Mass Apache Assault Goes Wrong - Operation Iraqi Freedom - Animated

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The difference between this operation and Desert storm is night and day. Dessert storm had an insane amount of complexity within such a short span of time, and yet the whole thing ran smooth as silk. OIF had so many failures of communication and so many small yet critical errors occurring consistently.

I have a professor who was an Apache pilot in the 6th air cavalry. This mission was the object lesson for "doing what you want even when conditions say otherwise," because this mission began while 9 of the 10 pre-planned go/no go conditions were in NO-GO stage. The mission planners ignored those in favor of the one condition that was in GO mode, even though protocol dictated that one NO-GO condition was cause for cancellation. With the right hubris, even the army's finest can execute stupid missions.

I really like seeing failures in addition to successes. War is a tough business and learning from mistakes is invaluable.

There’s a documentary on this called “Apache Warrior (2017)” available on Prime Video last I checked. It’s fascinating in that it uses 100% authentic live footage from the entire operation itself: both the Apache gun cams and the radio chatter as opposed to filler or recreated footage. The scenes showing what the small arms fire coming up from the urban areas after the “signal” was given is harrowing, when the situation escalates real fast.

Kev Main's shoot-down was primarily due to the way the Patriot battery had been deployed and effectively isolated. There are many methods of combat ID - recovery lanes, altitude, speed, flightpath, RT, lame-duck procedures, JTIDS tracks, recognised air picture, Mode 1 and Mode 4 IFF systems. Both the air and ground environment recognises that equipment can fail, aircraft can be off-track, datalink tracks can go down and that some potential threat systems may or may not be present in a particular conflict. Kev and Dave's recovery had every combat ID system and procedure working for them, save for Mode 4 IFF - but their Mode 1 IFF was still working. In no way should this equipment limitation equal a threat ID, as it was identified as friendly by multiple systems long before the Patriot event took place. Regrettably, perhaps recklessly, the Patriot battery had no knowledge of the recovery profiles, safe lanes or recovery points. They also had no access to the Air Tasking Orders, so had no idea what was expected to be there or the exact location of the coalition airbase. Unbelievably they had no radio comms to anything relevant to the air picture, no datalinks, no current orders and no credible command structure. For reasons that remain opaque, they had the Patriot system set to alarm on any possible (global) threat system, rather than set for systems Iraq actually had.   When configured this way pretty much anything could be falsely classified as a threat. Moreover, they had not been given the Mode 1 IFF codes to load or have an ability to manually check for them but still operated in a manner that assumed Mode 1 capability. In effect the Patriot battery had become an ungoverned and uncontrolled combat system that was solely reliant on its own Mode 4 IFF interrogator working seamlessly with all coalition Mode 4 aircraft transponders. There has to come a point where a Patriot or other similar air defence system is so incapable of achieving its mission that it has to be taken down. Neither the battery command chain or the individual Patriot units had any idea of the threat they posed to their own aircraft. They had become murderously lethal to any aircraft without Mode 4 alone, even if every other positive method of friendly ID was in place. During the subsequent enquiry I was shocked to learn how close Patriot batteries had come to firing when they tried to engage friendly aircraft in the lead-up to this event; yet nobody seemed to realise that the batteries were fighting their own imaginary war against non-existent slow-speed formations of anti-radiation missiles.

"Overconfident is the greatest enemy in the battlefield." - Hikaru Ichijyo

As a former AH-1 and then AH-64 pilot (1989-1994) none of this is a surprise. Army aviation was full of brave intelligent officers but none of the tactics in place had really been tried in combat. This mission reveals the flawed concept of the attack helicopter in general. They are far too vulnerable to even small arms fire. On a macro scale you have to realize that all of this treasure was expended for the sake of non-existent WMD that the Bush administration either knew were not there, or it represents the most colossal intelligence failure in US history. Take your pick.

it should also be noted that at the time of the blue on blue the air defense system was not informed of what was even going on with the air force or to be expecting any planes it seems crazy to think that communication between branches was so weak back then given how intense it is now

I was at that battle fighting on the Iraqi side, it was Nebuchanezzar infantry division who fought against the Apaches, not Medina armored division

The fact that they actually thought they could use Apaches this way instead of as long range anti tank support for infantry and armored attacks is just crazy.

I don't know what they expected flying low above urban zones populated with enemy infantry

Anybody notice a huge contrast between the successes of Desert Storm compared to OIF?

