Working Paper high, hot and heavy: the ch-47 chinook in combat assault operations in afghanistan

Back in Washington, not completely satisfied with the Rogers Board results, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara called upon the Army to “completely re-examine its requirements for aviation,” to evaluate “revolutionary new concepts of tactical mobility,” and to recommend actions required to “give the Army the maximum attainable mobility in the combat area.”³³ In separate memoranda, McNamara directed Secretary of the Army, Elvis Stahr, to take a “bold new look,” and implement “fresh…unorthodox concepts” to “acquire quantum increases” in land warfare mobility.³⁴ McNamara suggested six specific areas of inquiry including the substitution of aviation assets for conventional military surface vehicles and the types of organizations and operational concepts required to exploit increases in mobility. Finally, the Secretary of Defense strongly encouraged the use of field tests to evaluate new mobility concepts, and even went so far as to suggest potential members for the soon-to-be established US Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board.³⁵

Lieutenant General Howze was appointed president of the Tactical Mobility Board – henceforth known as the Howze Board – which included 199 officers, 41 enlisted men, and 53 civilians. Also included were a governing board, a review committee, a steering committee, an advisory panel, a field test group, seven working committees, and eight working groups. One hundred twenty-five helicopters and 25 fixed-wing aircraft were allocated to the Board which established its headquarters in a grade school building at Fort Bragg. Eventually, more than 3,200 military personnel and 90 civilians took part in three major airmobile field exercises (in Georgia, West Virginia, and North Carolina), sixteen small unit tests, and 30 additional tests and evaluations of new concepts and equipment.³⁶

Within 90 days, the Howze Board completed its assignment and submitted a 3,500 page final report to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Howze summarized the findings in one overarching statement noting “the board has only a single, general conclusion – the adoption by the Army of the airmobile concept…is necessary and desirable [and] in some respects the transition is inevitable.”³⁷ The Howze Board Report went on to describe five different approaches to increasing Army airmobility. The alternative deemed most responsive to Secretary McNamara’s guidelines called for establishing five air assault divisions to replace five of the Army’s 16 existing divisions. According to Howze, 459 organic aircraft would be capable of transporting an air assault division’s combat troops and equipment to a battle zone in three lifts. Also recommended as additions to the existing Army force structure were three, enhanced mobility, air cavalry combat brigades (316 aircraft each) capable of moving all combat elements in just one lift, and five air transport brigades, each with 142 aircraft, to perform logistics distribution operations.³⁸

Although the new Secretary of the Army, Cyrus Vance, and the Chief of Staff, General Earl Wheeler, supported the Howze Board airmobility recommendations, the suggested changes to the Army’s force structure were considered excessively disruptive. Accordingly, Secretary McNamara authorized the creation of only one provisional air assault division and a supporting air transport brigade for additional testing and evaluation. The air cavalry combat brigade concept was not immediately pursued.³⁹ Subsequently, the 11th Air Assault Division (formerly the 11th Airborne Division), plus the 10th Air Transport Brigade were activated at Fort Benning, GA in February 1963. For the next eighteen months, with Lieutenant General Charles Rich as overall project director, the new division conducted a series of exercises to assess and refine airmobile/air assault tactics, techniques, and procedures.⁴⁰

Following Exercise AIR ASSAULT II in October 1964, in which the 82d Airborne Division served as the opposing force, the 82d commander, Major General Robert York, praise air assault operations as having “dynamic potential,” adding “seldom do we see a new military concept which can contribute so decisively throughout the entire spectrum of warfare.”⁴¹ After completion of the additional extensive testing phase, McNamara approved the recommendation to establish an air assault division and add it to the Army force structure. In July 1965, new Army Chief of Staff General Harold Johnson activated the US Army’s first air assault division – designated the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), comprised of Soldiers from the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) and the 2d Infantry Division. The new unit was given 90 days to prepare for deployment to Vietnam.⁴²

