Index Of Black Hawk Down

[Leto Corrales]

Iwant to make this a comprehensive topic about Operation Gothic Serpent, discussing the tactics, weapons, gear, vehicles and events related to Gothic Serpent. Please feel free to post any information you have.

Operation Gothic Serpent was an operation carried out by Special Operations Forces from the 22nd of August 1993 to the 13th of October 1993, the objective was to capture Muhammad Farrah Aidid and take down the Somali National Alliance. The most famous part of the operation was the events of October 3rd-4th 1993, commonly called "Black Hawk Down' or 'the Battle of Mogadishu".

Soldiers from B Company, 3rd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment posing for a photo. Most wear Ranger Body Armor(RBA) which had no hard armor plate in the back. The Soldier in the back left of the group is wearing the T.G. Faust armor worn by 1st Special Forces Operations Detachment Delta (1st SFOD-D) [Whats the official designation? Does it have one? The T.G. Faust website only calls it "Special Forces"]. His vest has an American Flag on the chest [How were these attached? Velcro or sewn on?] These were worn by Rangers due to a lack of RBA. Other rangers stateside gave their RBA to B Company, I believe only the heavy weapons had RBA the rest only had PASGTs[Can anyone confirm? What units gave up their vests? All of them?] I don't know if the Rangers wore the 1st SFOD-D vests out on missions, in the book Black Hawk Down, it mentions somebody trading in his black vest for RBA to go out on a mission.

The same man with the T.G. Faust armor has some sort of machine gun, I cannot tell if it is an m240 of m249. The rest have m16s? Some with scopes[What type?]. The man in the front middle has an m203 with the vest for the 40mm grenades[Whats it called?]

The Soldiers have m16s[A2s?] with suppressors[What model?] there is a mix of fixed and retractable stocks. The 2nd fron the right in the group(2nd from left in picture has a shotgun[What model?]. He also has some sort of Smoke Grenade shaped grenade on his left shoulder[What type?]

Some of the men have woodland camouflage knee-pads[What type?]. The man on the far right is wearing full "Chocolate Chip" camo, while the rest wear 'Coffee Stain" except all of the helmets are"Chocolate Chip".

Because the man on the far right has the American flag on the velcro section on the vest I believe it is Velcro'd on. The american flag is reversed.[Are these the standard size that would be sewn on the uniform sleeve?]

The picture in front of the MH 60 is from the CSAR team by the faces I recognize, ie Ranger's, AF CCT, etc. From memory the far right & 3rd from the right were from B/3/75...2 & 4 from the right were AF CCT (could be wrong but that's what I remember). I was a Ranger at that time and from what I remember on the uniforms - first come first serve based on size. I had what you called "coffee stain" while my friend had chocolate chips. I had the black body armor (I remember calling it Level III body armor?) and my friend had the RBA. I know commo & medics carried CAR-15's possibly fire support men as well. We always carried an American flag in our patrol cap with a safety pin but I remember there was a box of American flags in the hanger and I think the flag I had was velcro. Callsigns - yes on Super ## for the aircraft. We always used callwords for actions/events for brevity and to help identify what part of the operation/sequence was occurring - which was reinforced during rehearsals.

Here are 4 soldiers posing for a photo (and a photo bomber on the right) in the hanger. I know they aren't rangers but they could be Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) C Squad 1st SFOD-D or possibly even Navy Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG or DEVGRU [Which one was used in 1993?])

The man on the far left of the photo has pocket sewn to his right sleeve, there is a normal size American flag on it, and what looks like infared glint tape below it. The light from the hanger door is too bright to be able to sell how they are attached but my guess is velcro.

Both have the overly large flag I was referring to in the last post. The man on the left of the photo has a normal size flag on his left shoulder. The man on the right of the photo has a slightly larger, non reversed flag on his right shoulder.

The UH-60 BlackHawk is Super 66 "Gun Slinger". It is parked on grass and there is another one visible through the open doors. There is a man back there with a black rectangle on the left shoulder, probably velcro.

They used a mix of Colt Model 653, 723 and 727 Carbines depending on which unit you are talking about. The M4 had yet to be adopted and there was no other standard "shorty" version of the M16A2 in use in the Army. The units bought the various commercial Colt carbines and had them customized. I think they were all colloquially referred to as "CAR-15's", however.

The [Pro-Tec classic skateboarding?] helmets have NVG mounts[What model? For AN PVS 6?]. Googles [Not Sun Wind and Dust, what type?] IR strobes [What type?] on top, probably attached with velcro, NVG google batteries on the back[An PVS 6?] The sides of the far left and far right men have something reflective on them, probably IR glint tape.

3 delta have NVG mounts on their helmets, the man on the far right of the picture has a strobe and glint tape, 2nd from right has NVG batteries and velcro on top of his helmet for the strobe but no strobe, far left has a bare helmet, the velcro for the strobe is visible on top. The 2nd from the left has NVG batteries and strobe so I will assume he has NVG mount even though the area is covered by his goggles.

Not sure if you guys have seen this site - I just stumbled upon it. Pretty good source of OGS pictures. Mostly geared towards the operators / rangers and their gear but also has some decent shots of some of the helos.

LD posted the pic in the non-160th Little Bird thread. I can't link from the device I am currently one but feel free to check out it out. Doesn't look like a standard H-6J tail to me. If anyone's ever seen an Army H-6 with this type of tail, please post some pics.

On the MH-60 sheet, you have your Super 62s swapped. Rude Dude was the original Super 62 and down for maintenance due to an engine swap. Black Widow became Super 62 when the crew jumped in it and used it instead of Rude Dude.

Star 41 was crewed by CWO4 Keith Jones and CWO3 Karl Meier. Keith Jones deployed from the aircraft and collected two injured crew from first crash site. Flew the aircraft in this scene in "Blackhawk Down".

One AH-6G, Moe Betta artwork, 25348 (possibly 90-25348) had a FLIR fitted. If Randy Jones' LB was the only one fitted with a FLIR, then it appears that 90-25348 Moe Betta was his ship and therefore was Barber 51. Video footage showing an AH-6 Little Bird in the air on the 3rd of October shows it without a FLIR. It appears the majority of the AH-6 Little Birds flew with the FLIR mount fitted but with the FLIR turret removed, as stated in Floyd's preceding post.

One of the serial lists I have also states that 81-23635 was a Gothic Serpent participant and flew as Star 44. As always, we are left with as many questions as answers when we examine the LB fleet. Photo evidence is probably the best piece of evidence that will prove to be the most reliable.

Here is another photo that I first saw on the US Militaria Forum. It shows 81-2365X. It might be just after the 160th arrived in Somalia because this looked like a fairly clean machine with very little dust in evidence. Can anyone ID the pilots? If we can, we can probably assign a callsign to this ship.

The markings are interesting too. The "UNITED STATES ARMY" titles are there on the tailboom but there is very little contrast between the markings and the general paint scheme. No additional fuel tank fitted either. Interestingly, the size of the serial number is larger and in a lighter colour than the serial number on 81-23635.

I spoke with my Gothic Serpent source and he told me it could be Super 63. And that it probably wasn't the Rangers, but "other" operators going up for a recon flight. Looking at the array of antennas compared to my private pics, it's either 63 or 64. 64 AFAIK did not have the bottom FM tailboom antenna so it's probably 63.

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