Whispering Death - The Cobra Gunship [Full Documentary]

[Music] June the 8th 1995 shaken exhausted and grateful Air Force captain Scott O'Grady is delivered to safety on the USS Kearsarge in the Adriatic Sea he's been running hunted and hungry in Bosnia for days desperately calling out for help on his radio later he describes his relief at the first glimpse of his rescuers I looked up and there's the United States Marine Corps attack Cobra helicopter flying over and I tell you that was phenomenal sight knowing that now you're not alone in hostile territory the first on-scene clearing the way for a search-and-rescue team to reach the downed f-16 pilot is the marine attack aircraft the ah-1w supercobra the world's first attack helicopter made its debut in vietnam 30 years ago known as the snake the Cobras unique profile still buzzes across the horizon in war zones around the world [Music] the cobras swept profile is meant to be deceiving just 90 centimeters across the cockpit this elusive shape is a real challenge to the enemy [Music] we use the aircraft for escort purposes of transport helicopters we use it for what we refer to as close in fire support and that's where troops are engaged very closely with the enemy and it's very difficult to sort out good from bad we use it for anti-armor and anti mech missions so the aircraft has tremendous multi-mission capability and because it's evolved over the years to give us that I think it's that's why it's become important to us and why it'll be around for a while with the ability to fire more types of weapons than any other helicopter in the world the Cobra maintains an impressive arsenal with which to strike its enemies it carries up to eight tank destroying missiles including laser designated Hellfire or wire-guided toes Sidewinder missiles 2.75 rockets and Zuni rockets can also be fired from the wing pods [Music] and traversing 110 degrees on the Cobras nose the powerful 3 barreled 20 millimeter cannon [Music] to g-e-t 700 turboshaft engines each rated at 1690 shaft horsepower pressed the cobra into action making it both a nimble aircraft and a steady weapons platform [Applause] at the time Scott O'Grady was shot down the situation in the former Yugoslavia is grim in the preceding weeks UN advisors have been taken hostage the Serbs have declared war on the UN and NATO and now an allied US Air Force pilot has been shot out of the sky by a Bosnian missile Marine mission planners convene onboard the USS Kearsarge just off the coast in the Adriatic Sea their job is to assess the threat and put together a package to rescue Oh Grady Cobra pilot major Scott Mikkel be the escort flight leader of the rescue team is most concerned about the missiles that took O'Grady down MANPADS shoulder-launched Samms they're everywhere back in there do they have trucks do they have vehicles where they can rapidly reinforce a rapidly move to where we are their proximity to their ground forces all these things there's things that we had to take into consideration the team decides on a Delta trap the technical recovery of aircraft and personnel for which Marines such as this group at the Air Station in New River North Carolina trained extensively to ch-53 scary infantry to Cobras escort them and suppress threats along the highly dangerous route the h1 W is perfectly suited for this mission it had speed and had the agility to get in there and deal with the terrain and stay with the 53's and provide good accurate fires in the objective area if we needed to do that finally at 3:00 a.m. on June the 8th the call goes out for the trap team there are reports of contact with O'Grady in the area where he was shot down a few minutes before dawn the helicopters rumble off the deck of the corsage pilots still unsure whether Scott O'Grady is still alive the Cobras hefty arms load heightens the confidence of air mission commander and 53 pilot built our bottom there are armed aircraft I mean that's their mission in life is they're our you know killers they protect us and you know we use them all the time they're gonna go ahead of us to make the way clear for the LZ because we take you know time on the ground and you know all we have is 250 Cal machine guns [Music] at sixteen kilometers from their target location the cobras push a hand of the 53's to secure the area one concern that we had was that it may be an ambush it could be a trap maybe the Serbs didn't know where he was and it would just waiting for the rescue force to come in and they could pull us into some kind of type of an ambush in there suddenly a voice crackles on the radio captain Ian Walsh hears it as he flies the lead Cobra from the back seat we first switched out his frequency and major Mikkeli started calling him and you instantly heard a kind of a Karbala sponsz to me individually that that's going to chill down my spine so I asked him I said hey when you and your friends got liquored up in high school what do they call you and he came right back with terrible ten so I knew it was him so I figured there's no way any Serb would know that once Mikkel B confirms it's O'Grady he directs the Cobras to his location I'm approaching the north side of this mountain it's sticking out he says mark mark your overhead well I went into a hard left turn over the top of him and Nick Hall my wingman he joined he joined me there circling and