Comments for The more things change...

The more things change...

2007-02-11T14:37:59Z

...the more they stay the same.

I sent this to Bill. It's from Memri (used with permission).

*ISLAMIST WEBSITES MONITOR NO. 60

Video Shows Downing of U.S. Apache Helicopter in Iraq

On February 4, 2007, Islamist websites posted a 3.5-minute video titled "American Apache Downed in Al-Anbar District Northwest of Baghdad, in the Al-Taji region." The video was produced by Al-Furqan, the media company of the Islamic State of Iraq, and is part of a series called "The Hell of the Byzantines [ i.e. Christians] and Apostates in Iraq."

The video opens with a Koranic verse: "Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace, and assist you against them and heal the hearts of a believing people [Koran 9:14]." This is followed by a caption saying "Sighting and Ambushing the Target." The footage shows two helicopters flying above, and three fighters – shown only for a few seconds – preparing the attack. One seems to be sighting the target, the second buries something in the ground and a third manipulates a weapon that is set on the ground and has been blacked out by the video producers (something not seen in previous films). The camera then follows the target helicopter, while the voice of Osama bin Laden is heard in the background, followed by a jihad song.

The next part of the film is introduced by a caption saying "The Battle with the Helicopters Begins." Intensive gunfire is heard, accompanied by cries of "Allah Akbar," and a rocket is fired. The footage follows the Apache until several seconds before it falls. The video next presents an excerpt from a February 2, 2007 speech by Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State of Iraq, which was posted as an audio recording on Islamist websites on February 3, 2007. The video ends with a caption saying "This helicopter was downed on Friday, Muharram 14, 1428 [February 2, 2007]."

The video can be viewed at:
http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=541786&ak=null

To see images from the video visit:
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?page=subjects&Area=iwmp&ID=SP145207

This is Bill's response.

Looks like the classic setup for a helicopter trap. We used to run into mechanical ambushes using RPGs and AKs wired to trees, all triggered by bamboo poles dropped by the rotorwash. They've eliminated the "mechanical" aspect and are using live shooters for flexibility.

Aviation flushed the Aeroscout / Aerial Observer crewman armed with an M-60 because the Apache and KW had all kinds of Buck Rogers long-range eyes. Nobody (except the 82d's Cav troop) paid a bit of attention when us old guys screamed that the most dangerous spot for a helicopter is directly below -- where sensors don't see and turreted weapons can't shoot.

It doesn't help that the Apache wasn't designed as a gunship -- it was designed to kill T-72s on the North German Plain from five klicks away. But they're using it like a UH-1C (without the extra crewmen and minus the sideward / downward visibility. An Apache driver can't see shit off to the sides because of the structural supports for the canopy and has zero idea of what's going on below him unless his wingman is on the ball.

Several more lessons we learned in RVN that were written off as "irrelevant to the warfight"...

Working here around the Command and General Staff College, I've had several discussions with really bright and dedicated people, warfighters, who have the blind spot that Bill's last sentence highlights.

Sometimes, they just have to learn from experience. But they think experience, in terms of that of us auld pharts, is... somehow invalidated because everything is all new now.

Except - while much of what happened in the March Upcountry might be in the 'kinda sorta new' category - much of what's happened since is in the "deja vu" category, with an Arab overlay.

Addendum: If I'd known John was looking for blogfodder, I'd have expanded on the theme. Stay tuned...

Appended Addendum: I wasn't looking for blogfodder, but when you dumped it in my lap, and my Muse was out with Carborundum last night and was too hung-over to be of any use this morning...

Upended Appended Addendum: Hey, it's a Warrant's *job* to make the RLO look good. And you've gotta admit that, whenever I show up, you come off as a charter member of the Olympian pantheon by comparison...

[Armorer sidles over to mirror to check for signs taped to his back...]

