US Army - A Superpower?

Delta were not the pilots. 160th SOAR was. Delta is the best in the world, along with the SAS, SBS, NSWDG and similar units at putting bullets in people before the enemy can put bullets in them. Do some research on Combat Applications Group training and you will see that a lot of what you see on TV is actually possible and has happened, however it has been done by the select few, the 10% of SOF operators that make it to Tier 1.

Whats your question? Why arent mid sized helicopters invincible? Helicopters in general are deathtraps on the modern battlefield. Just look at how many thousands were lost in Vietnam.

Based analysis, user. I guess it's a law of large numbers thing. They did address the problem of domestic policy interfering with the operation in the film.

One question, though; aren't rangers generally considered one of the better units? I thought they were SF, similar to SEALS, Berets, or DELTA.

Also your own country's JTF2 is of the same calibre.

I thought helicopters were generally held to be effective in Vietnam?

hollywood is all pedos.
all of them.

Where exactly Rangers fall in the SF designation is subjective, and I can't remember what the official classification is.

Generally I like to think of Rangers as an intermediary link between regular Army units and full-fledged Special Forces units; they're above regulars but below Delta / Green Berets I feel.

If you asked a Ranger though they'd probably say they're full-on SF.

As the helicopter pilots or the DELTA guys? I was under the impression they were considered globally exceptional.

That was sort of the interpretation I got.

>Is American effectiveness just mass logistics
Yes.
Also kill/death ratio was 25:1. Pic related.

Attached: Screenshot_2018-12-27 Battle of Mogadishu (1993) - Wikipedia.png (323x1402, 173K)

Soldiers are expendable.

All of the units you mentioned are Special Operations Forces. Green Berets are technically the only "Special Forces". Also, the regiment has always been a group of tough guys, but has radically changed from the onset of the GWOT. They went from tough infantry guys to the unit with the most capture/kills of high value targets in the GWOT. Rangers are Junior Varsity, Delta/CAG is Varsity.

They were effective at getting troops in and out. apaches are attack helicopters so they hover and engage targets, making themselves vulnerable to small arms fire for a lot longer than the Vietnam choppers going in and out.

Because helicopters are finnicky machines, despite how much you try and bullet proof one. All it takes is a stray AK round nail something important like collective linkages or the tail rotor drive shaft and physics will eventually do the rest. Shit happens and we learn from it, hopefully without having to repeat it.

As an aside the RCAF wants to replace our Griffon utility helis since they have essentially NO armour, so it doesnt take all that much fire to bring one down.

And they killed 500 to 1000 Somalians

They gave US and allied forces unparalleled mobility in difficult terrain but losses were massive. Again what are you expecting?

>Delta Force operators (purportedly among the best in the American armed forces) lose 2 Blackhawk helicopters to Somalian militias
Delta Force Operators don't fly helicopters.

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US Army SF/SFOD-D consider 75th Rangers to be a stepping stone. If you want to get into either you will assuredly require prior experience in combat.

Rangers and Special Forces/Green Berets are both Special Operations Forces. GB's make friends with locals and train local fighters to fight for our side and fight along with the locals.Rangers kick down doors and shoot people in the head. Delta kicks down doors and shoot people in the head at the absolute highest form as a primary mission set but are all experienced fighters with a special operations background. Delta/CAG is trained by the CIA, FBI, and others to be able to get any job done, at any time.

Apparently Thanks for the quality posts, user. I'm assuming you're current or former military. There seems to be a lot of you here. Do you find that there's a disparity between foreign policy (dominated by Washingtons wonks) and army personnel? I would imagine when you're operating at that level you don't really care about the righteousness of what you're doing so much as that you're getting the opportunity to do it. I find that ex-military on Jow Forums is either gung-ho HOORAHs or else jaded guys who look at their service more cynically.

And, UH-60 is a Soviet-era weapon also (1974).
The engagement can be seen as an analog to what would happen in a conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact in 1980s. WP relied on un(der)trained conscript army and numerical superiority, just like Somali militants.
So 25:1 kill ratio in favor of US/NATO is pretty good.

RPGs actually travel extremely fast and have a range of 500 meters so if you hover over an urban area with lots of cover you are kind of fucked.

They're like the Royal Marines. The training and utilisation of them could be compared with special forces of other nations but technically they aren't.

A great proportion of SAS recruits are drawn from the Royal Marines as they are the top end of fighting units. Interestingly, during the Iraq and Afghan invasions, the SAS struggled to draw recruits due to the amount of combat the Royal Marines and Paras were seeing. They'd become battle weary.

