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.
Loren Thompson, director of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank in Arlington, Va., is skeptical about the future role of the Apache.
The Longbow "is the most capable attack helicopter ever built, so if it can't operate safely in a place like Iraq, that has to raise questions about the whole concept of attack helicopters," he said.
For all the Apache fleet's technological superiority, it has stark limitations against an enemy that dispersed its troops and hid them among farmhouses, date groves and palm trees and urban areas.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, chief of the 101st Airborne Division, candidly conceded the limitations of the assault helicopter.
"The Iraqis dispersed very early. ... They weren't massed in the way we want usually for Apache operations," he lamented.
Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff, is perhaps the fiercest Apache critic.
The prime lesson from the failed raid, McPeak asserts, is that attack helicopters are highly vulnerable to enemy ground fire. Compared with fixed-wing aircraft, Apaches are slow, low-flying and loud, easily spotted by the enemy, he said in an interview.
McPeak argues the Army should have abandoned using choppers for anything other than ferrying troops after Vietnam, where the Army lost about 5,000 helicopters and scores of crews. Most of those choppers were dual-use Hueys that could both move troops and attack.
"If evidence were enough to decide an issue, this would have been decided long ago," McPeak said of the use of helicopters for attacking targets. The Karbala ambush "is further confirmation of a track record that is being ignored."
The former Air Force chief's comments reflect at least in part a decades-long rivalry between the Air Force and the Army, with the Air Force maintaining destruction of targets behind enemy lines should be its domain, leaving Army helicopters the role of supporting ground troops.
Air Force Secretary James Roche sounded the same theme last week, telling reporters a major result of Gulf War II is that the Air Force likely will take over greater responsibility for deep attack missions like the Apache's.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pete Schoomaker has "done away with his (Comanche) deep penetrating helicopter and is saying, 'You guys go do that,'" referring to the Air Force, Roche said.
Nevertheless, Army officials assert that criticisms of the Apache are off target.
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.