It's a small moment in this video, but I do want to say thank you for not just parroting the stupid narrative around the RAF tornado and patriot event. Far too many times I see people on the internet say that the Patriot automatically fired at the tornado because it thought it was a cruise missile when that's not how patriot works. Also, too many times with this story I hear people talking about how coalition Air forces became scared of the Patriot batteries who were assisting them which is also not true. Thank you for actually doing the research on that part and not contributing to the amplification of the dumb stuff.

I remember the RAF Tornado shoot down as there were journalists in the 101st Airborne harbour area below who saw the incident

This operation detailed the great flaw in post Cold War Apache helicopter tactics. During the Cold War Apaches could sit behind hills and pop up to wear out Soviet Pact armored divisions from a distance as those forces advanced. Few Soviet anti-aircraft assets could touch them and those that could were likely attrited by NATO ground forces before they had the opportunity to. Once the Apaches expended their ordnance they could with draw along defended egress routes to refuel, rearm, and then return. But in the post Cold War era the US Army developed the Deep Attack tactic to use Apaches offensively against enemy forces behind their own lines. These required elaborate coordination and Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) artillery fires to succeed. Not only that, but the only artillery systems that could reliably attack deep behind enemy lines were the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) firing the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACM). ATACMS are large - an MLRS launcher can only fire two and the later HIMARS launcher can only fire one. These were great against large Anti Aircraft weapon systems (provided they were correctly identified and located among all the decoys Iraqis set up). But even mere infantry units could ambush Apaches as they went by. Infantry forces too large, possibly too entrenched and dispersed for ATACMS to be useful. Though in a well coordinated attack such infantry wouldn't be positioned to do much effect. But in this case, per the video, the attack was too telegraphed so the Iraqis were.  Of course this begged the question, why use men and helicopters supported by multi million dollar missiles in elaborate attacks when the missiles themselves could do the job? The answer: The US Army didn't want to discard an entire branch. That's not to say such operations were impossible. Other Apache deep attacks during the invasion with well coordinated SEAD succeeded nicely. Also, the Apache went on to have considerably more success supporting infantry in counter insurgency fights later on. Ultimately, I think the Apache unit commanders were too eager and ignored the red flags.

Crashed into an Iraqi Rice paddy? Not something I'd expect to hear. But, here we are.

I think the problem here was similar to the one that led to the Desert One disaster in Operation Eagle Claw - every service wanted a piece of the action even if they weren’t suited for it or the mission didn’t require it. Slow, noisy, vulnerable attack helicopters going on a long-distance mass raid? What could go wrong?

They sent my happy butt to Iraq in December 2003. In that time the Army pounded into our heads on what to do if in a ambush, like the 507th. We spent the better part of two weeks going over this, one week at Fort Riley and one more week at BIAP. I was a late arrival for my unit, so I was lumped in with a bunch of other people from different units for these training weeks. Fortunately the people I was with knew what they were doing, they had experience, some had served in combat before this. Except for two guys. We formed groups and our job was to search a vehicle and the occupants as if we are at a checkpoint. Two soldiers acted like Iraqis and would try to either get away or set off the 'bomb'. These two guys didn't take it seriously in their search. For some reason they just started laughing and one of the Iraqis 'blew up' the car. The sergeants running the show berated these guys and ordered them to the back of the line to do it again. Later on, we formed two squads to assault an Iraqi militant camp. It really was those two sergeants standing in a open area. Everything was simulated. One squad laid down fire while my squad advanced on the right flank. When it was our turn to lay down fire, the first squad advanced. There was this thin stream of water moving through the cleared area. Surprisingly it rained when I reached Iraq. The first squad reached this stream and one of the guys tried to tip toe around or over it. The sergeants, again, laid into them. "You afraid of getting your feet wet?! This is a war zone! Why are you afraid of getting your boots wet? It's mud! It's not going to hurt you! Bullets will!" That was the theme throughout the training. "If you don't pay attention. If you don't follow instructions. If you try to be soft and avoid getting dirty, then you're not going to make it out." Oh, for some reason the sergeants also brought out an empty body bag, and told me to lay on top of it. On top, not in it, and to lay perfectly still. As I did so and staring up at the bright blue sky, a helicopter went flying by. "You hear that? That chopper is coming to get you. If you don't pay attention this is how you're going to end up!" I don't know why I was chosen for that one. I think I was just the first person that sergeant saw. Anyway, fun times. Last thing, the place we did the training was on one section of the airport. There was one of Saddam son's houses we were at. They had one of their nice cards there, too. We got to see it.

That is really top notch work. And the video montage is really solid too!