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We're back in Somalia

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dude, Jan 9, 2007.

  1. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    Any ground forces there, or just airstrikes?
     
  2. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    Ethiopia has troops on the ground. They've pretty much beaten back the islamist militants there already. The US just threw a little extra in for good measure.
     
  3. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    Well, no shit. ::)
     
  4. Dude

    Dude Well-Known Member

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070109/ap_on_re_af/somalia_277

    We had helicopters in there today also.
     
  5. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    Hmmmm ... Interesting.

    We only have three helicopters that could be remotely confused with "gunships." The Navy and Marines' Super-Cobra, the OH-6, a very small Army special operations bird, and the Army's Apache. All have very, very short ranges -- nothing that could launch a suprise attack from a carrier.

    Am I making sense here?
     
  6. statrat

    statrat Member

    Could be Uh-1s but most African countries seem to favor Russian equipment, so I doubt they were ours.
     
  7. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I'm sure there's been a forward operating base set up somewhere nearby. Somalia is actually a country the size of Texas.
     
  8. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    That's what I'm saying. It'd be hard to get a helicopter with a 400-mile range into and out of a country the size of Texas without anyone knowing it.

    Are our soldiers in Somalia? I'd have to bet against that.
     
  9. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    Ethiopians have been there a couple weeks doing some ass kicking.
     
  10. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    I wish other nations would respond to crises in Africa that way.
     
  11. farmerjerome

    farmerjerome Active Member

    Not I. There are places in this world that we should be to make it a safer place. There are some fucked up things going on in Africa.
     
  12. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Russian-designed (actually, Soviet-designed) Mi-24 Hind, someplace land-based. Current operators on that side of Africa include Ethiopia, which has taken a major hand in the most recent events in Somalia.

    Of course, somebody could have refitted an old Huey which we definitely manufactured. The OH-6 (although what you're thinking of is either the AH-6J or the MH-6J) is commercially available as the Hughes H-6 and can probably be rigged up with this, that or the other.

    But I would bet on it being an Ethiopian-operated Hind.

    1stADD: The Ethiopian military was actually the first to use the Hind in combat, during the Ogaden War in 1977-78 against --- surprise! --- Somalia. That was the conflict that started Somalia on the road to being the cesspool it is today.
     
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