- 8 months ago
For educational purposes
The Apache AH-64E Guardian is an attack helicopter, widely used for advanced reconnaissance, precision strikes, and close air support missions globally.
The Apache AH-64E Guardian is an attack helicopter, widely used for advanced reconnaissance, precision strikes, and close air support missions globally.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:30Ladies and gentlemen, Operation Desert Storm has begun.
00:46This morning, at approximately 3 o'clock Riyadh time, a massive air interdiction strike
00:52was initiated.
00:54U.S. Air Force attack and bomber aircraft included F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting
01:01Falcons, A-10 Thunderbolts, F-111s, F-117 Stealth Fighters, F-4G Wild Weasels, and B-52s.
01:14Naval and Marine aircraft included F-18 Hornets, A-7s, and A-6s.
01:21Although we can't discuss specific targets, they include military emplacements, air defense
01:27assets, and command and control targets.
01:31Additionally, United States Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters also took part in the operation.
01:44Despite its low billing, the Apaches' role in the Gulf War is crucial.
01:49Just 15 meters above the desert floor, Army pilots spearhead the greatest air assault
01:55launched since the Second World War.
01:58The helicopter will crack the enemy's air defense shell and destroy Iraq's frontline
02:03radar stations, clearing the way for the 700 coalition strike aircraft that will follow
02:08them.
02:09The 64 was decided upon as the best option for a couple of reasons.
02:16Number one was the standoff capabilities of the helicopter missile system itself.
02:20Number two was the capability of the aircraft and the crews to stay until the job was done.
02:25A fixed wing aircraft, you know, he comes in, he drops his ordinance, he has to leave.
02:29They had to have 100% verification that those sites were down.
02:44No machine is better suited for the job.
02:47This futuristic Silicon Valley creation is by far the most complex weapon that the United
02:52States Army sends into combat.
03:09Deadly quiet, and with an extraordinarily low radar signature, the two-seat gunship
03:13will prowl undetected deep into enemy territory to blind Iraq's air defenses with a barrage
03:19of laser-guided missiles.
03:27But the Apache is new to combat, and for the first time, the pilots who fly it will employ
03:32knowledge gathered in countless mock battles above the forest and training grounds of Fort
03:37Campbell, Kentucky.
03:46It's here that Army pilots learn to harmonize with infantry, artillery, and armor in a fluid
03:51and lethal symphony.
03:54Commanders call it the combined arms team.
03:57Their goal, to outmaneuver and then overwhelm the enemy.
04:02The AH-64's primary mission is to support the GIs on the ground.
04:07They stand vigil less than 30 meters above the battlefield, and when called upon, deliver
04:12a massive blow to enemy units in the area.
04:28Of all the men in today's combined arms team, perhaps none feels the weight of their duty
04:33more heavily than Apache pilots.
04:43These soldier airmen are team managers who must absorb and communicate information at
04:49an incredible pace under extreme combat duress.
04:55We will drop down to the ground frequency, and if you come up against any unexpected
05:00resistance, we're there to provide direct fire.
05:03All are aware that even the slightest error can lead to catastrophe.
05:12One of the very challenging things about being an Apache pilot is you don't just fly.
05:17The flying part's the easy part.
05:21You not only have to fly, you have to do a lot of communications.
05:27You don't just fly and communicate either.
05:31You also have to employ your weapons system, both individually and as part of a team.
05:44Well, you don't just do those things either.
05:46You then add on the fact that you are managing the battle, you are fighting the battle in front of them.
05:51It takes a very good pilot, a very technical pilot.
05:56And it also takes some of that natural skill to be able to do that.
05:59There are people who can fly your average airplane who cannot do the other things.
06:06X-ray 75, this is Charlie 47, Texaco is clear.
06:10You have your feet on the pedals, a hand on the collective, a hand on the cyclic, and
06:16it only takes a nanosecond to make the wrong decision, be looking the wrong way,
06:20make the wrong slightest of moves on any of those controls to put you into the trees.
06:29To an Apache pilot, rugged terrain is both enemy and friend.
06:34Hugging the ground, he's taught to use the trees and folds of the earth to stalk his prey.
06:39And unlike Air Force flyers, he cannot rely on terrain following radar to get him there.
06:51Once in range, he must pull into a hover, thus providing a rock-steady platform to get his weapons onto target.