The 1st Cavalry Division Deploys to An Khe

In a nationally televised address on 28 July 1965, President Lyndon Johnson first laid out the United States’ goals and objectives in Vietnam, then went on to announce “I have today ordered to Vietnam the Airmobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately…additional forces will be needed later, and they will be sent as requested.”⁴³ The deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division to Vietnam was designated Operation PAT and occurred in three increments – an advanced liaison detachment, and advanced party, and the main body. During August 1965, the 13,500 Soldiers and equipment (including 470 aircraft) of the main body sailed for Vietnam on troop ships, cargo ships, and aircraft carriers from the port cities of Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Mobile. The USNS Boxer alone carried 239 aircraft, including fifty-seven CH-47 Chinooks. The 1CD arrived piecemeal in Vietnam during September and by the end of the month was fully operational in its new base camp at An Khe – the world’s largest helipad – in the Central Highlands province of Bihn Dihn.⁴⁴

On 10 October 1965, the 1st and 2d Battalions, 7th Cavalry, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, and the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry conducted the first brigade-size airmobile/air assault against units of the North Vietnam Army (NVA) 325^th Infantry Division and the Viet Cong 2d Main Force Regiment in the Soui Ca River Valley during Operation SHINY BAYONET. The 1st Cavalry Soldiers met only light resistance as the enemy forces chose not the fight and retreated westward toward Cambodia. During a second air assault mission on 1 November, however, 8th, 9th, and 12th Cavalry Soldiers encountered intense resistance from the NVA 33d Regiment in a series of engagements southwest of Plei Me. Although seven 1CD helicopters sustained hostile fire damage, the enemy regiment suffered considerable casualties, with ninety-nine killed and an estimated 183 wounded. On the night of 3 November, troopers form the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry came under attack from the NVA 66^th Regiment near the Chu Pong Mountains. In what became the 1st Cavalry’s first night heliborne airmobile mission, ‘A’ Company, 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, air assaulted into an unprepared landing zone (LZ) to reinforce the 9th Cavalry Soldiers. Airmobile operations were proving to be significantly innovative.⁴⁵

Operation SHINY BAYONET was only the prelude to the more dramatic Operation SILVER BAYONET involving the 1st and 2d Battalions, 7th Cavalry, LZ X-Ray, and the Ia Drang Valley. On 14 November 1965, the 1st Battalion 7th Cavalry conducted an air assault on the 66th NVA regimental base camp in the Ia Drang. The first three lifts were uncontested, however, on the fourth and fifth insertions, helicopters from the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion received intense enemy fire – four of the eight aircraft in the fifth lift were shot down. Although heavy fighting continued for the remainder of the day and night, the arrival of 5th Cavalry reinforcements on 15 November turned the tide in the American’s favor. On the following day, the majority of NVA forces broke contact and withdrew toward Cambodia. The 8^th Battalion, 66^th NVA Regiment remained behind, however, and inflicted heavy casualties in an ambushed of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, as the Soldiers were preparing for extraction from the battle zone. Although SILVER BAYONET and the air assault into the Ia Drang Valley was considered a tactical success – two NVA regiments destroyed and 3,500 enemy combatants killed – the campaign also exacted a heavy toll on the 1st Cavalry Division with 300 Cavalrymen killed and hundreds more wounded.⁴⁶

The 1CD also fought on a secondary front in heavily populated Binh Dinh Province. Once again the division conducted a series of air assaults, this time to mass its troops and to repeatedly strike enemy forces at great distances. US and ARVN Soldiers remained in continuous contact with enemy units for nearly two months, knocking out three NVA regular regiments. The 1st Cavalry’s success in the Central Highlands validated the airmobile concept, demonstrated the flexibility of air assault tactics, and led senior military leaders to believe that expanded employment of airmobile TTP could be beneficial in achieving US strategic objectives in Vietnam.⁴⁷

In the fall of 1965, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) commander, General William Westmoreland reported that double the number of US battalions would be required to win the war in Vietnam. By the end of the following year, battalion levels had increased more than two-fold from thirty-four to seventy-four. US troop strength escalated accordingly to nearly 400,000. Following a series of briefings with Westmoreland in Saigon and 1st Cavalry Soldiers at An Khe, Secretary of Defense McNamara told reporters “it will be a long war.”⁴⁸

