crazyitalian
01-12-2011, 12:52
From the Marine Corps Gazette.
Operation RED WINGS What really happened?
by Ed Darack
Published in the Jan 2011 Marine Corps Gazette
The events of Operation RED WINGS, which spiraled into disaster shortly after the insert of a four-man Naval Special Operations Forces (NavSOF) reconnaissance and surveillance (R&S) team during the opening phase of the operation, present war fighters (and those covering military operations) with a broad array of vital contemporary case studies relevant to those functioning at the battalion staff, company, platoon, and squad levels.
These include studies forces and SOF, the paramount necessity of unity of command/effort, communications in complex mountainous terrain, mountain ambush tactics, and the importance of comprehensive, de-tailed planning, among others. Despite these lessons (the knowledge of which will arguably save lives in future operations), little has been discussed in professional military papers about Operation RED WINGS. However, much has been written and discussed about RED WINGS in general media (which is often referenced by war fighters for their ongoing professional military education), and much of this, including the content of two books on the topic, is rife with misinformation.
Background, Key Points, and Aftermath
In November 2004, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines (3/3) arrived in Regional Command-East (RC-East), Afghanistan, and assumed responsibility of their area of operations (AO), which included the restive Kunar Province. 3/3's overarching goal was to continue to increase stability in the region with Afghanistan's 18 September 2005 national parliamentary elections on the horizon. 3/3 deployed not as part of a MAGTF but as an infantry battalion to be integrated into a combined joint task force (CJTF). 3/3's staff identified deconfliction issues with SOF units working in the same geographic areas that 3/3's AO covered. However, 3/3's staff also identified force multiplicative opportunities they felt working with SOF would avail to the battalion. 3/3 developed a novel model that allowed for operational integration, deconfliction, and defacto operational control (OPCON) of SOF ground units and SOF support assets not normally available to conventional forces.
One of the culminating achievements of 3/3's tour in RC-East was the forced surrender of a regional high value target anticoalition militia (ACM) leader named Najmudeen, whom conventional and SOF units had sought for years. Subsequent to Najmudeen's surrender, which occurred just after Operation SPURS, 3/3 conducted Operation MAVERICKS and then Operation CELTICS. All three of these operations incorporated SOF in their opening phases. In May and June2005, during the relief in place/transfer of authority with 2/3, 3/3's staff began planning Operation STARS, which was to focus on ACM activity in the Korengal Valley region, to the west of Asadabad, the Kunar's provincial capital Due to a decline in actionable intelligence feed, however, STARS had to be delayed, and ultimately 3/3 handed what at that point was a "shell" of an operation to 2/3. 2/3's staff took the operational shell, renamed it RED WINGS and, through analysis of intelligence, identified a relatively small (less than 20 ACM), little- known cell and its leader, Ahmad Shah, as the focus for RED WINGS. (Shah was attempting to fill the regional ACM power void after Najmudeen's surrender to 3/3.) Shah based his operations high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar Mountain, which sits between the Korengal Valley and the Shuryek Valley.
The purpose of RED WINGS, in continuance of 3/3's operations, was to disrupt ACM activity (with Shah as the focus) prior to the 18 September 2005 national elections. The Marines planned to have a six man scout/sniper team traverse a series of valleys and ridges under cover of darkness to a group of predetermined observation points high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar for the opening, or shaping phase, of RED WINGS. Once the scout/sniper team had positively identified Shah and his group, a larger force of Marines was to undertake the direct action phase, while a company sized element of Marines functioned as outer cordon.
