Day of the Rangers: The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years On

by Leigh Neville

  Hooten tried to warn Steele and his headquarters element that they were in a kill zone but despite Hooten’s warnings, Steele refused to move his CP into one of the buildings to either side of the street. Hooten explained:

  Captain Steele and [Lieutenant] Jim Lechner stopped at the same debris pile that Chris, Mike Moser, and I had hunkered down [behind], I remember looking out and telling Captain Steele, “You’ve got to move.” A couple of guys [Somalis] popped up over a wall and dumped a mag on them and hit Jim Lechner in the leg and a Ranger RTO [Atwater] was shot as well. Lechner was very severely wounded. I remember seeing bone fragments on the ground when they went out to get him. He was bleeding profusely.

  Mike Moser heard the firing that struck Lechner and watched Bart B leap into immediate action:

  Shortly another burst or two sent a round through the open doorway and into the wall above Bart’s head, as Jim Lechner, who was still out in the street at this time, was also hit. Bart ran out to assist him, and we all withdrew deeper into the residence. Jim’s calf was shattered badly – bullets do nasty things to bone – and he was in a great deal of pain.

  Hooten, Smith, and an A-Team operator, Dan N, ran out to provide covering fire as Bart B dragged Lechner into cover.

  The incident would provoke some controversy in the “hot-wash” debrief after the battle as a number of operators felt that Steele should have moved out into the street immediately and recovered Lechner instead of racing for the cover of the doorway. By Ranger accounts, Steele reportedly did turn around to head back out as soon as he made cover but the Delta medic had already reached Lechner and was bringing him in off the street.

  Further ahead, Lieutenant Perino’s chalk were now nearing the crash site. He recounted:

  As the first man in my lead element was crossing a small alleyway, a large volley of fire from the west erupted, but luckily, he was able to dive out of the way and crawl to safety. The next few Rangers crossed and established covering positions for the rest of the element to cross. I waited for the signal from the man ahead of me and then sprinted across the alleyway. I got halfway across when bullets began kicking up the dirt at my feet. The man covering me, Corporal James [Jamie] Smith, fired a 40mm high-explosive round from his M203 grenade launcher toward the unknown assailant, and the enemy fire ceased by the time I finished crossing.27

  Perino successfully linked up with Chalk 2 and the CSAR element and soon began to distribute their Rangers to reinforce the perimeter around the downed helicopter. Enemy fire was now increasing from the west as Somalis who had converged on the objective were heading toward the crash site. Perino’s statement further recounts:

  The Somalis began volley firing RPGs at our location, and bullets ricocheted off the walls over our heads. My M60 machine gunners and M249 squad automatic weapon gunners were engaging enemy targets of opportunity and met with some success. The moment any Somali with a weapon popped out, he was killed. Our M203 grenade launchers were also very effective neutralizing Somalis firing at us from the windows of buildings.28

  After taking cover behind a set of stairs leading into a courtyard, Perino attempted to engage a number of gunmen that had narrowly missed him when his grenadier, Corporal Jamie Smith, was hit. “I yelled at the men behind me to help move Corporal Smith and that I needed a medic immediately. We dragged Corporal Smith up the stairs where I had been taking cover moments before and moved him into a small courtyard.” Perino continued:

  A medic [Delta medic Kurt S] arrived at my location almost immediately and began to treat Corporal Smith. I radioed Captain Steele that I had another casualty and was down to ten men. I left the courtyard and ran into Staff Sergeant Elliott. I told him that Corporal Smith was wounded and that a medic was treating him in the courtyard behind me. Corporal Smith had two IVs running, and another soldier had two hands buried in Smith’s inner thigh, attempting to stop the bleeding. Smith was not doing too well: the bullet had severed his femoral artery, and the wound was too high on the leg to apply a tourniquet. The only way to stop the bleeding was by direct pressure.29

  Whilst the medics worked to save Corporal Smith’s life, the Rangers established security as best they could. Captain Steele and most of the wounded moved into the building with Hooten’s operators. There were now several disparate groups in the vicinity of the crash site: Steele and his Rangers furthest away to the south with Hooten’s men; elements of A-Team and B-Team in the next building up who were still trying to make their way further up the street; Perino’s chalk in a building at the end of the alleyway leading to Super 61 with the critically wounded Corporal Smith; Ground Force Commander Miller and G-Team opposite the intersection; and the combined force of DiTomasso’s Chalk 2 and the CSAR around the helicopter itself.

