Читать книгу Weapon of Choice: The Operations of U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan - Combat Studies Institute - Страница 20

Meanwhile, the delay in obtaining diplomatic country overflight clearances and basing rights caused a bottleneck in the strategic airflow of troops, equipment, and supplies into the theater of operations. Transport aircraft packed airfield aprons and taxiways at Morone, Spain; Sigonella, Sicily; and Incirlik, Turkey. To complicate the air movement, the U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III was the only heavy-lift jet aircraft permitted to use K2 Air Base. This meant that loads carried by the largest Air Force jet transport, the C-5B Galaxy, had to be “downloaded” and split up to fit the much smaller C-17s. Caught in the bottleneck was an Air Force theater airlift control element (TALCE) at Morone, Spain. When that 50-person detachment arrived with none of its aircraft unloading equipment late on 3 October, it was unprepared for the gush of backed-up airplanes.

Figure 35. K2 buildup with backlog of accumulating supplies and equipment.

When Secretary Rumsfeld was granted permission to use K2 for “search-and-rescue operations” finally on 5 October, the physical effect on the airplanes backed up from Spain to Turkey was like uncorking a champagne bottle. Limited ramp and taxiway parking space turned an orderly, carefully prioritized, and orchestrated flow of airplanes into a hodgepodge. In an effort to free clogged European air bases for follow-on traffic, airplanes were launched as quickly as possible, merely shifting the traffic jam to the unprepared K2 Air Base and overwhelming its air traffic control capabilities. This was made worse by the limited cargo offloading equipment available. With a C-17 arriving every 2 hours by 6 October, the base population exploded from 100 personnel to more than 2,000 in a week. The resulting command and control situation could only be described as “utter chaos”!

Figure 36. 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).