Operation Eagle Claw - US Special Forces Attempt Daring Iranian Hostage Rescue, 1980
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2021
- US Citizens have been captured and are being held hostage at the overrun US Embassy in Iran's capital city, Tehran. A daring Special Forces mission is mounted to storm the embassy and rescue the hostages. But is the plan too complex to be achievable?
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I just imagine being an Iranian civilian, going on a nice bus trip, suddenly you see a fucking gunship land, soldiers get out and chase a tanker truck on a motorcycle and a jeep, then blow it up right in front of you, then five more giant aeroplanes land all around the bus, dozens of soldiers speaking a language you don’t understand haul everyone off the bus and tie you all up, then six helicopters land, one of them breaks down, another one flies into the back of a plane and fucking explodes, and then they all just leave.
What the fuck.
They..,... didn't Murder you the Americans didn't kill them
Yup..... imagine this Fact
Best fucking trip ever
🤣
Those civilians may have felt that they witnessed a stunning display of buffoonery.
But to an outside observer, it was a lot of bad luck.
@@ChesterChi3 I was surprised the civilians weren’t killed for witnessing that
Imagine being some Iranian dude in a bus and 5 Americans planes just landed around you
Imagine being some Iranian dude in a fuel truck and a plane lands in the desert. A motorcycle and a jeep get unloaded by that plane and they shoot an anti tank missile at you.. I would be shitting myself. Thankfully he survived. Oh and before they shoot the missile at you you see some dudes shoot at a bus.
Just driving on some country roads listening to your tunes and you get involved with a foreign power lol.
@@Old_Ladies hAHAH Yeah, I could envision riding in Kansas back dirt roads, with a beer in hand and get involved in a fuckin international diplomatic incident. Great stuff
@@Old_Ladies It's like an Iranian version of Red Dawn
@JimmyEatSwirl beautiful
and then they shoot your bus, blow up a fuel truck, crash a helicopter into a plane and then leave.
The US military seems to go through these cycles of coming up with incredibly brilliant and simple plans, followed by periods of absolutely bonkers incompetent stuff like this.
Tbf the failures were all mechanical. I guess the maintenance crew got summarily executed after this.
Don't mess with Iran tho,enough missile which can bring back enough coffins
How is any of that incompetence are you retarded?
@@foreverknight3448 you roaches will be smashed sooner or later, missiles be damned
The problem wasn't the plan, but the inexperience and the dysfunctional relationship between services, in the wake of Vietnam. That affected mission planning . Also, US military planning was so geared to fighting a war against the Soviets that it had lost touch with more direct mission. carter had actually been fighting with the DOD to change their focus to a more rapid and mobile response.
i am laughing tears here. this sounds like a casual battlefield 4 round. pure chaos muppetshow
Iranian civilians watching that chain of events unfold before their very eyes must have been like: "we weren't expecting special forces"
When they saw a US chopper fly into a US plane their thoughts must have been somthing like "poor bastards were sent in without proper training". They had to wait another 40 years to see a bigger phukkup by another Dem prez.
@@frutt5k If you think Presidents are directly responsible for the outcome of Special Operations missions I got a bridge or two to sell you. That's like saying Operation Red Wings was Bush's fault or Extortion 17 was Obama's. They take the fall, that's it.
@@junioraltamontent.7582 Reading is not your best developped skill. Being offended is.
@@frutt5k Imagine hating 50% of your fellow Americans 'cos someone picked a different 50/50 choice than you, despite the number of complex issues involved, and the fact that both parties are funded by the same companies. Maybe bitch some more about snowflakes and purple hair on Facebook?
@@frutt5kHey Fruit 56, go "developpp" your spelling before you bring up someone's reading ability. Can't even spell "fuckup" or your own fruit name correctly.
"Well at least nobody died."
Im guessing there was no wood available for them to knock on after making that statement.
Disaster: is that a challenge?
No wood. Just sand.
Carter could have used his own head...
manpower, aircraft, and wood shortages
The MC-130’s (I’m assuming the EC’s as well) ramp loading lights had wood on the back of them. Specifically the end of the handles of Rawling baseball bats, so you could grab and point them where you needed. Should’ve knocked on those
I was part of the C-130 Maintenance crew that trained for this mission. At the time, we had no idea we were training for the Eagle Claw mission. For us, it was just another Mobility Exercise with the (odd at the time) addition of sand goggles to our equipment list. We were given notice to report to the flight line with our mobility bags. Large canvas bags that we have to keep filled with a weeks worth of uniforms and personal hygiene items.
We were loaded into the C-130s we would be maintaining and packed into the fold down jump seats that lined the outside walls of the cargo space. In the center of the cargo space there were spare engines, spare props, and for the first time any of us had ever seen, a partially dismantled helicopter. In discussion later we found that all of the C-130s were similarly packed.
After flying for a few hours the Load Master handed out the sand goggles and we were told to put them on to prepare for landing and debarkation. The goggles were the first hint that we would not be landing at a standard air strip. And sure enough, a few minutes later we landed and when the ramp went down we could see that we had landed in a sandy desert. We found out later it was a desert area near a Texas town. When the ramp went down we realized the air craft was not actually parking just slowing to a snail's crawl, engines still running, as we disembarked. As soon as were out, the load masters unloaded some of the spare engines and other equipment. We could see the other aircraft around us doing the same thing; Slow crawl, unloading troops and spare equipment, and then merely moments later the aircraft all took off again.
