Apache downed in Iraq

ullu

New Member
:eek someoen in iraq has some kickass weaponery!!! Shooting down a blackhawk is believeable but an apache? What are they doing!!!



Another US helicopter crashed in Iraq Tuesday, probably shot down by rebel fire, as a probe got under way in Washington into the use of official documents in a book accusing President George W. Bush of planning to invade the country all along.

Close on the heels of allegations by ex-treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, the US Army's War College has sharply criticized US strategy in the war on terrorism, calling the invasion of Iraq an unnecessary "detour" that diverted attention and resources from the battle against Al-Qaeda.

The Apache helicopter crashed near the hotbed town of Fallujah west of Baghdad, the third such incident in two weeks, as Iraq remains in the grip of insurgency exactly one month after the capture of Saddam Hussein.

"We are aware a helicopter went down," a US military spokesman said. "There is an initial report of enemy fire."

Two crew members survived but the US military said it did not know whether they had been injured in the crash, which happened around 10:00 amsome 35 kilometres (20 miles) northwest of Fallujah.

Nine US soldiers were killed when a Blackhawk helicopter was hit by "enemy fire" near Fallujah last Thursday, and one soldier died and another was wounded when ground fire struck a Delta Kiowa reconnaissance aircraft on January 2.

The coalition was also battling the fourth day of protests in the normally calm Shiite south of the country over a sluggish job market and widespread poverty.

In Kut, 100 protestors tossed grenades at Ukrainian soldiers stationed around city hall offices and who fired warning shots to disperse the mob, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

"Seven wounded were admitted to the emergency room -- five protestors and two female bystanders," said Dr. Taha Ali Abdul Hussein. Six suffered bullet wounds, including one of the women.

Meanwhile, US troops killed two Iraqis and wounded three in Fallujah Tuesday after they were reportedly attacked, a local police chief told AFP.

In other violence, two Iraqi policemen were shot dead by by two unknown attackers in the northern city of Mosul late Monday, police and doctors said.

The US Army also said an Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) soldier and an alleged attacker were killed Monday in a firefight after security officials found a weapons cache in a vegetable truck in Tarmiyah, west of Baghdad.

In Washington, the Treasury Department said it was investigating whether O'Neill improperly used official documents in a book in which he accuses Bush of planning to invade Iraq from his earliest days in office.

Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols noted that a document marked "secret" was shown Sunday during an interview with O'Neill on the CBS television program "60 Minutes."

"We referred this today to the Office of the Inspector General," Nichols told reporters on Monday.

Bush refrained from criticizing O'Neill, while claiming that he inherited a policy of regime change in Iraq from his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

"Like the previous regime, we were for regime change ... We were fashioning policy along those lines and then all of a sudden September 11 hit," Bush told reporters in Monterrey, Mexico.

O'Neill insisted in the interview that Bush had been intent on ousting Saddam long before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

O'Neill was interviewed about his contribution to the book, "The Price of Loyalty," by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

Criticism of Bush's Iraq policy also came in a paper published by the US Army's War College and posted on its website.

Author Jeffrey Record said the United States had made a cardinal error by presenting Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a single monolithic threat.

"This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level and susceptibility to US deterrence and military action," Record wrote.

"The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable Al-Qaeda," he said.

In a disclaimer, the Army War College's Institute for Strategic Studies said the paper did not necessarily represent the views of the war college or the military.

Nevertheless, it raised for discussion within the military a critique of the Iraq war that has gained currency as US forces have failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and become embroiled in a contested, open-ended occupation.

In Moscow, a Russian company Tuesday denied selling military equipment to the Saddam regime following renewed US charges that Russian firms had violated UN sanctions against Iraq.

"Since we received in 1996 the right to independently go to the international arms market, KBP has never signed any contracts with Iraq and did not deliver any arms to this country," an official with KBP Tula told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

KBP Tula is one of the Russian companies which Washington accused of selling military equipment to Baghdad as the war against Iraq got underway in March 2003.