[...failing to notice that 2.75meg jay-peg of Haystacks Calhoun in plaid shirt has been placed in mirror frame]

Comment from Instapilot on 2007-02-12

2007-02-13T02:55:18Z

Wayne, Couldn't agree more on the OPSEC thing. All of the cosmic stuff will remain hush hush. My point is: use some of that famous Army mental agility to adapt to the environment (and no, I'm not being facetious; one or two of the bug-name business schools see the military as a classic example of a "learning organization'). Maybe that's happening. Maybe the various USAF Weapons School equivalents are talking it up about tactics, techniques, procedures and even sharing proven technologies. If so, never mind all my previous comments. If not, maybe you can light a fire somewhere. In any case, God bless, thanks for your courageous commitment to freedom, and check six. (Tip: NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds...maybe less for a helo.) P.S. For the record, I'm a Hog driver. My idea of a "cosmic system" is a digital clock (as opposed to the wind-up ones we used to have). ;)

Comment from BillT on 2007-02-12

2007-02-13T01:38:00Z

Wayne - IR countermeasures could indeed, be better, but to see *how* they could be better (and how they're improving) requires going behind the curtain. Which we don't do in Open Forum...

Comment from Wayne on 2007-02-12

2007-02-13T00:55:04Z

John, many thanks. On the IR counter measures we hear a lot of times, "It could be worse." I say, It could be better!"

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2007-02-12

2007-02-12T16:11:25Z

Wayne - I think Dusty and Bill, retired fixed-wing and rotary-wing military aviators themselves, will apply appropriate filters. But, that said, *anyone* can throw an OPSEC flag at any time, and we'll review the bidding.

Comment from Wayne on 2007-02-12

2007-02-12T15:17:02Z

John: Yes, the OPSEC on this is very important so everyone, please think of that as you're commenting about this subject. I'd be personally very greatful as would my family and other aviators.

Comment from BillT on 2007-02-12

2007-02-12T12:16:08Z

Sanger - The -144 jams like a champ when a missile is coming at the aircraft from a side or top aspect. I know of one Cobra crew that survived an SA-7 hit in RVN because the pilot entered autorotation the second he saw it coming. I won't go into details of the damage -- the tailboom was almost severed, for one thing -- but he got it down in a survivable fashion. I got away from one in a Hubie because I was just about at max range when the gunner popped it off.

Comment from SangerM on 2007-02-12

2007-02-12T06:58:26Z

We got meet a cobra crew from 2ACR who had supposedly been shot at with a heat seeker inside Czechoslovakia. They were traveling around FRG talking to other AV types and came to our little slice of 1AD heaven (I am not sure of the year, but it had to be early 84 to late 85). They claimed to have been MECONED across the border and that after they did, the badguy ground folks took a few shots at them. The cobra guys claimed they saw 2 or more missiles go by, and that it was the IR jammer that saved them. We heard that folks who'd been monitoring the cross border comms were able to confirm the launch of missiles and the unsatisfactory results, which supposedly also resulted in the relief of the CO of the shooting unit, and several folks up the chain... I was NOT party to any of that, so I cannot confirm the details. I did hear the briefing, and I know the guys who flew the border were very well qualified, so I never doubted them. BTW, I spent a lot of time on the border between Hof and Bayreuth, and December before last, I went back and drove up into what used to be the DDR, and south into the Czech Republic and back out through Shirnding Crossing, then south along the border to all the places I'd spent days/weeks/months staring at fences. It had changed a great deal, and I couldn't even find the place where some guy tried one night near our site to escape to the FRG and got caught in the fences and killed by the Czech border guards. Was a great feeling, really, to see all of that gone. Made it feel like it was all worth it.

Comment from BillT on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T05:02:47Z