  Tom DiTomasso commented:

  Chalks 1 and 3 and the rest of the assault force made the move east and north. That’s when Corporal Jamie Smith got hit and that whole foot patrol stopped. It was like hitting a wall of lead because the crowds to their north at the crash site were shooting through the crash site and it was like grazing fire further down the road as Chalk 1 and 3 approached.

  At the crash site, the heavy firefight continued. Belman recalled: “It’s hard to convey just how much fire there really was. It was basically non-stop from almost every direction before nightfall and then things tapered off a little in terms of getting direct fire.” There also appeared to be at least some primitive organization to the SNA: “I think there was some level of command and control,” explained DiTomasso. “They weren’t stupid. Some of them were experienced fighters but I think part of their demise was that they adopted kamikaze tactics. We literally had people running at us and just firing away with no cover at all. They would just run down the street – part of it was, because it was Sunday, they were all high on Khat.”

  Khat was a narcotic that was widely popular amongst the Somalis. Chewed, it provides an amphetamine-like effect that can lead to hyperactivity. It would typically be consumed in the early to mid-afternoon. The arrival of Task Force Ranger was unfortunate in that the battle commenced during the peak of this cycle.

  “It seemed like everybody had a gun. There were children and women running around the crash site carrying AKs, there were women running around with baskets of RPG rounds … They just kept attacking,” remarked DiTomasso. “We had individuals who were spotting – that alleyway we were in extended for a long period to the west,” said Belman. “There’s a rise in the road so if you were a Somali trying to shoot at us, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to see where we were. So they did have people who were pointing and spotting; I think there may have been some heavy weapons and RPG folks who were benefiting from that spotting.”

  The rules of engagement were understood in the main but individual Rangers clarified with their leadership or Delta operators around the circumstances of particular targets such as women carrying RPG rounds or the unarmed civilians acting as spotters. Belman recounted the difficulty engaging unarmed individuals who nonetheless were participating in offensive action against the Rangers:

  That was the only time, there was a definite pause as the person didn’t seem to have a weapon. There was definitely pointing, spotting, those kinds of activities that a person just trying to get the hell out of the way wouldn’t be doing. Nobody, including the Delta guys, had faced anything like what was going on. Some guys had been in Panama, some had been in Grenada, some of the Delta guys had been involved in other small stuff, but no one on the ground that day had been in real, heavy combat before.

  Hooten remembered that, unlike in the movie, Aideed’s technicals did not feature heavily in the fight. “We saw some technicals early on but they didn’t play a big part in the battle. They wouldn’t have survived very long in that environment. Any time you got the [AH-6] gun birds out, they’d disappear pretty quickly.” Aideed wasn’t about to lose his vaunted technicals. In Somalia, the number of technicals under a warlord’s control directly equated to that warlord’s influence and
power. In any case, the AH-6s would have made short work of any technicals that threatened the crash site.

  “The Somalis were definitely trying to kill us. Whether they were actually trying to organize an assault to overrun us, that I don’t know, but they were certainly trying to get into positions to shoot at us. I’d see people sticking their heads out of windows, sticking their weapons around corners, kind of bobbing in and out and then firing at us,” commented Belman. “It was difficult to tell between an RPG explosion and a hand grenade explosion. At the other side of the helicopter [at the cockpit end], they had grenades being thrown over a wall. I could hear them going off but I couldn’t see it.”