For this second phase,
2/3 required assault support capable of low-illumination infiltration/exfiltration. Not having an associated aviation combat element, the 2/3 staff requested support from the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment (Airborne) (160th SOAR(A)) from Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A). REDWINGS was similar in design to operations conducted by 3/3, but 2/3 sought the integration of only a SOF aviation support element, not ground forces. The SOTF, which had recently undergone a command change to one less amenable to SOF combined force integration, responded that 2/3 could be granted 160th support but only if SOF ground personnel undertook the opening two phases of RED WINGS and were tasked as the lead supported elements with full OPCON (inclusive of 2/3) for these phases. With no alternatives, the battalion staff agreed. The ground force that agreed to undertake the supported first two phases of RED WINGS was a NavSOF group consisting of an assortment of U.S. Navy SEALs deployed to Afghanistan at that time.
The NavSOF element planned the specifics of these first two phases of RED WINGS with 2/3's staff providing input, including briefing the SEALs with preselected 10-digit grid reference points on the target area for calls for fire from a 105mm artillery battery at Forward Operating Base Wright (outside of Asadabad) and a recommendation to augment the SEAL's communications plan (to carry a more robust, albeit heavier, radio), among other points.
Operation REDWINGS began with an insertion of a four-man NavSOF R&S team near the summit of Sawtalo Sar late in the night on 27 June 2005. As with the specifics of the planning of this phase, 2/3 played no direct role in command and control, as this was the "SOF supported" portion of the operation. The team was inserted by helicopter within 1 mile of a populated area-sparsely populated, but populated nonetheless. Late in the morning on 28 June 2005, unarmed locals soft compromised the team. (Soft compromised means opposing forces have detected you; hard compromised means they're trying to kill you.) Within approximately 1 hour of the compromise, a group of between 8 and 10 of Shah's men (including Ahmad Shah himself ) ambushed the R&S team, utilizing AK-47 fire, PK ((Pulemyot Kalashnikova) designed by the Soviet Union and currently in production in Russia) light machinegun fire, rocket propelled grenade (RPG) fire, and possibly an 82mm mortar system.
As the R&S team descended into the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar (on the Shuryek Valley side of the mountain) under the press of the ambush, Shah's men engaged the team with coordinated plunging, interlocking fires from multiple superior topographic positions. The R&S team attempted to establish communications with their combat operations center via satellite through an AN/PRC-148 radio, which failed, and then attempted communications with an Iridium satellite phone, which failed. Shah's men killed three of the team within 1 hour. Hours later a quick reaction force (QRF) was launched, consisting of members of NavSOF and Marines, in separate aircraft.
2/3's air officer requested that before any aircraft attempted any insert, members of the QRF positively identify member(s) of the R&S team, either visually or by radio. The pilots agreed. No positive identification could be made. Despite this shortfall, aviators of one of two MH-47s of the 160th attempted to insert eight NavSOF personnel near the summit of Sawtalo Sar. During this insert attempt, one of Ahmad Shah's men shot the MH-47 out of the sky with an RPG, killing all 16 personnel onboard.
Shah's men recovered virtually all of the R&S team's gear, including three M4s fitted with M203 40mm grenade launchers, rounds for the M4s and M203s, low-illumination visualization equipment, an intact AN/PRC-148 radio, a sniper spotting scope and, among many other items, a laptop computer with an intact hard drive containing classified material including detailed maps of the U.S. and British Embassies in Kabul. Coalition forces could only presume that Shah would utilize what he and his men recovered from the SEALs in their future attacks against U.S., coalition, and Afghan civilian and government personnel and facilities.
A massive search and recovery effort was launched in the wake of the ambush and subsequent MH-47 shoot down. A local villager who had befriended Marines at Camp Blessing, roughly 8 miles distant, had found and then protected the only survivor of the R&S team; he sent another villager to Blessing with a note from the survivor. As the bodies of the SOF personnel were recovered and the survivor rescued, Shah and his men absconded into Pakistan, where they produced and distributed one of two videos they shot during the ambush for propaganda purposes. While the massive coalition presence during the recovery effort achieved the desired end state of the operation (disruption of ACM activity), this was a short-lived and pyrrhic "victory." Foreign fighters flowed in to join the emboldened Shah due to his overnight infamy. (Media had reported only a few facts of the operation, and the dramatic loss of so many U.S. troops was the lionized focus of this coverage.)