we just started started orbiting the position when you hear it and then it becomes louder and then all of a sudden you see the Cobra come over the horizon there's no mistaking what it is along with the fact that it's the most beautiful sight in the world he said hey I had some movement to the south I heard people walking around and so forth and these were obviously the people that had been looking for him for the last couple of days we were in left-hand orbit about two to three hundred feet above ground level and we were just we were what we call 180 out we're just orbiting and what that allowed us to do was in this particular situation allowed us to have set eyes in each cockpit once that eyes looking down at the objective area where a great he was and we still had a guy on either side of the circle that was able to scan outward and watch for any threat that were that was coming in just around that villager left 10 o'clock and the survivor just down a Minnesota major Michael Bay makes the critical decision to bring in the troop helicopters blimey doc you're right pretty much we'd flipped all of our cards upon the table with any Serbs in the area would know hey something's going on because it's got aircraft circling over here something's happening the lead 53 piloted by Bill tabatin makes an impressive landing because obviously he just stood the 53 on his tail and I mean I've never seen a 53 do this before you know but he stood that thing on it on its tail I went right down into the fog on top of the smoke he's got an uncle D made probably the best decision of the whole day they asked me if I saw them land I did I saw him land to the south he said well move towards him gave him permission to advance and I started running as fast as I could it was actually kind of funny because while he's running I'm telling keep moving keep moving keep going get ready get to him he's taking time to come up in the radio and say yeah you know I'm going as fast as I can I can hear breathing hard with the 53's on the ground there's some confusion the Marines look for O'Grady to come out from there right many run into the woods to look for him I was in the crew chiefs window a man in a 50 Cal and as we were sitting down as soon as we got on the deck I just happened to look out the aircraft and I seen him running around then towards the nose of our aircraft he came out at 10 o'clock over from that direction over there everybody was looking to the right what he had done was worked his way around through the woods so at that time and I said hey I'm going to go out and get him so I opened up the crew door and ran out there to get him I had my 9 millimeter pistol out and he took that away from me because of the fact he didn't want that being discharged by accident I guess being out there for six days he didn't want to give the weapon up I just use a wrist tap to get the pistol from him mister it's a big guy and I wasn't gonna argue them well he's a real small guy so and the 50 Cal was hanging out over the edge of my door and we're in a the terrain was uneven again so he was having a hard time figuring out how to get up inside there so I just kind of grabbed him by the back side and shoved him threw him up whatever you want to call it threw him up inside the aircraft many of the infantry are still in the woods as O'Grady boards the troop helicopter the urgency is evident in Mikkel B's voice as he tries to move the mission a lot you got to remember their mission is to protect us and they were above us hovering and ever beginning to see the fog was beginning to clear as we were in the LZ it was beginning to slide away a little bit he was beginning to see some people and you know they're spring-loaded to protecting us the Marines reboard their choppers and pull out to this point it's been a successful mission now this is gonna be the toughest part of the mission now because we got this guy and the tendency is to say okay yeah we got him here and we're just going back out to the ship now ahead of them lies a deadly web of SAM sites primed and ready for their return trip far above the returning helicopters an AWACS warning my flashes to the Cobra pilots the dreaded SAM sites have been spotted from outside the aircraft I see this corkscrew greyish white corkscrew smoke trail my first instinct was you got it you gotta be kidding me they're not they're not starting that you know here we are over 25 20 25 miles from getting feet wet and getting this guy home and now all of a sudden they're gonna shoot Samms at us you just that way I just had a damn shot at before 3 o'clock it was just incredibly fast training we always talk about okay this is what we're gonna do if they engage us with a missile you don't have time to do it sergeant Pfister fires a few rounds of his 50 caliber machine gun the decision is made not to fight but head for ship with their precious cargo the Serbs managed one last shot at O'Grady before he has returned to safety one of the bullets went to the helicopter that I was in actually hit into started in Castro's canteen and rattled around on the floor and marine I was sitting next to him just kind of picked it up looked at it picked it up and put in his pocket with Cobras leading the way the mission through high threat terrain draws to a bloodless end for this specific mission it was the aircraft of choice highly