BREAKING: Reports Claim ISIS Just Captured al-Asad Air Base

a reply to: oletimer

It's very very very very rare to use the Hellfire on Blackhawks. They're troop transports. They use Apache and Kiowa Warriors for Hellfires, not Blackhawks. I can't remember the last time I heard of a Blackhawk mounting Hellfires, but it's been a long time.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
This appears to be a good Twiiter Page on this:
twitter.com...

Thanks this will help. Last I heard was that communications was lost to the base. So naturally when info stop coming in.
I panicked a bit. I good friends son is over there training Iraqi forces. But it's not known if this is the base he's at.
Thanks for your help.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks Zaph. I appreciate the info.

originally posted by: oletimer
a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks Zaph. I appreciate the info.

Yes thanks Zaphod! At first the argument for me was the only paved road in or out. I was going to rebuttal that there's miles of sand all around. Take a Hummer and go!
Then you said I.E.D. or any mine. And that quelled my thought dead in its track. Would be dead right now if I made that decision to drive into the desert.

I was at Al-Asad for the greater parts of 2009-2010. It took our whole battalion to simply secure the base and ensure the air corridor was clear around the base.

There is a whole lot of nothing out there. A power station to the south, some Bedouins west and then the dam to the north/north east.

The base is massive, and unless ISIS is simply trying to prove a point, or has airframes requiring a 6000ft runway, I don't see the strategic objective to being in al-Anbar period.

We relieved the Marines, so they do have experience in the area, and I suspect a few if not many made it onto those training teams.

originally posted by: Bigburgh I was going to rebuttal that there's miles of sand all around. Take a Hummer and go!
Then you said I.E.D. or any mine. And that quelled my thought dead in its track. Would be dead right now if I made that decision to drive into the desert.

It would be impossible and infeasible to mine/IED around the base on anything other than the paved roads. The terrain is impassible in many places as the wadis cannot be passed except in a few key areas. During our time there, we used the main smuggler rat lines for patrolling. Harassed them a bit, confiscated Syrian cigarettes here and there, but generally let them about their business to keep the lines open. We had bigger concerns ensuring Aircraft could take off and land.

It really is a massive nothing out there. Munitions are better used at paved choke points.

a reply to: J.B. Aloha

Wait. So if I had no other way of escaping. I actually could get in an SUV and make it. If water needs was not my next issue? I know there's a river near. But its possible?

Edit: is the sand to loose for an SUV to traverse?

Pentagon says they have no info about an attack on the base. No marines are in danger.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Yes, very feasible to escape. Ones best bet would be to head directly west/southwest to the Syrian border.

The river is to the East of the base running generally north - south. I would not go that way. Avoid the population centers.

The Bedouins to the west were generally indifferent, and just wanted to be left alone, by everyone.

Edit to add: Of course, with the CURRENT situation, I might err on the side of more SW nowadays and go to Jordan instead...

a reply to: J.B. Aloha

Thanks. My friend is 2 doors up. He's freaking out a bit. And i am too. He was not allowed to know where his son went in Iraq. ( actually we were told Riyadh then on to ) He has talked to his son, and i'm sure ( frank)knows. But it's been very basic need to know. The kid left before Halloween. Should be coming home soon.
I thought there was less need for security.
All my friend ( frank we'll call him ) is saying ... his boy last left a thumbs up all is good.
So I will count all our east coast blessings...

Christ I don't have a child.. but did I put my mom and pops through this in remedial life lessons 101? Man I gotta call my dad!
And farther more.. I need to call my mom and thank her for loving my dad!

This thread is ridiculous. Al Asad is a huge airbase taken over and refurbished by US forces at the beginning of the engagement. It is not some tiny base and the approach is difficult. Not the terrain itself, it's a plane, and probably the least rugged place in Iraq. but the fact that you don't even need satellite imagery to see an invading force capable of damaging the complex. It's why we took it over, even after we dropped bunker-busters through all the hardened aircraft hangars (HAZs). It is very difficult to aggress, because the base itself sits in a bowl in the desert, and the terrain nearby is pretty flat. The few times Al Asad was attacked were acts of sabotage (a third-world national was leveraged into blowing up the front-gate check-point when bringing a busload of TCNs onbase), or mostly random rpg fire, fired from the back of trucks, bouncing along a 'highway' that was realistically to distant from the base to have a legitimate chance of hitting inside (they occasionally did though, again, big base, so you're going to land something in that barrel every once in a while. No way to mark and no stability meant if any damage sustained was important or personell injured, was pretty low)

Just for an idea of how big this base is, at the time I was there, the flightline supported like 10 squadrons on the lanes, AV8Bs, F18s, 130s, etc...and there were more helo squadrons in the bowl. It takes a big base and flightline to support that much, and it admittedly became a little crowded. This story is not realistic.

Most realistic scenario: Some tiny assault happened. As I described earlier, these things would happen quite often when we first took the base. The assaults were mostly aimless, resulted in really no damage or casualties, and were generally suicidal and pointless in premise. Also, the Iraqi Force training thing...doesn't wash for me. We never did that there. It's a big thoroughfare for operations and firepower (literally every peice of ordnance dropped in Iraq, if it wasn't built and dropped by aircraft from that base, went through that base at one time).