Looking around we now noticed that surrounding this makeshift drop-off point was a perimeter of combat troops dug into fox holes with weapons pointing outside the area. Now this next part is kind of funny. A few moments later a school bus arrived and those of us in the maintenance crew were loaded up and taken into town and quartered in a decent civilian hotel. After a couple of days, of lounging around the hotel, the majority of us got orders to report to a nearby airport where we were flown back to our home base. We never had to preform any maintenance or any official duties. About 2 thirds of us were part of the group that went back home.
Once we got home we wondered about our friends and co-workers that stayed there, but heard nothing from them until about 3 weeks later a friend that was part of the group that stayed called one of us collect and said that his group had gone back out to the desert and did the same exercise a couple of times then again, his remaining group was divided up and 2 thirds of that group were sent to a very nice hotel where they were told they were now on convalescent leave for an undetermined time. But they were not to contact anyone, friends or family until further notice. Our friend told us not to tell anyone he called and that he would sneak another collect call later when his status changed. He said the remaining third of his group supposedly went back to the desert and he never heard from them again.
It was not until after the actual failed mission was made public that they allowed our friend and his group to return to our home base. I was always jealous of the three months he had on "convalescent leave" just to keep him and his group quiet about the real mission.
thank you for sharing your story!
How strange lol my grandpa told me his story that he was in the Marines and his unit was mobilized and ready to invade Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis if it had went hot we he would have been with the Marines that would have been sent in to invade Cuba
damn! wish I see you guys here one day caz we need help to get read of these mullahs 😂😂fkrs won't leave
@@alikalany6586khak bar sare khaenet konam vatan forosh!
@@donsantanio7884 من نیم متر زمین هم به اسمم ثبت نشده که بخوام بفروشم ولی آذربایجان از ایران بود اگه گرجستان و داگستان و ارمنستان رو حساب نکنیم من اراضی ایران رو به مرز افغانستان اضافه نکردم
Great synopsis of the fiasco at Desert 1, but the boldness (insanity?) of this plan only really becomes apparent when you read about how the rest was supposed to go down. There were so many things that could go wrong, any one of which would spell disaster for the entire mission, I find it absolutely mind boggling that it was even attempted. The odds of success seemed ridiculously low, the odds of catastrophic failure immense.
The same happened with Operation Black Hawk Down but they succeeded, on rescuing the hostages.
If you ever wanted a mission that defines Murphy's law then here you go. What a disaster.
Sods law in the UK
I would reccomend you to have a look at russo-japanese war where russian scandinavian fleet travels from their harbor in scandinavia to pacific to help the fleet there.
O'Toole's Commentary On Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist.
@@goki6548 oh god don't remind me of that fiasco
Market Garden
"Hey ignore the burning AC130 and CH53, these Russian documents left behind clearly indicate that this was a Soviet operation", says nobody with an actual brain
they abandoned all helicopters not just the one that burned
Clearly the Soviets are buying their military equipment from the United States.
*EC-130
@@FirstDagger what
@@FirstDagger AC-130*
The Israeli raid on Entebbe in '76 (Mivtzah Yonatan) was the model for this operation, with C-130's doing long-distance transport to a ground target full of hostages. The seventies were the decade for hostage-taking and air hijacking. Anything was possible with some friends, a hand grenade, and a few first-class tickets to the resurrection. Out of these heady storylines emerged Chuck Norris, who first brought Delta Force to the silver screen.
I remember seeing this on the TV as a child it was a complete embarrassing event for the “ Delta” team. I guess real life is different than Hollywood.
I love in movies they portray them as supersoldiers single handedly killings entire battalions but I reality they lost to desert dust lmao
M3, It's ok cos WE have the SAS
Carter: Well, at least no Americans died.
Murphy's Law: I'm about to end this man's whole career.
Quite literary
@@captain61games49
*Literally* *
Nice example there!
As a president yes, but as a humanitarian no
Um... didn't 8 die in the collision?
Even if no Americans die, if u was the President, they’re gonna die (not execution, I meant dishonourable discharge)
*Sees a lonely tanker driving along a road where they’re planning to land*
“Sir, what should we do?!”
“Idk, blow it up I guess.”
What a brilliant team of minds on this mission.
Seriously. I don't think it was said *why* the trooper deployed the missile instead of shooting out the engine like they did with the bus. What was up with that?
@@Archangelm127 I WAS ISSUED A ROCKET LAUNCHER AND I WILL MAKE FULL USE OF THE EQUIPMENT I WAS ISSUED
Well, this video is kinda the short form of this FUBAR situation. The actual truck, according to after action reports, didn't stop for the rangers - not to hand gestures, not to warning shots and lastly not to gunfire. They *killed* the passenger (which makes the officer in command a liar when he tells HQ there were no iranian casualties!) and the tanker kept going - so to prevent the tanker from leaving the scene the element commander decided to use the shoulder mounted AT, because his orders where to stop the truck at all cost. It was only when the chain of command above him learned of this part of the desaster that they told the element not to pursue the following truck as they were probably fuel smugglers. (This last piece of information is probably also the reason why the truck didn't stop even after shots were fired. They most likely believed they were about to be executed by iranian military police.)