maneuverable a lot of power a lot of speed can stay up with the 53's it was a superb mission for the Cobra and it really showed the value of the aircraft when American troops land in Vietnam they find a guerrilla war a jungle war with no discernible front ground commanders need fast and furious ordnance to back up their men wherever they engage their elusive enemy Huey helicopters are rigged with makeshift weapons but heavy guns and ammunition make them too slow to keep up with troop and cargo aircraft Air Force bombing is powerful but imprecise and sometimes dangerous to friendly troops fighting head-to-head with the enemy Bell Helicopter sees the need in Vietnam and in less than a year with no military contract designs and manufactures the world's first attack helicopter [Music] by September 1967 the maiden shipment of a h1 cobras is on its way to Vietnam with key elements like the power plant transmission and rotors lifted directly from the dependable Huey armament and weaponry is carried in the chin turret and on the pylons under two wings [Music] first impressions are stunning the aircraft was a tandem seat arrangement like a fighter and from all the Ordnance that could be used on it the fact that you could actually protect yourself with it it was a glamorous aircraft at the time it still is immediately the cobras fly into action on escort fire support and reconnaissance missions many pilots are part of the Air Cavalry units with roots in the Wild West these are self-contained strike forces tailored specifically for aggressive offensive tactical operations the pilots take on the esprit de corps of the horse cavalry made famous in the epic Apocalypse Now [Music] it was a devil-may-care attitude live for today carpet diem John Baron is a 22 year old Cobra pilot based 50 kilometers south of the Demilitarized Zone these scenes of his second of the 17th cavalry unit was shot with his camera we were out there pushing the envelope we were out there kicking a devil in the teeth and waiting to see what happened a lot of people died so you know you didn't know if you're gonna be dead tomorrow or or what so basically 21 years old out there fighting hard playing hard [Music] Chief Warrant Officer Barron flies reconnaissance in what are widely known as hunter-killer teams usually a combination of a loach observer helicopter and a Cobra the two aircraft fly together from dawn till dusk trying to pick a fight with an enemy that doesn't want to be found there was a guerilla type warning stay concealed get the ammunition or in the Rockets or whatever they're hauling to their destination and our job was to find their supplies and destroy their supplies 21 year old graduate bob Cydonia flies the loach the little bird his job is to get down as close to the ground as possible hot on the trail of the Vietcong it would follow footprints through little holes in the trees we would find debris from wrappers from cigarette packages wrappers from food they would step in water and they'd actually leave muddy footprints swirling in the water if they had was recently passed but the water didn't move very fast in a lot of places and it would be muddy you can see that we'd actually started picking up mosquitoes striking the aircraft leaving splotches the blood from the feeding on the humans down there and that would give us a good idea of how close we were Barrens Cobra hovers high waiting for Sidonie o's loach to stir up trouble [Music] all right I referred to the scout as a punk kid brother and he'd walk up and kicked a devil in the shins and then I had to come in and actually you know fight the devil we would be trying to approach from downwind and we would also be trying to approach from downhill as much as possible to minimize our noise signature and keep the gun to in a position where we could bring our own gun to bear if necessary the Cobra would be flying at an altitude approximately 1,500 to 3,000 feet off the ground to allow them to maintain a position where they'd be able to dive at any time to protect us the scout pilot spotted points a lot of times like a Geiger counter in the sense that they would talk normal tone of voice we got a road down here and it looks like it has traffic in the last two or three days and they got some spider holes next to it and it looks like spider I'll take it Bart once the hunter provokes a fight the killer swoops in for pilots so young they showed an incredible D sensitivity to their actions I try to put ammunition on them and also ammunition as close to the little bird as possible so that people that were under and hadn't had a chance to start shooting out of the air he's very vulnerable during those first few seconds of the engagement because he had to transition to speed to get out of there and at that time his nose is pointed at the ground of his engine gets shot out that's where he's going that's right right straight down it needs to be nearly instantaneous the gun cover that we had my troop was excellent they could tell simply by the way the aircraft maneuvered that there was trouble coming and they were already inbound with the sights on a target area we would catch somebody unawares we catch a unit while he was enroute one more at one location to another location and we would pin them down until we could get some more suppressive fires out there to destroy a majority of our contacts