Interesting Reading.....
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WASHINGTON -- The only retreat by U.S. forces in their stunningly successful invasion of Iraq last year has sparked a re-examination of the battlefield role of Apache helicopters in the face of fierce criticism that the aircraft is ill-equipped for future wars.
The retreat near Karbala last March 24 ended a strike deep behind enemy lines by 30 Apache Longbow helicopters, part of the Army's 11th Aviation Regiment based in Illesheim, Germany, and Fort Hood's 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment.
The Boeing helicopters, the most advanced in the U.S. inventory, bristled with high-tech missiles and enemy detection devices, but they were turned back by a barrage of low-tech ground fire.
The failed raid led the Army to change the way Apaches will be used in future conflicts.
Instead of training for strikes deep behind enemy lines, Apache pilots now get drilled more for close-air support of ground troops, and for fighting in urban settings.
New training also stresses more coordination with Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighter jets and aerial drones. Such coordination was lacking in the Karbala raid.
Army aviators are now being taught speed and maneuverability, lessons dusted off from the Vietnam era, when choppers also faced a substantial threat from small-arms fire.
On the night of the failed Karbala raid, the Apache crews intended to destroy one of Saddam Hussein's best units, the Republican Guard Medina Division, and to clear a path for the Army's lead ground unit -- the 3rd Infantry Division.
Saddam's forces were positioned near the city of Iskandariyah, 250 miles inside Iraq, just north of Karbala and some 30 miles south of Baghdad.
The 3rd Infantry was pushing north on Day 5 of the war, already in central Iraq and heading toward the Karbala Gap, named for a narrow passage between the city of Karbala and Lake Razzaza.
Shortly after leaving their base, the Apaches, flying at up to 120 mph close to the ground, were ambushed in a blizzard of gunfire and anti-aircraft flak. The pilots of the two-person helicopters halted their advance and pulled into a hover to return fire.
After all 30 Apaches had been raked by Iraqi fire, they broke off the fight and limped back to their desert base. One chopper was forced down, and its pilots -- David Williams and Ronald Young -- were held captive for three weeks.
Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired commander from Gulf War I, said the failed attack "was nearly a modern day 'Charge of the Light Brigade,'" referring to a Crimean War battle in 1854 in which an English brigade of 600 men suffered devastating losses when charging the Russian army.
The Congressional Research Service, an investigative branch of Congress that conducted an assessment of last year's U.S. invasion, concluded Apache forces that night had come perilously close to "a near disaster."
After the failed raid, Army officials junked plans for most Apache deep-attack missions and instead emphasized armed reconnaissance and close-air support for ground troops.
It was an abrupt shift in strategy. Lt. Gen. William Wallace, who commanded Army operations in Iraq during Gulf War II, said the helicopters "didn't perform the same role that I had envisioned for attack aviation."
The Longbow has a sophisticated fire-control radar system that can track up to 256 targets simultaneously and shoot up to 16 tank-killing Hellfire missiles. The missiles can be fired several miles away from a target so the aircraft doesn't have to fly too close to danger.
In the Karbala raid, commanders ordered pilots to obtain visual identification before attacking enemy positions, reducing some of their technical advantage.
In their counterattack, the Iraqis used rifles and low-tech anti-aircraft weapons, but in a highly organized, sophisticated way.
According to the 3rd Infantry's report on the conduct of the war, the Iraqis had employed "ambush experts" to defeat the Apaches.
Col. William Wolf, the 11th Regiment's commander, said in an interview that enemy forces had hidden anti-aircraft guns in the tree lines and in urban areas. The Iraqis had dramatically improved their ability to target Apaches since Gulf War I, when the choppers earned a reputation as a war horse, destroying hundreds of Iraqi pieces of armor in the open desert.
The new tactics were on full display the night of the raid when the ambushers focused their fire at the exposed flanks and rear of the aircraft, forcing them to pull into a hover so they could find their attackers on the ground and return fire. But the hover mode made the Apaches potentially more vulnerable.
It's this technological disparity between a low-tech enemy and the U.S. Apache force that has critics, even some in the Army, questioning what sort of role the aircraft should play in future conflicts. Enemies are likely to behave as the Iraqis did last spring and exploit the $24 million Longbow's vulnerabilities with swarms of $50 rocket-propelled grenades.
The experience of the Karbala raid loomed large last month when Army leaders terminated the $38 billion Comanche helicopter project. The Comanche was supposed to function alongside the Apache as a deep-strike attacker.
In announcing the termination, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army deputy chief of staff, alluded to Longbow experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan that he said negated the need for the Comanche.
"What we're seeing on the battlefield is (anti-aircraft) weapons systems, and where they're being employed is much more sophisticated in terms of target acquisition," Cody said.
Col. Michael Riley, who assessed the Apache Longbow performance in Iraq for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, points to numerous successful Apache missions in Iraq after the failed raid.
Within two days of the U.S. retreat, for example, Apache forces had regrouped and changed tactics, he said. An Apache strike by the Army's 101st Airborne Division was successful because the attack included close coordination with artillery strikes and fixed-wing Air Force aircraft that bombed the enemy.
"Pundits look at the failed raid and say, 'Look, Apaches don't work'" on the modern battlefield, Riley said. "But it was an anomaly."
That's also the view of McCaffrey, the retired general, who has studied the Karbala raid.
McCaffrey, who teaches at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said the assault was doomed from the outset because of poor planning and execution -- and not because of any inherent flaw in the chopper's mission or capabilities.
The Apache pilots, McCaffrey wrote in the Armed Forces Journal, a military trade magazine, "lifted off exhausted, at maximum load conditions, in a single column, to fly at low level over major urban concentrations, under enormous ground fire, to attack deep objectives almost completely unsupported by the joint battle team."
The Army's own post-mortem of the attack revealed Wolf, the 11th Regiment commander, had deviated dramatically from Army doctrine in carrying out the attack by launching his mission without a joint battle team.
That doctrine says attack helicopters should be used alongside other weapons -- primarily artillery and Air Force or Navy fighter/bomber aircraft -- that will soften up and tie down the enemy before the helicopter strike.
But Wolf's Apaches mounted a strike virtually on their own, with no help from those other elements.
"We can't fight as an independent force out there, and that I think was one of the issues with (the raid)," Riley said.
Gulf War I gave the Apache its first opportunity to show its potential as an attack weapon. The Pentagon says the 274 Apaches deployed made an impressive showing in that war, knocking out an estimated 500 tanks along with scores of other vehicles.
Army officials are fiercely protective of the Apache and assert it always will have a role, even if the aircraft drops the deep-strike missions it was designed for.
"Recommend re-addressing attack aviation doctrine," the 3rd Infantry report on Gulf War II concluded, so pilots are better trained for other types of operations "as opposed to deep attack operations."
Brig. Gen. E.J. Sinclair, commander of the Army's aviation center at Fort Rucker, said in an interview that major Apache training changes began immediately after the war.
"To say we are never going to do a deep attack with the Apache is wrong," Sinclair said. "There may be instances where we have to."
On a fast moving battlefield, an Apache squadron may be needed to rapidly confront enemy concentrations 30 to 45 miles behind the front lines.
"Call it whatever you want. But to me that is still deep maneuver," he said.
