Operation Eagle Claw: What went wrong? (Part 2 of 2)

[Wafflepudding]

Couldn't find anything about Carter giving the Iranians 4000 TOWs. The Iran-Contra scandal was about 6 hostages taken much, much later by the group that would later become Hezbollah. You've said plenty of odd or debatable things in your videos, but the admiration of Reagan because he "wasn't willing to play nice" and had Iranians quaking in their boots was just plain stupid. And it's baffling coming from someone that critizices white elephant defense projects considering SDI was his pet project.

[killerkrab21]

The next crisis being... afganistan? Lol

[BlacktailDefense]

@killerkrab21 It could be, but I have the strangest feeling of Deja Vu.

(Democrat seeking another term as President despite weak and ineffective policies, elections right around the corner, stepped-up tensions with Iran...)

[dudejo]

The only way I see things remotely changing is from all the frontline infantry collectively showing their superiors the finger and letting THEM do the dirty work for a change.

[texasrangersr1]

you forget its a military operation nothing ever goes according to plan.and the "no man left behind"thing is good.in 1993 in Somalia when the Blackhawks were shot down 2 of the crewmen from the first Blackhawk were still aluive as were the 2 Delta Force snipers on board if we had just left them their and focused on the mission they would have been overrun and killed

[BlacktailDefense]

@texasrangersr1 "you forget its a military operation nothing ever goes according to plan."

That's no excuse for the monumental stupidity and bureaucratic group-think that characterized the "planning" and "leadership" of Eagle Claw.

"in 1993 in Somalia when the Blackhawks were shot down..."

...after SEVEN IDENTICAL MISSIONS IN A ROW were preformed beforehand, all on the SAME SCHEDULE. In the 7th, a UH-60 took an RPG hit, and barely made it back --- and nothing was learned from this portent.

[texasrangersr1]

@BlacktailDefense have you read BlackHawk down book by Mark Bowden or seen the movie based on the book.everything went wrong when the kid fell from the chopper so the Rangers evaced him 2 the Hummves leaving 2 Rangers to cover one skinny (somali)fired an RPG at a BlackHawk one Ranger Chalk(12 Men) was sent to secure the site 2 were left behind to signal the convoy they forgot about that and the convoy went in the wrong direction as Delta and Rangers move to the crash they meet heavy resistance..

[texasrangersr1]

@BlacktailDefense ....and are pined down in a house meanwhile Delta and Rangers move to the second crash which happend cause the pilot was told to take the downed choppers position to replace it it lost its rotor and went down 2 Delta snipers went in to secure the site and were killed the surving pilot was captured.the whole thing didnt end till the morning when the bodies of the crew and pilots were removed from the crash no man left behind.no one will asure succes nor is any mission the same

[mugqito]

Nice video, but you did make a lot of factual mistakes

[grahamkeithtodd]

a typical cluster fuck of the highest order old son... have the dolts in charge never heard of the 7 "P"'s rule?

(Perfect Planing Prevents Piss Poor Performance Permanently)

the trouble with Carter was that he was too nice a guy to be the president of the us!

sometimes you need a total bastard to do the right thing!

but having said that their is a small doubt that Carter was suckered into this stupid plan in the first place!

[BlacktailDefense]

@grahamkeithtodd

I don't know about being a "nice" guy, but he was VERY naive; recall that on his first trip to the White House after his inauguration, Carter had his motorcade stop for EVERY red light.

It's also amazing that an experienced submarine officer could take charge of a covert operation, and screw-up this badly. Then again, some officers are more politicians than warriors...

[grahamkeithtodd]

@BlacktailDefense your so right about some officers beening politicians old son,but to put a submarine officer in charge? what the hell was any one thinking about?

[BlacktailDefense]

@grahamkeithtodd

What most outside the US military don't realize is that it's an ineffectual, top-down, political hierarchy, where Rank Hath It's Privileges, and one must to Go Along To Get Along.

When LtG. Suckup says "Jump", everyone below says "How high?". LtG. Suckup only keeps his job by the whim of Gen. Fatso above him. This Chain of Nepotism goes all the way to the CSA, who brown-noses the President to keep HIS job.

So, no one EVER criticizes the boss --- even if lives are on the line.

[Nails308]

@BlacktailDefense This happens everytime a POTUS gets involved deeply in military operations. LBJ mircomanaged the Vietnam war, even approving small targets. You cant do this. Give the planners the mission, let them plan it and present it back. Approve it or not...then do it. Carter was a idiot of the first degree. He gutted the military then expected them to pull off a highly complacated mission that never would have worked to begin with anyways.

[BlacktailDefense]

@Nails308 Not to mention Carter's "ingenious" F-16/79 scheme. God forbid that that some banana republic might get a hold of Low-Bypass Turbofan technology that France, Britain, and Russia give-out like candy, but by all means, let's STILL hand-out the F-16's unique Fire Control System and Fly-By-Wire Algorithms --- and at a discount!

[jrms999]

Love your videos dude but aren't you forgetting that the Reagan administration, before they had entered office, were brokering the release of the hostage behind Carter's back.

