HIGH, HOT and HEAVY: THE CH-47 CHINOOK IN COMBAT ASSAULT OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN Chapter 3 OPERATION ANACONDA WOULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED WITHOUT THE CH-47 “US Army-style air assaults were key…the helicopter landings by hundreds of US troops at strategic locations in the Shahi Kowt Mountains were pulled off almost flawlessly on D Day,” Colonel Frank Wiercinski explained. Wiercinski was commander of the 101st Airborne Division’s Task Force Rakkasan, the air assault force for Operation ANACONDA which took place during March 2002 south of Gardez in Paktia Province. “We used Chinooks because of the altitude…the lowest HLZ was 8,500 feet…we needed to get to the HLZs fast with a lot of troops,” he later recounted, adding “the CH-47 was the helicopter of choice…we had just put in new 714 engines, incredibly powerful…we had up to 35 troops with full combat loading [per aircraft].” TF Rakkasan went on to conduct fourteen combat air assaults in support of ANACONDA. Lieutenant Colonel James Marye, commander of Task Force Talon, the US Army composite aviation unit in Afghanistan that actually flew the air assault missions, was equally complimentary of the Chinook, noting “no other airframe was capable of providing lift for that large a force at that altitude to achieve mass on each HLZ. “The Chinook was the assault platform of choice for that type of operation where massing large numbers of troops on a specific
Operation ANACONDA was the US military’s first conventional combat operation of the OEF campaign. It was the first time Chinooks and Apaches had ever operated together as a team in combat. Unfortunately, TF Talon may not have had a sufficient of number of Chinooks available to transport the entire Rakkasan force and its equipment to the valley all at the same time in one lift. “The whole mission economy of force due to the restricted footprint allowed in Afghanistan by direction of the Secretary of Defense,” explained Colonel Scott Kubica, Talon executive officer during ANACONDA. Ground commanders were forced to pick and choose which units and what supplies to take in first or leave behind. These decisions were difficult to make since intelligence estimates of the enemy situation in the Shahi Kowt were updated continually as new data came in prior to D-Day. In hindsight, for example, more mortars should perhaps have been included in the first lift. After inserting the first lift troops in the valley, the original six Chinooks returned to Bagram to pick up the remaining Soldiers and equipment. Inclement weather and enemy activity in and around the HLZs, delayed/prevented the second lift of Rakkasans from reaching the valley in a timely manner. More Chinooks, enough to move everyone and everything in one lift, may have been more effective. “Our deployment to OEF was done by USAF Strategic Airlift vice Sea Lift…that kept us from taking more Chinooks,” Colonel James Marye, TF Talon Commander emphasized. “Our full up sixteen ship Chinook company would have been able to accomplish the task” of transporting all of the Rakkasans and their equipment to the Shahi Kowt in just one lift. Marye conceded, however, that FARP TEXACO may not have been able to support more aircraft. “We had a pretty fair FARP capability, but it would have been a serious stretch with additional Chinooks, since they had to also fuel and rearm Apaches and Black Hawks, he later wrote.
the Taliban spring offensive. On the final mission, “we air assaulted all four maneuver companies,” Lieutenant Colonel Benchoff recounted. Chinook Air Assaults Continue in 2011 In addition to providing support to 2d BCT, 101st CAB Chinook pilots and crews also flew air assaults in October 2010 with 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3d BCT, 101st Airborne Division into the villages of Mushan, Zangabad, and Taluqan in the Horn of Panjway’i, 30 miles southwest of Kandahar City. Chinooks also conducted deliberate and hasty air assault missions in support of Special Operations Forces in RC-South. During one 30 day period, seven Chinooks were allocated every night for Special Operations missions. The new F model Chinooks, with moving map displays, digital advanced flight control system hover modes, common avionics architecture systems, and hovering symbology to see through dust, were nearly comparable, performance-wise, to the MH-47G models flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). “In the end, we were providing multiple aircraft and aircrews for multiple missions every night,” Captain Christopher Getter, B Company, 6-101 CAB, commander, later wrote. Captain Getter also estimated that the 21-aircraft Chinook team at Kandahar conducted at least 250 air assaults during its deployment in RC-South. Colonel William Gayler, commander of the 101st CAB, calculated that overall the brigade flew a combined total of 363 air assaults while deployed in Afghanistan. In a 2012 interview, Gayler described how his pilots often flew what he called 3D maneuvering flight patterns, constantly changing heading, altitude, and air speed, thereby causing Taliban gunners to continually adjust for height estimates, lead angles,
and range rates. “One of my tenets was never pattern set,” Colonel Gayler said, “Never do it the same way every time.” In February 2011, the 159th CAB replaced the 101st CAB in RC-South. Bravo Company, 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment deployed with new ‘F’ model Chinooks, while two attached companies – B Company, 1st Battalion, 171st Aviation Regiment (HIARNG) and B Company, 1st Battalion, 52d Aviation Regiment from Alaska – were equipped with older ‘D’ models. The majority of the aircraft were at Kandahar, with a platoon each at FOBs Tarin Kowt and Wolverine. Chinook pilots and crews flew air assault missions in support of all the ground units in the region, including US conventional and Special Operations forces, Afghan counterparts, and Romanian and Latvian troops. The general trend for CH-47 air assaults in continued, often with two conventional and two Special Operations insertions per night. “Typically two [conventional] companies would air assault into an objective area, stay for a couple of days, and then extract out,” said 7th Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gerblick. “Special Operations night assaults, on the other hand, were targeted raids…in and out in a couple of hours.” Bravo Company, 1-52 was advised prior to deployment to expect a preponderance of general support missions – battlefield circulation in support of multiple units in the AOR. Instead, the company was divided upon arriving in Afghanistan, with half the aircraft remaining at Kandahar and the other half split between Wolverine and Tarin Kowt. Due to the priorities in the AOR, “we were immediately assigned direct support missions at all three locations,” Captain Robert Bender, commander, B/1-52 explained after redeploying to Alaska. The most common air assaults were night cordon and search operations, involving two Chinooks and approximately 70 Soldiers/passengers, and requiring extraction within two to five days. Speed and surprise
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