Iraqi Trade Minister Ali Allawi, meanwhile, said the interim government was preparing criminal cases in both Iraqi and international courts against individuals and companies that sold goods to the previous regime at "highly" inflated prices and under dubious contracts.

Allawi said most of the offenders were from "Near Eastern countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt," which had "trade protocols" with Saddam's ousted regime.

AFP
 

Red aRRow

Forum Bouncer
I don't think shooting down an Apache is that difficult. Especially from a built up area where you can hide easily. You just need a good Manpad. I think it's raining helicopters in Iraq now.
 

Red aRRow

Forum Bouncer
Well I don't think they are bad helos. I think they are superb fighting machines. Imagine the balls on the guys shooting these gunships like flies. :D
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Apache is a bad helo? It's perhaps the most difficult helicopter to manage in combat and the emergency procedures look like a flow chart but it is a giant leap ahead of anything else out there in terms of capability.

Helicopters biggest threats are ground fire and man portable heat seeking missiles. Tactical helicopters depend on speed and low altitude to thwart these types of threats as well as countermeasures designed to defeat heat seeking missiles. These guys are breaking the cardinal sin of remaining in OGE hover which makes them perfect targets for even the old B40 rockets as well as small arms fire. Also folks should realize that "shooting down" a helicopter is not always a fire and smoke type of scenario as we all imagine when we read these stories. More often than not the aircraft was rendered incapable of sustained flight or the crew was forced to land as dictated by emergency procedures that every aviator has commited to memory verbatum and will act upon said emergency with and automatic response.

At any rate they have and will be shot down.
 

umair

Peace Enforcer
Gremlin29 said:
Apache is a bad helo? It's perhaps the most difficult helicopter to manage in combat and the emergency procedures look like a flow chart but it is a giant leap ahead of anything else out there in terms of capability.

Helicopters biggest threats are ground fire and man portable heat seeking missiles. Tactical helicopters depend on speed and low altitude to thwart these types of threats as well as countermeasures designed to defeat heat seeking missiles. These guys are breaking the cardinal sin of remaining in OGE hover which makes them perfect targets for even the old B40 rockets as well as small arms fire. Also folks should realize that "shooting down" a helicopter is not always a fire and smoke type of scenario as we all imagine when we read these stories. More often than not the aircraft was rendered incapable of sustained flight or the crew was forced to land as dictated by emergency procedures that every aviator has commited to memory verbatum and will act upon said emergency with and automatic response.

At any rate they have and will be shot down.

Gremlin u are right,but on the ease of shooting down part I'd say that the Apache provides a juicy target specifically if the perpetrator/attacker is well hidden.The Apache when compared to another US chopper the Cobra presents a larger silhoutte and has a larger girth/fuselage width giving the attacker/attackers a relatively bigger target area.The cobra on the other hand has a fuselage which is no more than three feet wide at it's widest point and therefore is increasingly difficult to shoot down.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
I agree Umair. I also think the Twin Cobra would have been a better machine for the Army. The Marines have proven that it is quite capable of utilizing Hellfire. I honestly pitty the Apache guys, they are "task overload" defined. :) It's got some great crew survivability designed into it though, as has been show time and again in Iraq. Little bullet, big sky. :D
 

elkaboingo

New Member
during the actual fighting, werent those apaches downed by kalashnikov fire?

anyways, ka-50 looks really cool. i dont doubt its weapons and agility but i dont know about the avionics.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
I believe at least one was shot down with an AK-47. You must realize however that certain emergencies absolutely require the pilot to land no matter what. For example, if your transmission oil temperature exceeds the maximum allowable you have to land and I mean land fast. There are a few scenarios where a "land as soon as possible" emergency would be ignored (the crew may decide to push their luck in favor of putting some distance between themselves and the enemy for example). As recall one Apache that was brought down by gunfire came down in tact and it's highly probably that if the site could have been secured it could have been repaired to the point of being flown out. In this case it was decided by higher ups that the Air Force should bomb the downed aircraft so that it would be rendered useless to the enemy.