What the video also kinda brushes over is that the iranian hostages from the bus weren't held in the open or in their bus (as shown), but rather on board of one of the EC-130s - because the initial plan was to fly them out of iran and fly them back to their bus after the mission was over so they couldn't compromise the mission (because Carter was strictly against any unneccessary harm to iranian civilians, which explains why the commanding officer kinda omitted the one dead passenger on the fuel truck in his initial report). Obviously, this got scraped after shit hit the fan, but the iranian hostages were on board of one of the planes for a time - so despite all the _Murphy's law_ shit going on during this mission, it *could* have been worse. Just imagine, the EC-130 struck by the helicopter had been *that* EC-130... bad enough they shot AT at a tanker, but that would've been 50 dead iranian civilians who (most likely) weren't criminals to their own country...
@@QemeH Cripe! Thanks for the clarification. I figured it was something like that, but it's always best to ask. :)
@@QemeH Yeah, they tried reading the bus passangers Rumi poetry to calm them down.
How wack is that? Get pulled over by Martians and they load you onto their spaceship and read you poetry.
I can't even tell you how much I enjoy these thorough deep dives into specific combat scenarios. This may be my favorite channel. Not in a morbib way but much in the way that inspired someone to make the videos and channel. Knowledge, entertainment.
I've been binging them for the last few hours. Very interesting stuff. The "blackhawk down" video was really enlightening. Mistakes all over the place cost many Americans' and some allies' lives.
Thank you for your incredibly well researched work. The infographic is very helpful in understanding the events.
Absolutely wild that this plan ever got approved. Excellent stuff as always
Good to see you here!
I got one for you: Normandy: Stand at Hill 314, The Mortain counterattack
Imagine the poor fuel smuggler who must have thought he met the customs officials from hell.
That's what I was thinking. Even if all the helicopters had made it to the refueling point, that was the "easy" part of the mission it looks like. This would be like the mission to kill Osama in Pakistan but into a much larger city, having to clear a much larger building, and then wrangling a lot of civilians onto helicopters before a giant riot formed.
*agressively sniffs cocaine off of a draft of EO 12333"
Jimmy Carter has been haunted by Eagle Claw to this day.
"Over the years whenever he was asked what one thing he would have changed about his presidency, he would always answer:
*"I would have sent one more helicopter."*
-Justin Williamson, Raid: Operation Eagle Claw 1980, Osprey Publishing, 2020
Rumour has it that Reagan's team delayed the talks between Carter and the Ayatollahs.
"I would have sent one more helicopter." I feel certain that would have made it an even bigger catastrophe...
I don't think Biden would give a damn about Kabul.
Come on Man, that was 2 months ago.
If they bungled everything up to that point, they'd have bungled even more the rest of the way. Imagine failing to take into consideration the local weather where you could have had U2's relaying critical details ahead. Imagine failing to properly reconoiter your landing sight and being run into by two vehicle immediately upon landing.
What else did they fail to consider? Did they really have a proper understanding of the defenses at the embassy? Of the timeliness and disposition of a response? I think Carter should thank his lucky stars he hadn't sent one more helicopter.
The real problem here is the idiot that chose the rendezvous point, and the other idiots who approved it. Major props to the mission commander who had the courage to scrub the mission!
The best to do it is at it again I see. Love your work and as usual it’s outstanding. Thx again.
Thanks for this. I've never been able to understand how it all went south so quickly.
I guess this is the benefit of staying up late at night
Hello from Canada where it’s 1:30pm!
Its 2 am so yeahhhhhh
Its 03:33 here rn
Nearly 4am here in Ireland so yeah🤣
The shit has hit the fan
This is explained very well in the Book "The Unit" by Eric Haney. Because of the mistakes from this mission the creation of an elite air wing was created, the NightStalkers, the 160th SOAR. That way, experienced, seasoned, and very good pilots and crews are able to take Delta there and back.
Back in the 00s, we had some US Army spec ops CH-47s do carrier landing quals on our Amphibious Assault Carrier.
1. Those guys had some insane equipment on those helos
2. For better or worse; those guys served by their own rules
Eric got it said very well. NSDQ!
@@andystevens7557 My crews were doing this in the 80s when we were Task Force 158 and 159th. :) Was some scary stuff landing aboard a ship in rough seas...and at night no less. :)
The Army founded the nightstalkers, the marines developed the Osprey, and the Air Force gave us great videos of C130 with Rocket assist and doing carrier ops.
And those are the geniuses who apparently only practiced landing in chain-link fenced areas when they needed to land in bin laden's solid walled compound and ended up crashing a very advanced stealth helicopter, which was then given to China to study.
Just found this channel, and I’m very glad I did!
Out of everything I enjoy about these videos the fact that there's no long drawn out request for subs or likes is quite enjoyable, we just hop right into the action.
Thanks guys!
The US Navy was far too worried about Iranian air defenses, that's why they flew so low. They could have flown above the sandstorms. Eagle Claw's failure highlighted the abysmal state of DoD weather forecasting, ecosystem knowledge, and climate knowledge.
The failure to build more air refuelable HH-53s and MH-53s for the USAF led to the refueling in the desert idea.
The Iranians had Hawk missiles. Our aircraft didn't have warning equipment that would work against them. I was the ready room during a brief for the mission (taking a test for a military correspondence course) and the intel-O asked the aircrew "what's the warning indication for a Hawk?". None of them knew. He then said, "it's detonation".