Well yeah but you could have basically done that by dropping napalm or just rolling some humvees through a bazaar.

Hollywood.

I was summarizing the movie, the point is they were all US Army.

What about it?

>I would imagine when you're operating at that level you don't really care about the righteousness of what you're doing so much as that you're getting the opportunity to do it
correct
>ex-military on Jow Forums is either gung-ho HOORAHs or else jaded guys who look at their service more cynically.
You can be disillusioned with politics, foreign policy, hero culture, and the dog and pony aspects of service while still being gung-ho about war. Read Storm of Steel to understand what I'm talking about.

In all times and areas helicopters have been taken down in hover either landing, taking off, Dropping repellers or searching and are susceptible to small arms fire or basic RPG with frag grenades especially when the shooter can hide in trees, rocks or buildings

there are several factors:
1st the US Forces were never really above average, even in its best times
2nd the US Forces were used in Jew wars after 1945 with no real endgame and stupid rules of engagement which always means defeat.There are no aims that could be reached and no means to reach an aim.
3rd after 1989 the US Forces as all western forces including the IDF were exposed to several globalist policies.That includes recruiting Gays,POCs,Women,Transgender which results in such accidents as ramming a tanker in broad daylight.The next thing is that the materials that is needed is not provided or faulty.Neither quantity nor quality to the extent its needed.
The F 22 was bought in low numbers.Even a tiny hurrican that destroyed a dozend or so reduced the overall number of operational aircraft to a point were even a few losses are catastrophic.Or take for example the state of the surface fleet.There is no replacment for the Destroyers and Cruisers that will be too old for service beginning in 2019 to 2030.
4th the US Forces are spread too thin across the globe.It can barely must the forces needed for a war against Iran or even China.Maybe at this stage of decay its even impossible.Did people realize that during the last months there was a phase were no US carrier task force was at station, something that didnt happen for decades ? They had to be maintained or trained.

Now imagine if niggers could use ironsights like a normal soldiers and the squads had proper organisation and not some niggardly tribal tactics.

JTF 2 are fucking hardcore, glad we have guys of that caliber, shows we have the ability to make them.

Generally gunships and attack helis dont hover directly over an area unless required. Might as well use the 8km+ range of the ATGMs and the 2-3km range of the rockets/chin gun to your advantage. If you have them within small arms range your not using the platform as it was intended, but sometimes you need a flying weapons platform close in for precision support.

nothing like demanding the enemy sacrifice a platoon worth of men for one of yours. Shitty that any UN/US troops died, but thats just how is goes

I always wondered, can you volunteer for that sort of stuff? I assume lots of people have no interest in actual combat while others are probably foaming at the mouth. If you're where we are now with no major conflicts, are there enough opportunities to get into combat in order to advance your training?

>trained by the FBI
Is that actually true or are you joking?

A lesson in the dangers of underestimating your enemy. There is a lot of talk about African militias not having military skills but there's a method to their madness: advance toward the enemy in a big mass and blast away with everything you have. Being hopped up on drugs so you don't feel bullets also helps. Anyways these tactics compensate somewhat for poor training and communications.

youtube.com/watch?v=65lBIYO_Ssw

The commanders running these third-world armies are not stupid (or well, they're just as stupid as commanders in any other army). They know what they're trying to do and what forces they have available. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the Somali commander, was a sophisticated man who studied at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow -- roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. (Fun fact: His son, Hussein Farrah Aidid, was a U.S. Marine who served in Desert Storm and as a translator in Somalia.)

The U.S. also didn't expect the number of RPGs as well and the danger to helicopters. Also lack of adequate air support particularly AC-130 gunships.

Then the regular army comes in and kicked in door and slaps around all the villagers the special forces worked with for months shutting down any future intel and cooperation

Sensible.

Interesting. Are your paratroopers sort of similar to the Rangers, or did they operate primarily as paratroopers in Afghanistan? Or is it like the USMC where they're specialized but technically conventional units?

Just that it builds up this image of the US Armed Forces as invincible and I'm wondering how much of that is fluff.

>And they killed 500 to 1000 Somalians
That's too high. The U.S. says 350. The Red Cross says 200-315. The U.N. says 300-500. The SNA (the Somali army fighting there) says 315.

This means it's probably in the 315-350 range.

Would you say most guys are like that in the combat oriented elements?

