Someone has posted a recount of a firefight between US SEALS and the Taliban in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, which had disasterous results for the US:

The headquarters could see that the TEAM was encircled by bad guys and that the enemy was too close to the SEALs to use Air force close air support. A weather front was rapidly coming into the area and the SEAL Commander a Lieutenant Commander ask permission to launch his quick reaction force to go rescue his men.

[…]

Leadership requires having the guts to make a decision, based on analysis and forethought. You must totally recognize the risk and be ready to accept the results. The general in charge made the right call, he had to try to rescue the operators, we as American soldiers can not leave our people on the battlefield, every Airman, Marine, Sailor, Coast Guardsmen and Soldier has to know that when you go down range and things go wrong keep fighting and help will come.

It’s a tough story to read, but it gives a glimpse into the dangerous missions being waged in Afghanistan. The Chinook Helicopter site also mentions this mission and provides a great deal of information on the US helicopters struggling to survive extremely bad weather and rough terrain, as well as an apparent increase in hostile fire and opposition to US forces:

…Afghanistan, June 26, 2005. From U.S. and U.N. officials down to Afghan villagers, there is growing fear that this country may be at a seminal moment with three years of state-building in danger of succumbing to the barrage of violence.

The Chinook site also gives chilling details about another rescue operation called the Battle of Roberts Ridge that happened in 2002.

As I read these stories I can not help but recall a Soviet helicopter called the “Hind” by NATO (Mi-24) that was used in Afghanistan twenty years ago:

The Mujaheddin soon nicknamed the Hind the “devil’s chariot” and realized that their small guns were practically useless against its heavily armored hull. Bigger guns could bring down the Hind, but the real threat was from shoulder-launched, surface-to-air missiles, particularly the American heat-seeking Stinger, which the CIA began shipping to the Mujaheddin in large numbers starting in 1983. The Stinger could easily home in on either of the side-facing hot engine exhausts, located at the top of the fuselage near the rotor hub and bring down the helicopter. In response, the Soviets began fitting special covers over the exhausts to mix cooler air with the hot engine gases. This dramatically reduced losses but did not stop them completely and came with a price—the blocky covers slowed the helicopters down in flight, turning a fast, unmaneuverable helicopter into a slower, unmaneuverable helicopter. During the war, 333 Hinds were lost in combat; the number lost to operational accidents is not known.

The Afghan fighters have clearly continued to develop and advance their counter-helicopter tactics. More data on the losses suffered by the USSR in the 1980s, including helicopter casualties by year, can be reviewed here.

And finally, I noticed that the study of combat tactics in Afghanistan led a Major in the US Marine Corps to suggest rather ironically in 1985 that ground forces would be ill-equipped if they were to fight helicopters with surface-to-air missles:

Ground-based defense against enemy helicopters in the Marine Corps consists of small arms and the Redeye/Stinger man portable missile systems. The appearance of decoy flares on Soviet helicopters make the lethality of the Redeye/Stinger questionable, however. In any case, with only one battery of missiles per Marine Aircraft Wing, one must question whether there are sufficient numbers to provide adequate protection even if lethality is high.

Note, this was the same year that Gorbachev assumed leadership of the USSR and pushed for withdrawl negotiations to recommence. They had been stalled since 1982 but it was only after the Soviets were able to prop up the semblance of a local government and make declarations of a new constitution that they formally announced their withdrawl in 1987. The stories are sad, the lessons lost upon some even sadder.