AH-6s are the bomb! 160th SOAR is sole proprietor of their use in US Military. Why? You’d have to go back and ask Lady Bird Johnson about that? Politics
DAPs. Whole nother story. Big truck hauling a shit ton of ordnance around the night skies. They will lite you up.
*Good book. under rated and under read. Good on ya for doing both.
AH-6s are the bomb! 160th SOAR is sole proprietor of their use in US Military. Why? You’d have to go back and ask Lady Bird Johnson about that? Politics
DAPs. Whole nother story. Big truck hauling a shit ton of ordnance around the night skies. They will lite you up.
*Good book. under rated and under read. Good on ya for doing both.
I still remember the first time one of those flew over me at tree level. My first thought was that if I was a bad guy in a mud hut and that thing showed up I would probably shit my pants.
Hazelnut cheese spread!
Whom did you serve with?
Hazelnut cheese spread!
Whom did you serve with?
I didn’t. I grew up in the Navy, Step-dad was a pilot. You mentioned Eagle Claw earlier, he helped set up the SIGINT for that opp.
I worked on bases as a kid, mostly driving fuel trucks. Went off to college right as the cold war was ending so my brother and I were the first generation in our family to not to go into the Navy. Always regretted it, likely why I volunteer so much these days.
Oddly enough many of my closest friends are “former” SF guys but I met most of them in sports. Best friend is a Ranger. Couple of close friends are SEALs. When I was younger I loved to train super hard so folks like that who never quit are good to find.
ahh well
our daughter could say pretty much the same–growing up as a dependent. I guess it’s a strange life to grow up as a military dependent. I’d not considered that?
ahh well
our daughter could say pretty much the same–growing up as a dependent. I guess it’s a strange life to grow up as a military dependent. I’d not considered that?
I loved it. Got to grow up all over the world. I went to DOD schools so the PE classes had stuff like Archery, ropes courses, wrestling. My summer jobs were at the fuel depot or airport. Of course this was a long time ago, things are a lot different these days.
When i was stationed at JRTC (Ft Polk) our third year there I was a senior O/C (Observer/Controller—basically a referee in the monthly war there). So I took our son out one night to watch the big fight when the US Forces (BLUFOR) came in to attack the miniature city we had built there (Shugart-Gordon) . When things got real busy about 0200 I told him to “stay near the vehicle” and left him with a pair of PVS-14s so he could watch the attack go down.
He watched BLUFOR impale themselves on OPFOR defense of the City. He got gassed with CS and threw up all over the place. Watched the whole thing through night vision. Periodically some of my buds would drop by and check on him.
When I came back to the HMMWVs as the sun was coming up his face was shining. His shirt was covered in puke but he’d had a glorious time.
I am not sure what guys from the 82nd Airborne thought of some little kid (wearing PVS-14s) cheering them on in the dark as they advanced up to their breach points? I guess they thought it was some sort of weird battle field replication on the part of JRTC?
Ha! That is a great story. I got to go on a lot of planes, ships, and big trucks as a kid. My step-dad is 85 now and when we get together we mostly talk about planes all day…and bourbon
Huh, I was expecting this to be an actual cowboy thread.
In a peculiar American way it was.
In a peculiar American way it was.
Hence my use of “actual cowboy”.
Maybe they practice the rhythm method of warfare?
Guessing the SBS figured out how to read a map and saw there was no water and realised Afghan wasn’t for them… 😂
I don’t see how those SeaHawk pilots do that? Land on back deck of a pitching FFG or Destroyer?
Not landing but refueling and vertical replenishment, circ1980 Med.
very cool—thanks!
I have heard those old Navy CH-46s are about as bad as the Army’s CH-47s in terms of getting long on the tooth.
As the old saying goes “Don’t worry if hydraulic fluid is pouring from the roof—start worrying when it stops leaking hydraulic fluid!” Haha!
I flew all over Aghan in USG helo’s and contractor helos. Really is a gorgeous country–there are some primo fly fishing streams up in northern provinces I’d love to be able to visit someday if we can get past the hostage taking and cutting off of heads thing?
Maybe they practice the rhythm method of warfare?
Guessing the SBS figured out how to read a map and saw there was no water and realised Afghan wasn’t for them… 😂
You’d be very wrong but I cannot elaborate 
It was tongue in cheek 😉
Come on, you’ve seen them all operate. Ozzies (excluding when randomly executing people… On video), Canadians, various US and the British…
Who’s the best… 😂
i would not want any of them shooting at me–i can tell you that.