If you shoot enough RPGs at something you can bring it down, which is exactly what they did. Can't really fault it, the operation was a nightmare to boot, as stomping out islamic radicals that practically run the nation you're supposedly liberating never goes well. Ultimately, there were actually a whole bunch of people involved, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993) , and speaking relatively, despite being a tactical and political nightmare (of your helicopters getting shot down, which happens sometimes) , it wasn't like they got to slaughter some 90 guys, they didn't even get to do that much, instead some estimated 2000 somali combatants and civilians got waxed in a trade for some 21 kills and 80 or so wounded.

In all honesty, no one would give a fuck about this operation if it hadn't involved so many SF groups and being such a loud fuck up.

The Marines and the FBI have bases next to each other in Quantico’ VA special operators and law enforcement have training in the classroom and in the field taught at each base

>Is that actually true or are you joking?
He's confusing training with FBI HRT as being trained by them. They do have any training on the planet available to them though. HRT is also no joke.
youtube.com/watch?v=FxZ6-67mS8I

The US lost 3,305 UH-1s and long with 1,704 pilots in the Vietnam War. The reason they lost so many was because helicopters were so useful so they kept using them despite the losses.

If the US weren't ferrying infantry around South Vietnam in helicopters to engage the enemy then they would have been driving around in Jeeps and M113 personal carriers and probably would have even more losses due to ambushes.

iirc past experience in Vietnam lead to NATO rewriting the book on how to operate CAS and rotary assets. Changed everything to have min flight ceilings for fast movers delivering bombs and helis for the most part. I want to say 10kft and 3.5kft AGL respectively but Im not in yet and dont have access to specifics.

Is the vaunted US logistics network straining? Thats not a good thing. Also I cannot for the life of me understand why congress demolished the infrastructure regarding production of the Raptor. Completely idiotic, but likely under influence of other (((parties))) when they found out they couldnt get them

HOOAH

2/75 RLTW

What a low IQ post

In Afghanistan since the 80's with Against Russians helicopters guys practiced popping out of the rocks to shooting RPG with the basic frag had at helicopters. in the war against the us one Taliban supposedly had 10 kills

Looking forward to your next operation Schmuli; any hints? Heard you lost 4 aircraft to S200's yesdy

>Fun fact: His son, Hussein Farrah Aidid, was a U.S. Marine who served in Desert Storm and as a translator in Somalia
I read about this and still can't even comprehend how it happened. Neither from the perspective of the family nor the USMC accepting him.

The Rangers are advanced infantry and equipped and trained to fight in larger units than Special forces who star with a 12 man A team (the 80's show with 4 guys really fucked u to loose 8 guys) for a patrol of up to a week two at a time

I wouldn't say most, most are surprisingly apolitical and default r/the_donald tier. There's other ways of being disillusioned though, there's plenty of the the big green weenie to go around for everyone to get their fill.

>One question, though; aren't rangers generally considered one of the better units? I thought they were SF, similar to SEALS, Berets, or DELTA.
Rangers are essentially super-infantry. They do the initial insertions, i.e. dropping into an area first to secure an airfield for the rest of the units to land on, the tough missions in Iraq or Afghanistan in places that are more dangerous than where the regular infantry goes, and rapid deployment support of other SF units.
SF(Green Berets) have a different mission. SF are the ones who deploy small teams to go live in a remote part of the world for months at a time. Their primary mission is training indigenous forces, collecting intelligence, and running guerrilla operations into hostile territory.
SEALS are essentially Sea-Rangers doing Ranger type missions for the Navy and Marines (going in first to a beach to establish a beach head, doing recon and sabotage of enemy maritime equipment and personnel) unless they're in DEVGRU, which is what used to be called Seal Team Six.
DEVGRU is the Navy's version of Delta Force, usually primarily focused on maritime environments, although they also got the Afghan mission for some reason. (I think there were two lakes in Afghanistan? Delta Force had more important things to do?)
Delta Force are selected from the top 1% of the Army, usually from SF or Rangers. They are the covert terrorist killers/hostage rescue types who go literally anywhere on short notice. These are the super-secret covert commando types who can blend in and disappear that you see in movies.

Not sure Black Hawk Down does that but other films certainly do, like that well loved Jow Forums classic Fury. Compared to third world savages the US military is invincible. That's nothing new though. Western armies have been defeating massed legions of nonwhites since the time of Alexander. That doesn't mean that individual solders can't be easily killed or individual vehicles destroyed. That part is mostly hype and myth based on recent conflicts with mostly relatively low intensity combat.