07:00Using the sticks, cyclic and collective, the pilot makes constant adjustments to the articulation of the rotor blades
07:08and the power of the engines until the craft is perfectly suspended in mid-air.
07:13Any shift in wind direction, common at such low level, forces him to again fine-tune his adjustments.
07:24I remember my initial instructor years ago in flight school told me that he thought
07:29trying to teach somebody who had never flown a helicopter to hover a helicopter in one spot,
07:34three feet above the ground, was about like trying to teach a guy how to ride a unicycle on top of a basketball.
07:44In the front seat sits the gunner.
07:55The destructive power at his fingertips is formidable and includes a 30mm chain gun,
08:01up to 38 rockets and as many as 16 laser-guided hellfire missiles.
08:14Nice shot, Ford.
08:20A well-trained pilot knows where to put that aircraft to see the enemy without being seen.
08:25He can put Mother Earth, large trees and hills between his airframe and the enemy
08:30and there's nothing better to protect him than skill and knowledge and just using terrain to his advantage.
08:37Aggression is second nature to all combat troops, but perhaps more so than other army personnel.
08:42These men are also skilled technicians.
08:45The $14 million aircraft that they fly is packed with over 11 black boxes.
08:51These relay avionics information and FLIR, or thermal imagery, to a helmet-mounted eyepiece
08:58that is slaved to an electronic eyeball on the front of the helicopter.
09:13With this, machine and pilot become one.
09:16A system made possible by sensors mounted on the side of the pilot's helmet.
09:24They pick up signals and these two components on the side of the seat
09:32mount the actual sight onto the side of the helmet
09:37onto the side of the helmet
09:41and move the eyepiece in front of the eye.
09:47At the base of this is a one-inch television screen.
09:50That signal is projected and all the information you need to fly,
09:55the FLIR picture, airspeed, altitude, direction, weapons,
10:00all of that information is directed onto this screen.
10:05So what you do is you position your head into an imaginary box inside the aircraft.
10:12These sensors pick up where the helmet is located.
10:16You then boresight the crosshairs in your sight with the boresight reticle unit
10:22on top of the dash in front of you, center it, hit a switch,
10:27and then you've electronically saved the position of your head in the aircraft.
10:31So after that, any time you look left or right,
10:34the eyepiece and the sensor on the front of the aircraft are in coincidence
10:38and wherever you look, it's looking.
10:40In effect, it's the same as if you took your eye,
10:43moved it three feet down and ten feet forward and placed it in front of the aircraft
10:48because all of the imagery that you receive on the screen
10:51is from that sensor at the very front of the aircraft.
11:02The Apache's menacing looks are backed up by its awesome array of weapons.
11:07Like the aircraft sensors, the helicopter's 30mm chain gun is slaved to the pilot's eyes.
11:14So too are its rocket pods and hellfire missiles.
11:18It is, by any measure, a stealthy machine.
11:22The helicopter is uniquely equipped with baffles fixed to the rear of the engines
11:27that cool its exhaust and reduce its heat signature.
11:30The Apache's olive drab paint scheme is radar sensitive
11:35and can absorb enemy radar beacons attempting to seek it out.
11:39But the aircraft's greatest protection, by far, is the black of night.
11:44It cloaks itself in the shadows that best serve its fighting capabilities.
11:51To say we own the night, though that's a good ad,
11:55the night is a challenge and we own more of it than anyone else does.
11:59But we're still challenged at night.
12:02Night vision goggles still give us about 40% acuity.
12:06You couldn't get into flight school with eyes like that,
12:09yet we get out here every night and fly around reducing our visibility to that.
12:16The dangers inherent in night operations affect ground crew and pilots alike.
12:21Working in a darkened landing zone is nearly as hazardous as flying into one.
12:30MUSIC
12:37While there are a number of systems that enable Apache pilots to see through darkness,
12:42none is perfect.
12:44With one eye trained on the flashing lights of their wingmen
12:47and the other through their headset eyepiece,
12:50army pilots face an overwhelming chore.
12:53Choosing from thermal and infrared vision,
12:56they must navigate an extremely sophisticated machine at treetop level
13:00to a map coordinate located somewhere in the darkness below.
13:04Along the way, they must be ever vigilant for enemy threats
13:07trying to blow them out of the night sky.
13:10GUNFIRE
13:24In many ways, modern warfare has become a gruesome, detached video game.
13:29For Apache pilots, the tool of choice is the Hellfire missile.
