Bin Laden Is Dead

[maturin 12]

It sounds like their interpretation of "capture or kill" was that they would accept a clear surrender. But since not surrendering is technically resistance in terms of 'resisting arrest,' they went ahead and shot him. Sort of dicey, but they were clearly taking no chances dragging the raid out in case the local Pakistani authorities decided to defend their sovereignty.

[max power 21]

Also, UH-1s with two-bladed rotors are very loud from the front and below when they are in rapid flight. You can feel their approach in your body from quite a distance. I don't know if it would have been ideal.

[walker 0]

Hi all

There is no such thing as invisible from radar.

Stealth is there to confuse radar enough that the vehicle is not identified as a threat.

Hey boss what is this little blurry thing on the radar? Err you mean that bloby thing that keeps poping up then fading? Bat dropings in the collector dish? A flock of birds? A swarm of Locusts? A wierd cloud formation. A heat inversion layer. Have you checked to see you set filters properly? Did you change out the software/circuit board last time like I told you? Have you got the dish pointing too low and are picking up trucks on the mountain road again? You know that annoys the General last time you did it you boiled his prize Coy Carp in his aquarium. etc.

What stealth is designed to do, is be less visible when close to ground clutter and supported by jamming; and in the important ingress stage that is exactly what they achieved.

They got the SEAL team to the target without being detected by Pakistani radar. Thus preventing the helicopters being fired at by Pakistani Anti Air Missiles or chased by Pakistani fighter jets. They also prevented the Pakistanis from mistaking it for an attack by India and slinging Nukes left and right. Finaly they prevented any Al Qaeda Operatives, paid or bribed or blackmailed assets or Sympathizers in the Pakistan ISI from warning the target.

Once they were in stealth did not matter.

So all in all job done.

Kind Regards

[maturin 12]

They also had a Chinook there, and credited their infiltration to dead ground caused by hilly terrain. Who knows if anyone was monitoring them at all.

[mrcash2009 0]

p1JTV-78D8I&

Im guessing us and the media can speak on behalf of the neighbours then, interesting little ditty this, bear in mind he's in that one spot for 6 years.

Edited May 3, 2011 by mrcash2009

[Colossus 2]

I'm no conspiracist but pictures or video evidence, other then blood stained mattresses, would definetly help to solve this "issue". Even though it might be pretty graphic.

Edited May 4, 2011 by colossus
typo

[jakerod 254]

Anyone know how Pakistan reacted. I read that they launched fighters but I have heard that they intentionally did not intervene and that they didn't get there in time. Anyone know which is correct? I also heard something about American Fixed-Wing aircraft being involved. Anyone know anything about either?

[nodunit 397]

If it were a stealth helicopter wouldn't it make sense to have NOTAR?

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/comanche/images/comanche4.jpg

http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/gazelle_helicopter_b.jpg

http://visualrian.com/storage/PreviewWM/1446/07/144607.jpg?1222938260

Also if the helicopter were destroyed wouldn't the tail show more signs of damage, it looks more like it hit the ground too hard. http://www.thebaseleg.com/Other/RSAF-Apache-crash/ah64d-rsafcrash001/1028395633_XiR6z-M.jpg

Edited May 4, 2011 by NodUnit

[Daniel 0]

Hitting the ground too hard could have been what forced them to blow it and abandon. Very interesting though, that GlobalSecurity article is a good read.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Daniel

[max power 21]

Fenestrons != NOTAR.

[Craig_VG 20]

Modified to avoid Pakistani radar? :D

[Beagle 684]

Modified to avoid Pakistani radar? :D

Pakistan was obviously not considered an allied in this operation. Just another circumstance thats gives the whole action a shady touch.

[rksl-rock 1300]

If it were a stealth helicopter wouldn't it make sense to have NOTAR?

It depends on what you how much you want to "stealth". If you are not bothered about the IR signature then it's not a problem. The significant improvement of NOTAR is the noise reduction which makes its use in cities and urban areas cost effective. The audible detection range is lower but the turbine whine is more obvious over the traditional "whop-whop" of the main rotor blades.

NOTAR has a flaw when it comes to traditional stealth: the IR signature is huge in comparison. You can't diffuse the exhaust in the main rotor like most IR suppression kits do. And cooling the exhaust means increasing the pressure which requires yet another pressure stage in the engine and the increased 'cost' in weight and fuel etc which negates the advantage gained and so on.