A famous meeting took place in Paris between Reagan delegates and the Iranians - the real basis of the Iran/Contra Scandal was the relationship between Reagan and the Iranians

[BlacktailDefense]

@jrms999

Point taken --- I should have delved deeper into the Iran-Contra Scandal.

[mac163]

@Fedaykin24 I believe its GRAMMAR not GRAMMER! i accept paypal. lol

[Fedaykin24]

@mac163 you got me lol!

[Fedaykin24]

Hi mate I do find your videos very interesting and well researched but please can you spell and grammar check them first!

Some of the spelling mistakes are shocking! Well this one is for free its spelt "THEIR" not "THIER"!

The serious nature of your research and message is being damaged with the poor spelling and grammar within your videos.

Thanks

[BlacktailDefense]

@Fedaykin24

I don't pretend that the grammar in my videos doesn't suffer, but I have a tremendous amount of information to manage when I write on these subjects. The quantity of info I deal with on a daily basis leaves little room for quality control, so a lot of grammatical errors slip through.

Also, Photoshop (which I make the slides in) doesn't have an automatic spell-checker. XD

[MatoVuc]

the "Leave no man behind" mentality is a debatable idea, but there's no debate that it's purely political. I'll quote a vieo game character: "The corpse of a 19 year old soldier from California gets more media coverage than the 50000 people he died trying to protect"

Retreiving the bodies of the fallen are post mission procedures. In fact, attempting to recover them beforehand is likely to cause even more casualties.

[MatoVuc]

On the subject of men vs. mission, my ratio is 65:35 for men. The ratio can varry depending on the criticality of the mission, but if completing the mission would mean loosing all of my most experienced soldiers in the proces i would flag that as mission failure, as even if the mission succeeds it leaves me significantly less capable of completing further missions, follow-ups or not. (e.g. Napoleon after Russia)

[DemonHide]

"Casualty Aversion" likely costs more lives down the road on account of having to either attempt the mission again (when you could have reasonably succeeded) or that the results of mission failure cause damage to everyone else. As seen here, this is especially true with SF personnel in possession of sensitive information. They had a raging fire going. Could've at least tossed the papers in there.

[BlacktailDefense]

@DemonHide

Not only that, but Casualty Aversion is also a precursor of the "Bombard & Occupy" mentality --- that you can simply pound an enemy into submission from afar, that walk right in and take-over.

In addition to causing lost lives, this mentality also causes lost WARS.

Take Kosovo for example, where we were going to strip the Serbian Army of 1700 tanks and artillery pieces.

After 4 months of bombing, we destroyed just 14 of them. Thank god we didn't try to "occupy" Serbia afterwords...

[MarshallJukov]

@BlacktailDefense

"Thank god we didn't try to "occupy" Serbia afterwords..."

Leaving aside criminal nature of that aggression - 4 months of bombings resulted ZERO. Even Miloshevich was captured covertly by traitors inside Serbia 2 years after

Actualy if NATO would start ground operation - they would have even worse nightmare than even nazis had there in their time. Serbians are NOT bunch of cavemen with AKs

[henchman696]

The mission included Delta Force, Green Berets, and Rangers. Marine provided aviation not troops.It was a Ranger Wade Ishimoto who blew up the truck (which had rammed a Ranger, not Marine, roadblock) according to his own account he was not aiming for the truck but in front of it but did provide enough lead.The warhead ricochet of the ground under the truck and struck the fuel tank blowing it up.

[BlacktailDefense]

@henchman696

Duly noted --- I'll have to consult you on future presentations about SOF missions!

[Mardasee]

@henchman696 Five infrantry Marines did participate. Two were killed. Sgt Harvey and Cpl Holmes. The right side tire on the fatal helicopter was discovered flat after landing. Before moving the helicopter for refueling SSgt Johnson ordered the Marines to exit the helicopter for safety reasons except for Sgt Harvey who was ordered to remain onboard because he was a specialist and may of been needed. Cpl Holmes volunteered to remain onboard since he was a specialist and SSgt Johnson agreed.

[KSB26]

"8 helos? Why not 800? It's not like we don't have them." - Richard Nixon

I've always wondered what would have happened if everything had gone according to plan. Even with the dismal state of the Iranian military after the Revolution how did 8 Helos expect to survive flying in downtown Tehran? Enough conscripts with AK-47s and LMGs can shoot down almost anything. Didn't Vietnam teach the Brass that? (Answer: No)

[Ag3nt0fCha0s]

An enemy! What to do? I know! Lets give them our TOW missiles that would allow them to stop a column of our tanks dead! Genius!

[BlacktailDefense]

@Ag3nt0fCha0s

Next time, we should trade hostages for Strykers.

ROFL

[Ag3nt0fCha0s]

@BlacktailDefense

That's brilliant - within years they'd sell any nuclear tech they'd have just to buy more tyres!

[BlacktailDefense]

@Ag3nt0fCha0s

We could get more than that --- one Stryker RV went through three ENGINES in a single week!