US Divisions Employing Air Assault Tactics

In addition to 1CD, the 173d Airborne Brigade and elements of the 101st Airborne and 1st Infantry Divisions were also conducting combat operations in Vietnam during 1965. Each of these units was utilizing their own versions of air assault tactics. In March 1966, the Army formed the 1^st Aviation Brigade, with 11,000 soldiers, 850 aircraft, two combat aviation groups, eight combat aviation battalions, and forty-three companies stretching from Soc Trang in the south to Hue in the north. Over the next four years, the 1AB more than double in size to four groups, sixteen battalions, eighty-three companies, 4,000 aircraft, and 25,000 men. In a further testament to the success of air assault concepts, the Army converted the 101st Airborne Division to an airmobile configuration, re-designating it the 101^st Airborne Division (Airmobile). At the height of the Vietnam War build-up, twenty-five US Army brigades were deployed to the country.⁴⁹

The tempo of US Army air assault operations remained high for the duration of the war. During the Communists’ Tet Offensive – January through March, 1968 – NVA and Viet Cong forces attacked major cities throughout Vietnam. Dozens of US airmobile combat assaults on enemy strongholds and concentrations drove the Communists from the urban areas and delivered a crushing blow to their offensive aspirations. Airmobility provided US forces with the tactical flexibility to quickly deploy and re-deploy to areas under attack.⁵⁰ During Operation PEGASUS in April 1968, two 1st Cavalry brigades air assaulted into northwestern Quang Tri Province to assist besieged US Marines at the Khe Sanh Combat Base. After a week of fighting, North Vietnamese forces withdrew west toward Laos and north toward the Demilitarized Zone.⁵¹ Later in April, the 1st Cavalry, 101st Airborne, and the 1st Army of the Republic of Vietnam divisions conducted a combined airmobile and ground attack – Operation DELAWARE/LAM SON 216 – into the A Shau Valley, a major NVA supply base along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Although tons of enemy equipment and supplies were captured/destroyed, dozens of American helicopters either crashed or were damaged by intense NVA anti-aircraft fire before the operation ended on 17 May 1968.⁵²

US airmobile operations had become commonplace by the time the Cambodian Campaign began in 1970. Army aviation was crucial to the success of the US and ARVN incursion into NVA sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia. From April through July, thirteen separate ground and air assault operations were conducted involving units from the 1st Cavalry Division, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and the 4th, 9th, and 25th Infantry Divisions. By mid-May, thirty-three US maneuver battalions were fighting in Cambodia. By the completion of the campaign, allied force had captured or destroyed 22,500 weapons, 431 vehicles, and more than 9,800 tons of rice, ammunition, communications equipment, and medical supplies.⁵³

Success in Cambodia led US officials to develop a similar plan for interdicting NVA supply routes further north in Laos. By 1971, US ground troops were prohibited by law from entering Laotian territory. As such, Operation LAM SON 719 involved an all-ARVN armor/infantry task force that proceeded west into Laos along Route 9 from the former US Marine base at Khe Sanh. ARVN Airborne, Ranger, and 1st Infantry Division forces were then airlifted by US Army helicopters across the border to flanking positions north and south of the main advance. When the main column bogged down, additional ARVN 1st Division soldiers air assaulted aboard Army helicopters into LZ Hope near Tchepone village, the operation’s primary objective. The LZ Hope air assault was the largest of the Vietnam War, involving 276 US helicopters.⁵⁴

On 9 March 1971, ARVN forces began their withdrawal east along Route 9. A continuous series of NVA ambushes soon turned the ARVN withdrawal into a chaotic retreat. Enemy anti-aircraft fire devastated American helicopters that attempted to assist the besieged ARVN soldiers. By 6 April, when LAM SON 719 officially ended, military commanders were dismayed by the excessive helicopter losses sustained during the operation – 108 totally destroyed and 618 damaged. Although officials subsequently concluded that airmobile/air assault operations could in fact be conducted successfully in mid-intensity type conflicts, the significant LAM SON helicopter losses soon led to unique aviation innovations, such as nap-of-the-earth flight techniques, an increase in night operations with pilots and crews using night vision devices, and improvements in aircraft survivability.⁵⁵