  The Rangers and operators were returning the enemy fire. Belman added:

  It was not a free-for-all but you’re also laying down suppressive fire. If you’re taking fire from a certain area you’re going to shoot at that certain area to prevent that guy from shooting at you. I went in with a basic load of 210 [5.56mm] rounds so seven [30 round] magazines and went through that relatively quickly. We resupplied from people getting wounded. The ammunition became a concern very early on.

  Rangers were still being hit and PJ Wilkinson would respond without a second thought. He repeatedly braved the incoming fire from all directions to attend to the wounded Rangers. Each time, he leapt to his feet and cried, “Cover me!” before darting out with his medic’s bag. Steele later commented that “These trips across the open street were at the peak of the battle when enemy fire was at its most intense. We were receiving intense and accurate small-arms fire. His repeated acts of heroism saved the lives of at least four soldiers.”30

  The CSAR element eventually used pre-made breaching charges to blow holes through intervening walls to strongpoint their location, with the aim of moving the CCP out of the alleyway and into a building where it could be better protected from fire. Belman carried C4 plastic explosive with him for this very task, as did the EOD technician. He explained: “We had moved our casualties into these adjacent buildings that we had connected by blowing holes in the walls.”

  The Kevlar pads from the helicopter they had been using as makeshift cover around the CCP under the tail of Super 61 proved to be somewhat less than optimal protection as Belman remembered:

  A guy named John Waddell [a Ranger Specialist from Chalk 2], a good friend of mine who’d been a team leader for me, ended up taking up my position. He was a SAW gunner. He looked at one of the Kevlar pads we had taken from the Black Hawk and [had] propped up in front of me and he told me afterwards that the thing was pretty much completely perforated by bullets except for where I was. My outline non-perforated, the rest like Swiss cheese!

  Overhead, the Barber callsigns ran continuous gunruns on targets around the alley guided in by the forward observer, Specialist Joe Thomas. “They’re doing runs and the brass is falling on us and it felt like maybe 20 or 30 meters out in front of us tops. They’re in close for sure,” said Belman. Despite this, they still believed the McKnight ground convoy would be approaching any minute, they would load everyone into the vehicles, and with the AH-6s flying top-cover, return to the airfield. The next radio transmission would change that plan: “I think it was Pat Rogers, the CCT, who was right next to me, and a good friend of mine, just going, ‘Shit, another bird’s down.’”

  CHAPTER 5

  “WE ARE THEIR ONLY HOPE”

  “I heard something odd and looked skyward to see a Black Hawk overfly us at approximately 75 to 100 feet above ground level. The tail rotor had been damaged and the fin was dangling. The bird remained airborne and continued in the direction of the airport beyond my sight.”

  Staff Sergeant Michael “Mike” Moser, B-Team, 1 Troop, C-Squadron

  1641 HOURS: SUPER 64 IS DOWN – RPG; GRID 36402625, SUPER 62 FAST-ROPES 2 X SNIPERS ON SITE. JOC DIRECTS ASSAULT FORCE ASSIST ASAP. REPORTS: LARGE CROWD MOVING TOWARD SECOND CRASH SITE.

  After Super 61 had been downed by the RPG, Colonel Tom Matthews in the C2 helicopter requested Super 64, piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Class 3 Mike Durant and Chief Warrant Officer Class 4 Ray Frank, to take on their “low CAP” over the battlespace. Super 64 left the holding area to take up an overhead position and provide fire support for the ground forces with its miniguns.

  Mike Durant later remembered:

  Well, he [Matthews] calls me to replace 61 and we go around the target maybe three times. And the reason we’re doing that is No. 1, to keep moving. No. 2 is to figure out where everybody is, because nobody is where we put them at this point, and they’re all trying to move because the order has been given for everyone to consolidate around the crash site.1

  Durant was aware of the RPG threat and actively trying to negate it as much as possible:

  It’s always a threat. I think we understand that much more so now than we did then. But even then, we viewed it as a threat. The problem with that weapon is that there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. You have to use cover and concealment and that’s about it. We were told they didn’t have all that many of them … which turned out to be false.2

  Gerry Izzo testified to the seemingly never-ending number of RPGs: “We were getting volleys of RPGs fired at us. It was like flying through a shotgun blast.” Colonel Matthews later confirmed that about 200 RPGs were fired at the aircraft on October 3. Using the Black Hawks for fire support over an urban environment during daylight with such a heavy concentration of RPGs may not in hindsight have been the appropriate tactic. Izzo for instance now believed: “[It was a] poor tactic for the daytime. We got away with it at night, but not a good idea in daylight.”