Operation RED WINGS What really happened?
by Ed Darack
Published in the Jan 2011 Marine Corps Gazette
The events of Operation RED WINGS, which spiraled into disaster shortly after the insert of a four-man Naval Special Operations Forces (NavSOF) reconnaissance and surveillance (R&S) team during the opening phase of the operation, present war fighters (and those covering military operations) with a broad array of vital contemporary case studies relevant to those functioning at the battalion staff, company, platoon, and squad levels.
These include studies forces and SOF, the paramount necessity of unity of command/effort, communications in complex mountainous terrain, mountain ambush tactics, and the importance of comprehensive, de-tailed planning, among others. Despite these lessons (the knowledge of which will arguably save lives in future operations), little has been discussed in professional military papers about Operation RED WINGS. However, much has been written and discussed about RED WINGS in general media (which is often referenced by war fighters for their ongoing professional military education), and much of this, including the content of two books on the topic, is rife with misinformation.
Background, Key Points, and Aftermath
In November 2004, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines (3/3) arrived in Regional Command-East (RC-East), Afghanistan, and assumed responsibility of their area of operations (AO), which included the restive Kunar Province. 3/3's overarching goal was to continue to increase stability in the region with Afghanistan's 18 September 2005 national parliamentary elections on the horizon. 3/3 deployed not as part of a MAGTF but as an infantry battalion to be integrated into a combined joint task force (CJTF). 3/3's staff identified deconfliction issues with SOF units working in the same geographic areas that 3/3's AO covered. However, 3/3's staff also identified force multiplicative opportunities they felt working with SOF would avail to the battalion. 3/3 developed a novel model that allowed for operational integration, deconfliction, and defacto operational control (OPCON) of SOF ground units and SOF support assets not normally available to conventional forces.
One of the culminating achievements of 3/3's tour in RC-East was the forced surrender of a regional high value target anticoalition militia (ACM) leader named Najmudeen, whom conventional and SOF units had sought for years. Subsequent to Najmudeen's surrender, which occurred just after Operation SPURS, 3/3 conducted Operation MAVERICKS and then Operation CELTICS. All three of these operations incorporated SOF in their opening phases. In May and June2005, during the relief in place/transfer of authority with 2/3, 3/3's staff began planning Operation STARS, which was to focus on ACM activity in the Korengal Valley region, to the west of Asadabad, the Kunar's provincial capital Due to a decline in actionable intelligence feed, however, STARS had to be delayed, and ultimately 3/3 handed what at that point was a "shell" of an operation to 2/3. 2/3's staff took the operational shell, renamed it RED WINGS and, through analysis of intelligence, identified a relatively small (less than 20 ACM), little- known cell and its leader, Ahmad Shah, as the focus for RED WINGS. (Shah was attempting to fill the regional ACM power void after Najmudeen's surrender to 3/3.) Shah based his operations high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar Mountain, which sits between the Korengal Valley and the Shuryek Valley.
The purpose of RED WINGS, in continuance of 3/3's operations, was to disrupt ACM activity (with Shah as the focus) prior to the 18 September 2005 national elections. The Marines planned to have a six man scout/sniper team traverse a series of valleys and ridges under cover of darkness to a group of predetermined observation points high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar for the opening, or shaping phase, of RED WINGS. Once the scout/sniper team had positively identified Shah and his group, a larger force of Marines was to undertake the direct action phase, while a company sized element of Marines functioned as outer cordon.
For this second phase,
2/3 required assault support capable of low-illumination infiltration/exfiltration. Not having an associated aviation combat element, the 2/3 staff requested support from the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment (Airborne) (160th SOAR(A)) from Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A). REDWINGS was similar in design to operations conducted by 3/3, but 2/3 sought the integration of only a SOF aviation support element, not ground forces. The SOTF, which had recently undergone a command change to one less amenable to SOF combined force integration, responded that 2/3 could be granted 160th support but only if SOF ground personnel undertook the opening two phases of RED WINGS and were tasked as the lead supported elements with full OPCON (inclusive of 2/3) for these phases. With no alternatives, the battalion staff agreed. The ground force that agreed to undertake the supported first two phases of RED WINGS was a NavSOF group consisting of an assortment of U.S. Navy SEALs deployed to Afghanistan at that time.
