April 24, 1980

[chuckman]

I am going from memory, but I think Eagle Claw was overly complicated and then the really big problem was everyone wanted in on the act.
.
The issue with the helicopters if I remember correctly was that they were off of a ship and suffered from maintenance issues.But this failure resulted in the creation of the Night Stalkers.

It was very complicated. The authors I referenced prior wrote a good deal about the complexity. They also spoke to the question of 'everyone wanted in on it,' and that wasn't really true. That was the image of the reality that no one branch had all the pieces, so by design it had components of all branches.

[yoni]

I was going from memory and from the perspective of Israel trying to learn from what other SMUs were doing.

Back then it was a different world.

I look at what YAMAM has become and will be honest enough to admit it was the input from a certain unit in the USA, that taught us a lot.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I was going from memory and from the perspective of Israel trying to learn from what other SMUs were doing.

Back then it was a different world.

I look at what YAMAM has become and will be honest enough to admit it was the input from a certain unit in the USA, that taught us a lot.

Did The Raid on Entenbee maybe give the US the confidence that they could pull something off too?

[ThirdWatcher]

Why would you have a card from a freedom-hating group like that?

I refuse to join AARP.

[Slater]

I was a young A1C at Davis-Monthan AFB at the time. Pretty depressing news, as I recall. That operation had a lot of moving parts that had to work perfectly in order to assure success. If the Desert One disaster hadn't happened, could it have worked? Possibly. Reading Col. Beckwith's book ("Delta Force"), the operators were certainly trained and motivated to a high level.

[yoni]

Did The Raid on Entenbee maybe give the US the confidence that they could pull something off too?

Entebe was 1976 before that in 72 was the Sabena take down.

SAS did the embassy May 5 1980

A lot of cool stuff was going on.

[EricTheRed]

It was very complicated. The authors I referenced prior wrote a good deal about the complexity. They also spoke to the question of 'everyone wanted in on it,' and that wasn't really true. That was the image of the reality that no one branch had all the pieces, so by design it had components of all branches.

I've read Beckwith's book several times. I'd love to have more info on the other two if you don't mind.

ETA: I found Col Kyles book, but I'm unfamiliar with Flynt.

[chuckman]

I've read Beckwith's book several times. I'd love to have more info on the other two if you don't mind.

ETA: I found Col Kyles book, but I'm unfamiliar with Flynt.

Broken Stiletto: Command and Control of the Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw at Desert One, Maj. William Flynt.

[EricTheRed]

Broken Stiletto: Command and Control of the Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw at Desert One, Maj. William Flynt.

Thank you... Although at $101 it appears I'm going to have to get rid of my aversion to kindle if I want to read it.

[Slater]

From reading Beckwith's and Kyle's books on the subject, the Marines were selected to be the helicopter pilots because they had more experience operating over land than the Navy pilots. Navy crew flew as co-pilots because of their familiarity with the RH-53D variant of this helicopter.

It was suggested fairly early in the planning process that USAF H-53 pilots might be preferable since some of them had (fairly recently) flown long range, low altitude Special Operations missions in Vietnam. It was thought that they could be brought up to speed in a fairly reasonable time period. This idea was shot down because they were scattered among various bases in the Air Force, and rounding some of them up might be a security concern.