As i said earlier it is however a lot quieter than conventional systems. But (if I remember correctly - i may be wrong) the US Army conducted trials with a MD520NOTAR and found that it gave not real performance benefits for their applications. From memory they concluded that the same/similar reduction in audible detection range could be achieved with a redesigned conventional tail rotor. Specifically the materials used and the profiling. I could really geek out and go further if you like but thats going even further off topic than we already are :)

Fenstroms make sense in the "Stealth" application since they allow you to obscure/obstruct/control the reflections from the straight edges of the tail rotors since they are enclosed. But modern composite and radar absorbent materials (RAM) mean its probably more cost effective (fenstroms are heavy = needing to carry more fuel + reduces performance) to use a conventional system made of radar transparent or absorbent materials.

...Also if the helicopter were destroyed wouldn't the tail show more signs of damage, it looks more like it hit the ground too hard...

It depends on the materials it made from. Most metallics will fold and crumple. While nearly all aerospace composites just break cleanly at the weakest point. This may sound silly but you can see it in small scale with a piece of tin foil and a piece of plastic. The slightest impact on the tin foil leaves a mark. The same impact on the plastic wont. Its the same with aircraft skins.

There are some 'special application' composites are designed to shatter into pieces but they are brittle and have no structural strength so can't really be used in things like aircraft skins that need to flex.

Modified to avoid Pakistani radar? :D

I doubt these "stealthy" transports were made just for this mission. The research and development time frame let alone the actual production lead times would be measured in years at least. Adding this sort of kit to an existing airframe would require a lot of flight testing. This is probably something that they've been devleoping for a long time. There have been enough rumours about stealthy helicopters for years after all.

Edited May 4, 2011 by RKSL-Rock

[maturin 12]

Pakistan was obviously not considered an allied in this operation. Just another circumstance thats gives the whole action a shady touch.

Shady for the Pakistanis. Distrusting them isn't shady, it's common sense. Try to see a square millimeter or so of the other viewpoint.

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

Fuck Pakistan.

As much as I realize that this doesn't change things, it really feels like the war could be over. We aren't going to get a VE or VJ day, one day there will just no longer be troops in Afghanistan, this is the closest thing we got.

As much as it might suck that I could enter the Marine Corps in peace time, it ain't really that bad of a prospect, this country has been at war for most of the time I've been old enough to understand.

[LeftSkidLow 1]

RKSL,

I'm not sure if you are implying NOTAR exhaust systems are any different than those on conventional tailrotor helicopters. In the case of 500's, the only difference on the exhuast from a MD500E and MD520N is that they directed the exhaust off to the side on the 520 so it doesn't melt the composite tailboom, it provides no measurable anti-torque. Even though it's directed sideways, it still makes a huge mess on the tailboom with soot. I've cleaned that shit off of 520 tailbooms more times than I can count and I could see it becoming a problem if not cleaned regularly. If it shot straight back, it would be even more of a sooty disaster.

The main disadvantages of NOTAR are poor hot and high performance, the pedals feel "mushy" with a slightly sluggish response, and the vertical stabilizers increase the weather-vaining tendancy in high crosswinds and low airspeeds. Although their is a distinct whine from the tailboom fan, NOTAR is incredibly quieter than tail rotors. If you were standing on the ground and a 520 was inbound at 100+ knots and under 100ft, you wouldn't notice until it was a couple hundred meters away at best.

[Tonci87 163]

Isn't it suspicious to anyone that there was an 40 Minutes long firefight? Those Seals have been training this mission for a very long time now, surely with a model of the compound. You would expect them to finish this in lets say 10 minutes or so. A 40 minutes long firefight means that Bin-Laden had some guards who were prepared to fight of attackers.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Also if the helicopter were destroyed wouldn't the tail show more signs of damage, it looks more like it hit the ground too hard. http://www.thebaseleg.com/Other/RSAF-Apache-crash/ah64d-rsafcrash001/1028395633_XiR6z-M.jpg

Yes, what appears to have happened is that the helicopter took a hard landing that made it inoperable. The cause of the hard landing is unknown but it seems clear that the tail contacted the wall at some point. When I said it was destroyed, I was referring to the intentional destruction of the aircraft by US Forces when it was clear that they couldn't fly it out.