13:33This anti-tank weapon fires upward and then descends onto the top of the enemy vehicle,
13:39striking it at its most thinly armoured point.
13:43The missile then follows a laser beam that the gunner has aimed at the intended target.
13:53GUNFIRE
14:09In mock battle, the Hellfire missile boasts a near perfect record.
14:14But in the Gulf War, the challenges of desert combat will put that record to the test.
14:20Yeah! See it hit?
14:22Oh, look at it blow up.
14:24Pilots are only as good as their training.
14:27And for those in Apache cockpits,
14:29that training was never based on fighting a war above the barren landscape of the Persian Gulf.
14:36We had learned to fight in a European theatre.
14:39I mean, you've got rolling hills, you've got trees,
14:41you've got masking, ability to hide from the enemy.
14:44And now all of a sudden, we're being told,
14:46you're going to further deploy to an area that you've never seen before,
14:51you've never trained for.
14:53So where you're used to hiding in this big green helicopter in the trees,
14:57it's not there anymore.
15:06When war with Iraq comes, nearly 300 Apaches are dispatched to the Gulf,
15:12seeing more action than any other combat aircraft.
15:16The men who fly them will suffer the adversity of the desert environment.
15:29Our air conditioning on the Apache, the ENCU,
15:32would ingest sand and would quit.
15:34And we had several crews flying around in their mission-oriented protective posture,
15:38their chemical gear, with no air conditioning,
15:41and in fact, hot air blowing into the cockpit,
15:43and it was probably 100 degrees outside.
15:45So those crews were not happy.
15:52The helicopter is a complex and fragile machine,
15:55and the fine dust of the Saudi desert wreaks havoc with it.
15:59Rotor blades and missile seeker heads fare the worst.
16:03Early on, critics had questioned the AH-64's durability.
16:08Here in the Gulf, they find vindication.
16:11Over one-third of the Apache force is knocked out of service
16:14by the harsh conditions of the region.
16:26It's a technician's nightmare,
16:28and over the course of the war,
16:30each helicopter requires at least five maintenance hours
16:33for every one hour of flying time.
16:36No other aircraft in the conflict racks up such a dismal mission capability rate.
16:47Despite grave questions of reliability,
16:50when commanders devise the plan to thrust through Saddam Hussein's air defense shell,
16:55they choose Apache as their bayonet.
16:58The helicopter's assignment?
17:00To slip into Iraqi airspace 30 minutes ahead of the Allied air armada
17:05and destroy a sector of the enemy's radar sites strung along the border.
17:09Surprise is imperative.
17:12The Iraqis' lines of communications must be severed quickly
17:16before they can notify Baghdad of the impending attack.
17:20If successful, the Apaches will open a narrow 130-kilometer corridor
17:25for the first of some 700 coalition warplanes set to follow them.
17:38Sixteen men from the famed 101st Airborne Division are selected for the job.
17:45Come on in for a coffee and conversation.
17:48The fate of nearly 1,000 Navy and Air Force pilots,
17:51most of them lieutenants, captains, majors, and colonels,
17:55will lie in the hands of this small team of Army chief warrant officers.
18:04Okay, we're at 3,500 meters.
18:07Okay, guns.
18:09Okay.
18:12Okay, ready?
18:18Okay.
18:20Okay, going cold.
18:22In training, a 70% accuracy rate is acceptable.
18:26But on this mission, they must achieve 100% accuracy
18:30or cost some of the American airmen, depending on them, their lives.
18:35Zero-six, fireball on you.
18:38Roger, understand, fireball.
18:40Go ahead and start your move.
18:42Four, three, two, one.
18:47There it goes.
18:50That's what you double on.
18:54This burden of responsibility is severe,
18:57and the men of the 101st soon turn abandoned school buses into a practice range
19:02meant to replicate the targets they will hit.
19:05Hit.
19:06Hit.
19:07Roger that.
19:09As vital as the destruction of the enemy sites is,
19:12the most difficult and dangerous leg of the mission will be getting there in the first place.
19:17The featureless Iraqi desert not only affords them no cover,
19:21it provides no point of reference to help them find their way.
19:26With very few terrain features to guide them,
19:29the Apache's passive Doppler navigation system
19:32will have a difficult time maintaining an accurate global position.
19:37As a solution, Air Force Pave Low helicopters,
19:40equipped with more advanced navigational systems,
19:43are assigned to act as pathfinders for the Army assault team.