That was cool.

Yeah dude they shot down 468 israeli planes yesterday

The reason you saw so many helicopters and the invention of "Air Assault" was LBJs largest campaigning backer from Texas was Bell.
stonezone.com/article.php?id=633

They don't get trained to kick down doors by the FBI and CIA, but they do learn other things, surveillance, spycraft, intelligence gathering, investigative techniques.
>I always wondered, can you volunteer for that sort of stuff?
You get invited to volunteer to try out. I got invited to try out after I'd already dropped my resignation packet. I wouldn't have made it because I'm a medical and physical mess.

True. The level of training they have is nearly incomprehensible. They are masters of Tradecraft, Recce, Direct Action, etc. They even pretend to be terrorists and are tasked with hifing and are subsequently hunted down by "government personnel". They are million dollar assets that the military as selected from various SOF units, including Seals and MARSOC Raiders, who have demonstrated that they are the best fit physically, psychologically, and intellectually to receive years of intense training.

What's wrong with it? From what I've read he sounds like he's right. It's obviously ideal to have actual soldiers, but the level of material depravity in these countries is something you shouldn't underestimate. There's a reason so many of them are willing to get shot in the face on the off chance that they might successfully hijack a cargo ship.

Yeah if someone sets up a A class training center other departments will use it and the instructors to. It's like I was about to go for medical training and 5 services go to the same campus in Texas now. In Law enforcement most small towns send there recruits to their states State Police training center. In the opening of Silence of the Lambs all the recruits have white, blue, red and green shirts that means they are in some order federal law, local law or another country

The reason you saw so many helicopters is Vietnam had few roads and little infrastructure. The french tried fighting a road bound war in vietnam and lost more men than the US did.

DG were operating in the stan back then and CAG was operating in Iraq, or so the story goes. IMO it was more like McRaven, being a former SEAL chose his navy golden-boys for it.

Concerning. I remember one officer in the film was portrayed as very well-read. I wanted to join the FFL when I was younger, but it was sort of a pipe dream since I have nerve damage.

Interesting post, user.

I think the invincibility narrative has more to do with minimizing those individual losses. Obviously the American military apparatus itself doesn't really have any serious contenders.

It was the Nightstalkers that lost the helicopters due to being volleyed by multiple RPGs leaf last time I checked it was the Rangers providing security for a small Delta team while they secured the hotel occupants you fucking retard.

More like MARSOC. Heard they fucked over SF on numerous occasions. Probably the reason SOCOM keeps them on such a tight leash.

>I wouldn't have made it because I'm a medical and physical mess.
Army related damage or was it pre-existing?

>They even pretend to be terrorists and are tasked with hifing and are subsequently hunted down by "government personnel".
Could you explain this? I don't get it. Is this like a training exercise?

>They are million dollar assets that the military as selected from various SOF units, including Seals and MARSOC Raiders, who have demonstrated that they are the best fit physically, psychologically, and intellectually to receive years of intense training.
That must be one of the most amazing validations in the world.

The pirates are different. Those are more like mafia groups. That stopped when shipping companies started putting armed guards on their vessels.

The way I look at it, while we look at these African armies as kind of absurd where they're running around (I suppose this is West Africa) wearing voodoo outfits and just blasting away, they're compensating for weaknesses in other areas. Third-world battles are like big shoving matches. Of course they are at a disadvantage compared to professional Western armies, but they mean business.

A lot of the commanders in these armies are also trained by foreign governments. If you ever watch these adventure reporters who track down rebel commanders in the middle of jungles for the BBC and so on, you'll see the reporter travel for a week down rivers to meet the elusive Gen. Soso Bazooka or something, who you'd assume is some guy with a bone through his nose, but it turns out he speaks in a British accent and has a master's degree in military studies from CIA academy with a minor in classical literature haha

That particular raid was fucked up from the start and never should've gotten the greenlight. The casualties were solely taken from aircraft recovery, not because the retarded niggers were master tacticians. At the end of the day, we're looking at 18? US KIA and hundreads of dead skinnies, all things considered it went well.

reminds me of this
youtube.com/watch?v=vdq609Xci-g

The helicopter based tactics developed after LBJ took office and light infantry had no problem maneuvering. I'll take flying in the bird over walking anyday though.

That's why they chose DEV for the Bin-Laden raid and a bunch of CAG boys retired over it, it was a slap in the face. They also operated in AFG, they HALO'd into Mullah Mohammed Omar's compound in Kandahar for instance. If there's a serious HVT, CAG is involved.

