Breaking--Apache helicopter down outside Baghdad, 4th in 3 weeks...cnn

[Philosoraptor]

[spinbaby]

1. So they finally confirmed it?

[Bluebear]

2. Bring 'em on!!

[htuttle]

3. I once read that at one point in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan...

...that in addition to the Stingers they'd been supplied with, the Afghans discovered that they could bring down a Hind by aiming a rifle shot directly at the middle of the big red star on the side of them. Apparently, that's where the designer had thought to locate the fuel filler cap.

The longer this occupation goes on in Iraq, the more vulnerabilities the Iraqis will learn about our own tactics and technology. Given that much of the Pentagon's higher echelon staff have been replaced with political appointees, ie. 'bag men', by BushCo over the years, we are ill-prepared to adapt to a situation like this.

[trumad]

4. and of course we'll hear that Iran is supplying the missles that are shooting them down.

[Philosoraptor]

5. Dumbya vu all over again.

[marmar]

11. You yanked the thought right out of my brain.....

They'll mysteriously find a missle casing with "Property of Iran" painted on it.

[Toots]

13. I doubt seriously that could be true

Fuel tanks on helicopters are designed to seal themselves if they rupture and the fuel they use is not very explosive as it is just plain heating fuel virtually the same as you use in your home furnace. They do not come down easily with rifle bullets...If a bullet were to hit their hydrolic lines or system maybe, or hit the pilot between the eyes but just hitting the fuel tank won't do it...

[htuttle]

14. Here's one reference to the vulnerability

However, apparently it was the oil tank, not the fuel tank, that I'd read about:

Due to its heavy armor, the Hind is nearly impervious to guerrilla small arms unless the guerrillas can fire down at the helicopters using weapons positioned high on the sides of mountains.10 The Hind has only three known vulnerable points: the turbine intakes, the tail rotor assembly, and an oil tank inexplicably but conveniently located beneath the red star on the fuselage.(11)

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1985/jan-feb/nelson.html

Point is, it's little details like this that anti-occupation forces begin to learn as the occupation goes on.

[Toots]

15. I believe that is hydrolic oil tank and yes that would do it

Also when being shot down upon a helicopter is defenseless as it's gunners are unable to shoot back for fear of hitting their blades,,

[LanternWaste]

16. Additionally, it seems to me that the Iraqi's are adapting

Additionally, it seems to me that the Iraqi's are adapting to our tactics *much* faster than the U.S. military is adapting to theirs. I think the Soviet's learned this the hard way in the 80's.

That may be due in part because the U.S. Military is a bureaucracy-- an inherent centralized, top down command structure that almost encourages static tactical development (in the short run), while the Iraqi's have a much less centralized structure and appear to change tactics in real time.

I hope the recent losses of hardware aren't indicative of what will be happening in the near future, but I'm afraid it is.

[Philosoraptor]

6. "insurgents fired upon them", wonder where THEY'RE from?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/02/iraq.main/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. Apache helicopter went down in Iraq on Friday, Pentagon officials said, the fourth helicopter to crash in less than three weeks.

The U.S. officials could not say whether the AH-64 crashed or was brought down by insurgent fire or whether there were casualties.

An official with Iraq's Interior Ministry, however, said earlier Friday that Iraqi soldiers in Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad, reported a U.S. helicopter was seen going down after coming under insurgent fire.

Another Apache was lost during fighting with insurgents last weekend in Najaf, killing the two U.S. troops aboard.

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. WH will spin it as a Kamikazee mission.

[Nimrod2005]

8. Could be two of them actually, I think I heard this on CNN radio coming in...nt

[Avalux]

9. Barbara Starr (grrrr) reports Apache helicopters are really hard to bring down -

wasn't down with normal small arms fire. She tells us it must have been a rocket-propelled grenade or a shoulder-fired missile.

Of course the next step for her is to draw conclusions about how and from whom these weapons were acquired. Anyone wanna take a wild guess?

[Ganja Ninja]

10. I'm beginning to think that Bushco wants a disaster for our troops ..

in Iraq. Think about it. If we suffer some kind of bloody defeat in battle in Iraq they will blame it on not having a large enough army. The reaction will be to double or triple the size of our military.

[Avalux]

12. Please read this post - I just did. Bushco can't allow our military to succeed -

it would ruin their plans to spread the war into Iran and the entire middle east:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=107654&mesg_id=107654

[Philosoraptor]

17. ............