Just help me out here.
The SEAL helicopters were super great with stealth capability to evade Pakistani radar.
The reserve was a Chinook. Presumably it didn’t have stealth or super duper capability. How did it get there, and get away with the body, without Pakistan noticing?
They did notice and sent up interceptors. At least that is the story I heard.
There’s a limit to how stealthy a helo can be. The SEAL insertion copters were fast and quiet when they needed to be so. After the second one got crunched, then they dispatched the Chinook. At least that’s the way I’m piecing this together. Once the firefight started, they really didn’t care who knew what was flying in.
As far as a helo goes, generally stealth comes from limiting emitted radiation (heat and radio) and staying low to the ground (makes it harder for ground-based radars to get a good tag on you, and even airborne radar sets have to be relatively sophisticated to tell you apart from the ground immediately beneath you). I suppose you could coat it in radar-absorbent material and make it with all the cool stealthy angular shapes, but I don’t see a way to keep the rotors from looking like what they are: a set of rapidly spinning wings.
Anything particularly sensitive in the choppers would be in the form of stuff like onboard electronics or identifying markings. Plus one of the central pillars of Operational Security is to give the enemy as close to absolutely nothing as humanly possible to work off of. You don’t know if they know what kind of computers you use, what sort of radio equipment you carry, what unit is operating helicopters in the area, or what tire company makes the tires for the landing gear, so you destroy the chopper “Just In Case”, and keep them from learning even that much.
Quietness is a major aspect to making a chopper “stealthy”. The support choppers would obviously give them away to radar so my assumption is that they probably just jammed the radar and used the quietest fastest choppers in inventory for the assault.
I assume that the reserve Chinook didn’t initially go all the to the compound. So while the raid was actually going on, was it just hovering in the air or land in some field outside of town awaiting word on how to proceed?
After the first shot is fired, it probably didn’t matter where it was. I would think that it followed behind the two assault helicopters just far enough to give the teams enough time to hit the ground before noisily clattering in. Then it would be on station to provide extra eyes and firepower.
I’m sure the chopper that went down was crazy expensive and it seems almost ironic that it was brought down by a wall.
On a more pedestrian note, it’s not a real good idea to leave a helo laying around a neighborhood. Some kids could come by and fire off some rockets or at least steal ammo to pound with a hammer or whatever.
Yes, it would be one of the more dangerous pieces of playground equipment that you can think of.
Worse than a jungle gym? I don’t think so!
Sure, but the guy flying it was doing so in near-total darkness, into a place he had never landed in before*, probably while being shot at by people in the compound. Stealth only goes so far; everyone in the compound would be awakened by the helicopters hovering overhead, and surely someone had found a gun and started shooting by that point. It’s also possible that it was somewhat damaged by the aforementioned shooting and the pilot decided it simply wasn’t worth it to risk flying it out.
*Yes, I know they drilled in a mock-up compound elsewhere. Still, it is a new place and he was probably worried that bin Laden had some kind of a surprise waiting.
You beat me to it, gosh darn you!
Yeah, I totally understand all that but one would expect a bigger threat than a wall to take out a top-line chopper with a top-line pilot. The problem could have been something as simple as pilot error. Still seems almost humorous. The pilot won’t be talking about that back at the bar.
There is the tail section that was outside of the compound. I suppose it depends on what happens to that.
you notice that practically all military operations involving choppers has to bring mr murphy along? it’s not really one’s preferred way to go around as long as there are other options.
Helicopters don’t fly - they beat the air into submission. They were invented by Murphy.
Strangely enough, when I was going to primary school (would have been mid 60’s) there was an old army truck abandoned on the side of the road where one of my friends lived. After a few years we decided to investigate. In the back there was a heap of ammunition in cardboard boxes (it had been covered by some tarp) which to my untrained eye seemed in good condition. It was still shiny.
I presume it was left there by US or Australian forces during the Second World War. The area was (then) an outer suburb but by no means was it concealed.
Have no idea why it was undisturbed- or what happened to it.