Following the 1973 armistice agreement signed by the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong, MACV disbanded, US troops returned home, and American military involvement in South Vietnam officially ended. In testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Director of Army Aviation, Brigadier General William Maddox, explained that “the helicopter made a difference the French lacked earlier,” during the First Indochina War (1946-1954).⁵⁶ Former MACV commander, General William Westmoreland, later proclaimed helicopter air assault warfare “the most innovative tactical development to emerge from the Vietnam War.”⁵⁷ Noting the unwelcomed effectiveness of US airmobile operations, one Viet Cong commander recalled “the days of power and comfort were fine, but ever since those accursed helicopter soldiers have been encountered our troubles had multiplied.”⁵⁸ By adding the dimensions of flexibility and mobility to warfare, tactical helicopter operations came of age during the Vietnam War. Helicopters touched the lives of every US Soldier who fought in Vietnam, taking them into battle and returning them to safety. 2,700 US Army helicopter pilots and crewmen were killed in Vietnam, flying missions in support of their infantry comrades.⁵⁹

Air Assault Developments 1970s – 1980s

Although air assault operations had proven successful during the Vietnam Conflict, the higher intensity threats observed in the 1973 Middle East Yom Kippur War led US military officials to question the survivability of helicopters in more hazardous combat environments – those that included armor, radar-controlled anti-aircrafts systems, and shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles. Meanwhile, the Army surprisingly converted the 1st Cavalry Division from airmobile to a TRICAP division, and then to an armored division, thereby leaving the 101st Airborne as the sole remaining US airmobile division.⁶⁰ And in 1979, the Army began replacing the venerable UH-1 Huey with faster, larger, UH-60 Black Hawk utility tactical transport helicopters. The UH-60 soon became the Army’s primary air assault aircraft, as a single Black Hawk could carry a completely-equipped eleven-Soldier infantry squad over greater distance on the battlefield, even in adverse weather conditions.⁶¹

Further reorganization and expansion in the 1980s under the Army of Excellence (AOE) initiative led to the establishment of sixteen combat aviation brigades, six corps aviation brigades, three regimental aviation brigades, and a more robust aviation brigade for the 101st that included four attack helicopter battalions, two combat support aviation battalions, a general support aviation battalion, and a reconnaissance squadron. Army leaders calculated that a total of 5,900 combat and transport helicopters would be needed to support the AOE configuration requirements. In 1988, the Army briefly considered establishing a corps-level air cavalry division reminiscent of the 1960s’ sky cavalry concept. Finally, under the Aviation Restructure Initiative (ARI) of the mid-1990s, the Army adopted a more streamlined force structure and reduced its total helicopter requirement to 4,400.⁶²

Additional US Combat Operations and the Employment of Air Assault Tactics

Also during the 1980s-90s, US military forces participated in three conflicts that that required combat air assaults. In the first, four-hundred Marines conducted an air assaulted in Grenada during Operation URGENT FURY in October 1983. The following day, US Army Rangers, flying aboard CH-46 Marine Corps Sea Knight helicopters, conducted a second air assault to rescued endangered American medical students who had been studying on the island. Unfortunately on the third day, three Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed during an air assault on a Grenadian military barracks. URGENT FURY clearly demonstrated, however, the growing value of US military aircraft and air assaults tactics in support of political-military operations. A lesson learned originally in Vietnam, then relearned in Grenada, was the requirement for helicopter gunship escort and coverage during air assault operations.⁶³

Six years later, nearly 26,000 US military personnel took part in Operation JUST CAUSE, conducted to protect American citizens living in Panama, to promote democracy and human rights in the country, and to uphold the Torrijos-Carter Treaties that transferred control of the Panama Canal to Panamanians. US Army Soldiers and Paratroopers conducted five air assaults during the operation, one of which was carried out at night by the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.⁶⁴

