Special Forces Aviation

[anselmosna]

Does anyone out there know anything about Navy special forces aviation? I know the Army has the 160th SOAR. Does the Navy/will the Navy have an equivalent? If not, what units get tasked to work with the Navy's special forces?

 

[BFisher]

Good question

 

[kmac]

Maybe Bunky knows something about special warfare support. I'd like to know if the COD action in "Tears of the Sun" has any real history (other than just feasibility).

 

[Endgame9]

Who does the Navy's Special Forces work...

The Army.

 

[phrogdriver]

The Navy has no equivalent unit, nor does the Marines. SpecWar support in the Navy is usually done by HS or HSL (H-60s) on an as-req'd basis.

In the Corps, you may very well end up doing SpecWar support in any squadron. Every Marine Expeditionary Unit is "Special Ops Capable," and supports mostly Marines, but can just tasked with just about everything. I've carried Marine recon, Rangers, SEALs, and SAS, as examples.

 

[zab1001]

also depends on what ya mean by "support". We've (P-3s) flown operators on board in a command and control capacity, having one of their guys coordinate an op from our plane. Also the occasional paradrop.

 

[bunk22]

Originally posted by kmac
Maybe Bunky knows something about special warfare support. I'd like to know if the COD action in "Tears of the Sun" has any real history (other than just feasibility).

We used to do a lot of SEAL drops but always just for practice. Our Det did paradrops in Kuwait but that was the only time outside CONUS that I've done them. Unfortunetly, a couple of years ago, paradrops and CRRC drops were put off limits by AIRPAC I believe. We hope it comes back. Not much to do when not on work-ups or cruise.

There was a small push to make COD's into a more "tactical" jump platform with armor plating, chaff/flare dispensers, and night vision goggles but that has definitely been put on the back burner. SPECOPS was interested and willing to supply the money for the mods but due to the fact no new CODS are being built and those left are falling apart (non-SLEP), the idea was met with resistence. The C-2 is certainly a good platform to deliver a small detachment of 7-14 SEALS from the boat but lacks defensive capabilities that would keep us from dropping the SEALS near their intended operating area.

By the way, in 99 I cruised with the bird used in Tears of the Sun. I think it was aircraft 33. Very rarely do we see the "Thunder Pig" on the big screen

 

[kmac]

What kind of paradrop do you mean Zab? Are you talking about inserting supplies into country? Do you mind if I ask how you guys do that?

Also, I heard that P-3s were used extensively in Afghanistan... what were the missions?

 

[phrogdriver]

The P-3s used their FLIRs (Fwd Looking Infrared) to look for targets and gather intelligence. I presume that EP-3s gathered signal intelligence as well, but I don't know for sure.

 

[bunk22]

Originally posted by Barnard1425
What does 'COD' stand for?

Carrier Onboard Delivery

 

[zab1001]

Paradrop, as in kickin' dudes out the main cabin door.

Well, with chutes on, that is.

BTW, we used far more of our systems than just FLIR in Afghanistan. I don't really think you can even call it FLIR, we don't, it's a 360 degree system. Not to split hairs. Or that the other stuff can really be described in any detail without me gettin in trouble.

Tons of missions in Afghan with a snake-eater onboard watching his boys from up high, real-time, and talking them through ops.

 

[bobbybrock]

The army does most of the work for the Navy. The 160th works with all the special forces. Of course the air force has its 53's and 130's. The Navy reserve has two sqaudrons, HSC 5 and 6. They are west and east coast respectively. I'm an Army H-60 bubba and I have a few friends who've been trying to jumpship to these two units. We tend to do more of their line of work. They like guys who have SPIES,FRIES, STABO time. Plus a lot of NVG time. I believe most of there work is done in the SAR world.

 

[Gatordev]

Part of the issue w/ operators is that they don't necessarily have the luxury of having service loyalty, it's more what's available. So the Army 160th is in a lot of places recently, and so are the SEALs. Otherwise, it's what fits their mission.

Last week I flew some MIO w/ some SEALs from the local team here. They hadn't really flown w/ us in a long time, even though in the Gulf, our community and my squadron routinely flew w/ snipers onboard. For that particular day's events, we did some shooting during the day and then did some command and control/ FLIR tracking for the guys down in the boats (and the big black cigar shaped thing in the water that seemed to "sink" every once in a while). Not only was the event fun, but it just reaffirms how professional those guys are. While they don't always worry about the same things the regular fleet spazes over (like PPE), they still respect what can and can't be done, and appreciate the flexibility that we can offer. I really hope we provided worthwhile training, because it was great for us to do. Plus flying into restriced airspace (Ford Island) at night on goggles to a "runway" w/ no lights at night was pretty cool too.

Bunk: those TOTS guys really got around. If only the movie had been as good as all the Naval Aviation support was. And I swear I still find dirt in some of our birds every once in while from that movie.

 

[Pags]

HSL 37 gets all the good deals when it comes to Hollywood. Weren't they also in one of the Jurassic Parks too? I did catch an HSL 47 alumni patch on one of the helo drivers in the movie too.

 

[Gatordev]

Yeah, that was -37 in JP III also. If there was a -47 patch, then that's just disloyalty for you.

All the pilots you see in TOTS and the Aircrewman at the door pulling what's her name in were the real deal. You can see our old Skipper turn around in one of the shots. Of course my DET couldn't get parts flown out to us one of those weeks, but that's a different issue...