The Kamov 50 is a super cool looking aircraft which promises some interesting performance but like most advanced Russian designs it has yet to be fielded or sold to anyone. Also I believe that the Kamov will be obsolete before it does enter service, Comanche enters line units in 2 more years and it is 20 years ahead of the Kamov.
 

elkaboingo

New Member
comanche is a different type of helo. its meant to take the place of kiowa which is a scout. comanche is stealth and is supposed to look for targets for the apache. it does however have an internal weapons bay.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Comanche is interesting in that it is "supposed" to define a new role for combat helicopters, that being deep strike. It is scheduled to replace the Delta model Kiowa which is known as the Warrior however I think that if Comanche lives up to it's promise it will be a prime candidate to replace the Apache, or at least those that are not Longbow equipped. Apaches are IMHO not the best machine for the US Army for a variety of reasons. Don't get me wrong, it is highly capable but like any system it has it's givens and druthers. I still contend that Apache is a good example of whats wrong with US weapons procurement programs. It's an expensive aircraft, expensive to maintain, and difficult to manage under combat conditions. All of that to deliver Hellfire? The Twin Cobra the Marines have can do all that Plus they can fly without electrical and or hydraulics. If Apache experiences a complete loss of electrical OR hydraulics it will become a very expensive Lawn Dart.
 

elkaboingo

New Member
the problem with apache is its very big. it makes a huge target (like the hind) for some rebel with an rpg. but the comanche doesnt have as many hardpoints and less armor (to withstand a barrage of 7.62mm).

btw, why are all these helos named after indian tribes? apache, comanche, kiowa...
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
elkaboingo said:
the problem with apache is its very big. it makes a huge target (like the hind) for some rebel with an rpg. but the comanche doesnt have as many hardpoints and less armor (to withstand a barrage of 7.62mm).

btw, why are all these helos named after indian tribes? apache, comanche, kiowa...
The Army usually names them after Indian tribes, I think it was because the first helos were seen as scouts, so it was seen as approp. Gremlin might be able to add more. The USN prefixes all of theirs with "Sea" eg Sea Knight, Sea Hawk etc...

If I recall correctly my US helo's there are, Soiux, Shawnee, Cayuse, Apache, Mojave, Mohwak, Iriquois, Choctaw, Blackhawk, Kiowa, Sequoia, Tarhe, Commanche ..... more, but my brain is starting to hurt... ;)
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Honestly the size of Apache isn't that much of a factor. The reason these guys get shot down is because they are doing a job they are not intended to do. Putting the aircraft in a high hover is suicidal and they do it all the time. This is how and why they are getting shot down with small arms fire. Ditto for the RPG shots, even the 160th SOAR Blackhawks were shot down by these while they were in a high hover.

GF is correct, helicopters were originally used as scouts and hence the Indian names were started. For some reason the Cobra was not named after an Indian tribe and I don't remember why that is. The Huey was officially named the Iroquois however nobody called/calls them that. The name Huey came from the original designation HU1 standing for Helicopter Utility 1. I can't be certain what year it started (maybe 67 or 68) but Bell started installing anit-torque pedals with the name "Huey" in big raised letters.

Pretty good gf! You only missed the mighty Chinook. We wont count the Mohawk as it's fixed wing ;)
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Gremlin, ah you win some you lose some, :D I can't believe that I added the little fixed wing and missed the big lumpy chinook... :eek
 

elkaboingo

New Member
yes these helos are going against doctrine. theyre supposed to stay low and fire hellfire at tanks. only problems is not many real tanks to take out.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
That's correct elkaboingo. Doctrine for the gunships is to stay low and concealed (masked). They would unmask to search for targets and If any are sighted they would mask again, move and then unmask to engage. Instead they are loitering around at high hover trying to "see" what's going on or trying to spot for the ground troops. Doing this in a populated area is not exactly what this type of work was meant for.

Even though the US Army has been training for LIC (Low Intensity Conflicts) Iraq was not exactly what they had in mind. It's typical for any armed force really, you usually end up fighting a war using lessons learned from the last war. That's all well and good assuming you fight the same type of war as you did the last time however this just never seems to happen :?
 
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