were very violent very short skirmishes Cydonia engages the enemy day after day and soon proves how vulnerable the poorly armed load really is I was shot down a total of eight times lying Scouts I'm one particular battle I left three aircraft at the same Road intersection in two days 1970 an invasion of Cambodia amid a u.s. promise to pull out of Vietnam results in a scorching backlash in the States those who thought the war was over now realize it will drag on protests then riots break out around the country with disastrous results [Applause] [Music] throughout the next year President Nixon continues the process of Vietnamization handing the war over to President Cho and his South Vietnamese forces so Americans can finally go home Cobra pilot John Barron left Vietnam to be married but is called back for an offensive meant to thwart a mounting threat of a North Vietnamese invasion and prove the South Vietnamese Army can stand on its own [Music] u.s. advisers and ground troops are held back from the action the only Americans ordered into Laos are pilots including John Baron and Bob Cydonia we were hearing from the local hire personnel that we were gonna be moving and that they wanted to know if they were gonna continue to keep their jobs or were they gonna get paid while we were gone so we had a good idea that possibly the mission had been compromised before we ever left the troops are to leapfrog by helicopter and convoy along an east-west supply line into Laos and seize the town of Chapin neither the pilots nor the South Vietnamese troops are prepared for what awaits them in this February offensive known as Lam son 719 the thinking in Saigon was let the South Vietnamese cross into Laos and destroy North Vietnamese emplacements take a major supply area in this town of Japan prove they had what it takes to fight a real battle but ironically of course the US had never gone into Laos in the past it was always regarded as a very dangerous venture after a promising start by the South Vietnamese the NVA mounts a brutal counter-attack the north controls this territory they're not about to give it up these are North Vietnamese regulars not poorly armed Vietcong of the south this is no longer a guerrilla war these are conventional weapons yet the Americans still find it impossible to gain parity the pilots are up against a highly motivated enemy for John Barron it becomes a very different war [Music] at that time they were still operating at altitude they thought 1500 feet was a safe altitude for small arms 7.62 they were being shot at by 23 3757 some cases Sam missiles I had a Sam passed by me one time I was flying the deadly anti-aircraft environment is a nightmare for American pilots helicopters are picked out of the sky by deadly North Vietnamese weaponry the poorly armed scouts flown by Bob Cydonia are grounded 90% of Cobras sent into Laos suffer significant damage the losses are devastating there is nine aircraft commanders in my troop and I was one of two that was still there you know they've been killed or wounded during the initial onslaught in a desperate move to stay alive Cobra pilots swooped down to fly at and below the tree line in Laos dodging fire confusing the enemy the vegetation itself was working for us in the sense that the guys on the ground could only see you for a short period of time if you were more they couldn't get a chance to track you and even if they did get a chance to track he they didn't have much time to shoot at you this is a momentous change in tactics to what is called NAP of the earth flying which the Cobra and other helicopters have used effectively ever since the Cobras improve their survival rate but the Lampson operation Falls completely apart I didn't think that the South Vietnamese Army had the drive that the North Vietnamese Army had I don't know if it was training or or morale or what it just seemed like they weren't pushing as hard to drive the North Vietnamese back after weeks of scathing and unanticipated North Vietnamese assaults and a mounting battle tow nearly 2,000 dead 5,000 wounded and with 107 helicopters destroyed the military decide to pull out before the nightmare gets worse is pandemonium listen to control extraction like a lot of distractions it was you know if we can get out of here let's get out of here in the end when the withdraw rule was ordered many of the soldiers you know fled through the jungle others just grabbed helicopter skids and came out hanging onto the skids of helicopters in pictures that were very demoralizing to the Vietnamese per se into the rest of the world I mean it looked like a complete route which in fact it was it was a mistaken operation by 1972 the question of whether the Cobra can provide close air support on a full fledged conventional battlefield remains unanswered [Music] the proving ground comes on March the 30th 1972 Easter Eve North Vietnamese general Diane Yap takes advantage of a stepped-up US withdrawal and sends 200,000 troops smashing into South Vietnam in three critical locations the goal to divide the country and snatch it from President Chu the Russians told don't mess around with this little guerilla war Friday more you can't win it that way go blitz creek and we'll give you the tanks and so forth so most of our true Colonel Bill Miller is the senior American advisor in an LOC a provincial southern