Well, I dont see this tuning into another Khe San or Dien Bien Phu.

However, and there always is a however, an all out well orquestrated attack by thousands of ISIS against a huge base without enough effectives to secure the permiter could spell massacre.

Once they got into the base, things would be difficult to control.

Even so, none of this has yet been confirmed.

Billy Joel - GOOD NIGHT SAIGON

a reply to: Zaphod58

You absolutely do not understand the scale of this place. It used to take me 45 minutes to drive from where I worked to a particular location on Mainside. Admittedly a 7-ton or Humvee has a limiter on it and can only do 45 mph if the oldest vehicle you have ever driven in your life is in perfect working order. You can extrapolate the math from there.

It's not a base in a town...there is no town anywhere NEAR this base. There is no way to realistically approach this base that you won't be seen by satellite days before preparing an assault that could possibly do anything to it. There is no way something tinier wouldn't be seen immediately long before they got within range. There is no way for a tiny force to actually attack Al Asad. Suicidal mayhem, yes. This is not a suicidal burst of mayhem, this is fantasy, and kinda propagandish.

Edit: If you still don't understand, US and allied forces took this base the only way how, by taking out it's entire infrastructure from the air. There is no other way to do it. It is a very tactically sound base as far as ground-scale assault is concerned. We literally just dropped 2000lb bunker-busters JDAM/GBU into every piece of concrete artifice we could find on satellite or trace until nothing was left of the base, the occupying forces had no reason to stay there anymore and left. There's no other way to take Al Asad, or no reasonable one that does not include a historically monstrous ground-force...which is why I call propoganda.

a reply to: andy1972

Again, a force that size is impossible. It would have been detected by satellite, by eyesight. It's also cute that you think 1000 people is more than a drop in a bucket. This story got real down-home legs, but 1000 assailants + Al Asad. It's ridiculous. That's also the problem with Al Asad strategically. It's impossible to amount a sizeable enough ground-force, capable of taking it, without telegraphing yourself so long beforehand that you already got wiped on your way to the battlegrounds. That's why we took the base! It has no relevance locally, is entirely separate from everything, and is a monster. There is no way to assault it without the occupier of Al Asad immediately forseeing the assault, even forgiving modern technology, and having much more reaction time than the assaulting force that is ASSAULTING THE HORIZON.

Edit: It would be like that scene in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, where Sir Galahad is endlessly running across an impossibly large marsh, while the guard watches him curiously and contemplatively.

a reply to: czerro

While I don't doubt your account from years ago, it does fly in the face of the facts.

See the link I posted from the BBC dared 19th December on page 2. IS were pushing on the base then and moved 8 km in a few days to within 10 km of the base. Air support was non existent, the enemy is hard to find and the few occupants of the base (it is nothing like when you were there) genuinely felt the base was under threat.

a reply to: czerro

Again, it may have had no "relevance" during an occupation by a super power fighting insurgents, but it is very important now for holding Anbar and Iraqi morale against an organised and determined enemy.

Also, you seem massively over confident in the ability to detect IS forces. If it was so easy, they'd have been dashed already. As it stands, air strikes have not done much apart from slow the advance.

a reply to: stumason

Morale? Yes this story IS good for morale...is riddled with inaccuracies, and entirely unbelievable. Again, I will state this is propaganda, or translated propaganda that someone reposted here, believing they were reporting a breaking ISIS assault.

I sincerly hope this is just bluff and bull#.

Maybe Someone in the pentagon needs a new "Remember the Álamo".

a reply to: stumason

Also nothing I have said 'flies in the face of facts'. I am the only one providing you facts while everyone else is hypothesizing on a propogandish report that I can't even hypothetically accept. The least which of it's problems appear to be that they don't know what Al Asad is, how large it is, the design of the base.

You believe to believe something else you read on a message board. I'm sure you can look up some things I have said, and can slice which way the truth travels. Al Asad...it's like New York City or Texas or something. Pretty much 'everyone been through there' at one point. But the way it's described in this report is EXACTLY how people describe New York City and Texas THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE. It's impossibly constructed and unrealistic and is full of holes.

What? That one Army guy that claimed he and his guys saved the base? I dunno if he did or didn't, we provided our own security until around the time he describes due to clearance issues. I remember the first time the army guys came on base and into our area, they rolled up in personal quads (what?) and demanded to be allowed into our compound even though they had no clearance. I sent them away and their Sergeant/Sergeant/Sergeant (everyones a sergeant in the army or something) told me he would physically make me open the gates if I pressed him. I laughed at this unnecessary bravado, and the fact that there was no way he was coming inside. I also suggested I wasn't opposed to trying the physical bit for funsies. He got real red and mad and they rolled viciously away on their quads. I hope he's not that guy.

Anyway, at the time the Army took over the security of the highest value area on base, and the years he is speaking of, he must be speaking of mine. Sorry I told you you couldn't come into the compound cause you didn't as yet have credentials to tool around on your quads? Hero's ladies and gentleman...

The gateway pundit allegedly has video of the "ongoing" assault...

Not exactly realiable but...Its another source.