Dusty - I learned about staying alive in combat when the only electronic countermeasures suite consisted of synapses firing along neurons, and I always taught my guys that it was tactics, not technology, that'd keep them alive. John's statement, More than anything, I blame operational complacency coupled with that "We're invulnerable" attitude of aviators. Well, young ones, anyway... pretty much nails it, because the Schoolhouse's dictum is "Our technology will defeat any threat you will face except for small arms." The Army has wanted Hi-Tech ever since it discovered that Hi-Tech was expensive, which translates into a bigger slice of the budgetary pie. Problem is, it bought the hype along with the product and it's teaching the hype as Gospel. Now, I'm not a Luddite about ECM and ECCM -- I think it's all neat stuff (and the equipment on the AH-1F was superb, BTW) but ASE is only good within certain limits (I *taught* ECM/ECCM/ASE function and usage, don't forget). Take the AN/ALQ-144 as an example: it's a programmable IR Jammer which will spoof *most* heat-seekers *most* of the time and will save your butt *most* of the time. But take a peek at any Army helicopter (except for Hubert) and you'll see the -144 mounted atop the fuselage, which is a perfect spot for it if the primary threat is from hostile fighters. Problem is, putting the -144 on top of the aircraft places a ton of fuel and metal between it and an IR-homer fired from directly below -- which is where the primary threat to helicopters has always been. The other problem is, you can't mount the -144 on the belly or beneath the tailboom because you'd crush it the first time you landed. Just one more reason to impale the idiot who decided wheels were preferable to skids on a tactical aircraft. Army Aviation's "Uh-oh" moment has been going on since it realized the Comanche (which morphed from a small, incredibly agile, single-pilot, armed scout into a huge, incredibly agile, two-pilot, flying intercom system) had been special-interested into irrelevance. Unfortunately, rather than building on a solid foundation that a lot of good men died putting together, Aviation is still groping for a suitable plot on which to pour a slab...

Comment from Trias on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T02:40:11Z

One of the oldest phases is 'the right tool for the job'. Because these tools take years to develop and produce I hope the manufacturers of today are paying attention.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T02:33:34Z

The flip side to what you just said, Wayne - is... the OPSEC clamp-down on *our* side. Which is sometimes something I have to remind myself about.

Comment from Wayne on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T02:29:03Z

As a Apache Longbow Pilot with over 700 hours in Iraq and personally knowing a lot of the Apache crews who have been shot down I can only thank the enemy for continuing to post their tactics on the web for our analysis.

Comment from SangerM on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T01:02:52Z

I was school-trained to be a Redeye gunner in 1974. We had some dummy seeker warhead in launchers we would train with, and except for the launch, it worked like the real thing. The hardest helicopter to get a lock on was the OH-58, especially when it was nearby-overhead because the exhausts were on the top behind the rotormast. But for sure, you gain a real appreciation for the vulnerabilities of helicopters when you are looking up at them with any eye for what it would take to bring one down. To me the hardest to deal with was the cobra--that 36" inch width looks like a lot to shoot at when you're up-close, but even only 500 meters or so to the front, they are still awfully thin (and they could see you a lot better than you could see them). On the other hand, our ploy was to sit still in the bushes or low trees (this was Ft. Hood) 'till they passed over and then take them from behind. That worked on all manner of aircraft. After about 6 months of that, I was confident there wasn't a plane or helicopter out there I couldn't kill (or scare the crap out of) if it got within 3 klicks of me. The Stinger gave the gunner the ability to get a lock from the front of the A/C. even so, I'd still wait for them to pass. Kind of like trying to get under the dragon, looking for the soft-spot in the encrusted gems, eh? I had thought things were better than that. I guess I was wrong. Very sad, to be sure.

Comment from Instapilot on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T00:38:23Z

Bill, Help me out here...surely you guys aren't in the Bronze Age, metaphorically speaking. Are you? Is getting whacked by a Strela III (SA-14) THAT much of an "Uh-oh" moment? Or is it more of a, 'Well, looks like the moojies are finally getting serious..." one?

Comment from BillT on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T22:33:45Z

If tradition holds, the Highers won't do anything until it has cost more in SGLI payments to the next-of-kin than it would have cost to fix the problem initially *or* until one of their peers' career comes to an abrupt end. That said, I did an end run at Line Pilot level back in 2001, but it's been slow filtering out -- more on that later...

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T22:26:05Z

Nothing focuses a man like the knowledge he's going to be hung in the morning. I suspect the smell of brain-sweat in the aviation tactical circles is strong wherever rotary-wing aviators are concentrated. As for CAC jumping on people - I'm sure that LTG Petraeus did some of that before he left. That said, this is a new trend. More than anything, I blame operational complacency coupled with that "We're invulnerable" attitude of aviators. Well, young ones, anyway. The Army aviation community just had an Uh-oh! moment - like the bronze-age warrior who had been killing everything in his path had that moment when the Iron Age soldier cut his blade in half. He looked at the shiny line at the stump where his nice leaf-shaped blade used to be and said, "Uh-oh!" And then went and developed steel.

