The US suffered a tremendous loss Saturday in Afganistan when the Andrew Jackson Downing of a Chinook chopper took the living of 31 particular force troop . AsDanger Room report , it may have been an entirely unexampled Taliban weapon that did it :
The passenger and gang of the duplicate - rotor CH-47 Chinook helicopter plausibly never saw the rocket hurtling towards them . The explosion and perfervid crash in Wardak province in eastern Afghanistan ahead of time on Saturday aurora shoot down all 38 people aboard the lumber chop .
For U.S. personnel , it was the bloodiest individual incident of the 10 - year - older Afghanistan war – and perhaps a mansion of the insurgence ’s continued power to introduce new implements of war . The onslaught is also a scarey reminder of the exposure of the U.S.-lead coalescency ’s essential helicopters . “ Shock and disbelief , ” is how one official qualify the reaction inside the war machine .
The dead include : five Army crew members , 19 U.S. Navy SEALs and their three bread and butter troops , an Afghan translator and sevenAfghan commandosplus threeAir Force controllersand one military working frank . “ Their deaths are areminder of the extraordinary sacrificesmade by the men and womanhood of our armed services and their folk , ” President Barack Obama say .
point of the shootdown are easy emerge . “ There will bemultiple investigating , ” a Special Operations Command official said .
Sometime late Friday , it appear , a squad of U.S. Army Rangers got pin down by insurgent fighter during a patrol in Wardak , a state just south of Kabul that , along withneighboring Logar province , is a major theatrical production orbit for the Taliban and other insurgent group .
The Rangers shout out in their “ Immediate Reaction Force , ” a chopper - acquit mobile reserve that orbits nearby during risky patrol . That sidereal day , IRF duty had fall to the Navy SEALs and their attachments , part of the 10,000 - warm Afghanistan - based Joint Special Operations Command job military force that , in add-on to toss off Osama bin Laden in May , also conducts as many as 70 raid per day in Afghanistan and Pakistan . In2,800 foray between April and July , JSOC captured around 2,900 insurgents and killed more than 800 , military sources said . That ’s twice as many raid compared to the same period a class ago .
Normally , JSOC ranger tantalise in tricked - out whirlybird – including stealth models – belong to the Army ’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment . But this weekend the SEALs hitched a ride in what was apparently a streamlet - of - the - pulverisation Army National Guard chopper .
With the SEALs ’ assistance , the Rangers fought back against their ambushers . Eight insurgents diedin the fighting , according to a Taliban spokesman . Believing the battle over , around 3:00 in the morning , local time , the SEALs and their allies climbed back into their CH-47 for the ride home . That ’s when all Hell snap off loose .
“ The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take , ” one unnamed Afghan functionary tells AFP . “ That ’s the only route , so they took position[s ] on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached , they attack it with rockets and other modern weapon . ”
“ It was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander , ” the official added .
The aircraft vanish to the ground in flames .
Chopper-Killer
The cause of the CH-47 crash is still under probe . “ The whirlybird was reportedly fired on by an insurgent rocket - propelled grenade , ” according to a coalition military press release . Which weapon – or weapon – were actually responsible for for the copter come down is not yet bang . Several publications claim an guerrilla Rocket - Propelled Grenade shine the eggbeater .
One Army insider who spoke to Danger Room went a stride further , saying the rocket may have been a special improvised simulation . A chopper - killer , if you will .
The so - called “ Improvised Rocket - Assisted Mortar ” made its debut in Iraq in 2008 , although not in attack on aircraft . IRAMscombine traditional tube mortar with Eruca sativa boostersand , in many case , distant triggers , allowing insurgents to fire them from a distance .
IRAMs have killed several U.S. troops in Iraq over the years ; in June , the weapons down six Americans . but have n’t factor out to a great extent in the Afghanistan fight . The weapon ’s appearance in Wardak , if confirm , could be cogent evidence of Afghan insurgent ’ continued ability to conform and innovate despite mounting losses .
Improvised rockets are notoriously inaccurate . But with bigger warheads than shoulder - fired RPGs , IRAMs are potentially much more destructive when they do hit .
Not that it select much to convey down a helicopter . Complex , dim and low - flying , choppers have always been vulnerable to snipe from the earth . The conglutination has lost hundreds of helicopters in Afghanistan over the last decade .
That the SEALs in Wardak were flying in a National Guard CH-47 probably did n’t make any dispute . “ Nothing about the aircraft would really make it more susceptible to ground fire than , say , a regular Army aircraft or a Special Ops birdie , ” the Army insider said .
Though enhanced Special Operations helicopters boast good sailing systems and , in some cases , evenstealthy outer shells , they ’re no more able to soak up an unguided projectile than any other copter . And for eggbeater , there ’s no efficacious countermeasure for unguided attacks besides belligerent flying , which is n’t really possible while the aircraft is close to the ground and full of scout group .
But in hilly Afghanistan , a country with few road , the coalition has little choice but torely on defenseless helicoptersfor even routine fare – to say nothing of combat opslike the SEALs ’ doomed weekend rescue .
That place huge demands on the aircraft and their operator . This is one subject of myforthcoming book From A to B. “ My heavy concern is upright lift , ” Army Lt . Col . Thomas Gukeisen , in 2009 the commandant of a combine U.S. and Czech force in Logar , tell me for the book . “ Vertical lift ” is Army jargon for choppers .
The IRAM ’s possible appearance in Afghanistan could make helicopters more vulnerable than they already are . At the same time , nothing short of aHerculean road - building effort – or a sudden , massive troop reduction – can quickly reduce the huge demand for rotorcraft .
“ We ’re not see any specific fresh character of weapons on the battlefield , ” he allege .
Whether or not an IRAM numeration as something “ new ” to Jacobsen is indecipherable ; we ’re following up to rule out . But even subtracting the IRAM , the result of that awful arithmetic is more crashed choppers and more dead coalition troops , on a even basis until the war terminate . Saturday ’s shootdown was an unusually bloody copter disaster , but it’shardly the firstfor the Afghan war . And it wo n’t be the last .
Photo and video : David Axe
Wired.com has been thrive the hive mind with technology , skill and geek cultivation tidings since 1995 .
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