January 30, 2005 October is Koufax Pledge Drive month
Hercules Down [updates] ["9 to 15"]
It is about 70 km from Portland to Kittery. Why anyone would bother using a C-130 to shuttle between Portland's jetport and Kittery's imaginary field, other than to avoid either the summer tourists or the toll at Kennebunk is an unknown. In Iraq of course, the motivations to find transport other than by-road are IED, IED, IED, RPG, IED, RPG, IED, SAW, IEG, RPG and AK47. Not quite the same as summer tourists, even the ones with Jersey and New York plates.
Balan field is 70 km from Baghdad International. The C-130 that took off from Baghdad today went down 5 minutes after take-off. The unknown is if there was a passenger manifest, and if so, how many seats were filled, and the causal mechanism(s). The debris field is "large" so there should be no survivors.
Balad Airbase is located in Northern Iraq approximately 68 kilometers North of Baghdad. Balad Airbase is one of the largest Airbases in Iraq. The airfield is served by two runways 11,300 and 11,200 feet long respectively. Balad occupies a 25 square kilometer site and is protected by a 20 kilometers security perimeter. According to the "Gulf War Air Power Survey, there were 39 hardened aircraft shelters. At the each end of the main runway are hardened aircraft shelters knowns as "trapezoids" or "Yugos" which were build by Yugoslavian contractors some time prior to 1985.As of 10 June 2002, there was no Ikonos imagery of Balad Airbase in Space Imaging's Carterra Archive.
A total of 70 UN inspectors visited 11 sites on 7 January 2003. A team of four International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors visited the Al-Bakr (a.k.a. Balad Southeast) air base, located approximately 100 kilometers north of Baghdad. The Foreign Ministry noted that the purpose of the visit was "to verify the quantity of the explosive material type HMX, which was sent from the Al-Qa'qa State Company" to the air base. Apparently the HMX was used to destroy partially standing buildings that had been bombed by coalition forces. Inspectors visited the HMX storage area and tested the site for radiation, according to the ministry.
From John Pike's globalsecurity.org. John and I spoke on Friday. We both think Iran's done, all that remains is the size of the initial ATO, the scope of the movement orders, and the third phase.
[Update: UK MOD C-130 Hercules transport configurations -- a crew of five or six and up to 92 or 128 soldiers, 64 paratroops, or 74 stretchers.]
[Update: Tony Blair just made an appearence on the Beeb. There were deaths. He would not say how many, but linked the elections and the casulties as noble sacrifice or some such. How that sells in the UK market is TBD. The casulty figures are still under wraps at the MoD.]
[Update: The phrase "a number" is now coming from the MoD and Whitehall. That usually means a big number.]
[Update: The MoD has a phone number for concerned relatives to call: 08457 800 900. This 6:20 hours after the crash.]
[Update: The MoD has released "9 to 15" as the butcher's bill.]
[Update: The meteo report for the the area is out. Weather was not a factor. C-130s are safe as houses, so the causation universe is getting smaller.]
[Aside: "The C-130 cargo plane that they boarded banked hard after take off and climbed quickly, causing some of the soldiers to get sick, several soldiers said." From the trip back to Nanticoke for Bravo Battery, 109th Field Artillery. Evasive manuvere appears to be the norm, which means that airfields in Iraq are "hot". Bravo was deployed at Camp Ashraf, where the 3,700 MEK cultists are interred, proximal to Balan AB.]
[Update: "The mujahideen fired a guided anti-armour missile at the C-130 Hercules as it was flying at a low altitude." Statement of Ansar al-Islam. The Stinger can effectively engage low-altitude jet, propeller-driven and helicopter aircraft (fire and forget targeting), as can the TOW 2A (semi-automatic command-to-line-of-sight targeting), operating below 10,000 feet (3,000 m). There are a lot of Stinger and Stinger-equivalent, and even more TOW and TOW-equivalent weapons in Iraq, in both the defender and attacker inventories. Reported by TLA in comments below.]