Comment from Instapilot on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T21:59:34Z

John, Point taken, but I was thinking in terms of the CAC and its influence on the Army writ large...sort of like Air Combat Command coming down hard on the Fighter Weapons toads at Nellis to fix an inherent problem in, say, how to minimize cargo jet losses on the indian-country end of an air bridge. True, Nellis in the center of the tactics universe but 4-star interest sorta helps things along (not always, but it can't hurt), especially when the fighter mafia is into other things at the time (and that's certainly natural...nothing sinister, just human nature). OK, OK the CAC CG is a 3-star, but still... Also, and this may understandably be seen as a quibble, but there's a difference between "old ways" and timeless truths, i.e., if you want to use vulnerable assets in a high-threat environment, you have to dedicate other assets to protect them. Which is why we still use escorting assets on most strike missions. It's an "old" way, but a good way. Bottom line: someone other than the BillTs of this world and their tactical descendants in ARCENT have gotta wake up and smell the coffee. To be fair (heh), maybe they have and we just haven't seen the tangible results yet.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T18:58:22Z

Dusty - it isn't Leavenworth's job to do that - it's Rucker's. Leavenworth doesn't do tactics - they do operations and, to a lesser extent, strategy. That said, Leavenworth *is* the Combined Arms Center, and Rucker answers to them. Part of the problem is - no one in a doctrine position gets promoted for suggesting that there is some value in the old ways. That change usually comes from the field... a persistant problem TRADOC has.

Comment from Oldloadr on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T16:41:52Z

Interestingly; I noticed when the USMC was moving folks around by rotary wing in Iraq, they would have 1 or 2 CH-46s escorted by 1 each AH-1 and 1 each UH-1 with 2 each enlisted guys in the back of the UH-1 with a machine gun sticking out of each door. This seemed to compensate for the deficiencies BillT mentioned. When I flew around the country on UH-60s or CH-47s, it was always a 2 ship formation (same model) and 2 gunners in each ship. Additionally, the CH-47s only flew at night while the UH-60s flew around the clock. The only time I saw an Apache escorting Blackhawks was when the CG was traveling. The compound I lived and worked in on CV was just across a canal from one of the helipads so I got to observe the flight ops every day. Just thought you all would like an eye-witness account from a retired AF weapons loader who came back in another life as a contractor working for the Army. I left the AOR last June so I don’t know if the Army has adjusted its tactics since then…

Comment from Instapilot on 2007-02-11

2007-02-11T16:12:03Z

I've been wondering what you guys thought of this sort of thing. I've kept my mouth shut 'cause I've had to deal with the ground Army attitude to aviation to the point of saying, "Aw, to Hell with it." Notice I said "ground." These are the institutional decisionmakers' attitudes to anything that flies and I'm surprised BillT hasn't gone postal as an Army aviator. And Army handling of air is a perfect rejoinder to AW1 Tim's proposal (put the Air Force under the Army again--*yawn*). It'd be nice if there was a Patreaus for AVN...or a Boyd...someone needs to sit down and THINK ABOUT HOW TO USE THE ARMY'S AIR ARM. They need to consider tactics based on the threat AND equipment mods, too. The YouTube shot of the CH-47 being a$$holed--where were his escorts, especially given the personnel aboard? What was his SOP for reducing the lethal envelope for potential SAM (not to mention light AAA/small arms) threats? (Etc., etc.) John--is anyone in Leavenworth thinking about the inherent vulnerabilities in helos and the long-term fixes in terms of tactics, training, countermeasures and such? OK, so Wes Clark branded me a "disgruntled Air Force officer" in his book, but I wasn't...I just gave his AVN guys an honest appraisal of their chances given the mission, the terrain, the threat, the equipment and the pilots' proficiency (it was 21 pages long). For the record, I thought the 11th was among the bravest sonsabeetches in the Army...but I think the Army had let 'em down in a number of ways, primarily due to cultural prejudices. Thank God they didn't have to go hot in Wes' War. Just askin'.