The Masses vs.
High-Tech Weapons: The Defeat of the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment
While the imperialists
trumpet the superiority of their high-tech weapons and rely on them
to carry out their stand-off attacks and generally intimidate the
masses, at least one battle during the invasion demonstrated that
this "superiority" is not always what it is made out to be. On the
night of 23 March the US Army ordered the 11th Attack Helicopter
Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division to attack and destroy the
armour and artillery of the Medina Division of the Republican Guard.
Thirty-one AH-64D Apache attack helicopters - the most advanced
attack helicopters in the US inventory - were expected to carry
out what the US military calls a "deep-attack" and complete this
mission. In the first Gulf War the Apache, costing over $20 million
apiece, had been used to great effectiveness against Iraqi armour.
These aircraft were credited with destroying hundreds of Iraqi tanks
and armoured personnel carriers. But on the night of 23 March something
very different happened, throwing into question the viability of
the Army's helicopter deep-attack doctrine as a whole.
The 31 Apaches
of the 11 AHR began lifting off from Objective RAMS at 1:15 in the
morning. This was over two hours later than originally planned and
would mean that they would not be accompanied by a protective force
of fighter-bombers as is usually the case. This delay was mainly
a result of problems in refuelling the aircraft at the temporary
refuelling station that the US had set up in the desert. During
take-off one of the Apaches became disorientated in the cloud of
sand and dust that a helicopter causes in the Iraqi desert and crashed.
The rest then set out to find and engage the Medina Division's 2nd
Armoured Brigade, which they believed they had located through aerial
surveillance. They were confident in their mission and felt safe
since the US had been able to destroy most of Iraq's anti-aircraft
defences. Given the US's complete air superiority and large-scale
deployment of aerial surveillance of various types, any time Iraqi
anti-aircraft radar was turned on the US was usually able to locate
and attack it relatively quickly. But as the Apaches travelled north,
the US battle summary reports that all of the lights in the area,
including in the cities of Al Haswah and Al Iskandariyah, blinked
out for approximately two seconds. Immediately after that "the sky
erupted".
All 30 Apaches
came under intensive rifle and light machine-gun fire. One was shot
down and its two pilots captured. But more significantly all 29
other Apaches were hit and the entire regiment was forced to break
off the attack and return to base. There it was determined that
on average each aircraft had suffered 15-20 bullet holes. One had
a total of 29 holes. It took 30 days to return the entire regiment
to full operational capability.
The tactic
employed against the American attack was simple but effective. Knowing
that it is standard US practice to precede ground forces with large-scale
air attacks with planes followed by helicopters, soldiers and civilians
in an entire area covering a number of square kilometres were mobilised
and told to expect a formation of US helicopters coming from the
south some time that night. The US believes that the blinking lights
were a signal to commence firing. By firing in a predetermined direction
or quadrant the object was not to hit a specific helicopter (which
is relatively difficult even if they are flying at low altitude),
but rather to create a wall of bullets the helicopters would fly
into.
To quote the
US analysis, "...the Iraqi air defence 'system' was arguably not
vulnerable to traditional [methods of US attack since these] could
not realistically suppress several hundred Iraqis distributed throughout
a densely populated urban area firing small arms and light air defence
artillery... They [the Iraqi defenders] developed a simple, yet
sophisticated air defence 'system' virtually impossible to detect
and suppress& US forces are very effective at destroying air defence
radars that radiate and missile/gun systems, [so] the Iraqis avoided
using these as cornerstones in their network. Rather than using
radar, the Iraqis appear to have relied on ground observers who
reported on cellular phones and low-power radios. Finally, flickering
the city lights warned the shooters to be prepared to engage. Rather
than relying on easily targetable missile or gun systems, the Iraqis'
main weapon systems were the small arms widely distributed among
the general population. With rudimentary training on where to shoot
(at the apex over power lines), even paramilitary troops could contribute
to an air defence engagement area& Once the fight started, the fires
were so dispersed and distributed among populated areas that they
were virtually impossible to suppress. Consequently, the Iraqis
executed an air defence operation in which the early warning and
tracking systems operated below the US ability to detect and destroy;
equally important, the Iraqis distributed their air defence weapons
so widely that they could not be tracked or suppressed; and they
decentralised their command and control so that it could not be
effectively disrupted. The Iraqis, in this instance at least, used
the decade between the wars to develop tactics that produced a highly
survivable and effective air defence capability...."
In other words,
by relying on and mobilising the masses, the Iraqis found a "low
tech" way to defeat what the US Army considers one of its most advanced
and powerful weapon systems. The consequences of this incident were
much greater than just the embarrassment of losing an Apache to
fire coming mainly from lightly armed peasants in Iraq. This defeat
resulted in the US military having to fundamentally review its entire
attack helicopter doctrine. The result: the $14 billion programme
to build the Comanche, a "stealth" attack helicopter designed to
evade radar defences, was promptly cancelled since it dawned on
the Pentagon that the masses in Iraq had used no radar at all.
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