Nato helicopter shot down in Helmand in Afghanistan

Steyr

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10274262.stm

Nato helicopter shot down in Helmand in Afghanistan

Four Nato soldiers have been killed when their helicopter was shot down in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan.

Nato said the aircraft was hit by "hostile fire".

The troops were Americans, the US military spokesman in Kabul, Lt Col Joseph T Breasseale, said.

The Taliban claimed its fighters had shot down the aircraft with a rocket-propelled grenade.

The helicopter crashed in the Sangin district, said provincial government spokesman Dawood Ahmadi.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said it had been brought down in the Sangin district bazaar on Wednesday morning. "We brought it down with a rocket," he told AFP news agency.

A number of Nato helicopters have been shot down in Afghanistan since the alliance sent troops into the country in 2001.

The BBC's Martin Patience, in Kabul, says conditions are particularly dangerous for the aircraft when they come in to land and then take off, as they are more susceptible to gun or rocket fire.

The crash brought to five the number of Nato soldiers killed in the south of the country on Wednesday. The military announced earlier that another soldier had been killed by a roadside bomb.

More than 20 Nato soldiers have died this week, including 10 on Monday, when US-led forces in Afghanistan had their deadliest day in two years.

Wednesday's deaths came as US defence secretary Robert Gates said he expected to see signs of progress in a counter-insurgency strategy "by the end of the year".

Speaking in London on Wednesday, Mr Gates said there were "no illusions" about quick victories and warned it would be a "tough summer", AFP reported.

Meanwhile, gunmen attacked an Afghan-bound Nato convoy overnight near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing at least seven people and setting several vehicles on fire.

The shooting down of the helicopter comes amid an upsurge of violence in the volatile south of Afghanistan.

Nato is preparing for a major operation in the province of Kandahar - the heart of the Taliban-led insurgency - this summer.

An offensive earlier in the year in neighbouring Helmand province has been hailed by Nato and Afghan officials as a success.

But recent reports from the town of Marjah, the focus of the offensive, speak of continuing violence and Taliban intimidation.

The Afghan Red Crescent says hundreds of refugees have fled violence in the Marjah area in recent weeks.

Displaced people turning up in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah told the BBC they had left Marjah because of fighting between the Taliban and foreign and Afghan security forces.

An Afghan Red Crescent official said about 500 families had arrived in Lashkar Gah in the past month.


RIP to the fallen.

p1akuw47h5r3it

RIP

ReacherCreature

Sincere thoughts. RIP.

It's been a bloody month.

Glenshane Pass

Not often the Taliban achieve a helicopter kill. Wonder how long the superiors will sit back when clearly the Taliban won't be defeated, if that is indeed what they trying to achieve.

OS119

Glenshane Pass wrote: »

Not often the Taliban achieve a helicopter kill. Wonder how long the superiors will sit back when clearly the Taliban won't be defeated, if that is indeed what they trying to achieve.

its not an indicator - Taliban have been using RPG's as an anti-helicopter weapon since NATO arrived incountry, occasionally it works, but the statistics don't lie - any of the UK's 10 or so Forward Operating Bases in the Helmand AO will have, as a rough average, between 10 and 90 helicopter movements a week, and the Taliban will make a serious, pre-planned attempt to either shoot down, or deny, probably 10% of those, yet the number of aircrat lost, damaged or sorties aborted is miniscule.

30 Helicopter movements a week X 150 weeks X 10 FOB's is 45,000 helicopter movements in 3 years. NATO has lost, or sustained serious, mission-kill damage to perhaps 35/50 helicopters in Helmand in that time, and perhaps aborts 2% of its sorties because of fire or the threat of fire.

suggesting that this loss rate is a fundamental block to NATO military operations in Helmand is akin to suggesting that the Polish Army defeated the Wehrmacht becuase it managed to destroy 3 tanks out of a dozen armoured divisions.

iceage

Word is it was a PEDRO's team trying to effect a casevac in Sangin.