19:48APACHE PILOTS
20:01Hawkins and Roberts.
20:03Blankenship Felton.
20:05Rader and Brown.
20:07And Stanslow and Birkin.
20:09Time hack, we've got 19-03.
20:12In the Gulf, last-minute briefings like this would become routine for Apache pilots.
20:18But on the first night of the conflict,
20:20the men of the 101st are as yet unblooded.
20:31They assemble for the final briefing just minutes before liftoff.
20:35Only then do they learn the location of their specific targets and the time of execution.
20:41Ninety minutes later, at 2.38 a.m.,
20:44they will fire the first shots of the Persian Gulf War.
20:52Reality sets in when each crew is outfitted with an M-16
20:57should the worst come to pass.
21:00Don't forget your tapes.
21:02Got it.
21:03Before you record it.
21:05Finally, years of training will be put to the acid test of combat.
21:11I'm going to be real glad to be American instead of Iraq.
21:17These young soldiers will traverse 150 kilometers of open desert
21:22in the black of night under strict radio silence.
21:26Adrenaline keeps them awake
21:28as they creep over the curves of the desert,
21:30dipping down into wadis,
21:32maintaining an airspeed of 100 knots
21:35and an altitude of 15 meters
21:37to escape the passive sweep of enemy radar.
21:42Around the time we got to the Iraqi border,
21:44there was some small arms fire.
21:46It was probably just nervous troops.
21:50It wasn't well-directed. It wasn't high-volume.
21:53It was more of a shooting into the sky because the noise went by.
21:59Before launch, Apache and Pavelo pilots
22:02agreed upon a predetermined map coordinate.
22:05Once over that point,
22:07the Pavelos will update the Army fliers as to just where they are.
22:14Okay, about another 20 seconds.
22:16Roger.
22:17Getting close.
22:1835 minutes into the mission,
22:20the Pavelos navigation system confirms
22:22that the strike force is now passing over the coordinate.
22:26As they do,
22:27the pathfinders drop bundles of fliers onto the desert floor.
22:31There they go.
22:32You see them?
22:33Turn left a little bit.
22:34Turn left.
22:35Each Apache then passes over the lights
22:38and the pilots enter the predetermined grid coordinates
22:41in their Doppler navigational systems.
22:43Posing the Doppler.
22:44Roger.
22:45Seconds later, they wave off their escort and proceed unattended.
22:49From there on, the men of the 101st are on their own.
22:57I want to say it's exciting, but you don't think about it.
23:00We were just too busy at that time.
23:02They took us to within about 12 kilometers of the target area.
23:06We were in Iraqi airspace for about probably 30 minutes.
23:09We couldn't see a thing.
23:11We were in Iraqi airspace for about probably 30 minutes.
23:14We picked the most clandestine routes that we could to get us in there.
23:29We have radar warning receiving equipment on the aircraft
23:32that'll tell us if the aircraft's being painted by a threat radar.
23:35We didn't pick any of that up until we got probably within that 12-kilometer realm.
23:39That radar stayed in the search mode the entire time,
23:41so I'm 90% sure that they had no idea that we were there.
23:46There's the generators right there.
23:48Okay.
23:52It's already in 10.
23:53And at exactly 10 seconds prior to 2.38 in the morning,
24:00all eight aircraft fired their missiles.
24:03Fire.
24:06Response for you, Saddam.
24:10Apache's work in lethal unison.
24:14Each gunship is assigned to search and destroy a primary and a secondary target.
24:20Each crew's secondary target is the primary target of their wingmen.
24:24The redundancy proves brutally effective.
24:27Okay, go ahead and tell him that I saw the hits on his target.
24:32Four and a half minutes after pulling into a hover, it's over.
24:37There he goes.
24:40Okay, I cannot see any more targets in my area.
24:44The Iraqi sites are isolated far from any cities or towns.
24:49Their destruction is muted and quick.
24:53One of the concerns that we had as pilots,
24:56we did not know to what level our brother airmen in the Air Force had been briefed on our mission.
25:02We broadcast the code words that the target was destroyed, no casualties, no downed aircraft.
25:07We knew at that time, once we'd done that, that the rest of the air war was coming in right behind us.
25:12And I remember on my way out, a strike eagle locked me up on his target acquisition radar.
25:19And that made me wonder exactly how much they had been briefed on our mission.
25:24We were very happy when we looked up the last second as he went overhead.
