Relentless Strike : The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (9781466876224) (75 page)

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Authors: Sean Naylor

BOOK: Relentless Strike : The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (9781466876224)

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Chapter 8: “Fairly Ponderous and Enormously Heavy”

30
Planning continuedÂ â¦ twenty-four aircraft.
A planning cell source.â¦
Dailey attendedÂ â¦
A senior JSOC staff member.â¦
160 ground troops and twenty-four aircraftÂ â¦
The “tactical minimum force” (i.e., the force that would assault the objective) included two assault troops (roughly forty operators) from Delta or Team 6 and four Ranger platoons (about 120 paratroops) supported by an AC-130 gunship, two DAPs, two AH-6 Little Birds, four assault Black Hawks, five Chinooks, and a command and control aircraft. The “operational minimum force” (i.e., the total force involved, including supporting elements) included another AC-130, three MC-130H Combat Talon II transport aircraft, two MC-130P Combat Shadow refuelers, two KC-135 Stratotanker refuelers, and another Chinook.

Chapter 9: Risky Missions and Empty Targets

1
The vastnessÂ â¦ the lead.
Weapon of Choice: ARSOF in Afghanistan
, by Charles H. Briscoe, Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), pp. 109â14;
American Soldier
, p. 302; a Delta operator. Franks's book lists the time as “1429 hours in Tampa, almost 0100 on October 20 in Afghanistan,” but this cannot be true. The time difference between the East Coast of the United States and Afghanistan on that date was eight and a half hours, and multiple sources place H-hour for the missions at 1845 Zulu, or 11:15
P.M.
local (Afghan) time.â¦
without the essential contextÂ â¦
See, for instance CJCS General Richard Myers's comments in the October 20, 2001, press briefing at the Pentagon:
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2145
.â¦
JSOC was taking the lead.
Several hundred miles to the northeast, pilots from the 160th's 2nd Battalion were pushing their MH-47E Chinooks “to the limits of design performance” traversing “mountain ranges higher than any the Night Stalkers had ever flown” as they ferried the first two 5th Special Forces Group A-teams into Afghanistan from Kharsi-Khanabad, according to
Weapon of Choice
, p. 96. This reference says the first Special Forces A-team into Afghanistan, ODA 595, landed at 2
A.M.
local time, or two hours and forty-five minutes after the JSOC elements at Gecko and Rhino.

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