capital strategically located on highway 13 within striking distance of Saigon come into an LOC hit us from three sides moved in with tanks and infantry and artillery like my god you never seen black before he like popcorn popping I mean it wasn't no damn guerrilla war about that and I mean that was for real it was a dagger aimed at the heart of Saigon and it would have made future negotiations on the course of the war very difficult for the United States as the North Vietnamese advanced towards an LOC an aerial field artillery unit called the Blue Max based just north of Saigon goes on high alert former Greenbury major Larry Makai is the commander of the Cobra unit call signed serpent six there were nine battalions that that's a big unit one battalion is a big unit nine battalions of any aircraft that the north vietnamese brought down it went from a low intensity to high intensity and is passed right through amid intensive with fifteen thousand civilians to worry about in an LOC Bill Miller set up a headquarters with other advisors to try to get a handle on the battle suddenly six NVA t54 tanks reached the town's Main Street and rumbled towards Miller's bunker we gave way and we lost about half of what we had and two or three years of tanks got through the line somebody come up on my push and said this says serpent six yeah and I said what you got he said I gotta fly to Cobras I says woohoo there's too much any aircraft here I think if you ever roll in you might not roll out is that a negative negative sir I got eighty eighty and that's high explosive anti-tank and I said you beautiful dog McKay's Cobra unit has a brand new shipment of advanced anti-tank rockets rarely used in Vietnam to this point Miller knows the Cobra and heat Rockets are a lethal combination for the North Vietnamese this would be a critical test for the as-yet unproven Cobra swooping down and with the element of surprise in their favor the Cobras attack the unsuspecting tanks below we rolled in at a very steep angle for us because we did not want the rockets to get off target and so we were concerned primarily about the Americans underground Vietnamese underground and Vietnamese civilians underground they deal with that big mother truck in the most beautiful sight could ever be seen in any man's eyebolts is when there's an Iron Horse out there see a Cobra lower his nose ever so slight she's like he's fine down the clothes line like that Rockets the tank back immediately exploded he was there that the gas Terry and I think that that assisted us in what had happened and we clearly knew that the lead tank was immobilized the Cobras take out three tanks in all stunting the North Vietnamese force inside the city beside Mead South Vietnamese he might have been a colonel I think he was the intelligence officer that had some radios on a North Vietnamese net and he said the tankers in analog was calling back to the command enemy tankers now call him back today you said they wouldn't come in on us if they got inside towns and Americans wouldn't bring it in on their own crew so or we dude that's not the end of the fighting a bitter 90-day siege follows Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett drove into the city to see the destruction all the buildings were destroyed there was carnage in the streets there were many casualties amongst the civilians and the soldiers it was a mess that city but at least it had held the deadly follow-up of b-52 strikes and other u.s. airpower pummels the north vietnamese finally throwing back the force in mid-july McKay's Cobra unit destroys 20 t54 tanks in all but not without losses 8 out of 32 bluemax pilots are killed and Locke has proved itself a place on the modern battlefield for the attack helicopter but the Cobra will need precision guided standoff weapons to remain effective [Music] Colonel Miller believes and Locke would not have held at all had it not been for the actions of the Cobras on that first day he had an ax lock but the bastard didn't know he had it and I'm here to tell you those Cobras was the instrument that caused it to counter the pendulum to swing back and let us be defensive three years later free of the threat of lethal American airpower the North Vietnamese roll into Saigon and seize the South Vietnamese capital four three two one hack time was ten fifteen cavities here just had your time hack this briefing of Cobra and ch-53 pilots of Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville North Carolina is a familiar scene the Marines fly the updated aah one whiskey Cobra as their main battlefield attack helicopter and the only other change I have is on the very front Pat part and this is for the skid guys ordnance load for toes eye toes for hellfire 7 2.75 he7 2.75 was shed 6 in the ground and as the battlefields of the world invariably evolved so does the Cobra gunship the Marines added a second engine in Vietnam giving the aircraft greater power and range so it could fly off ships and carry more weaponry the power plant is improved the fuel system is designed to survive direct 50 caliber hits the marine version is the only attack helicopter protected against harsh environments like saltwater and deserts and the latest improvement to the cobra the knight targeting system or NTS gives the Cobra a night point target capability to support the troops Desert Storm veteran