Victory Point - Ed Darack [46]
The success of his draft plan hinged on one pivotal asset, however: helicopter support. While Keith and his small team could penetrate the region at night undiscovered, a company was simply too large to move through that area and not be seen or heard—they had to insert with blazing speed by air. Had ⅔ been part of a MAGTF, the air issue wouldn’t have been a problem, but the Marines didn’t own any helicopters in-country as part of a joint task force. Wood set out to get “buy-in” from Task Force Sabre, the large Army conventional aviation element that fell under CJTF-76 in command. Sabre had both UH-60 Blackhawks and the massive, double-rotored CH-47 Chinooks, renowned by helicopter pilots throughout the world as one of, if not the best high-altitude helicopter ever made; Sabre’s Chinooks would fit the bill perfectly. ⅔ could get the Stars-based op done without dangerously compromising command and control, using all conventional assets. Or so Wood thought.
Sabre was stretched thin; they served as aviation support for not just RC-East, but all of Afghanistan, meaning ⅔ would have to compete with other units throughout the entire country for their help. Furthermore, Wood realized that depending on the final target zone, troops might have to insert via fastrope if trees prohibited the aircraft from touching down—but Sabre’s Chinooks would first have to be upfitted to accommodate fastropes. The major deal breaker with Sabre, however, came with the time and date of the op—Wood foresaw a possible late June launch date, possibly the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, which would keep in the spirit of the op tempo MacMannis had ordered, but would give Westerfield enough time to harvest and process the necessary intel to feed to Wood in order to finalize a detailed mission plan. Inserting covertly at night meant the aircraft would have to operate completely blacked out, with the pilots flying “on goggles”—night-vision gear that uses passive sensors to amplify any ambient light, primarily from moon-reflected sunlight. But while the Chinook pilots themselves were more than willing and capable of low-ambient-light ops, their guidelines stated that they could only fly with at least 25 percent lunar illumination. In late June of 2005, however, the moon wouldn’t rise above the high mountains of the Hindu Kush until well past midnight—and once it was above the ridgelines, lunar illumination would fall just short of the requisite 25 percent. Sabre’s Chinooks were out for such a late-June launch date.
That left Wood with two alternatives. The first would have him plan the operation with the direct-action and associated cordon phase going down during daylight hours, using Sabre. But based on Priddy’s earlier counseling on the ISR of the Korangal, Tom knew that the insurgent and terrorist cells would know immediately that an operation was imminent as Marines who would form the operation’s blocking positions would almost certainly tip off the innumerable “eyes” of the hills throughout the region as the grunts readied to move. Most Afghans in Kunar’s mountains run their lives with the sun—up at dawn, to sleep just after dusk—a nighttime insert would best position the Marines for surprise, leaving Wood with just one option: Task Force Brown, the in-country designation of the Special Operations Air Regiment (Airborne), or 160th SOAR(A)—the “Night Stalkers.”
One of the most secretive of USSOCOM’s units, the 160th hails from Army SOF and primarily supports direct-action hard-hit units—inserting special operations personnel for shockingly fast counterterror and other surgical-strike operations—often by fastrope, which their helicopters have special modifications to quickly deploy. The aviators of the 160th aren’t just capable of low-illum missions, they fly, with rare exception, only at night,