25:29It was an inspiring sight to see that, the amount of aircraft going in.
25:33You knew that it had started.
25:35It was a good feeling.
25:39The success of this mission effectively blinded Saddam Hussein to the coming onslaught.
25:50In the next few hours, over 500 enemy targets are struck.
25:54It's a blow from which Iraq will never recover.
26:05Many had predicted losses of 50 Allied planes on that first night.
26:10But by morning, only one is missing.
26:17Our staging area was a standby recovery airfield for battle-damaged aircraft.
26:21And this guy came in and landed. He had obvious battle damage to his aircraft.
26:25He was shot up pretty good.
26:27My thought at the time was, congratulations, buddy, you made it back.
26:31Hope we helped.
26:36After six weeks of constant pounding by coalition air forces,
26:41the ground war to dislodge Iraqi troops from Kuwait finally begins.
26:52Now, Apache pilots set about doing the job for which they were initially trained,
26:57protecting their own.
26:59When it comes to close air support,
27:01no Navy or Air Force plane compares to the Apache.
27:05To the GIs slugging it out below,
27:07no tool is more powerful, more precise, or more responsive than the AH-64.
27:19The gunship packs up to 16 Hellfire missiles
27:22that can knock out enemy tanks from over 10 kilometers away.
27:26Most Iraqis never see or hear it coming.
27:32He says three. I think there's another one right next to him.
27:38When struck, the Hellfire's shaped charge slices through armor,
27:42spewing molten lead throughout the vehicle.
27:46Ooh, hot plasma.
27:55Look, I got people running away.
27:57You can see the people running away from it.
28:00You could see it in the flare of them running into each other,
28:03trying to figure out where to go.
28:06And it's not one concerted effort of go left, go right, go forward, go back.
28:11They were running into each other, trying to figure out where to go.
28:16One of the reasons the Iraqis had such a morale problem with the Apache
28:20was it would just show up, and you couldn't hear it, you couldn't see it.
28:23It was at night. The thing is quiet.
28:26And all of a sudden, something would blow up.
28:30Other aircraft you can hear coming, or you can hear them descending in a dive,
28:34or a missile is on the way sometimes.
28:37But an Apache, it just was out of nowhere.
28:43Under this kind of punishment, the Iraqi will to resist begins to crumble.
28:49We actually captured one day an entire Iraqi battalion with AH-64s.
28:54They surrendered to the helicopters.
28:57It caught us all by surprise. We didn't know what to do.
28:59How do you capture POWs with AH-64s?
29:08They came out of their holes and out of their bunkers, waving their white flags,
29:11gathered themselves in groups, put down their weapons, and sat there and waited.
29:22That's before the war ever started, and that was 50 miles deep into Iraq.
29:27Soon, half a million coalition troops are on the move.
29:32During the Gulf War, the front lines change constantly.
29:36The battlefield is more fluid than any other in history.
29:41Armored reconnaissance in terms of Apaches and 58 Deltas going out tonight.
29:47They will go to a tactical pause long enough to refuel their tanks.
29:52The Apache is a pure gunship.
29:56But flying so close to the ground provides pilot and gunner
29:59with an extremely limited view of the battlefield.
30:03This is where the OH-58 reconnaissance helicopter comes into play.
30:07It's the Apache's eyes.
30:09And when combat does break out, the tiny craft darts ahead to locate Iraqi targets
30:14and directs the gunships onto them.
30:26Time and again, Apaches streak beyond American armor units
30:30and clear the area of any hostile forces that can threaten their advance.
30:37Army pilots find themselves pushing deeper into enemy territory with each passing day.
30:44They serve as a steel umbrella for the troops below,
30:47and brave considerable flack to do so.
30:51It was a funny conversation between my backseater and myself and the other aircraft.
30:57It was a question of, what was that? Did you see that?
31:00Okay, keep going. We had no idea what it was.
31:03The next round, it went off near the helicopter.
31:05It dawned on us what it was, and it's like, we're being shot at.
31:08And a lot of stuff becomes reflex and just reaction.
31:12You're not... I dare say fear was not a part of it
31:17I dare say fear was not a part of it
31:19because you're more concerned with trying to protect everybody else
31:23and trying to keep yourself in a situation of survivability.
31:27Somebody give me a missile, we'll take care of it.
31:29We ain't got no more missiles.
31:31Oh, man.
31:33I reckon we could go land next to it and not drop a frag in it.
