Talk:Operation Red Wings/Archive 2

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2016
Red Wings II: quick reaction force, search, rescue, recovery, and presence operations

Initiated by the communication stating the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team was ambushed, the focus of the operation immediately shifted from disrupting ACM activity to finding, aiding, and extracting the four SEALs. The operation was now known as Operation Red Wings II.[1]

After the broken transmission from the SEAL team, their position and situation became unknown. Members of SEAL Team 10, U.S. Marines, and aviators of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) were prepared to dispatch a quick reaction force (QRF), but authorization for launch from higher headquarters was delayed for a number of hours. A QRF finally launched, consisting of two MH-47 Chinook helicopters of the 160th SOAR, two UH-60 conventional Army aviation Black Hawk helicopters, and two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. The two MH-47s took the lead, and they outran their slower-paced armed escort of AH-64s, arriving at the landing zone without protection. Upon reaching the landing zone at Sawtalo Sar, the two MH-47s took small arms and rocket fire. During an attempt to insert the SEALs riding in one of the MH-47 helicopters, an enemy combatant fired an RPG-7 at the helicopter, striking the transmission below the rear rotor assembly, causing catastrophic damage to the aircraft and killing all 16 personnel onboard, eight 160th Army Special Operations Aviators and crew, and eight Navy SEALs. Both commanders of the QRF, the ground commander LCDR Erik S. Kristensen of SEAL Team 10, and aviation element commander Major Stephen C. Reich, were killed in the incident. The QRF was now combat ineffective, and neither visual nor radio contact could be established with the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team. At this point, which was late in the afternoon, storm clouds were moving in over the region. The aircraft returned to their respective bases, and a massive search began, at first from the ground, and then with assistance from aviation elements. The 16 bodies of those killed in the MH-47 crash were recovered. After a thorough search, the bodies of Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson were eventually recovered, and Marcus Luttrell was rescued, his survival due in part to the aid of a local Afghan villager in the village of Salar Ban, roughly 0.7 miles (1.1 km) down the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar[4] from the location of the ambush.[1][2]

199.52.13.132 (talk) 16:36, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --allthefoxes (Talk) 17:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Absurd bias
So let me get this straight, the US launches an operation that fails and ends in 19 of its troops ambushed and killed, yet somehow it's a "U.S. Pyrrhic Victory" because.....three weeks later the victor got beaten and killed??

I understand that Americans never ever want to admit defeat or failure, especially when it comes to the Olympian-Ubermensch-that-are-the-Navy-SEALS, but it seems to me that if you have a military goal, fail to achieve it and get ambushed and killed, that's a Defeat, plain and simple.

What happens three weeks later in an entirely other battle is 100% irrelevant.

And about the numbers, how come some dispute numbers given by Darack who is unbiased, in favor of Luttrel who obviously has a reason to exaggerate Afghan numbers to excuse how own defeat?

So basically Wikipedia is untrustworthy when it comes to anything to do with the US military.

47.139.1.116 (talk) 15:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree with that. Such an obvious bias undermines any credibility from WP, and from american contributors as well Lesviolonsdautomne (talk) 08:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Marine Corps Gazette can't be accepted as an objective source concerning the result (or anything else, for that matter) ! Lesviolonsdautomne (talk) 08:39, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Image caption change
Please change

To Krjay (talk) 11:47, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, both pictures are the same. What do you want the picture changed to? Iffy★Chat -- 12:10, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The caption is changed, not the image. The two are 'taking in' Afghanistan. They were not 'taken' in Afghanistan.
 * ✅ "Taken" refers to the fact that the photo was taken in Afghanistan. I've simply removed the word "taken" to eliminate any confusion. -- irn (talk) 14:06, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You beat me to it, only just saw the reply now. By the way  only works if you add a signature to your post at the same time. Iffy★Chat -- 14:09, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Unrecorded interviews
In Etymology it says the book was written by Patrick Robinson based on unrecorded interviews with Marcus Luttrell. Unrecorded interviews? The book is nearly four hundred pages long. Would any writer rattle off nearly four hundred pages of text working entirely from memory? If you read the book, it is very much written in Luttrell's voice, unless Robinson has a vivid memory combined with a severe case of intellectual dishonesty. Unless someone can provide a bit of verification, I will delete the word unrecorded. Sardaka (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

If it wasn't recorded, I assume he took notes of some sort detailing the events that were mentioned by Luttrell. Delta fiver (talk) (UTC) 10:57, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistency in book
One problem in the book is that the village elder trekked 30-odd miles to Asadabad to get help for Marcus, but later in the book it says there's a US base only 2 miles away. Is there any source for this that we can quote, because if I use it myself it's Original Research? Sardaka (talk) 08:31, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2020
Ola Waigh (talk) 15:06, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. --TheImaCow (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Geography
Para 3.3: the Shuryek valley is to the EAST of Sawtalo Sar; the Korangal valley to the WEST. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:8897:B800:1C7A:D768:9DED:BD29 (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 July 2022
Simple request to link Matthew Axelson in the "Insertion of SEAL team, compromise and attack" section to his Wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Axelson Greenberret (talk) 01:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ - w o lf  03:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Insurgent casualties
The results section says “insurgents sustain heavy casualties”, yet the only estimate for Taliban casualties, 35 killed, comes from the sources that claim ~100 fighters present. Other sources state only around a dozen Taliban present, and no mention of casualties. Should the “heavy casualties” part be removed? ADifferentMan (talk) 05:35, 24 October 2022 (UTC)