[Technical: A link to this post (1673) resulted in a one-time spike of 5,104 entries (referrer: atrios.blogspot.com). For these referrers the entry-url == exit-url 100 % (rounded to nearest hundredth).]
[Update: Interested readers are refered to Rockets for Rookies (US Missiles) at the Federation of American Scientists website, and Rest-of-World Missile Systems, also at the Federation of American Scientists website.]
[Update: "This is an area where at least three American Air Force planes and one civilian aircraft have been targeted by ground-to-air missiles. They survived the hits but they were lucky." source Tim Ripley, defense analyst at Britain's Center of Defense and International Security Studies.]
[Update: The 1920 Revolution Brigades sent "proof of purchas footage" to Al Jazeera. This showed a mid-air explosion at a distance then burning debris of what looked like a plane, including an engine, on the ground and filmed at close range in a large field. Scratch Ansar al-Islam's claim, a small Kurdish terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaida, hence of little or no strategic importance, and replace with dispersed elements of the Iraqi State under Occupation. I've not yet seen the launcher.]
[Update: I've viewed the footage several times. The target exhaust trail appears to be 1km distal to the firing point, and the target engaged at a range of 2km from the camera, which is proximal to the firing point (launcher flash, mid-flight flash), and time-to-target approximately 10sec. A five button switch box is shown, presumably the firing circuit, which suggests a SA missle, though the range, altitude, time-to-target and weapon effect are consistent with TOW missles, repurposed in a SA mission. Objects on the debris field are small, an engine is the largest structural element shown. The footage does not attempt a full crash site survey, nor does it show details of the lauch site, or weapons team.]
Data reduction and plotting by Webalizer. All hits on 001673.html.
In comments it is observed that the story fell off the mainstream media rather quickly. From my perspetive not only has it fallen off the blog-0-gon faster than off the irresponsible, programmed, unethical media, but "what does it mean?" is almost universally unasked.
[Update: A branch of the National Islamic Resistance claimed responsibility.]
Posted by EBW at January 30, 2005 11:16 AMinitial ATO? third phase? Glossary, s'il vous plait!
[air tasking order. third phases is what comes after the ATOs are executed, and the MO (movement orders) that take mobile forces to contact (with the opfors, Iran defensive forces). Is it a desultory raid, or is it penetration in depth? ebw]
Posted by: Peatey at January 30, 2005 12:43 PMThanks EBW, another question:
Not that fiscal sanity is a goal of the administration, but how much do you think the Iran campaign will cost, in both manpower and money? Are we not a bit low on both?
[it really is model-dependent. whatever the first 1k sorties cost two years ago is about what the first 1k sorties will cost this year. both sides in the iran-iraq war fought at the technical equivalent of korean-war combat, despite having 1970s repitoires of materials, training and doctrine. there will be a generation of technical difference, favoring the attacker, in combined arms, plus air superiority.
as i pointed out in my piece on the 3rd army's pivot in 1944, executed in 3 days from the time the MO was issued, the forces are already "there". a pivot requires a political story to cover the retraction of force from forward deployments in iraq to staging points on the iran boarder.
it really comes down to refighting the iran-iraq war, up to a physical barrier on rapid movement by the attacker, or a reply of the release of the shah's air force, and the transition to a war of attrition. unlike the iran-iraq war, the blue player has the ability to attack from points other than iraq -- afganistan, pakistan, turkey, the caspian sea, and the persian gulf, and of course, the red play has the ability attack points in each of these adjacencies as well.
low on manpower and money? not unless rumsfeld and the "light, agile spear" is passe (it isn't, yet), and the congress won't vote "for the troops" (which they will).
as i've been aluding to however, unless tehran accepts a cease-fire, and it didn't for nearly 6 years, the forward edge of the battle area may be a larger footprint than just one provice and desultory raids by means other than stand-off weapons along the remainder of iran, border and interior. ebw]
Posted by: Peatey at January 30, 2005 02:19 PMHow long can they delay the release of those numbers? Surely the death toll will cut into their good vibes election story, which I'm sure they were planning on running 24/7 for at least 4-5 days. Poor Tony Blair, he's been getting the short end of the stick ever since he joined up with this boondoggle. Yes, how glorious the struggle.
