Still under intense fire, RAK 6 listened to the traffic on the net and realized that not only could the Apaches no longer be effective, but reinforcements hovering outside the objective area would neither be able to insert nor drop supplies to either his position or that of Task Force Summit. He made the call, and the CH-47s returned once again to base at Bagram.
Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division prepare to dig into fighting positions after a day of reacting to enemy fire on D+2. Note the night-vision rigs on the soldiers' helmets. US Army photo
The sun had finally gone down, and every time the Apache Team flew into the narrow valley at block position GINGER, the enemy seemed to have amassed more weapons against them. Since Chenault had no night vision, it was decided that the team would head back to the FARP. Said Carr, "It was getting dark and [Chenault]...had his night system taken out, so he had no way to fly back at night. What he ended up doing was using goggles in the back seat to navigate back, which in the mountains with limited 'lum' is a real chore." Following the two other aircraft, Chenault made his way out of the valley, over the passes, and to the FARP. There would be no more Apache support for the night. Task Force Summit would now have to rely on AC-130 gunships and fast-movers high overhead to provide close air support.
With the Apaches gone, fighter-bombers dropped JDAM after JDAM on the western ridgeline and other suspected enemy positions around the Brigade TAC and Task Force Summit. But the enemy had prepared his mortar positions well, embedding the base plates in concrete. Every time the bombers over flew their positions they would break down the mortar and run inside their caves and bunkers, coming out again once the strike was over.
Eventually, after a full day of pummeling, Taliban fire began to decrease. Preparations were made to bring in the Chinooks and extract the Brigade TAC and Task Force Summit. Task Force Raider in the north would remain in the valley and await reinforcements.
RAK 6 listened to the radio traffic and waited for his inbound CH-47. His was the last lift of the extraction, and he would leave the valley with the last remaining elements of Task Force Summit. It had been nearly twenty hours since H Hour - twenty hours of continual fighting for the Brigade TAC and men of Task Force Summit. Summit had taken 27 casualties out of 82 soldiers, though miraculously, none had been killed in action. Five of the seven Apaches into the valley sustained significant damage, but all would fly again.
D-Day, March 2, was a down and dirty affair in unfamiliar terrain, stretching the electronic aspects of the operation involving the soldiers on the ground and the Apaches overhead. Getting "eyes on the target" was done visually, as the distances to the enemy were often only a few hundred meters. Soldiers called in suspected positions, and the Apaches overhead then reacquired the target themselves before letting loose a barrage of fire. This was intermittently complicated by the line-of-sight radios used in the rugged, vertical terrain. At the end of the day, under the cover of darkness, Task Force Summit was extracted, validating the adage: "We own the night." However, the Apaches were not invulnerable, and the loss of Chenault's night-vision system forced the team to leave the battlefield as a group to guide Chenault back to base.
Dodge Billingsley is the director of Combat Films and Research (
http://www.combatfilms.com) and has collected material in various war zones, including Bosnia, Chechnya, and most recently Afghanistan. He has reported from Afghanistan for CBS and has recently been featured in numerous documentaries regarding his work during the fortress uprising in Mazar-e-Sharif.
Opinion
How'd They Do?
Armament and electrician repairmen for AH-64A Apaches in the 3rd Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), remove a maintenance apparatus from the front of one of the attack helicopters. Army repairmen in Afghanistan were hailed for their work in rapidly getting the Apaches ready to go into the battles of Operation Anaconda. However, the damage the Apaches received on D-Day were largely beyond their capabilities. US Army photo
The Apache community in the US Army regards the helicopter's engagements of the first day of Operation Anaconda as sweet vindication for the humiliations of the Task Force Hawk deployment to Albania in 1999. Consider this quote from an article that appeared in Army Times in March 2002:
The Apache exploits on this first day of the battle of Shah-e-Kot have done much to bolster the reputation of an aircraft that saw its battlefield role called onto question after its role in Albania in 1999.