I think one of the big reasons for the failure was that they kept the 53's in the hangar deck under wraps for security for months during the transit. Airplanes HATE not being used. It's a sure way to get all kinds of fuel and hydraulic problems once you do fly them.
@@Mishn0 ,
True, our T-37s and aT-38s would start having all kinds of leaks if they sat more than 72 hours. Tires, struts, hydraulics, engine oil. The batteries would drain even with the master switches set to off. Heck, we could physically diconnect the battery cables and the darn things would still be low after sitting for 72 hours. It took a lot of maintenance to get the aircraft ready to fly after they sat for more than 72 hours. Those similar items in the helicopters should have been relatively easy maintenance operations after the helicopters were uncovered.
But we never flew through a static electricity generating a sandstorm, with talcum powder sized dust, that screws up your electrical systems and clogs up the engine air intakes and engine compressor blades.
It was the US Military right after the fall of Saigon.
Now after the Fall of Kabul, what state do you believe the US Military is in now?
@@Marinealver Considering that our generals are so concerned over their male soldiers understanding what its like to be women? And why white people are so angry?
RH-53Ds were modified Anti-Mine Helos used by the Navy. The CH-53As did not have IFR probes. The HH-53 did but IIRC the RH-53s still had better range. When people in the Squadron get used to not fixing something it balloons up into bigger issues with readiness. Safety Standdowns try to address this. The 53s needed to have been tweaked to close as perfection as possible.
I've always heard that because every branch of the service wanted a piece of the glory, they ended up with a bunch of units not used to coordinating with one another and this led to the formation of USSOCOM.
Yes. That is correct.
“Unfunking the cluster before it can cluster and funk.”
Yep. The video glosses over that bit of it, but the different branches competing for glory wound up making things a lot more complicated. The assault teams (Delta & Rangers) were from the Army, the fixed wing assets were from the Air Force, and the ground transport was from the CIA. Which left the Navy and Marines arguing over how to provide the helicopters, and they settled on splitting the difference - Navy helicopters with Marine crews. That way everybody got a piece of the action.
This exacerbated the problems with the helicopters, since the crews were working with unfamiliar vehicles (that they insisted were not as well maintained as their own) and flying a mission profile they hadn't trained for. And having multiple chains of command involved increased communication issues, such as the Air Force's warning about the sandstorms in the flight path not being properly relayed through to the Marines.
This would lead both to the creation of SOCOM (putting all US special forces under a single chain of command) and the 160th SOAR (creating a dedicated helicopter unit just for transporting special forces).
@@brettd2308 Wasn’t the V-22 Osprey also made after this showing the need for a long range tilt rotor aircraft?
@@PJR7297 Correct
Very nicely done
Short and sweet
Great job
And your animation really helped to see and understand
Thank you
I've only just started watching your videos but I really like the content and the way it's presented 👍
Nothing better than seeing a Notification from thus channel on a Saturday
While its pretty awesome... I can think of better things on a saturday.
Love the channel. What will be the next topic, I wonder?
@@Turkeythigh420 a longer weekend?
Should just rename this: Operation Fuster Cluck
Ah yes, another standard issue Type-F Cluster.
Lol that is gold. I'm using that from now on.
Laugh so hard 😂😂😂
Operation: Delta Farce
If it had succeeded it would not have been a cluster fuck, would it. Unplanned things happened. Who anticipated a dust storm?
Wow what a story! I love this channel!
Thanks for Uploading.
Delta Force were originally founded in response to all of the hijackings in the 1970s.
The first thing they do on their first mission: hijack a bus.
It's what they know !
And blow up a truck
they disabled it not hijacked it
@@somethinganything4864 Meh, semantics.
@@somethinganything4864
I was repeating an observation made by the Delta Operators themselves, afterwards, according to Eric Haneys book.
6:37 "I dont trust the machine, i dont trust my map, but id say right now" barely misses mountain
I want this guy to be my dad. That was so cool
"Good job Les, I love you." Completely correct response.
I want him to be my navigator....
but he died. BB3 was the one that hit the aircraft.
You want your dad to prevent your fiery catastrophic death only out of sheer dumb luck? If that's how you feel, then more power to you I guess.
@@gl0wingice If you trust the Wikipedia page, he didn't die. He was only injured.
This man easy has hundreds, no thousands of potential video ideas based on this concept. Absolute genius.
I thought of this a few years ago, but I don't think I could've done it better than this guy
Great video as always
This incident actually led to a complete overhaul of speical forces which led to the 160th Soar, Seal and Delta Force teams we have today
@TE Lawrence What greater causes do you think would be served by staying in those places? In Somalia two Delta operators asked permission to land on the ground knowing it was a suicide mission to hold the tide of Somalian's back. There were countless other sacrifices in the same vain in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think people were getting themselves killed valiantly to pay their mortgages.
@TE Lawrence You don't understand what happened in any of those wars. Why are you so obsessed with America? Is it jealousy?
@TE Lawrence I would say 'Somewhat'. By the time the MOG happened, we were well organized and equipped. As seems to be the case, National Command Authority from the other half of the globe away micromanaged and placed unrealistic ROE on our kids. The best military unit in history can be fckd over by command. It is known.
@TE Lawrence You are being deliberately obtuse here. It was not six old dudes in sandals, rather a nation completely buying into the Islamic bullshat. Effective? Yes, bit as usual, in time will prove to be their undoing. I sincerely hope that you are still alive to see it with your own eyes. Seriously. I'll be dead and gone so REMEMBER your words Chump.