[yup. if a full boat got tagged the election story in the uk won't be iraqi, it will be domestic. ebw]
Posted by: jps at January 30, 2005 02:20 PMThe puppet gov't will site "insurgent subversives" as a context for war with Iran. US Military aircraft and missiles then carry out massive strikes on infrastructure that lead to a five year period of instability to aid Chalabi's subversive coup'de tat.
Les Etas-Unis Coup De'tat!
[actually i don't think the puppet regime would be acting in its own interests by providing cover to the aggression. remember, the real iraqi state didn't participate in the electoral exercise, and it is sophisticated and "border insurgents" are neither novel nor significant. people who have internalized boarders may find the story credible, but people who's tribes are in two states (most iraqi) will not. ebw]
Posted by: Mr. Murder at January 30, 2005 08:21 PMDoes the Iranian student movement aid or support the US in said scenario? On would assume that they will be a big part of the marketing for the war. Will it be down with despots in a way that is totally not about religion, or will it be about Democracy on the march? When will the Baluchistani students demand freedom and, subsequently, when will brave Americans here their crys for help?
[bingo! fbvft-guy and the nro/pmoi/mek "student movement" are part of the drapery. baluh students??? ebw]
Posted by: jps at January 30, 2005 08:51 PMSo, I'm just winging by here after being referred, and this post (and the responses, cryptic and jargon-addled though they all are) seem to indicate that we're about to launch Operation Iranian Freedom.
Is this the editors' reasoned opinion?
I'm under the impression that said Operation would be insane because of the wildly more difficult nature of invading Iran vs. invading Iraq. Do I have a pessimistic view of Iran's capabilities? Couldn't they shut down the Straits of Hormuz in five minutes? Couldn't they rain fire on the Saudi oil terminals?
Sorry in advance if you've already covered this three weeks ago. I just wandered by tonight.
[s'ok. covered here and at ruminatethis since feb. '04 in terms of causus belli (the enrichment and mullahs vs reform stories) and since fall '04 in terms of operational issues -- iran-iraq war analysis, pakistan, etc.
yes. iran is "on" imnoho, and in jp's also nsho. yes. there will be a second "war of the tankers", and it is likely that states providing basing to the aggressor will be targeted, and that targeting will include high-value industrial soft targets.
as for "sanity", that's a values judgement, and the us is nothing if not a nation of "values". ebw]
[ps. i explain acronyms and otherwise bore the three or four regular readers. iran is just not fashionable, and even lefty bloggers are predisposed to subscribe to both the "enrichment" legend and the "mullahs vs reform" legend. ebw]
Posted by: stickler at January 31, 2005 01:56 AMXinhuanet is reporting the plane as having been shot down.
[thx. ebw]
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at January 31, 2005 06:01 AM[for saclos systems, e.g. tow and two-equivalent (wire-guided), couuntermeasures are not effective. see iraqi dazzlers and tow engagements in desert storm. also, distance from pod makes "engagement during planned evasive manouver with countermeasures" improbable. thx. ebw]
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at January 31, 2005 08:27 AMAs I wrote over on my blog, if it was shot down this marks a development on the insurgent side: as it was enroute it's unlikely to have been a RPG, and the IR countermeasure package on British C130s is excellent (Directional IRCM; it detects the flash of a missile launch and flashes an IR laser at the missile to dazzle its sensors), so a SA7 or similar is less likely.
But an ATGM? Original but possible. It would also be the first time I've heard of them using an ATGW (although they were plentiful). Simply, there are quite a lot of recent ones that have a designed anti-helicopter capability, esp. the recent Russian tank-mounted ones, but you could also basically point the long end up in the air and get the sight on an aircraft. Can't jam it, and more range than an RPG. Guided too. If you felt enterprising and original, I suppose, you could build an anti-air mounting to hold the launcher in a more convienient position.
