Ops forces in “aggressive night raids” let’s make sure everyone in the chopper is one of those “military officials?”
If they want to use words like “aggressive,” let them put their bodies where their mouths are. Some of “Old Blood and Guts” General George Patton’s troops in World War II said,
Yeah, our blood, his guts.
The same could be said about these aggressive, macho “military officials.” Let them get their fat, rear-area asses out on a Chinook on the next quick reaction force mission.
If I were commander in chief, I would be inclined to fire the military officials who said the crash would not deter them. They would have some ‘splaining to do if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Hey, assholes. 38 men are dead. It looks like it’s your fault for doing the extremely dumb thing of sending them into a hot landing zone in a Chinook with almost no suppressing fire. Why didn’t you have them walk in? The guys they were rescuing did walk in, and out, with zero casualties. I read in the paper that you are not going to change anything as a result of this. Well, you can now explain to me why you are not going to change anything as a result of this because I am inclined to end your damned careers as my change in response to this. Start talking.
I expect the answer would be that they are going to change things, but that they lied to the press to keep their “lucky shot” story line intact.
That Post story also had this line,
It’s the danger of operating aircraft in combat.
Again speaking as commander in chief, my response would be something like this:
How many jets have the Taliban shot down? How many fixed-wing propeller planes? How many choppers have the Taliban shot down when the choppers were moving at 40 mph or more? [I expect the answer to all three would be zero.]
So it’s not the abstract “danger of operating aircraft in [generic] combat.” It’s the danger of hovering a chopper within 200 meters of enemy that you know are there. And this statement to the press is total bullshit, isn’t it?
Finally, the Post story says,
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta…said the military would not back off in the fight.
Again speaking as if I were commander in chief,
The hell you won’t back off! Backing off so that you are outside the range of the Taliban weapons, especially with hovering or slow-moving choppers, is exactly what you will do.
I also don’t care for the whole idea of this mission that was being rescued. How many bad guys were they after? Where were the bad guys? If we know what house they are in, why didn’t you blow the house up with a rocket or bomb? You risked the lives of 14 rangers to capture or kill six bad guys!? Why does that not violate third-grade arithmetic? Then you risked, and lost, the lives of 38 guys to save the 14 sent to capture or kill the six!?
What am I missing here? This looks like the goal was not to kill the six bad guys, but to play army. It looks like the goal was to get a book contract and maybe a movie deal after your deployment. If you want to kill some bad guys, and you can do so with a rocket or bomb without risking American lives, what the hell are you doing getting 52 guys involved in an unrehearsed night-time firefight on the ground and getting 38 guys killed?
I am well aware that men die in combat in the abstract. But as long as I’m in this job, there’d better be a Goddamned good reason for each combat death. I see none here. It looks like you are biased in favor of boots on the ground special ops missions and against use of airpower. Your damned job is to kill bad guys, not get bravery medals! Or posthumous purple hearts! Do I need to put the Air Force in charge of all combat operations in Afghanistan to avoid your idiot biases getting men killed unnecessarily?
Rehearsed versus ad hoc special ops missions
In my articles on the bin Laden killing, I noted they rehearsed it with a mock-up of the Bin Laden compound for seven months. That is how you do it. Furthermore, there was no need for Navy SEALs on a mission with that much time to rehearse. They could have used rangers, green berets, Air Force special ops, an average 4th Infantry Division platoon, or even the 4th infantry Division band. Really! Seven months to rehearse means you have practiced the plan so many times the men can do it blindfolded and you have practiced every possible change in plans.
Now contrast that with the 8/6/11 rescue operation. It was ad hoc. No rehearsal. No intelligence as evidenced by the fact that the rangers were surprised and fighting at a location substantially short of their planned target. It was dark and the rescue party of SEALs was traveling in a Chinook, probably the biggest, loudest U.S. chopper. That means the Americans have no idea who they are fighting or where and the enemy knows exactly what they are fighting: that great big double main rotor chopper making the roaring noise and no doubt containing armed military personnel. That is borderline suicidal. Walking in to the rescue would almost certainly be better.
In Mogadishu, where a similar bunch of Army Rangers and Delta Forces needed to be rescued. They did not use Chinooks to rescue. They used armed helicopters to keep the enemy at bay all night and sent in armored vehicles—tanks and armored cars—to rescue the men in the morning.
If we knew where the enemy house was to walk to it, we knew where it was to fire rockets at it or to drop smart bombs on it. Might that kill some seemingly or actually innocent civilians? Yes. But 30 SEALS and air crewmen would still be alive and, to the extent there were bad guys in the house, they would be dead.
This is not rocket science, it is just rocket propelled grenade science, which is very crude science from the World War II era.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. American generals keep getting special ops guys killed by combining the relatively strong link of their special training with weak links like Chinooks hovering near enemy RPGs or dumb tactics like putting rangers on a hotel roof in downtown Mogadishu.
U.S. military says it killed the guy who shot down the chopper
The U.S. military said on 8/10/11 that it killed the guy who shot down the helicopter and another guy who was a Taliban leader.
Marine General John Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the U.S. tracked the bad guys to a house after they shot down the chopper.
One presumes that was done with drones. Although it was dark so I am skeptical.
Implicit in John Allen’s statements is the claim that the U.S. also monitored the house in question 24/7 for the four days after the chopper shoot down.
Unexplained is why they did not blow the sonofabitch away while he was retreating to the house or immediately after he got there. Unexplained also is why they waited four days to do it, thereby risking the bad guys getting away.
They are releasing the names of the SEALs killed. I do not understand. They previously always claimed they did not do that to protect the families of the SEALs. They provide no explanation as to why that previous reason for extraordinary secrecy—by military standards—by the SEALs no longer applies.
I saw Allen on TV describe the action that killed the RPG shooter. He descried it as “kinetic.”
I know of no organization that spends more time inventing bullshit jargon and acronyms than the U.S. military. This is a well-known way of faux professions trying to seem to have more expertise than laymen.
What is a kinetic operation? I am supposed to feel inferior to General Allen because he knows what a kinetic operation is but I don’t, which begs the question of it’s a word that only the “professional” inside the military know it, why is the General using that word when briefing media and a TV audience.
I think he is trying to bullshit us and impress us with his non-existent expertise.
I have a dictionary. “Kinetic” means having to do with motion.
I see.
So the U.S. military now has two kinds of operations:
• kinetic
• non-kinetic
So what, pray tell General John Allen, is a non-kinetic operation? And, if you would please, gives us some examples of well-known operations from any current or past war that was non-kinetic. I am having trouble figuring out how there could be any other type of operation than kinetic.
The new story on the rescue mission that got 38 guys killed is that it was not a rescue mission rather, they were there to stop the bad guys who were trying to get away from getting away.
I see.
That would make sense to me if they were in an unpopulated area like a desert or plain with no trees or bushes. But in an areas with small villages and such, I do not know how one could assume the bad guys would stay in a Chinook size group to be attacked. I would expect they would scatter in all compass directions disappearing into the homes of friends or ad hoc supporters or just people who open their doors to guys who point AK-47s at them and say open the door.
General Allen said he did not believe it was a mistake to use [the large Chinook and have it hover in the operation].
I do not believe that and I do not believe that General John Allen believes it. Only an idiot would lose 38 men in such a chopper shoot-down—the biggest single loss of life in the war—and decide using that helicopter in that way and situation was not a mistake. I do not care for generals who lie to me and insult my intelligence in the process.
I think the more likely explanation is that Marine General John Allen is a politician like all military generals and like all politicians he never admits a mistake. It’s bad for your political career to admit a mistake. Your rivals use it against you.
John T. Reed