In terms of professionalism and competency I’d say CAG.
In terms of macho and violence of action I’d say DEVGRU (they look like a biker gang)
of the allies I was most impressed with NZ–followed by Brit SAS.
Not to do with FAST Roping but just a good helo story I’ll tell you here.
Back in '12 I was working as a contractor guy doing some stuff for some folks in Afghan. It involved a bit of traveling around, and as a contractor you were at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to getting manifested onto flights (Helo or Fixed Wing). So I spent a good share of my life that year waiting in Flight OPS trying to bum rides around the Country.
My fixed place of work back then was at a small postage stamp sized compound called NKC (New Kabul Compound) where I worked for Commander US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He was my classmate from school and Ranger School buddy so it was a sweet gig. Still, that didn’t get me spit when it came to getting rides on space available rotary wing or fixed wing air.
So I was trapped by some big snow storm up in Bagram trying to hitch a ride down to NKC. I think I spent three or four days sleeping on the floor and waiting waiting waiting–getting kicked off of flight after flight. God I hated sitting there in Rotary Wing OPS waiting room on BAF 
So one morning I see a couple helo crews walk thru and head out to a couple CH-47s out on the ramp. There were zero passenger slots available on either bird. But desperation breeds hope! So, I wandered out and chatted up the senior crew chief of one of the CH-47s. He told me they were flying a day-long resupply mission into Forward Bases along the Af/Pak border. I was welcome to come along and help them that day and IF the weather was good at the end of the day they would fly me down to Kabul and drop me off at NKC! What a deal. So I ran back into flight OPS to grab my shit and let this SEAL guy who was with me know. We spent ALLLLL day flying into every shitty little FOB along the Afghan/Pakistan border. We shelpted bags of mail, cans of gas, boxed of batteries, crates of mortar rounds. At the end of a looong day they flew us down to Kabul and into NKC and landed my SEAL buddy and me at our little home.
What do you think seperates them? Is it a matter of degrees or miles and did you find differences between groups within the same organisation? E. G. X squadron versus y squadron… (me and the nomenclature eh… 😂)
Don’t a lot of these elite groups also train together (by which I mean most travel to the US to train / learn with them?)
I spent some time on the Indian Pakistan border - those mountainous regions are wild. Genuinely spectacular
i would not want any of them shooting at me–i can tell you that.
In terms of professionalism and competency I’d say CAG.
In terms of macho and violence of action I’d say DEVGRU (they look like a biker gang)
of the allies I was most impressed with NZ–followed by Brit SAS.
Not to do with FAST Roping but just a good helo story I’ll tell you here.
Back in '12 I was working as a contractor guy doing some stuff for some folks in Afghan. It involved a bit of traveling around, and as a contractor you were at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to getting manifested onto flights (Helo or Fixed Wing). So I spent a good share of my life that year waiting in Flight OPS trying to bum rides around the Country.
My fixed place of work back then was at a small postage stamp sized compound called NKC (New Kabul Compound) where I worked for Commander US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He was my classmate from school and Ranger School buddy so it was a sweet gig. Still, that didn’t get me spit when it came to getting rides on space available rotary wing or fixed wing air.
So I was trapped by some big snow storm up in Bagram trying to hitch a ride down to NKC. I think I spent three or four days sleeping on the floor and waiting waiting waiting–getting kicked off of flight after flight. God I hated sitting there in Rotary Wing OPS waiting room on BAF
So one morning I see a couple helo crews walk thru and head out to a couple CH-47s out on the ramp. There were zero passenger slots available on either bird. But desperation breeds hope! So, I wandered out and chatted up the senior crew chief of one of the CH-47s. He told me they were flying a day-long resupply mission into Forward Bases along the Af/Pak border. I was welcome to come along and help them that day and IF the weather was good at the end of the day they would fly me down to Kabul and drop me off at NKC! What a deal. So I ran back into flight OPS to grab my shit and let this SEAL guy who was with me know. We spent ALLLLL day flying into every shitty little FOB along the Afghan/Pakistan border. We shelpted bags of mail, cans of gas, boxed of batteries, crates of mortar rounds. At the end of a looong day they flew us down to Kabul and into NKC and landed my SEAL buddy and me at our little home.
It would have been a better story if they pulled the airline pilot thing of “Sorry I’m out of hours today” but thanks for the help sucker!