[it is still early, and birdstrike and accidental discharge of munitions and other causes have not been eliminated, but ...
yes. wire guided at systems deployed vertically along the midlines of air transit corridors with either force the transport above 3,000 meters, or away from midlines. this is more important than the numbers of casulties, or the date of the shoot-down, as those are political ephemerals. the logistical cost of short-haul air-transport may have just increassed, and convoyed ground-transport is locally prohibitive, and non-convoyed ground-transport is theater-wide prohibitive.
i've been waiting for the blue player's freedom of movement ceiling to be moved "up". ebw]
Posted by: Alex at January 31, 2005 10:16 AMAl Jazeera airs footage purported to be of militants shooting down plane and aftermath.
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at January 31, 2005 02:13 PM[Link to the video as aired on al Jazeera (Arabic Language]
Do you have a link to the [apparently unedited] clip that you are seeing?
Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at January 31, 2005 06:02 PMAny further updates regarding official casualty count -- or are they still keeping mum on that as well?
[9+1. ebw]
Posted by: Diana at February 1, 2005 08:19 AMFull details released. 9 RAF personnel = complete C130K crew, chief tech and probably UKMAMS mover team, 1 soldier described as a member of the Royal Corps of Signals (although rumoured to be Special Forces - UKSF personnel are recruited from all branches of the Army and are publicly identified in their original Corps or Regiment. 264 Squadron Royal Signals are attached to the SAS for sigs support, another possibility). UK media going apeshit, convincing themselves that Balad is "an outpost for the SAS" - 20 mile perimeter, Corps Support Command HQ, some outpost!
Serious concern that insurgents may have salvaged radar equipment is also reported. Everyone seems to think the curious "push button B!" box implies that they have modified whatever-it-was extensively.
[thx for the uk update. having seen the missile (profile view) i think the (saclos) tow is less likely, and that a sa7 or functional equivalent (sa14, sa18) is more likely. i'm still puzzled by the firing box, which suggests a chassied multi-launcher, and active guidance, in the sa10 family. ebw]
Posted by: Alex at February 1, 2005 10:06 AMI note with interest that there's a Chinese/Slovenian update of the AT3c (the Stagger-C w/SACLOS) that permits you to fire multiple missiles from launchers connected to a central guidance device.
One wonders if they removed a firecon radar from a ZSU or S60? Scary if true. It's not good if they're busy designing their own air-defence system under our noses.
Posted by: Alex at February 1, 2005 12:25 PMThanks for all the updates. This sure dropped off the mainstream media's radar quickly. Curious, that.
[off the lefty blog-o-gone even faster. if you find a "what does it mean" piece, let me know. ebw]
Posted by: Diana at February 2, 2005 07:02 AMI'll keep my eyes open. How it's possible that no one is on the watch for such activity escapes me at present.
Are you familiar with the DEBKA files site? I recently posted about this article:
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=964
There is confirmation of a general having advance orders to attack Syria[see article 9]. What's that got to do with anything? Perhaps nothing, until you look at their home page and see mentions of this official from Syria, and from Iran and Amman in regards to negotiations with Russia for defense. Just call me nervous about Bush and his 'vision of the future.'
[yes i know about the debka file. i haven't looked at it in a while. ebw]
Correction: one of the men aboard (who I took to be the aircraft captain) was a staff officer from RAF Strike Command HQ travelling as a passenger. Rumour control in the UK speaks of explosives being the cargo
[hmm. if high-order detonation(s) a surprisngly large amount of fuel was still present in the ground strike fireball and post-burn. the debris field appeared to be only about 100m diameter too. the c-130 was at least 1,000 m above the debries field when structural integrity failed. ebw]
Posted by: Alex at February 3, 2005 07:15 AM