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Apaches were "strewn around" instead of being parked neatly. He wouldn't confirm that all our Apaches made it back.

The reason the Apaches were strewn around is because they are returning to an unimproved field site in the desert. When they return at night and given the dust conditions, each aircraft picks a spot and goes for it. They look to separate about 50 meters apart to stay out of each others dirt cloud.

Additionally, this is no longer training. They try to land in a dispersed pattern to prevent all being destroyed in the event of an artillery or mortar attack.

The reason for using AH64s is because they are attacking a dispersed and dug in armored division that is using alot of deception, cover and concealment. I don't doubt that the Iraqis have learned the lessons of the Serbians very well in how to deceive fast movers. MOABs won't get a division that is dispersed over 10 miles of terrain.

Somebody has to be able to go in, detect the targets, verify the target and take it out. This take time, patience and deligence.

I doubt very seriously that the AH64s are "all shot up." That they took fire is not in doubt but the Iraqi's aren't good enough to find and fix and take out AH64's sitting out at max stand off. If you are in doubt, email me your SIPRNET addy and I will explain it further.

>>>I would not want to go against an enemy with our pallet of brushes!<<<

And I wouldn't want to go up against "Rotorhawk" in any discussion of the effectiveness of the Apache like "mikegi" tried to in post #110. Wish I had the clearance to take you up on the offer Rotor....but my TS clearance lapsed in 1964. Cheers

Viewing the markings and knowing a few things about helicopters I've made the following observations...

The aircraft was an AH-64D Longbow from B Company, 1-227 Attack Helicopter Battalion, Ft. Hood Texas.

This aircraft had a fire control radar and an empty left-inboard wingstore. An empty wingstore inboard on one side, in conjuction with the weapons loading (one outboard rocket pod and an inboard Hellfire rack on right side, and one outboard Hellfire rack on the left side) indicate that the aircraft was originally carrying an auxillary fuel tank on the left inboard wingstore and was subsequently jettisoned prior to the landing (unless ripped off during the crash sequence)

Due to the lack of visible damage, this is an indication of a single engine failure at low-speed/low-altitude due to either mechanical, operator error, or as the result of taking fire.

1-227 (1st Attack) is attached to 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment (V-Corps, Germany) for this operation.

Pilot helmets and kneeboards on the ground indicate they are captured, as they would keep their helmets on for self-extraction and retain all classified info (kneeboards) with them.

ChiefKujo