Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: tdrinkar@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu (Terrell Drinkard)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Low tech warfare
Message-ID: <12754@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 90 04:24:39 GMT
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From: tdrinkar@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu (Terrell Drinkard)
In article <12687@cbnews.ATT.COM> munnari!gara.une.oz.au!pmorriso@uunet.UU.NET (Perry Morrison MATH) writes:
>From: munnari!gara.une.oz.au!pmorriso@uunet.UU.NET (Perry Morrison MATH)
>However, I think that the effectiveness of the U.S. military has been 
>questioned after a decade or more of embarrassing bungling. The Iranian
>hsotage rescue for example used choppers to fly a mission that exceeded their
>mean-time-before-failure. In other words, it was beyond the design limits of
>these particular helicopters (Ch-47s?). I believe that each service wanted a

No, these were Navy Sea Stallions, not the Army CH-47.  The '47 had
been suggested as the appropriate machine, but was squashed because
the planners felt that the Iranians *might* get word that a few
Chinooks had been moved and would therefore be tipped off about the
mission.  Pretty thin in my book, but then I'm not a
cloak-and-swagger type.
 
I would also point out that Oliver North commanded the ground
forces in the aborted Iranian raid under Carter, and ended up in a
very high ranking civilian job under Reagan.

>piece of the action and the result was a mish-mash of decision making.
>	I guess we could contrast this with the Israelis who rarely put a
>foot wrong in covert operations. Didn't they steal an Egyptian radar
>unit during one of the Arab-Israeli conflicts ('67?). Entebbe and 
>several other operations were also class acts.

I agree, the Israelis do very nice military operations.  They play
to win, not to get the most political points.

Terry

Disclaimer et la Signaturo:
Hell no, I'm not responsible for what I say!  If everyone were
responsible for what they said, we'd have had a balanced budget in
1984.