From the fist picture of the 'wreck' we saw the tail structure rested over the outside of a compound wall.

The main fuselage of the chopper appears to be on the other side of that wall. As I said, it was apparently destroyed by US Forces (the US Govt. said so), but as the tail section was separated from the fire that destroyed the rest of the bird by the wall of the compound, it has survived.

As the debris on the inside of the wall isn't spread over a particularly large area or very far from the tail section, it seems to suggest that the aircraft wasn't traveling very high or fast when the tail was lost. Seems likely therefore that the tail struck the wall (and as Rock said) sheared off, leaving the chopper to merely fall the 6-8 feet height of the wall. But still, we don't know whether it was pilot error in landing/hovering, a sudden unexpected loss of height due to factors beyond the pilot's control (loss of power, control problems etc... even a gust of wind), or enemy fire that caused it to hit the wall.

The main fuselage may have been destroyed using an incendiary device rather than explosives as there's no real damage to surrounding structures besides scorching from the fire. IIRC the US have thermite grenades for this purpose (there's one in the ACE Mod actually).

The tail may have still been connected to the helicopter when it was on the ground and only fell off as a result of fire damage to the forward parts of the tail boom causing it to weaken and break off onto the other side of the wall before the tail set ablaze properly. However, it seems unlikely given the damage to the tail rotor blades and the height of the wall: The helicopter would have to have had a very very high boom and I don't think even large ramp loaders like the MH-53 and Merlin have booms high enough to straddle that wall.

Edited May 4, 2011 by da12thMonkey

[max power 21]

That pile of debris doesn't look to be big enough to be an MH-60.

[walker 0]

Isn't it suspicious to anyone that there was an 40 Minutes long firefight? Those Seals have been training this mission for a very long time now, surely with a model of the compound. You would expect them to finish this in lets say 10 minutes or so. A 40 minutes long firefight means that Bin-Laden had some guards who were prepared to fight of attackers.

Hi Tonci87

I think it indicates they were being methodical.

The difference between how a good ArmA coop team do it, looking for zero casualties and reduced colateral dammage; versus a PvP COD player who is looking for the kills, not worried about civilians and knows they will get back in next respawn.

Reality is more like the former.

I also think they were giving the targets verbal oportunity to surrender while amassing sufficient weight of fire to overwhelm each target in turn.

The fact that so many of the noncombatants got out of it alive seems to support this view.

I think they were proabably using VBS and Lazershot in a live shoot room model of the whole building and practiced this until they got zero casualties every time.

They will have used LIDAR to get a milimetre perfect model of the outside then some software to get load bearing wall positions from concrete sag. They may also have trawled old Satelite images of the areas around the time of the building being built. Maybe got hold of the Archetects models and asked the builders. Hey that is a nice house I want one like that, can you design me one just like it, here is a lot of money. Heck they probably used Infrared and millemetre radar to get room layout.

And they will have guessed and made models with additional stud walls and randomly thrown them at each team.

They probably specialised and trained particular teams per floor; heck it might have been per room. Then each specialized team would have then trained the others how to do their job.

They will have played through the scenarios time after time after time in VBS to begin with, critiquing everyones solutions untill they were perfect; playing both OPFOR and BLUEFOR to iron out the kinks. They will have worked out how to ensure each room could be taken with no one on the BLUEFOR killed. And what to do if one was killed and I am guessing the hazing you got if you got killed would be horrendous.

Then they will have moved to the livefire lazershot shoot rooms.

They probably each played the bad guys on consoles in VBS while the live team shot real weapons in shoot room.

And as I said they will have practiced it and practiced it until they got zero casualties.

Kind Regards walker

Edited May 4, 2011 by walker

[rksl-rock 1300]

RKSL,

I'm not sure if you are implying NOTAR exhaust systems are any different than those on conventional tailrotor helicopters. In the case of 500's, the only difference on the exhuast from a MD500E and MD520N is that they directed the exhaust off to the side on the 520 so it doesn't melt the composite tailboom...

I wasnt suggesting anything about the operation. More about the effect of NOTAR on the IR signature of the airframe. Years ago at RAF Honington, the techs used to test the optical tracking on Rapier FSC on passing civil aircraft. One of which was an Air Ambulance MD900N. Compared to the Police AS350 which was also a regular transient the MD900N glowed on IR even at range. It was almost a standing joke that the police had to use a "stealth" aircraft to avoid being shot down by all the Regiment Gunners they'd nicked for speeding.