@TE Lawrence Perhaps if we just decided to turn those countries into parking lots instead, would you be more pleased?
Just saw this last night on my subscriptions notification. Thanks for the excellent synopsis. Have to say I was caught by surprise by the MC130 crew photo. That's me - third from the left. I was a young 1st Lt - electronic warfare officer. Our call sign was Dragon02. You can't imagine how sad and deeply disappointed we were. Men that were lost were friends, not just names to us. The silver lining was that US SOF changed forever after that. -- Tim Prater
Proud of you Dad!
To you all from us all for having the guts to try
Thanks for your service Tim. We may have run into each other at Forward Site Alpha (I'm pretty sure we had the MC's there). It seemed like I was there forever. I arrived a couple of days after Christmas 1979, and was there until the end of June, 1980. I was the lone Teletype tech on site, maintaining a TGC-27 communications van, so I was kept pretty busy making sure our secure comms were always up. I'll NEVER forget the evening we saw the 130's take off for that fateful mission. It was almost a religious experience is probably the best way to describe it. We all stood atop our half underground bunkers and saluted as each aircraft took off and sailed over the mountains into the distance. I'm sorry for your loss. We all mourned the next day.
Cool
@@DenversMysteries holy shit what
Even now, June 2022, as a former Navy Aviator, I can't figure out how this would have worked! But I can tell you, that it shook the special forces community at the time.
Amazing as always.
The one good thing that came out of this Op was that Special Operations Command as it is now configured is a much better org and current operations are models of planning and efficiency. Read Adm William McRaven's thesis 'Spec Ops'. Great book on historical special operations from WWII to the 70's just prior to this op.
I'm sure they had the same capability but after Vietnam the US Military went into decline.
Now after Afghanistan we can expect to be just as ineffective.
A large chunk of the DoD Helo crews can do IFR and NVG operations. They have great machines like the CH-53E, the various H-60s, H-47s and H-6s. The V-22s are also great platforms but I do miss the Pavelows. The maintenance aspect is equally important, both for training and actual missions.
Both Beckworth, and Bull Simmons both wrote good info on the op. When I asked one of the old hands about it, back in the day he got a little quiet and told us that it was a great example of how not to run an op. Keep the command out of your business whenever you can.
@@calvinlee1813 This operation is the reason why. The Nightstalkers were born from the flames of this shitshow.
@@Marinealver
That’s just you, nitwit.
Half your subscribers have to be waiting for black hawk down part 2. But I’m ok with this
I was just looking to see if it was out yet
The most anticipated thing in 2021
Thats the one with the best quality
that's so true lol
Seriously. Wtf?
Absolutely wild that this plan ever got approved. Excellent stuff as always. Absolutely wild that this plan ever got approved. Excellent stuff as always.
Another great job, just keep it up!
So instead of just letting the truck drive by, the dude thinks he can prevent being spotted by setting it on fire. ON FIRE. A torch. Yeah, no, nobody is gonna notice that
Well it was possible the truck spotted them. But when the element of surprise is your greatest advantage, probably firing an ANTI TANK MISSILE was probably the worst idea possible. Hell, they might as well shot you a flare declaring their position.
According to (unreliable) youtube comment before, like the bus, the fuel truck was hand warned, warning-shot'ed, and directly shot but didn't stop. So one of the officer had a brilliant idea of shooting said truck with AT before realizing they were probably an illegal smuggler
When I was with the US Army 3ID attended a Delta Force briefing on the operation. The original US Army helicopters were replaced with multi-service crewed Navy/Marine copters who never completed a successful practice run in Nevada. The helicopters were cleaned with saltwater prior to the mission leading to failures. The copters were not fitted with sand filters leading to failures.
You are referring to the practice run the C130s did unannounced on one of the mountainous ranges?
Oh course nobody told us there would be C130 on the range that morning… they did get spotted, visually, but we could not depress the radars enough to track them… great terrain flying techniques…
I'm curious as to what helicopters the US Army had that were capable of performing this that were replaced? sounds like some inter service BS blaming the other guy
@@maumor2 At the time, a few US Army units had sand mitigation equipment in their TO&E. I wasn't until 1988-89 that this was fully implemented across the services...and even then, not everyone got the memo.
Neither the choppers nor the pilots were the "best of the best". This was a concession to both logistics and politics; they needed the Navy's biggest chopper (which was a minesweeper) but the Navy pilots (not to their discredit) couldn't hack the insane training for the mission, so they brought in Marines (who also couldn't hack it). The Air Force wanted to send their guys, proven special forces pilots. General Jim Vaught said no, because it would end up cutting both the Navy and the Marines out of the mission (which was politically unacceptable).
What it came down to was 1 chopper - the one that landed and abandoned the aircraft because of the nitrogen leak warning. They didn't know that the block of Sea Stallion they were flying could last for 19 additional flight hours at reduced RPM in that condition, it no longer needed to be landed immediately (as with the earlier blocks). The pilots didn't know this, and nobody had told them.
Still waiting on Mogadishu part 2. Excellent job, per usual.
I was just reading Tony Mendez’s book ARGO, and I decided to look up the operation Eagle claw. I never knew the ins and outs of the failed mission, I though the dead Americans were killed in a gun fight. Excellent video, as always!