31:37We could do that.
31:392-6, this is enough dicking around. Let's head home. Same route as inbound.
31:44A small element of fear makes you think a little faster,
31:47makes you respond a little keener and a little sharper.
31:49It heightens your senses.
31:51So, I would never want a small element of fear to be removed.
31:55But again, the overriding attribute should be courage.
31:58And courage to overcome and deal with that fear comes from great training.
32:04Any time you train, there's always the thought in the back of your mind,
32:08oh, this is not for real.
32:10And no matter what I do, unless something catastrophic happens to the aircraft,
32:15I will return home from training and go home and see the family or whatever.
32:20When we launched on our first mission, there was the thought in the back of your mind,
32:24hey, this is for real.
32:26As we approached the battle, all the gunners were heads down looking at a TV screen.
32:34So, again, it was almost surreal, if you will.
32:37There's a fight going on outside the cockpit,
32:40but your duty was to look at a TV screen and almost play a video game.
32:45Stand by, 1-6, this is 4-6. We need to egress.
32:48We're almost getting close to bingo field.
32:50In wartime, of course, it's the survival of my front-seater.
32:54I mean, you get pretty close to those guys.
32:56Kind of like the little brother, you know.
32:59And your aircraft and then, of course, your unit.
33:02I mean, that's the Army teacher's unit, cohesion.
33:05So that's probably the most important thing.
33:07You don't want anything to happen to your guys.
33:09I've lost my stick buddies here.
33:11Everybody, wait a minute.
33:12The Iraqis could not see us.
33:14We were hovering at 100 feet above the ground.
33:17They didn't have any radar systems or any defense systems
33:20that were operable that we knew about.
33:22So their fire was directed at our ground troops.
33:26We saw an M3 Bradley get hit,
33:30and you could say, hey, you know, there's four dead Americans here.
33:34So that was emotional.
33:39The pace of combat accelerates.
33:41Distinguishing friend from foe becomes increasingly confusing.
33:45What does that look like?
33:46Looks like a honey junk. I don't know.
33:48I second-guessed it to the point where I probably would have gotten shot down,
33:52but I was not going to shoot
33:53if I did not have a positive identification of that target either.
33:57I would rather be shot down than have the feeling that I had shot somebody.
34:04This confusion meant that eight days before the main ground assault,
34:08Apache pilots attached to the 1st Infantry Division
34:11clearly had serious problems.
34:16As the ground skirmish between Iraqi armored scouts
34:20and forward elements of the 1st Infantry Division,
34:23or the Big Red One, heats up,
34:25Apache pilots are soon called upon to support 1,000 1st Division troops
34:30that have pushed five kilometers into Iraq.
34:33This forward element is called Task Force Iron
34:36and has been sent to probe enemy defenses.
34:40On the evening of February the 16th,
34:42scouts spot Iraqi armored vehicles dodging in and out of the desert folds
34:47just in front of the American right flank.
34:51When evening gives way to night,
34:53anxious troops fire a single tow missile at the Iraqis,
34:57striking one of the enemy vehicles.
34:59Deep in hostile territory,
35:01Task Force Iron is thinly stretched along a 30-kilometer line.
35:05Its commander, Lt. Col. James Hillman,
35:08anchors his right flank with a Bradley fighting vehicle
35:11and an M113 armored personnel carrier.
35:16Throughout the night,
35:17the Iraqi armored scouts and the Apache scouts
35:20are in constant contact with the enemy.
35:23Hillman becomes concerned about the strength and intention of the Iraqi force
35:27sitting astride his right flank.
35:29Soon, he requests air support from the Apache pilots
35:33attached to the Big Red One.
35:42Just after midnight,
35:43the Apache pilots and the Iraqi scouts
35:46take off.
35:51Just after midnight,
35:52two gunships from the 11th Aviation Brigade
35:55lift off and head north into the dark and gusty winter night.
35:59Flying conditions are wretched.
36:0125-knot winds and no moon.
36:08The flight is led by the unit's 42-year-old commander,
36:11Col. Ralph Hales.
36:13He flies under the call sign Gunfighter 6.
36:16So as to better control his forces,
36:18Hales has been ordered not to take part in the fighting himself.
36:22He chooses to disobey.
36:35His wingman that night is Captain Dan Garvey.
36:38Garvey flies under the radio call sign Blue 6.