EDIT: For clarification. I'm also under the impression - maybe incorrectly - that the turbine exhaust or a portion of it (on some models?) is directed through the boom. If I'm wrong in that I'd appreciate being corrected. I'm trying to find a reliable source though.

...it provides no measurable anti-torque. Even though it's directed sideways, it still makes a huge mess on the tailboom with soot. I've cleaned that shit off of 520 tailbooms more times than I can count and I could see it becoming a problem if not cleaned regularly. If it shot straight back, it would be even more of a sooty disaster.

I was under the impression that the "directed thrust" did provide directional control. I'll admit I'm no expert on it, and I've not worked on any NOTAR aircraft but every time its been explained to me and every time i've looked into it myself the direction of the exhaust has seemed to be a key aspect?

eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOTAR_System.svg

I know Wikipedia isn't the best source in the world but in this case it's got a relatively good diagram. If you have a better source I'd appreciate it. I'm genuinely interested.

The main disadvantages of NOTAR are poor hot and high performance, the pedals feel "mushy" with a slightly sluggish response, and the vertical stabilizers increase the weather-vaining tendancy in high crosswinds and low airspeeds. Although their is a distinct whine from the tailboom fan, NOTAR is incredibly quieter than tail rotors. If you were standing on the ground and a 520 was inbound at 100+ knots and under 100ft, you wouldn't notice until it was a couple hundred meters away at best.

I wasnt aware of the hot and high issues but the sound footprint is what i was trying to explain earlier.

Edited May 4, 2011 by RKSL-Rock

[ricbar89 0]

Hi Tonci87

I think it indicates they were being methodical.

The difference between how a good ArmA coop team do it, looking for zero casualties and reduced colateral dammage; versus a PvP COD player who is looking for the kills, not worried about civilians and knows they will get back in next respawn.

Reality is more like the former.

I also think they were giving the targets verbal oportunity to surrender while amassing sufficient weight of fire to overwhelm each target in turn.

The fact that so many of the noncombatants got out of it alive seems to support this view.

I think they were proabably using VBS and Lazershot in a live shoot room model of the whole building and practiced this until they got zero casualties every time.

They will have used LIDAR to get a milimetre perfect model of the outside then some software to get load bearing wall positions from concrete sag. They may also have trawled old Satelite images of the areas around the time of the building being built. Maybe got hold of the Archetects models and asked the builders. Hey that is a nice house I want one like that, can you design me one just like it, here is a lot of money. Heck they probably used Infrared and millemetre radar to get room layout.

And they will have guessed and made models with additional stud walls and randomly thrown them at each team.

They probably specialised and trained particular teams per floor; heck it might have been per room. Then each specialized team would have then trained the others how to do their job.

They will have played through the scenarios time after time after time in VBS to begin with, critiquing everyones solutions untill they were perfect; playing both OPFOR and BLUEFOR to iron out the kinks. They will have worked out how to ensure each room could be taken with no one on the BLUEFOR killed. And what to do if one was killed and I am guessing the hazing you got if you got killed would be horrendous.

Then they will have moved to the livefire lazershot shoot rooms.

They probably each played the bad guys on consoles in VBS while the live team shot real weapons in shoot room.

And as I said they will have practiced it and practiced it until they got zero casualties.

Kind Regards walker

You have a real bad habbit of stating "what you think" while making it come across as fact.

Anyway back on point, are you sure the firefight went on for 40 mins? I thought they were just on the ground for 40 mins.

[Mr. Charles 22]

Clearing a building shouldn't take 40 mins. All the other stuff like blowing up the crashed helo and collecting stuff like hard drives, PCs and other evidence are in these 40 minutes too, i think.

[ricbar89 0]

Clearing a building shouldn't take 40 mins. All the other stuff like blowing up the crashed helo and collecting stuff like hard drives, PCs and other evidence are in these 40 minutes too, i think.

Me too. Apparently they even went house to house in the surrounding area to make sure noone had done a runner, probably to collect info from the local population as well.

[walker 0]

Me too. Apparently they even went house to house in the surrounding area to make sure noone had done a runner, probably to collect info from the local population as well.

Hi ricbar89

Have you got source for what they were "Apparenty" doing?

Kind Regards walker