Another good read about the war and resistance

[codeorama]

U.S. Apache Helicopter Downed in Iraqi-Held Territory

Cause of Helicopter's Crash Not Clear

Iraqis celebrate Monday in front of a downed US Apache helicopter in Karbala, a predominantly Shiite city 50 miles south of Baghdad. (Karim Sahib - AFP)

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, March 24, 2003; 12:40 PM

CENTRAL IRAQ, Iraq, March 24-The Iraq war's first deep assault by attack helicopters turned into a frenzied battle early this morning as U.S. pilots came under intense fire from anti-aircraft artillery and individual Iraqis with rifles, pilots said. One AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter went down in Iraqi-held territory, due either to enemy fire or mechanical failure.

The pre-dawn attack was aimed at tanks and other armament of President Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard around Karbala, south of Baghdad. Col. Bill Wolf, commander of the Army's 11th Aviation Regiment, said the air assault by Longbows crippled four or five Iraqi tanks and several light vehicles.

But pilots said they were forced to abandon most of their targets because of an intense curtain of fire that rose from streets, roofs and backyards, hitting nearly all their aircraft.

"It was coming from all directions -- I got shot front, back, left and right," said pilot Bob Duffney, 41, a chief warrant officer 4 from Springfield, Mass., who flew combat helicopters in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "In Desert Storm, we didn't have a firefight like this," he said.

[iraqi television aired footage of a Longbow sitting in a field, surrounded by Iraqis waving rifles, Reuter news service reported. The aircraft, still bearing its missiles, appeared largely undamaged. There was no sign of the crew in the video; in Qatar, General Tommy Franks said they are being treated as missing in action.]

U.S. pilots said they came under all sorts of fire -- some apparently from Iraqi troops using anti-aircraft artillery, some from individuals firing AK-47 rifles or rocket-propelled grenades. Much of it rose from tree-lined suburban streets and backyards, raising a specter of how dangerous urban combat could be as U.S. forces approach Baghdad.

"It's somewhat frustrating. We can't take out a street block, because of the way we go to war," said Wolf, referring to concerns about harming civilians.

Regiment officers said it appeared that most of the damaged helicopters could be repaired. But helicopters operations suffered a further setback later Monday, when three CH-47 Chinooks transporting spare parts from Kuwait were fired on near the Apache helicopter base south of Baghdad and had to jettison their loads.

U.S. pilots said they responded to the fire on their Apaches with 30-mm cannons and four-foot-long rockets that are as thick as baseball bats.

The Apache Longbow is the new star of the Army's helicopter fleet, a high-tech craft that uses radar to swiftly identify and prioritize targets.

It has infrared capacity to "see" at night and carries radar-programmed Hellfire missiles that pilots can "fire and forget" because there is no need to remain locked on to a target, as is necessary with laser-guided missiles. The Hellfires have a range of about five miles.

One of the pilots, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Steven Kilgore, 34, of Gary, Ind., said it was not surprising that the sophisticated helicopters faced such a challenge from relatively primitive weaponry. "The Longbow is designed for going after armor and high-tech air defense," he said. But with low-tech air defense "until they start firing, you don't know they're there."

The pilots speculated that some of the Iraqi fighters belonged to the Republican Guard group they were targeting, known as the Medina Division. "They definitely had their air defense arrayed in different zones. That's what we were fighting against, plus some small arms," said Stewman.

Before the helicopter attack, Air Force planes and Army artillery had pounded the target area in an effort to knock out the Iraqi artillery. But they either missed some or it was too old-fashioned to be detected.

Pilots struggled during the attack as bullets whizzed past their heads and damaged some key machinery.

Duffney pointed to a small hole in the glass of his pilot's window where a bullet had smacked at head level. During the attack, he said, pounding adrenaline made him focus intently on his job. "Instinct took over," he said. He became most worried when a pilot in the plane next to him got hit in the neck. The wound turned out to be superficial.

When the flight was over, the 6-foot-four, 240-pound gun pilot was as emotionally drained as his fellow pilots. "We all hugged each other," he said.

During the battle, Duffney's hydraulic system was hit, blocking his ability to fire his weapons. Others had more serious damage. One helicopters lost an engine. One sustained damage to its primary flight control system and had to fly home to the makeshift base south of Baghdad using a backup. Gunners on the ground hit two of the aircraft's rocket pods, setting them on fire. The pilots had to jettison them.

The barrage of bullets was shocking to both seasoned Army pilots and newcomers to combat, like Lt. Carrie Bruhl, 26, a co-pilot and gunner.

"It sounds like a sledgehammer," said the native of Oceanside, Calif. "The first round that came in, I couldn't feel my legs. Then we got pissed off people were shooting at us. So we shot back."

When her helicopter got back to base at about 2:30 a.m., she said, the first thing she did was "make sure my legs were still working."

Another pilot who was also experiencing combat for the first time had a different recollection of the gunfire hitting his aircraft.

"As long as I live, I'll never forget that sound: tink-tink-tink," said the pilot, Capt. Chad Lewis, 30, of Rolla, Mo. "There were trees and houses. People were firing everywhere."