And not the first time that choppers have been hit by fire, seems this was an RPG though.

concussion

According to the Times today, the downed A/C was covering a medevac bird, which successfully evacuated the casualties it went in for.

RIP

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7146649.ece

iceage

My mistake..I really must keep up. A sad loss which adds to the rising number of troops lately. RIP.

Glenshane Pass

OS119 wrote: »

its not an indicator - Taliban have been using RPG's as an anti-helicopter weapon since NATO arrived incountry, occasionally it works, but the statistics don't lie - any of the UK's 10 or so Forward Operating Bases in the Helmand AO will have, as a rough average, between 10 and 90 helicopter movements a week, and the Taliban will make a serious, pre-planned attempt to either shoot down, or deny, probably 10% of those, yet the number of aircrat lost, damaged or sorties aborted is miniscule.

30 Helicopter movements a week X 150 weeks X 10 FOB's is 45,000 helicopter movements in 3 years. NATO has lost, or sustained serious, mission-kill damage to perhaps 35/50 helicopters in Helmand in that time, and perhaps aborts 2% of its sorties because of fire or the threat of fire.

suggesting that this loss rate is a fundamental block to NATO military operations in Helmand is akin to suggesting that the Polish Army defeated the Wehrmacht becuase it managed to destroy 3 tanks out of a dozen armoured divisions.

No doubt. My point remains a valid one. Sure, not all that many soldiers are being killed either, but despite all the metaphorical weeping that takes place here there still seems to be some desire for the whole operation to carry on.

Avgas

OS119 is surely correct that as a per centage of all helicopter movements the Taliban are not very effective in taking down helicopters. That is a relative measure however.

If we take the absolute/real number of helicopters downed....the figure 35 OS119 seems high to me.. not saying its wrong.......I haven't checked what the numbers are..(much remains probably sensitive and OPPSEC anyway on that score) ,...but let's be ultra conservative and say only a dozen helicopters have been destroyed.....the problem is helicopters have become gold plated vehicles...a cheap one costs 8m euro... a proper one...like a Chinook or Merlin costs anything from 25-50m depending on how you do the counting (of training, stores, maintaining, etc.). If the T'ban shoot down a dozen at a very conservative cost of 8m euros a go...they've inflicted losses of close to 50m euro.....and that would be a low-side estimate. If we take the figure of 50 choppers lost, the damage could be Euro 400m!

Maybe a better conservative guesstimate would be much closer to 100m euro, if damage were also considered, and losses in operational flexibility-missions aborted due to threats, etc.

In fact the loss of even a handful of choppers is critical to ISAF mobility because they are disproportionately needed to cope with the IEDs plague and there are already so few in theatre....most commanders are saying, at least privately they need more and more, etc. The 'opportunity cost' of shooting down and removing a chopper from the ISAF inventory is therefore quite large, given that it will take time to have another one shipped into theatre (if your the US) or it simply won't be replaced if your anybody else.

The wider point is that the war is being lost IMHO-with due respect to those who actually been there and fighting it, who might obviously have a different view.

I'll not suggest strategic flaws...

One reason why is because the entire logistics effort is weak....just read a much more interesting story about an ambush inside Pakistan of ISAF supplies....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/09/taliban-torch-nato-trucks-pakistan

Helicopters have been shown time and again to be essentially vulnerable and yet crucial for certain missions...in my view they should not be wasted on logistics runs.....other radical options should be explored.......

Precision para dropping of supplies from above MANPADS or light AA range has been demonstrated using small transport aircraft..... far from perfect....but for some bases it could work.

Avgas

found this from yes...gasp...wikipedia...... on helicopter losses in Astan...which claims 14 lost due to hostile fire and 71 lost overall...rest due to accidents...Chinooks featuring prominently........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coalition_aircraft_losses_in_Afghanistan#Summary_per_type

No references so validity/reliability of this data has to be iffy? Anyone got anything better?