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An analysis of the operation, the deployment
pattern, and the possibilities of a clash with
Pakistani forces clearly indicate that at least
two squadrons of US Navy’s sophisticated
F/A 18 E/F Super Hornets, several AH 64 Apaches,
one or two EA 18 G Electronic Attack Growlers,
two aerial refuellers and one E-8C Joint Surveillance
Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS) combat management
aircraft would have been airborne to engage any
aircraft that interfered with the mission.
It is not known from which carrier the attack
aircraft would have taken off but two of the carriers,
USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and USS Enterprise (CVN
65), were deployed right in the Arabian Sea and
the third, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), not far
away at another point in the Indian Ocean.
Two aircraft carriers have some times been deployed,
and also often overlap while changing duties.
But the presence of a third one in the vicinity
would be unusual and called for only in case of
possible eruption of hostilities. Carl Vinson
is reported to be moving out of the region now,
and the US Navy’s newest and most modern
nuclear-capable aircraft carrier, USS George H
W Bush (CVN 77) has just left its homeport at
Norfolk, Virginia for the Arabian Sea for its
first deployment.
Incidentally, in an unrelated but milestone
development, USS George H W Bush is commanded
by a lady officer, Rear Admiral Nora Tyson. It
is the first time that a woman is heading a carrier
strike task force, and the event also marks the
centenary of US naval aviation.
As for Operation Geronimo, it can safely be
assumed though that the Pakistani Air Force (PAF)
would have been warned off if its aircraft had
taken to the skies, and there would have been
no clash.
Nonetheless, as reports emanating from Washington
DC indicate that should the Pakistanis –
or somebody else – would have interfered,
then the US was ready to risk a military confrontation.
The New York Times, which revealed new details
of the operation quoting an Administration official,
says: "Their instructions were to avoid any
confrontation if at all possible. But if they
had to return fire to get out, they were authorized
to do it.”
As per the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs),
the commandos would have had heavy air cover and
electronic warfare support to execute the mission
and to return to their base in Afghanistan safely.
There would also have been some more SEAL and
other commando teams as well as special operations
troops on standby, to take action if any unlikely
ground battle erupted.
The US government treats the survival of its
military officers and men with utmost importance,
and there are numerous incidents since the Vietnam
War in which the US forces undertook daring Combat
Search and Rescue (CSAR) missions to extricate
pilots and war fighters from troubled areas. It
is a safe assumption that at least six Boeing
CH 47 Chinooks, which can carry around 40 persons
each, would have been ready for CSAR, a role for
which this helicopter was once chosen by the US
Air Force. (There are no orders yet).
According to indications and published reports,
four helicopters took part in the raid on Osama
bin Laden’s million dollar safe-house: two
CH 47s and two specially configured MH 60Rs. Both
the helicopters, as well as the Apaches, have
advanced night fighting and operational capabilities
and fly at matching speeds of over 150 knots/
hour.
An MH 60R can carry only about a dozen troops,
and if the number of commandos involved in the
operation was 79 as stated by reports from the
US capital, then only the Chinooks would have
ferried most of them.
The Belgian Shepherd or Malinois breed dog that
the SEAL Team Six had with it to sniff explosives
and attack terrorists reportedly with implanted
titanium teeth would have been in the MH 60R,
which these commandos would have flown at treetop
heights, guided by their own night vision sensors
and assistance from the JSTARS and satellites..
As a standard drill, SEALs always fly below
500 feet, but for a mission like this, treetop
hovering would be mandatory to evade radars.
The MH 60R uses the hull of Sikorsky’s
Black Hawk, but is equipped from toe-to-tail by
Lockheed Martin, whose technology innovation arm
Skunk Works possibly fitted some additional noise
reduction systems on them.
There are some reports saying that it was a
new type of stealth helicopter that the SEALs
used. But this writer’s interaction with
military technology experts indicates that whatever
it was, the platform was that of the MH 60R, the
standard and most advanced naval helicopter that
the SEALs now use.
A variant of this helicopter incidentally was
offered by the US Navy recently for sale to the
Indian Navy but was not accepted perhaps because
of procedural FMS issues.
According to Boeing, which recently developed
the Growler using the Super Hornet platform, the
aircraft incorporates “advanced Airborne
Electronic Attack (AEA) avionics bringing transformational
capability for suppression of enemy air defenses
(SEAD) and non-traditional electronic attack operations.”
Growler was deployed for the first time in October
2010, in Iraq initially and then over Afghanistan.
It is armed with Raytheon’s highly advanced
electronic warfare and radar jamming systems,
and is capable of fighting out of a mission if
attacked. Admittedly, some of the best anti-radar
weapons like the Raytheon’s AGM-88 supersonic
High Speed Anti Radiation Missile (HARM) are available
only with and from the US.
The JSTARS is built on remanufactured Boeing
707 platforms, and according to the US Air Force
(USAF), it is the only system in the world capable
of real time surveillance over a large, corps-sized
area of a battlefield.
It can track the movement of small vehicles,
and relay communications between an operating
unit like the SEALs and a command centre anywhere
in the world. Notably, real time pictures of the
operation were relayed to the Pentagon and CIA
as well as the White House Situation Room in Washington
for the benefit of the commanders and the US President.
That was likely done through JSTARS, which has
an approximately 8-metre long electronic phased
array radar and secure satellite connectivity
All the SEAL and other commandos can now be equipped
with helmet-mounted cameras, as standard equipment
if required, and pictures taken by them would
have been tranmitted to operational commanders
and the President in Washington through the JSTARS.
The aircraft is often deployed to control aerial
strike by unmanned aircraft (or drones) like the
Global Hawk, which the US has continued after
the elimination of Osama bin Laden, and despite
publicly aired warnings and requests by Pakistan
to stop them.
Built by military technology giant Northrop
Grumman, JSTARS was first deployed in Operation
Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraq after its occupation
of Kuwait. But the version flying today has revolutionary
capabilities compared to what were available 20
years ago.
According to the US Air Force, JSTARS uses a
multi-mode side looking radar to “detect,
track, and classify moving ground vehicles in
all conditions deep behind enemy lines” and
that "the radar and computer subsystems on
the E-8C can gather and display detailed battlefield
information on ground forces. The information
is relayed in near-real time to the Army and Marine
Corps common ground stations and to other ground
command, control, communications, computers and
intelligence, or C4I, nodes."
Apparently, the aircraft would have kept a close
watch on the movement around the Osama bin Laden
safe house, which was otherwise “safely”
located in between the Baloch Regimental Centre
and the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy
in the green and peaceful city of Abbotabad, an
hour’s drive from the Pakistan Army’s
General Head Quarters (GHQ) and its notorious
ISI agency in Rawalpindi.
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