Finally, during Gulf War I – the liberation of Kuwait from occupying Iraqi forces – nearly 700,000 US troops and more than and 1,900 Army aircraft participated in Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. CH-47 Chinook helicopters, often the most effective means of transporting personnel and equipment over extended distances, conducted numerous Special Operations insertion and extraction missions inside Iraq. On 24 February 1991, in the largest and longest combat air assault ever conducted, 300 Black Hawks and Chinooks from the 18^th Aviation Brigade flew the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) 110 miles into Iraq to secure Forward Operating Base (FOB) COBRA in the Euphrates River Valley. Using their helicopter assets, 101st AB Soldiers then leapfrogged from FOB COBRA sixty miles further to Highway 8, thereby blocking the escape route for Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait. In the main attack, VII Corps Soldiers from the 1st Infantry, 1st Armored, and 3d Armored Divisions and the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment attacked and destroyed Iraq’s Republican Guard Armored Divisions. The 11^th Aviation Brigade conducted numerous air assaults of infantry units into trouble spots during this phase of the operation. After four days of fighting, Kuwait had been successfully liberated and an official ceasefire was declared. The series of successful air assaults conducted during Gulf War I extended reach and flexibility of the ground force and validated the US Army’s increasing reliance on helicopters and airmobile operations.⁶⁵

Air assault tactics were particularly suited to the counterinsurgency operations conducted by US and allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. During Operations ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) and IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF), enemy combatants lacked air superiority and sophisticated air defense systems, transportation networks were typically poor, and useable roadways were often mined with improvised explosive devices (IED). The role of aviation as a critical facilitator of ground force movement increased dramatically grew in the counterinsurgency operational environment. As a result, the Army continued to revise, restructure, and fine tune aviation assets, capabilities, and force structure during the early twenty-first century. Additional plans and programs were developed and updated descriptive terminology, such as, modular, self-contained, multi-functional, and unit of action, was introduced. Army aviation units were expected to be flexible, lethal, tailorable, sustainable, and easily deployable. Finally, under the terms and conditions of the 2004 Aviation Transformation Plan, the Army settled on a force structure consisting of twenty-one standardized combat aviation brigades (CAB), thirteen active component and eight reserve.⁶⁶

Currently, combat aviation brigades are task-organized based upon mission requirements and typically support Army divisions and/or multiple brigade combat teams (BCT). CABs can be configured as either “heavy,” or “full-spectrum,” with varying combinations of attack, assault, and general support aviation battalions, medevac and command aviation companies, and reconnaissance squadrons. As of 2012, CAB helicopter assets included only UH-60 Black Hawks, CH-47 Chinooks, AH-64 Apaches, and OH-58 Kiowa Warriors. CABs and BCTs can be easily integrated into Air Assault Task Forces (AATF) when conducting combat assault missions. CABs are capable of performing a comprehensive range of independent missions, including aerial attack, reconnaissance, security, movement to contact, air assault, casualty evacuation, crew recovery, and command and control.⁶⁷

The Army issued the first Air Assault Operations Field Manual (FM 90-4) in 1987. An upgraded version – ATTP 3-18.12 – was released by TRADOC and the US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence in March 2011. An air assault is currently defined as a vertical envelopment, under the control of a ground or air maneuver commander and using the mobility of rotary-wing aircraft, to seize terrain, destroy an enemy force, or interdict enemy withdrawal routes. The new manual describes the coordinated effort necessary for brigade combat teams and combat aviation brigades to properly plan, prepare for, and vigorously conduct combat air assault missions. Commanders are advised to attempt to surprise the enemy, and whenever possible strive for unopposed landings. Also addressed are the establishment and effective use of integrated, task-oriented, mission-specific, AATFs to execute offensive, defensive, stability, and civil support air assault operations. Inherent speed and agility make it possible for an AATF to extend the battlefield and rapidly concentrate decisive combat power above and beyond the capabilities of most other US forces.⁶⁸

Apropos to this Long War Occasional Paper, Chinooks conducted the first US military infiltration missions of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. On 19 October 2001, two separate teams of Special Forces Soldiers from Task Force DAGGER were successfully inserted into Afghanistan’s Panjshir and Darya Suf Valleys aboard specially equipped MH-47 Chinook helicopters.⁶⁹