Question for the military-minded: is it standard procedure during a sandstorm........

[FunkyHiFi]

..........to send out helicopters full of troops?

I'm asking because 31 soldiers were killed when such a scenario occurred yesterday & the helicopter crashed. According to Yahoo news (http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=World&cat=Iraq):

Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, said the helicopter was on a mission in support of the election. The crash occurred among severe weather, but its cause was still under investigation, Abizaid said. An Accuweather map of Iraq showed sandstorms Wednesday in the western region of Iraq near the Jordanian border where the crash took place.
The crash occurred at 1:20am, so add the lighting conditons at the time to the sandstorm's effects.

Maybe the cause of the crash wasn't the sandstorm itself but it still seems to me a foolish decision to send out an aircraft, full of finely-machined mechanical moving parts, into such potentially harmful weather.

Besides the loss of the lives of those 31 soldiers, think of all those families--thirty one of them--getting the news of their husbands/wives/brothers/sons/etc lives' being extinguished and what these families are going through right this minute.

The only thing positive that I hope results from this useless war is that we as a country will learn.....something......from it.

[100% ILL]

Standard procedure, as it's name implies is conduct usually followed in a standard situation. War is not a standard situation, so there may be an amendment in the standard operating procedure. The unit S.O.P can vary within certain parameters established by the commanding officer. Usually as long as an order is not unlawful it is obeyed. Mission requirements are of the utmost importance and usually recieve the largest lee-way in situations where these variations must take place. There is usually a report drawn up for acceptable losses in any senario, training or otherwise, The commanding officer must then sign off on the report to indicate he personally feels the possible losses for the particular mission are acceptable.

[FunkyHiFi]

Thanks 100% ILL.

But this bothers me:

There is usually a report drawn up for acceptable losses in any senario............
I wonder who determines what the acceptable losses are?

[100% ILL]

Thanks 100% ILL.

But this bothers me:


I wonder who determines what the acceptable losses are?


I think now it's more decided by statistics. After every excercise or operation ther is an A.A.R (after action review). There is then another report drawn up based on the information contained in these after action reviews, called Lessons Learned. The information from the lessons learned is usually compiled and from it they gather their statistics for various situations. I know when we had a (training) mass tactical airborne operation involving a batallion, the acceptable loss ratio (this includes injuries and deaths) was 5% or so.

[ASsman]

Same way shit has to get done, armored humvees or not.

[Running_Beastie]

The main problem with this situation is that all of our helicopters were designed to operate in the planes of Europe, not the sandy deserts of the middle east. There have been serious problems with all of our vehicles having problems with sand jamming up gears and other moving parts. Also, the rotor blades of helicopters have to be replaced at a much more frequent rate in the desert because the sand damages the blades. The military has to get its job done. Unfortunately, this means that they have to use vehicles that are not really appropriate for the situation because that's all they have.

[ASsman]

Put a VW Beetle engine on 'em. No need for a turbine engine.

[FunkyHiFi]

Thanks for the info folks.

To be totally honest though, just the fact I don't think we should be there in the first place--no matter what the reason for flying that helicopter--for me makes any deaths very hard to deal with.

I am honest-to-God not trying to be melodramatic when I say that today while watching Bush talk about this, I literally couldn't look at him. The last year or so I find him and his government to be repulsive & infuriating to contemplate and 99% of the time never take his or his spokepeople's word at face value.

Where did the "regular" politicians go that weren't extremists, had some common sense and (most of the time) did what the majority of us Americans wanted done?

[synch]

The only thing positive that I hope results from this useless war is that we as a country will learn.....something......from it.
Like you did from Vietnam, Korea etc...?

Humans suck. We don't learn from our mistakes what things like these is concerned.

[ASsman]

They have, air-cooled engine. Now the turbine engines the choppers use... not so sure.

[Whois]

Thanks 100% ILL.

But this bothers me:


I wonder who determines what the acceptable losses are?

Civilians mostly...thanks DoD!

They estimate casualties based on reviews of exercise results, and adjust the plans to produce as few casualties as possible (on our side).

However:

"No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy."

Of course their planning for the occupation stage was laughable...

[Whois]

First hand I know how the sand gets into EVERYTHING!

I'm shocked that they haven't designed vehicles that are impervious to sand

Google up on Desert Storm and the problems with helos in the desert...no one seems to be paying attention at DoD.