36:44The pilots quickly spot two vehicles
36:47that seem to be sitting a couple of kilometers north of the American line.
36:51Gunfighter 6 and Blue 6
36:53then establish radio contact with Col. Hillman
36:56to confirm the target's as hostile.
37:13And those are the vehicles at 9-1-5-2-7-0.
37:17Your Bradley is not even looking anywhere near them. Over.
37:24Early on, Garvey and Blue 6
37:27notices that their Apache fire control computers
37:30contradict the grid locations for the two enemy scouts
37:33given to them by the men on the ground.
37:35At Garvey's urging, they take a closer look,
37:38closing to within three kilometers of the target vehicles.
37:44But Task Force Commander Hillman,
37:46having been told by the pilots
37:48that the vehicles sit nearly two kilometers north of his lines,
37:51reassures the airmen that these must be the enemy scouts
37:55pinpointed earlier by his own ground troops.
38:10Hales, in Gunfighter 6,
38:12decides to rely on his own battlefield judgment
38:15instead of the Apache computer.
38:18Okay, firing gun.
38:20Go on.
38:21Gunfighter stalling.
38:23Radar 13.
38:25Fucking gun jammed.
38:26When Hales' 30-millimeter gun jams,
38:28it's just the first of several opportunities
38:31he will get to re-evaluate the data and abort the mission.
38:38Gunfighter 6 is on the net.
38:40Two vehicles in sight.
38:41Appears one of them is, in fact, killed,
38:43and I'm going to go ahead and shoot the other one now.
38:45Roger. Go ahead. Take him out.
38:49Noting that one of the vehicles appears partially destroyed,
38:52Hales assumes these are the same enemy scouts
38:55struck earlier by the TOW missiles.
39:00Well, I'm going to tell you, it's hard to pull this trigger.
39:02Back me up a little bit here.
39:03Tell me, I'm firing heading 070, 3,800 meters.
39:08So my current grid...
39:09Hales, still noticing the discrepancy
39:12between his fire control computer
39:14and the grid coordinates provided by the ground commander,
39:17hesitates again before following through with the mission.
39:21And the grid of the target?
39:23Roger. I've got an IR-223, and I've got it out at 3,800 meters.
39:28Ready in the back.
39:31Again, the opportunity to abort presents itself
39:34when Hales cannot lock up the laser on target.
39:38He reverses the FLIR image for greater contrast.
39:42All track.
39:44Switch to blackout.
39:48There you go.
39:52Nice and steady.
39:55I hope it's enemy.
39:56That's all right. Just stay on him.
39:57Here it comes.
39:59That's one.
40:00I guess you could say that hit it.
40:01All right. Now let's take a look at the second one.
40:04Gunfighter 6, completely destroyed the first target with the first bullet.
40:10Let's pick up the second one. Let's go.
40:13Roger. I'm going to go ahead and shoot the second vehicle.
40:15It's still intact, but it's fixing to go away.
40:18Yep. You're ready in the back. Let's do him.
40:22Looking good.
40:24This bud's for you.
40:26Uh-oh.
40:27That's all right. He's dead, too.
40:30Hoo-wee! Did we hit those targets?
40:32Roger.
40:33Trust me when I say that anything that's around those two vehicles is dead.
40:36There are no hot targets.
40:38We've got two personnel walking away from the targets.
40:42Roger. You got guns?
40:44My gun is jammed. They're walking on the heading of east.
40:48When Hales' gun jams again, he asks Garvey and Blue 6 to kill the survivors.
40:53Roger. We've got them here. They're walking 090 here.
40:58Break. Blue 6, can you engage with guns?
41:02Roger. Engaging with guns.
41:04Just as Garvey's gunner is about to take out the two men,
41:07a ground controller interrupts the mission with chilling news.
41:11The RTSA was reporting that maybe friendly vehicles may have been hit over...
41:16What?
41:19Roger. I was afraid of that. I was really afraid of that.
41:22Five is engaging the target at 30.
41:25Cease fire. Cease fire.
41:26Cease fire.
41:29Acknowledge cease fire.
41:31Roger. Cease fire.
41:33All the time, 25 knot winds had been blowing the two Apaches to the east.
41:38Human error did the rest.
41:41Instead of heading due north and perpendicular to the American lines as the pilots had thought,
41:46the helicopters had been drifting nearly parallel to them.
41:50That's why the Bradley and APC sitting at the far end of the right flank
41:54seemed to Hales and Garvey to be north of the American position.