In that bleak period in the helicopter's history, 24 Apaches were sent to Task Force Hawk for use in the war against Yugoslavia. But the choppers were held back from combat after two crashed and two pilots died during mission rehearsals.
The Apache community complained that ignorant journalists and casualty-averse Pentagon officials had unfairly turned their beloved killing machine into a scapegoat.
Now, three years later, the contrast could not be starker. The Apache crews are being lauded as heroes, and their helicopter is receiving what to many pilots is praise long overdue.
Rather than being a source of vindication or celebration, perhaps the experience of the Apaches in the low-tech, down-and-dirty warfare of Operation Anaconda would be more valuable as an occasion for the US Army to re-evaluate the mission, requirements, and capabilities of the attack helicopter and its crews. There are a number of lessons that can be drawn from the actions of Shah-e-Kot.
The role of escort for air-mobile operations is a specified mission for the Apache, as is the mission's mixed load-out of cannon, rockets, and Hellfire missiles. However, the conditions of Operation Anaconda were a stretch for the helicopter and its crews. In particular, the close-quarters fighting, where targets often were identified only after they had opened fire at ranges of less than a kilometer, were nothing like the Apache mission statement. The Apache was intended to seek out and destroy battlefield targets before they could engage either the helicopter or other friendly units. Recall the famous opening shots of Desert Storm by the Apaches of Task Force Normandy, where an air- defense site was struck from 8 km away. Not only was there no opportunity to do this at Shah-e-Kot, but the typical spotter-shooter teamwork of the Apache back and front seaters was thrown out the window, with both crewmembers expected to spot and fire weapons, even when they were not thoroughly trained to do so.
The flexibility of the training, however, was evident in the effectiveness of the sorties. Also encouraging was that CW3 Rick Chenault, who was the most experienced pilot, was named Team Leader over his front seater Capt. Joe Herman and even over his company commander, Capt. Bill Ryan, who flew with Team Two and was wounded early in the fight. The Army recognizes that flying experience counts for more than rank in a fight, and this is a very good thing.
The AH-64A model Apaches may prove to be more cost-effective and useful in the sorts of battles the US will find itself in than the vaunted AH-64D Longbows. Millimeter-wave fire-control radar would have been useless in the Shah-e-Kot engagement. Laser-guided Hellfire missiles homing on spots designated by crews were more valuable against entrenched infantry in rough terrain than fire-and-forget missiles. While Longbows can carry unguided rockets and laser-guided Hellfires, those expensive radar and RF interferometer masts would have gotten all shot up. According to the Army Times article quoted above, "27 of the 28 rotor blades among the seven helicopters sported bullet holes."
Although all of the helicopters were hit, and five were put out of action, none of them crashed, and none of the crewmembers were killed or even critically wounded. No doubt about it: The Apache is tough. But is it tough enough? That depends on how you look at it. One of the helicopters that was hit repeatedly made three sorties that day. On the other hand, how many Apaches committed to action on D-Day were mission ready for D+1? Five down out of seven is a tough attrition rate to maintain.
By accounts, the AN/ALQ-144 infrared jammer from BAE Systems (Nashua, NH) worked like a charm against man-portable air-defense-system (MANPADS) missile attacks. The persistent, omni- directional lamps provide continuous coverage and, therefore, don't require cuing by a missile-approach-warning system or the crew. This was perfect, under the circumstances. However, the overwhelming threat was from rocket-propelled grenade (RPGs), small arms, and anti-aircraft cannon fire. None of the Apache's self-protection system - other than armor - is useful against such threats. At close range, optical sights used by the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are accurate enough, so the Apache's laser and radar warning receivers had no value in the battle. Crews often didn't see rounds incoming on their own helicopters and watched powerless as they streaked in on their comrades.
For down-and-dirty helicopter fighting, improved and hardened optics and thermal-imaging systems are more important than targeting radar. A capacity for more cannon rounds is more useful than an improved guided missile. And while no countermeasure can thwart an unguided threat, warning systems that sense muzzle flash and RPG backblast might give crews a precious second's warning. In another world, such sources were called "false alarms."