The NavSOF element planned the specifics of these first two phases of RED WINGS with 2/3's staff providing input, including briefing the SEALs with preselected 10-digit grid reference points on the target area for calls for fire from a 105mm artillery battery at Forward Operating Base Wright (outside of Asadabad) and a recommendation to augment the SEAL's communications plan (to carry a more robust, albeit heavier, radio), among other points.
Operation REDWINGS began with an insertion of a four-man NavSOF R&S team near the summit of Sawtalo Sar late in the night on 27 June 2005. As with the specifics of the planning of this phase, 2/3 played no direct role in command and control, as this was the "SOF supported" portion of the operation. The team was inserted by helicopter within 1 mile of a populated area-sparsely populated, but populated nonetheless. Late in the morning on 28 June 2005, unarmed locals soft compromised the team. (Soft compromised means opposing forces have detected you; hard compromised means they're trying to kill you.) Within approximately 1 hour of the compromise, a group of between 8 and 10 of Shah's men (including Ahmad Shah himself ) ambushed the R&S team, utilizing AK-47 fire, PK ((Pulemyot Kalashnikova) designed by the Soviet Union and currently in production in Russia) light machinegun fire, rocket propelled grenade (RPG) fire, and possibly an 82mm mortar system.
As the R&S team descended into the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar (on the Shuryek Valley side of the mountain) under the press of the ambush, Shah's men engaged the team with coordinated plunging, interlocking fires from multiple superior topographic positions. The R&S team attempted to establish communications with their combat operations center via satellite through an AN/PRC-148 radio, which failed, and then attempted communications with an Iridium satellite phone, which failed. Shah's men killed three of the team within 1 hour. Hours later a quick reaction force (QRF) was launched, consisting of members of NavSOF and Marines, in separate aircraft.
2/3's air officer requested that before any aircraft attempted any insert, members of the QRF positively identify member(s) of the R&S team, either visually or by radio. The pilots agreed. No positive identification could be made. Despite this shortfall, aviators of one of two MH-47s of the 160th attempted to insert eight NavSOF personnel near the summit of Sawtalo Sar. During this insert attempt, one of Ahmad Shah's men shot the MH-47 out of the sky with an RPG, killing all 16 personnel onboard.
Shah's men recovered virtually all of the R&S team's gear, including three M4s fitted with M203 40mm grenade launchers, rounds for the M4s and M203s, low-illumination visualization equipment, an intact AN/PRC-148 radio, a sniper spotting scope and, among many other items, a laptop computer with an intact hard drive containing classified material including detailed maps of the U.S. and British Embassies in Kabul. Coalition forces could only presume that Shah would utilize what he and his men recovered from the SEALs in their future attacks against U.S., coalition, and Afghan civilian and government personnel and facilities.
A massive search and recovery effort was launched in the wake of the ambush and subsequent MH-47 shoot down. A local villager who had befriended Marines at Camp Blessing, roughly 8 miles distant, had found and then protected the only survivor of the R&S team; he sent another villager to Blessing with a note from the survivor. As the bodies of the SOF personnel were recovered and the survivor rescued, Shah and his men absconded into Pakistan, where they produced and distributed one of two videos they shot during the ambush for propaganda purposes. While the massive coalition presence during the recovery effort achieved the desired end state of the operation (disruption of ACM activity), this was a short-lived and pyrrhic "victory." Foreign fighters flowed in to join the emboldened Shah due to his overnight infamy. (Media had reported only a few facts of the operation, and the dramatic loss of so many U.S. troops was the lionized focus of this coverage.)