42:01I hope it's not friendlies I just blew up because they're all dead.
42:05It's easier for us to engage a target out there and say, yeah, yeah, whatever that is.
42:11But it was stressed that you would be positive about what you engaged.
42:16And it was also stressed of a point at which the friendly units would stop
42:21and that's where the ground commanders would tell us we've got no friendly units beyond this point.
42:26But there was still an identification upon us.
42:28It's a pilot responsibility.
42:31Dragon six, gunfighter six, I destroyed two vehicles at niner one seven.
42:36Correction, niner one five two seven zero.
42:38And they were both friendly vehicles.
42:41Request permission to break station and go home.
42:44Negative. Remain on station.
42:47Those things are going to happen. Over.
42:50Friendly fire or fratricide is a fact of war.
42:53There is no way around it.
42:55Technology will never solve it even though many say that it eventually will.
42:59And quite honestly you can't fault the person who actually pulls the trigger.
43:04He's doing his very best.
43:06And quite often he's much more cautious than he probably should be in combat sometimes
43:10because when you're very cautious in combat you become a target yourself.
43:13How much more left?
43:15I don't know.
43:16Thirteen.
43:17Very hard for me to concentrate right now.
43:18I know it.
43:19I'm just double checking, they look like they are.
43:22I just killed a bunch of people, you know.
43:23Yeah, but we don't know which ones they are.
43:25They're friendly, they're US people.
43:28Hales is right.
43:30The first Apache ground support kills of the war are a 23-year-old specialist, Jeff Middleton, and Private Bob Talley.
43:38Talley is just 18.
43:40Six others are wounded in the attack but somehow survive.
43:46Are you up there?
43:48I'm just, I'm right, you know.
43:49I know it, but listen to me.
43:50I killed some people there.
43:51I know it.
43:53Just hours after landing, Hales is relieved of command for violating orders.
43:59And so the Apache is involved in just one friendly fire incident in Desert Storm.
44:04By the end of the war, they carry out nearly 10,000 missions without mishap.
44:16Less than six weeks after it began, the conflict comes to a close.
44:21Saddam Hussein's feared army disintegrates beneath the weight of the coalition air onslaught.
44:26And the burned hulks of over 600 enemy tanks attest to the AH-64's prowess.
44:35The success and failure of the Apache in the Gulf stem from the same root.
44:39The combined arms team and computer-enhanced weaponry proved lethal to Saddam Hussein's more primitive war machine.
44:47Yet, high technology itself often succumbed to the primitive environment.
44:53The destructive power at two men's fingertips easily overwhelmed arms systems not yet caught up with the computer age.
45:01But when the men in the cockpit found themselves overwhelmed with data,
45:05they sometimes proved just as deadly to their own troops.
45:10This is a by-product of the modern age.
45:14Tools that are meant to ease the pilot workload actually complicate it.
45:19And the time these tools bequeath him is simply filled with new tasks.
45:28Events since the Gulf War prove that, if anything, this trend is accelerating.
45:34The Army's new Longbow Apache is meant to combine the reconnaissance capability of the OH-58 with the destructive firepower of the AH-64.
45:44With the Longbow, Apache pilots will benefit from a digital terrain mapping navigation system,
45:50but face the staggering job of serving in both the scout and attack role.
45:55A pilot and an observer in a scout helicopter are extremely valuable assets.
46:02They have a confirming capability.
46:05Do you see what I see? What do you think about that?
46:07What do you see? What are you hearing?
46:09What does your information say?
46:11When you boil that down to being just a gunner and a pilot in one machine,
46:17the burden of responsibility, in my opinion, is a little different.
46:20In one machine, the burden of responsibility, in my opinion, is a little too high.
46:25I think you really do need multiple crew input.
46:27And a scout also is made to be very maneuverable.
46:30He's smaller, he's more maneuverable, he's more stealthy, he's in and out quicker.
46:35And he can provide that information without risking the more expensive Apache.
46:45Apache is a machine that exists to kill.
46:48And some fear that as the technology overwhelms the humans operating it,
46:53its killing power could become dangerously indiscriminate.
46:56But since the dawn of flight, airmen have had to adapt to the technology thrust upon them.
47:02And like all army pilots, Apache airmen will continue to evolve,
47:07so long as the soldiers below look to them to be their guardians of the night.
47:18For more UN videos visit www.un.org
Be the first to comment