A lot of Murphy's laws on this one, but Colonel Beckwith, as the events is explained here, does not seem suited for his role. A delay due to a sandstorm, and barely avoided catastrophe that shakes your pilots up, is not something to be taken lightly. He lost his cool several times and became furious due to factors well out of anyone's control, in essence blaming his men for something they couldn't possibly have done anything about. An accident was just waiting to happen at this point
Armchair Quarterback.....
The line between audacity and arrogance must be walked carefully. Often it seems SOF mission planning is completely detached from reality. Only the quality of the men keeps such plans from becoming complete catastrophes. Sometimes not even that is enough.
Like this mission. The helicopter air crews were expected to fly essentially 4 days. The air frames expected to fly 4 days without inspection or maintenence. The desert refueling sites selected were near roads and the mission was compromised because of it. Luckily a military response never presented itself, but that may be due to shortness of their stay. Had the mission continued, it is likely the site would've continued to be compromised, likely leading to the deaths of innocent Iranians and possibly the loss of the site.
Exhausted air crews, tortured airframes, and a commander unwilling to mitigate risks that were unplanned contributed to the loss of life.
@@DracoAvian Excellent post.....
@@suntzu5836 So I'm an armchair quarterback, but the guy saying essentially the same thing (albeit in a much better way, I agree) is an excellent post? Make your mind up dude.....
He was a colonel, they get grumpy and sometimes tend to bully people to see if it's real or if it's cowardice. Then it becomes a habit. Beckwith was not a man to be trifled with.
the planning staff for this mission, which may have included direction from WH, figured greater secrecy could be achieved in requisitioning (helo) flight crews from one unit, and helicopters from another unit. Not knowing the purpose of the requisition, the chief(?) gave his hanger queens. He realized afterwards what it was for, and wish he had been told. This is why career path is very important, to know the reality of aircraft maintenance, especially in a period of very tight maintenance budgets. In the Reagan build up, new weapons could not be purchase immediately. but a lot of money went to clearing up backlogged repairs.
"greater secrecy could be achieved" by choosing the only point in the desert with road, great job. Historicly wise - most of the complicated operations, which have personal clueless about what a hell they are actualy doing was the most succesful (no).
@@WarpGhost92 pretty sure the road was chosen specifically to be used as a secure (stable ground wise) runway. Shit points for the apparently lack of having spotters for traffic or weather
This operation would also result in the creation of the 160th SOAR, ensuring future missions would have access to well maintained aircraft may have been part of the reason for doing so.
@@billsmith346 As a Plank Owner, I can say YES, this was the watershed moment. Hackworth got his walking papers and REAL leaders took over.
Should have done what we did in desert storm, cruise missiles and like until they return our people. Blast Tehran
Excellent videos. You do a great job.
Would love to see one for the November 1970 Son Tay Prison raid as well.
That is a slick opening you have for your videos. This whole operation was a gong show. Way too many variables that, ended up conspiring against them.
I feel like the reason the old "blame the president" card worked in this situation is because it is so much simpler than actually recounting the level of clusterfuck these soldiers were dealing with xD
Well the buck should have stopped with him. I was just a kid, but I remember every day the news leading off with DAY NUMBER # of the IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS. No president could have survived that, nor should have, but then throw in the failed rescue mission, he was toast.
Just like today
The US president was directly responsible for the failures of Bay of Pigs, Mogadishu, and Afghanistan
Stop trying to cover for your masters
Don't forget here that Reagan sabotaged/delayed a deal for the hostages' release it until after the election. Without that manipulation Carter would have gotten the hostages back, and would have possibly won a second term.
@@melanieenmats while there’s evidence that the timing of the hostage release was more tied to the Islamists’ hatred of Carter rather than anything Reagan did, there is ZERO chance that Carter could win that election had he gotten the hostages out sooner. Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes! Carter won 6 and 49.
Great video. Just finished. Love how we aren’t biased here and definitely was a sad day in America’s military . Can’t wait for more content!
It was right after the Fall of Saigon,
After the Fall of Kabul you can expect the US Military to be in the same state of disrepair.
@@Marinealver judging in reddit and facebook, the american people is in despair. Lost their respect in the military and healthcare systems. Even gun owners and right wing radicals doubly ironic waving their American flags.
@@Marinealver Right after? Go back to study Vietnam was April, 1975
@@bisacool7339
Don’t bother. That guy’s a spammer troll.
We learn nothing from success. Except that the way it's been done, is the way to do it
This is by far the best war channel in UA-cam
I was serving as a staff member for Commander Carrier Group 3 (COMCARGRU3) aboard USS Coral Sea on GONZO station, with the Nimitz. It was clear something was up as Coral Sea aircraft were having battle markings applied. It was common for staff members to move freely in and out of the Admiral's war room, but now Marine sentries were posted at both doors a number of days prior to April 24. General quarters was sounded the morning of April 24th and we all rushed to our battle stations and just waited. After several hours we secured from GQ. Eventually the captain broadcast over the 1MC what had happened. We were a pretty solemn group. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I remember the yellow ribbons tied around the trees for those hostages. Thank you for the details of the raid and the concise history lesson.
Glad you enjoyed it
What a cluster, never heard of this before but reminds me of all the plans Japan had during WW2 that required precise timing and logistics of a lot of different elements that could fail and cause domino effects.