  Others still maintain that the tactics had relevance. An operator on the assault force who had inserted from Super 61 stated: “I think it was a good plan, but they may have stayed in position too long.” Asked whether he thought it was a valid tactic for daytime operations, he noted: “Yes it is, but for limited time and mission specific.”

  The Somali RPG warheads themselves may have increased the risk to the helicopters. The book Black Hawk Down was the first to claim that the RPG warheads used by the Somalis had been “replaced with timing devices to make them explode in midair.”3 Unfortunately there is no source provided for the claim. This idea of specially modified RPG rounds has become received wisdom, although no actual documented evidence seems to exist to definitively support this contention.

  Most RPG warheads have a self-destruct mechanism that detonates at 920 meters or around four and a half seconds after the warhead has been fired from the launcher. This means that when fired into the sky at passing helicopters, an airburst effect will be caused as the warhead spews lethal fragments upon its self-destruction at 920 meters.

  In conversations with both Task Force Ranger veterans and various EOD personnel with years of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a question posed on my behalf by a former Delta EOD Chief to a group of military and federal law enforcement EOD operators, the author is yet to find anything concrete that indicates the RPG warheads in Mogadishu were in fact modified. “We kinda thought it a little odd that they’d modified the self-destruct feature of the rockets, but we never got any kind of definitive word on that,” said Gerry Izzo. Karl Maier had not heard of the modification and believes that the warheads were detonating at their normal self-destruction distance.

  One would expect, should such a technique have proven so successful in Mogadishu, that it would have been exported to insurgents in Iraq for example who faced American helicopters in similar urban environments, but according to the EOD experts this hasn’t occurred. This is not to say ad hoc field modification of RPG warheads does not occur. Videos from Chechen insurgents in Syria show how to remove the self-destruct mechanism, for instance, but not how to modify it to detonate at different distances.

  Most RPG warheads encountered in Somalia were the PG-7 or later variants of the same round, which were designed primarily for engaging armored vehicles and thus to penetrate first and foremost rather than to fragment like the OG
-7 anti-personnel warhead. This makes the fragmentation effects of the PG-7 type relatively limited, although of course a near-miss can still be catastrophic to a thin-skinned helicopter.

  US Army historian Lester Grau wrote about the Afghan mujahideen tactics during the 1980s, but notes no modification of the warhead itself:

  Should the helicopters be flying further away, it was better to wait until the helicopter was 700–800 meters away and then fire, trying to catch the helicopter with the explosion of the round’s self-destruction at 920 meters distance. Chances of hitting a helicopter at this range by the self-destruct mechanism were very limited, but they served to discourage reconnaissance helicopters and air assault landings …4

  Mark Bowden also mentions the SNA digging pits to channel the lethal backblast of the RPG when fired at elevation against an aerial target. Again this has been difficult to verify but seems like a reasonable field expedient measure. According to Vietnam Special Forces veteran and historian Gordon Rottman, however, examples of RPG-7s have been recovered in Afghanistan fitted with “small steel plates welded to the bottom rim of the blast defector to direct the blast slightly upward for firing at aircraft,” so the use of such blast pits is a possibility.5

  It has also been hinted that the militia received instruction from Sudanese jihadists and indeed there may have been some ad hoc training of SNA elements, specifically for engaging helicopters with the RPG. “Yes, I remember a few of us in the flight saw what looked like some instruction going on. I have no idea where the people were from though,” recalled Karl Maier, detailing an incident where a number of militia were observed with RPGs pointing toward the sky during a signature flight prior to October 3.