Don't Shoot At The Skinny Helicopters, Either
A dispatch from the US
Central Command (the four-star military command that is in charge
of US Operations in the Middle East) informs us that hostile forces
in Iraq are unfamiliar with the two cliches that make up the title
and subtitle of this story -- the title, "Never Return To The Scene
Of The Crime," is a hoary old bit of advice from detective stories,
and TV shows in the same genre. And "Don't Shoot At The Skinny
Helicopters," a bit of legendary North Vietnamese Army advice to
newbies, actually was found on an instructional sign in an NVA
training camp.
The poor terrorists apparently haven't been watching TV (it's
"haram" in Wahhabi Islam, forbidden) or reading any books (apart
from the Koran, they're probably haram too). And in warfare, you
really need books because you don't always get a chance to live to
learn from experience. So they make errors like those recounted by
CENTCOM in dispatches about operations Saturday, October 16th.
Scene Of The Crime
"At approximately 1:25 p.m., Coalition forces conducted
an air strike against a group of terrorists attempting to emplace
an improvised explosive device east of Ramadi.
While conducting a combat air patrol, crewmembers from an F -15
observed 20 men arrive in four vehicles at the crater site of a
previously-detonated IED which had killed five US and two Iraqi
Soldiers on Oct. 15. The terrorists were in the process of
emplacing another IED in the same spot when the F- 15 engaged them
with a precision-guided bomb, resulting in the death of terrorists
on the ground."
This attack, from an
airplane that was far enough away and high enough up that the enemy
never knew what hit him, killed most or all of these men. It is
illustrative of the change in modern warfare that a plane such as
an F-15E Strike Eagle can deliver a weapon with enough precision to
kill specific individuals at a specific point on the ground without
hazard to innocents in nearby structures.
Considering the high probability that these bomb-planters were
the same gang that placed the earlier bomb (which killed seven
friendly soldiers), it's quite likely that some specific US Marines
will only come home to their families, thanks to the actions of
this single air crew.
Don't Shoot At...
"At approximately 7:30 p.m., a UH-1N Huey and AH-1W
Cobra helicopter team on patrol north of Ramadi had been observing
a group of military age males gathered at a suspected terrorist
safe house. After realizing their position had been compromised,
the terrorists fled the scene and engaged the Cobra with small arms
fire. The Cobra returned fire with 20 mm. munitions, resulting in
the death of an estimated 10 terrorists. At approximately 7:50
p.m., a team of F/A-18’s resumed observation at the suspected
safe house where they found an additional 35-40 terrorists loading
their vehicles with weapons and driving to another location to
unload the weapons. The F/A-18 targeted the terrorists with a
precision-guided bomb, killing terrorists on the ground. The
combined strikes resulted in approximately 50 terrorists
killed."
"The strikes took place in the Abu Faraj region, north of
Ramadi, where a large number of indirect fire and IED attacks
against civilians, Iraqi infrastructure, Iraqi security forces and
Coalition forces have originated."
As you can see, this was a double rules violation, because after
they shot at the skinny helicopters, a number of bad guys, possibly
including survivors of the helicopter fight returned to the scene
of the crime that evening. This incident is also notable for the
use of and armed/unarmed team of helicopters.
A half an hour after this incident, another element on the
ground was attacked at the Government Center in Ramadi. Once again,
an F/A-18 came to the rescue, delivering a Maverick missile into
the building the enemy were firing from.
What's The Use Of...
People often ask, "what use are modern jet fighters in guerrilla
war?" Well, here you have it. While the irregular fighter may blend
into the populace from time to time to escape scrutiny, to take
action he and his mates must assemble. And the air weapon of 2005
is not the indiscriminate city-busting bombing raid of the 1940s,
or even the far less random Forward Air Controller-directed bombing
of the 1960s, or the more precise yet laser-guided "precision" of
the 1970s and 1980s.
Improvements in weapons
guidance, navigation, and intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance make the jet fighter-bomber a deadly threat even to
a squad-sized element. And they do it with less hazard to innocents
on the battlefield than ever before in history. This is no less
than a revolution in the art and science of war.
Or, as the CENTCOM release puts it, "All the attacks were timed
and executed in a manner to reduce the possibility of collateral
damage. There were no reports of Coalition or civilian casualties."
So by day's end, some 70 enemy combatants were slain, mostly by the
fast jets that "experts" have gone on TV to say are no good in this
type of fighting.
The beastly nature of war is such, that mothers will inevitably
mourn their slain sons. Once the war is joined, what Air Power can
do is this: lift the mantle of mourning from the shoulders of our
nation's mothers, and lay it on the enemy's. The troops alive today
who would have been the victims of that second IED would probably
say that's a reasonable trade.