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| A U.S. Army crew chief observes the horizon from the side door of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter as they prepare to land on a helipad at Camp Stehenson, Guyana, during a training event in support of Exercise Fused Response 2012 on March 8, 2012. DoD photo by Sgt. Taresha Neal Joiner, U.S. Army. (Released) |
The caption to this picture is garbage!
That's a UH-60?.
Yeah...on steroids...that's a MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator. Stats via Wikipedia...
- MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator (DAP): US Army variant. Special operations modification of the baseline MH-60L, operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.[81] The DAP is equipped with ESSS or ETS stub wings, each capable of carrying a M230 Chain Gun 30 mm automatic cannon, rocket pods, and various other armaments. M134D miniguns are used as door guns.[75]
After thinking this through I'm a bit miffed. Why is Special Forces doing a training mission in S. America? Convetional forces could easily do it and I thought that they were screaming that they need more man power????
SOCOM complains about not having enough assets in theater but then sends the 160th on a training detail to S. America instead of supporting the war effort????
This makes no sense.
That is a badass chopper for sure. Love the dual miniguns. Do you know if that type has additional armor as compared to a standard blackhawk/seahawk?
ReplyDeleteoh it is definitely a bad ass helicopter. when i see it it makes me sad for the SEALs that were lost on that reinforcement mission in AFghanistan.
ReplyDeleteas for additional armor ----i would bet it does. the only things they list are whats apparent to the naked eye. beneath the skin i'm sure it has all the bells and whistles and more.
Although that IS an MH-60L, it is not a DAP. Per the wikipedia stats a DAP is equipped with the stub wing system and has fixed forward firing armaments. The one pictured here is a lima model fielded in the mid eighties as an interim solution until the MH-60K was fielded later on in the decade. The kilo model is recognizable by it's refueling boom. Don't forget that the 160th has four battalions to spread the love around the world, and has spent a lot of time in both South America and Africa in the past. I'm sure they still have some birds supporting the fight in Afghanistan as well.
ReplyDeletestub wings are removable and are mission dependent. if you're on a training mission to s. america you'd leave them behind.
ReplyDeleteadditionally the US ARMY and SOCOM in particular would not be flying around with 3 different models of helicopters. they would raise them all to the same level. the most current models is the DAP and you can bet that the 160th isn't flying any model but a DAP if its a blackhawk.
As for why they might be in the region, SOCOM may also be playing a bit for DEA... Also Guyana is just next to Chavez's Venezuela, and someone may have wanted some informations on what's going around in some part of the bolivarian revolutionary leader's country... After all they're one of the best equipped force around and let some russian heavy shooters land on their airbases some times ago, so SOCOM may have been ordered to go take a look at something specific...
ReplyDelete