samedi 25 juillet 2020

Super 64

It would, but...

1. They didn't know the status of the crew (or their possible remains). So they couldn't just fire up that crash site.

2. They inserted two volunteer Delta snipers to rescue/reinforce any survivors. Again, they couldn't just fire up that crash site.

3. It was a fast moving, fast escalating situation (with two crash sites and beleaguered ground forces). There was an immediate focus on saving crash survivors, recovering remains/radios/crypto, and conduct of a fighting exfil by the ground element.

4. At the end of the day, there was no great enemy intelligence gain to be gleaned from the wreckage of that particular model of airplane. Thus no critical priority while there was a major ground fight going on. Although the classified materials/radios at 64's site were compromised. At the other site they were recovered or destroyed by the rescue force.

4. They really didn't have any responsive aerial platform to accomplish that job. Would've required a fast mover airstrike... and I doubt there was a carrier in position to support such a mission. Anything else would have had to come from Kuwait/Quatar... or even Europe. Requiring overflight & refueling permissions from various countries. It would have taken days to generate the ATO for that job. And difficult to do (back in '93) without leveling several square blocks of civilian abodes. The TF's organic 160th SOAR helos didn't have the requisite firepower to obliterate that wreckage. Nor was there any heavy artillery support. In a word, SOL as far as destroying it with fires.

5. Remember that the response from National Level was to damn near immediately tuck tail and withdraw from the country. Clinton & his NSC likely got the willies at the very thought of conducting any follow-on sterilization efforts. The idea of resultant civilian collateral damage would have been too much for them to bear.

Early on, Washington was as concerned with ugly media optics as anything else. The same administration that earlier denied heavy support arms to the "Peace Keeping" effort (like specifically requested US main battle tanks). Even had the TF commander requested or suggested such a targeting of the wreckage, it was likely denied or slapped down by theater level HQ (after being forbidden by the pogues back in D.C.).

6. There was no way anyone was sending a subsequent ground element back into the enemy's backyard just to render scrap aluminum into smaller scrap using demolitions.

In summary, they didn't see destruction of those aircraft wrecks as a priority... and didn't really have a handily responsive method for accomplishing that task anyway.

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Super 64

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