Hell, check out what really happened in the American Revolution when Washington crossed the Delaware (you might know the famous painting commemorating it). The original plan was overly complicated and relied on four different columns reaching their objectives at the right times. Execution was FUBAR, but two of the columns reached Delaware equally late, and with luck Washington pulled out a victory. However, the final objective of Princeton wasn’t reached. The Hessians posted to Delaware were captured and a lot of arms and ammunition were seized.
KISS. In conventional operations the four F method holds true. Find, Fix, Fight, Finish. In a raid, especially of a covert nature, one should step into the boots (or sandals) of the enemy. Who is looking to FFFF you.
Isn't that the battle of Coral Sea or The midway where the japanese had to do complex manouvre with their carriers while also supporting the ground troops while the american did a chaotic tactic and basically threw a wrench into the whole japanese plan?
@@floydvaughn836 Have you ever looked at an Iranian map and realized the size of the country, the size of the city, and the population count?
The only way to KISS here, was to not go at all.
The plan was ridiculous. Brave are the soldiers that did this mission. Shame on them for killing bystanders though.
@@melanieenmats my point exactly. Hind sight is 20/20
These are so good to watch
Nicely done and illustrated
American General
Rememeber Men, Secrecy is the key!
Bus driver
And to your left we have Two American Planes landing in the middle of the desert, shooting at a Tanker ... AND US!!!
This is why I always love the comment section
Man I've had some bad Greyhound trips but I've never been captured by a foreign military in the middle of a desert.
Good job, lads. I love you
Great video as always! As a #suggestion and inspiration for future vids it might be worth investigating Raid at Cabanatuan rescue mission. Keep up the good work!
I personally know a man who was an aircraft maintenance PO on the Nimitz at this time. He told me, to my face when we were elk hunting in the 80's and he was on leave, that immediately after landing on the Nimitz prior to the mission, the Army mechanics who were on board began taking off all the dust filters on their helicopters. When told this was dumb, they replied that they needed to get all the speed out of the helicopters they could and removing filters was one of the best ways. In his view, the Army screwed this pooch before it even got going by making their machines much more highly susceptible to dust in a dusty environment.
That actually explains a lot
Navy will always blame army and vise versa
No offense but this isn't really believable without evidence
Curious why Navy RH-53s being flown by Marines would be preped by Army Troopers. The USMC,USN and USAF all used H-53s, never the US Army.
"You know, removing these hatches from these submarines will make them go faster. Environmental factors are a problem? Nah."
we still need part 2 of the air war of desert storm and the part 2 of black hawk down!! I love your videos
Kampfff
Am pretty sure the Desert Storm episodes got over, check the playlist
Desert storm is over, black hawk down is well on it's way
@@Aryan-ck9lv for the ground war, not the air war
@@flr_nic
Bruh, Day 2, 3, 4 & 5 of ground war are done. Playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRwSoQVEazb.html
Hey!
Iranian here!
I am one of those who have for a long time been against the hostage crisis. It was an illegal act, and it was against the interests of Iran, it showed the world an extremely negative view on Iran and Iranians ( while it was positive before the revolution), etc. However, I have recently noticed that if you put yourself at the place of the Iranian Revolutionaries who committed the act, attaching the us embassy was a logical act in their mind.
The truth is that there was a first revolution in Iran, in which mohammad mosadegh, a perfect man who wanted to form a secular democracy gained power. when he won, the king of Iran (the dictator) fled. mosadegh even allowed his plane to flee, while they could force it to land. when mosadegh came to power, he decided to nationalize the Iranian oil industry and struck more rational deals with the west. This made the Britain, and British oil companies furious. mosaddegh was not much scared of the Britain, as the empire had lost its power after the world war II.
he then asked the Americans to help him protect the the newly formed democracy in Iran, and also he started to negotiate with American oil companies to invest in Iran.
However, what the US did was that it stabbed him from the back, teamed up with Britain and the US embassy led a coup against him which ended his government. the fugitive Iranian dictator returned back to home, but this time he went wild on oppressing his own people, torturing them etc., being sure that western powers would support him regardless of how brutal he were.
when the second revolution took place at which Khomeini took the power, unlike the first one which was quite peaceful, it went extremely violent (some of them even took the buried bodies of the supporters of the dictator out of their graves and burn it. as a young man who was not yet borne that time, I really can't even imagine how crazy the situation was some 40 years ago in our country). Those who participated in the revolution were religious fanatics that wanted to implement sharia law. indeed they did so for a decade or so, but then became benign as the time went forward up to today.
Anyways, those who attacked the US embassy did so because they thought the US embassy is again plotting a cudeta to return the dictator back, and the choice that they saw in front of them to prevent this from happening was to attack the embassy and take everyone as hostage.
a few details are missing from this video:
1- after the operation eagle claw failed, they began to distribute the hostages to some 50 different places in Iran to make future rescue missions unlikely. That is why the second try the Americans wanted to make (which never happened) was at such a large scale as mentioned in this video.
2- the American helicopters and airplanes were detected by Iranian radars, however at that time Mr. Banisadr, the first president of Iran (who was a wonderful man who died a week ago in Paris) had previously given the order to the Iranian army not to intervene. Banisadr was against the act of taking US diplomats as hostage as he thought it was against Irans national interest. he tried to appease the supreme leader, khomeini, to end the crisis. later, as claimed by the revolutionaries, by attaching the chopped documents that were extracted from the US embassy, Banisadr was doing negotiations with Americans to end the crisis, so making the story short, Banisadr had to flee Iran for his life, by disguising himself as a woman (wearing cosmetics, etc.)