I was never in Iraq, but I heard they stacked bodies like wood.

>you could see in the operation how political concerns trumped tactical ones.

This seems to be an ongoing problem with US military use.

>A lot of the commanders in these armies are also trained by foreign governments
literally doesn't mean anything. The entire Afghan military apparatus was trained by the best of the best, just to be steam-rolled by the taliban every single time they exchanged rounds. You just want to glorify savages because you're an idiot that believes in the noble savage nonsense.

He moved to the US in 1981, graduated high school in LA, and joined the Marines in 1985. All of that was before the Somali Civil War. His father was not just some General Buck Naked style jungle tribal leader, he had been a high ranking member of the Somali military and Government before the civil war, as well as an Ambassador to India, and as commieanon said, had been trained at the Soviet command academy.
He was in the Marine Reserve for eight years and deployed to Desert Storm. He was picked to work as a translator because he was the only Marine who spoke Somali.

I have seen that a lot of times. A friend was a movie set medic and hey got bit parts, he was supposed to be lead set medic and play the hunter who ends up upside down and gutted. That was filmed the first week and the day he was supposed to be killed on screen he had a liver transplant

It's the other way around, fox company was innocent and wrongfully kicked out of Afghanistan without any investigation.

But wasn't Aidid basically intercepting UN food aid? Why would he jeopardize his son like that? Was there more to the story that I'm not fully appreciating?

I had a third grade teacher who was a nurse in the pacific and would get this far off look in her eyes and go on about how they stacked dead nips around the surgery tent like sand bags, to protect it from mortar fire

>Delta Force operators (purportedly among the best in the American armed forces) lose 2 Blackhawk helicopters to Somalian militias
I must have missed the part where they were flying themselves.
2 D-boys went in on the ground by themselves and dropped 40+ skinnies while trying to defend a wounded pilot before being overrun

>The casualties were solely taken from aircraft recovery, not because the retarded niggers were master tacticians. At the end of the day, we're looking at 18? US KIA and hundreads of dead skinnies, all things considered it went well.
If it makes you feel any better, but war is just politics by other means. Political support for the U.S. peacekeeping mission collapsed afterwards and the Americans bailed on the country -- which was the SNA's goal. You can win bodycount contests all day long but that really doesn't matter if you fail to accomplish your larger objectives.
>literally doesn't mean anything. The entire Afghan military apparatus was trained by the best of the best, just to be steam-rolled by the taliban every single time they exchanged rounds. You just want to glorify savages because you're an idiot that believes in the noble savage nonsense.
I wouldn't say "noble." These men throw children into meat grinder battles. I don't know what's noble about that. But aren't the Taliban also savages? Well, they're winning.

I'm vaguely sure you took that from Gran Torino.

Pilots were still US military.

>skinnies
Ha ha do they know that is from Star Ship Troopers

No he was in Korea my teacher was in WW2

Not talking about fox company, fully aware of their situation.

To fight the bug, we must understand the bug. We can ill afford another Klendathu!

Oh enlightened me then

Wunderwaffes and "super-soldiers" durning peace-time is a combination of propaganda(both external and internal), fulfilling the need for small scale skirmish resolution(all of middle eastern wars fall into this, murkan last war was vietnam simply because it was a proxy of us and chinks), and corruption
No matter how much money you pour into wunderwaffes durning peacetime with peace-time economy, only thing that will matter in an actual all-out war with an equal enemy is how good you are and mass-producing weapons durning war-time with war-economy(peace-time economy can not sustain real war by default)

More specifically talking about a local leader who got dropped on a DA as he was "going for is weapon" lol classic. Not good for all the work SF put in.

US army is without a doubt a strongest military in human history, but as with all "strongest military"s before in history it does not mean it can't be defeated or would be effective everywhere. There are million variables in conflict, and ability to drop million tons of bombs already proven to be not sufficient method to win them (and that was US preffered method of operation past WW2). In different scenarios and place in the world US has total superiority, yet in others its engagement would be completely futile i.e. all the 100 military bases and carrier groups and whatever would mean nothing when theres need to invade a say modern country with proper military geared for defence, or fighting insurgents, where you can bomb country to ground and still never achive satisfying victory.

People also have wrong image of invincibility about military tech. Everything is extremely vulnerable and easy to destroy. In real conflict "current" military would be worth nothing, it would be won by military industrial complex pumping out more.