Victory Point - Ed Darack [57]
Wood planned every aspect of phases three to five in meticulous detail, and made himself available to Kristensen during the SEAL lieutenant commander’s planning of phases one and two, even offering some information about clandestine mountain operations he’d gleaned from Eggers. Kristensen struck Wood as an uncompromising tactician, every bit as committed to the success of Red Wings and the safety of those on the ground as the OpsO. While confident in the abilities of Kristensen and other NAVSOF planners for their phases of Red Wings, Wood did question a few of their decisions. First, Wood assumed that their reconnaissance and surveillance team would insert by foot, departing from one of the villages in the Pech Valley, such as Watapor, which lay just twelve hours distant for a strong team like Ronin (traveling through the mountains, not on established roads or large trails). But, he learned, they would insert by helicopter, fastroping onto a spot just over a mile from NAIs 2, 3, and 4 on the saddle between Sawtalo Sar and its sister peak just to its south, Gatigal Sar, certainly alerting Shah and his men of the close presence of American forces, Wood thought. Kristensen noted, however, that TF-Brown would conduct nighttime “decoy drops” during the week leading up to the actual insert date (which still hadn’t been determined, pending final SIGINT hits positively identifying Shah’s location), “acclimatizing” Shah and the locals to helicopter activity in the region. Furthermore, Kristensen explained, TF-Brown would conduct a two-ship insert, with one craft actually deploying the reconnaissance and surveillance team, while the other undertook a series of low hovers over areas outlying Chichal and Korangal Village, intending to confuse Shah and his cell. This was a standard, and proven, SOF technique; but Wood still felt uneasy about a helo insert for phase one. The prime reason he brought in special operations forces to begin with was to guarantee air for the main direct-action hit and subsequent cordon—and to do the hit with maximum surprise. With a helo insert for phase one, he felt, the bad guys stood a huge chance of learning of American forces arriving in the area before the recon team even hit the ground—and long before they would get “eyes on” the target from OP-1.
The size of the recon team also bothered Wood. NAVSOF planners chose to insert just four men for phase one. The OpsO would also learn that the four had never operated in the Korangal and Sawtalo Sar area. From Kinser’s briefs, Wood knew that each small nook of the Hindu Kush held its own unique challenges, from the standpoints of terrain, weather, and the locals—and the challenges of the Korangal area revealed themselves to be of deadly serious proportions. Wood felt that the best chances of success came with a team of six, as he originally planned with Eggers and Team Ronin. Comms posed another issue; when asked about their communications gear, Tom learned that they would in fact not be carrying a 117, but an MBITR with a “Sat Fill” allowing the small five-watt radio (as opposed to the 117’s twenty watts) to utilize SATCOM with encryption. As a backup, the recon team would use an Iridium satellite phone, not a piece of comm gear Tom would approve for any of ⅔’s operations, particularly after hearing Kinser’s experiences with the unit at Camp Blessing, just eight air miles from Sawtalo Sar. Also related to potential communications problems, NAVSOF chose to command their phases of Red Wings from their COC in Bagram. While the SEALs would place liaisons at the JAF COC housing the Marine command—to ensure no “blue on blue” (fratricide) incidents, and to help coordinate any rescue attempt, should one be needed—Wood regarded this as an absolute, and potentially disastrous split of Red Wings’ command and control, not only a bifurcation of the employment of C2, but a