Colonel kenka nASA says the limitations of the Cobra without the knight targeting system became most obvious during the Gulf War strictly relying on our goggles and artificial illumination flares and as such to be able to see our targets many times at night we let target's go because we couldn't identify specifically that they were not American so if we couldn't tell we wouldn't shoot that's not to say that during the Gulf War the Cobra isn't busy and effective despite its lack of sophistication the Cobra proves itself a dependable weapon engage generally he kept the Cobras close to the lead forces and then when we needed them we'd get them airborne and we'd run them in a racetrack pattern so that we would be behind the attacking forces but close enough to the lines that we could pick up the target designations and fire our missiles and we kept that continuous throughout the attack on the first day second day in the third day of the war general mike Myatt commands one of two US Marine divisions set to push through Iraqi minefields and on to Kuwait City plan is at about zero 600 Ripper starts the explosive wreak we made more ground that first day than we had really felt possible we'd actually gone through two obstacle belts these are the same two obstacle belts that the Iraqis had put in and prepared and put mines and ditches for months Miette sets up his command post on the edge of a fire raging oil field ignited by retreating iraqis on the eastern side of kuwait the area looks unnavigable hours later Miette receives an urgent radio call from a task force commander and he'd found in there some counter-attack plans that the iraqis had planned for the fifth mechanized division to attack right at my CP so he called me and he said general might i think you know i know you're counting on this secure flank up there but he said you know you may need some help so then we put together this Quixote or all of the artillery pieces to fire on one grid and then shifted to fire on another grid [Music] it's like stirring up a hornet's nest out from the oil field roars tank after Iraqi tank pushing within yards of Maya's command they call it Danger Close [Music] Miette calls in the cobra's with their toe and hellfire missiles to destroy the tanks [Music] the Cobras work closely with the Marines on the ground for the next several hours they were so close to us that the 20 millimeter casings from the Cobra helicopters firing at Iraqis were actually landing in my tent if it wasn't so scary it was just absolutely a beautiful sight after expending enormous amounts of energy ammunition and fuel Iraqi units surrender our mass to the marine division [Music] the most telling challenge for the cobras comes on day three of the ground war when the weather turned sour when mist and rain conspiring with smoke from the oil fires as the Marines try to push forward to Kuwait City squadron commander Mike curve I can only describe it as like something out of Dante's Inferno you get some appreciation for exactly what that was like it was absolutely bizarre general myatt's division advances north towards Kuwait International Airport when his forces come upon the Iraqis the troops need backup but the Cobras night-vision goggles are unable to guide them through 20 kilometres of burning oil fields and dismal weather help comes when Colonel Cerf who volunteers to lead the Cobras in a Huey helicopter fitted out with a forward-looking infrared system I'd take about four attack helicopters I'd line him up behind me turn my lights on and have them follow me through the smoke so we got to a clear area he was able to find that come back through this smoke I mean it was like midnight out there Pete was a pathfinder up through the enemy lines up towards the front lines he just did it all day long back and forth a couple of times you know rounds being fired all the time he's going right through the battle to get our forces right to where they needed to be for nearly 12 hours Kurth leads Cobras up to the front where they blast away of tanks and help the marines secure the airport the next morning the Allied forces move on to recapture Kuwait City from the retreating Iraqis and Colonel Kurth moves on to receive the Navy Cross for valor it made all the difference in the world without Colonel Kurtz efforts out there we would have won the battle I don't think we would have lost but we would have had a lot more casualties than what we did he made the difference in getting forces to the front line to support the ground the action also makes it clear that Cobras desperately need the Fleur and night targeting system [Music] the Cobra has changed its skin so often it's turning into a different kind of snake that may be why rumor has it the next incarnation of this attack aircraft with a four bladed bearingless rotor may be called the Viper the Viper will have a computerized cockpit digital communications six extra weapon stations a moving map display and will fly 25% faster than its present top speed of 190 knots [Music] after decades of battle this lethal flying machine is turning faster meaner and more deadly [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Flyboy

Views: 908,053

Rating: 4.8123746 out of 5

Keywords: AH-1 Cobra, Vietnam War, Gulf War

Id: PvQrNvGgyJY

Length: 47min 33sec (2853 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019