3- the hostages were rescued exactly one day after the US election at that time, meaning that the revolutionaries wanted to affect the US election.
Lies, Mosadegh was a puppet
What a sell out!
Great video!!
having not known the outcome of the mission before watching the video, i was actually stunned by the outcome - almost like watching a movie. I love this channel
Hey! My uncle Chris was one of the delta force guys taking part in this. He was in the AC130 that blew up. Awesome to see you cover this!
He's a massive fuck up.
@@sdsd2e2321 Fuck off, his uncle Chris has got work to do. Don't mess with him, his safety is always off.
@@sdsd2e2321 Don't bother looking next time you cross the road, sad keyboard warrior.
@@otten5666 hahahaha =)
@@danorthsidemang3834 pffffffft, of course he would, but only because Iron Kitsune was in Team Six SEALs, y'know? They were tight BOYZ like that.... yo.
Great video. Can you do Black Hawk Down part 2?
Hi ops room! All Your videos are ridiculously amazing. If you have a chance, could you look into maybe doing one for "the battle of long tan". Its a battle between roughly 100 Anzacs who fought and survived against over 2000 Vietcong/nva soldiers against all odds. Thx 🙂
Nature, the uncontrollable foe.
Oh, psyched for this! I looked this one up a few weeks ago after I heard McRaven mention it on Jocko's podcast, took me a while to wrap my head around everything. I bet after this I'll learn even more :-)
I have written it before, yet easily best channel on youtube.
These recreations are amazing. Whole new ball game dealing with desert sand.
Amazing. I love seeing new videos from you and I’ve been thinking about how cool an Eagle Claw video would be from you for a while. Good stuff! 👍
Every time this channel posts I am filled with joy.
Great vids. More please.
Great video.
I got caught in a Haboob flying back from Baghdad in a 60. It was not fun at all, and was very lucky to have survived it. It hit so fast we only had a few min from when we saw it, to being engulfed in it. We were very low on fuel, so we really had no options but try to land out our destination. It was 0/0 visibility with moderate turbulence in it.
"well atleast theres no casualty"
Stalion : *Fine i'll do it my self*
Very excellent book called “Inside Delta Force” written by Haney. Great first hand accounts of first SFAS selection process. He was on Eagle Claw.
SFAS isn't the actual selection course for operators. SFAS is just the selection for who gets to attend the Q-Course, and it's graduating from the Q-Course that earns you a spot in Special Forces as a Green Beret. SFAS is an SF thing not a Delta.
Delta goes to their own "selection" and than after passing, they go to OTC or Operator Training Course which is different from both, because not every Delta guy was coming striaght from SF. Some were coming from Ranger Batt, SF, and regular Army. OTC has been around since the inception of Delta.
Where are all your other subscribers? you should be at 10 mill already.
Been watching your videos for a while now. Thank you!
I was there, in the USS Coral Sea, known in the news broadcasts of the time as "another carrier" as in, " the USS Nimitz and another carrier...". But at least we got that mention then. No such luck here.
"thanks les, i love you" best line ever
Most of the crews bobbing around off Gonzo Station didn't know there even WAS a rescue attempt until hearing it in the news the next day. The day after that I saw it mentioned in the Plan of the Day while heading for the Mess decks. I was out on deck (we were on plane guard detail) and watched them all take off at zero-dark:30, knowing exactly nothing. Looked awesome though.
Mike Vining was a guest on The Team House podcast where he talks about the whole op. From the training to incident.
Man, this goes to show that you should never underestimate weather, what a series of bad luck.
I can not believe how big this guys channel has blown up. Don't get me wrong he deserves it.
That was a top shelf cluster
What a night it must of been for those civilians on that bus. Also wonderful video as always!
Lol they got a free three stooge show.
@@Phxshadowz yeah also free lung cancer from all the explosions and destruction around them, with no protective equipment. You are trying to justify a crime that was comitted with the use of your tax money.
I've heard of this mission. But didn't know the finer details. Till now. Nice job with the video.
The message in the media in 1980 was that the mission had to be aborted because two choppers collided mid-air.
@@frutt5k---The failure of this mission is no less embarrassing. And it also led to the creation of the very unique Ospery aircraft which the US military still uses.
I was on this operation and survived the crash , Favorite footage 🎥🎬🎞️ David Staudohar USMC USN SS USCG ret ‼️ including Delta special Forces and Lancers Air tactical command Posting in Honorable memories of Dick Marcinco 🎖️ my friend that passed away on Christmas Day ♥️‼️🙏
I love your videos
Another brilliant video.
This happened about a year after I MD'd from my beloved corp and although we actually knew little bits and pieces' about what happened, this is a really great concise video and includes a lot of information that we were not told about at the time, thank you again for another fantastic educational video. 👌👍😃
Always awesome content, this time just tragically sad. Keep 'em coming!
More to come!
@@TheOperationsRoom hurry up please 🥺🥺
I love this channel, please do the Battle of The Barents Sea, very interesting and less known WW-II battle...
Thanks!
Thanks!
Love your animations dude.
Right? They make me want to go play original Starcraft or like C&C or C.O.H. or something haha