The footage, showing U.S. Army’s elite unit’s helicopters was filmed during the exercises carried out by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) last April.
Last April, some MH-60s and MH-6s helicopters belonging to the 160th SOAR “Night Stalkers” carried out a series of exercises in New York City. As reported by Tyler Rogoway at the War Zone back then, between April 17 and 18, the U.S. Army choppers flying over Lower Manhattan during flights that saw the helicopters, likely carrying special operators, flying between skyscrapers.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is a highly-specialized combat aviation unit headquartered at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky that supports elite U.S. and coalition combat units like Army Special Forces, Naval Special Warfare (SEALs) and other special operations units. They fly MH-47G Chinooks, MH-60L/M/K Black Hawks, A/MH-6M Little Birds and, since Nov. 19, 2013, the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, advanced derivative of the Predator specialized in providing direct operation control by Army field commanders. It can fly Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA); convoy protection; Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detection as well as providing live aerial imagery to ground patrols carrying also PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions).
160th SOAR mainly operate at night (hence their name) in attack, assault, reconnaissance, infiltration and exfiltration, and any kind of known or unknown special operations you may imagine. Indeed, the “Night Stalkers” are quite famous for the raid to capture Osama bin Laden, Operation Neptune’s Spear, on May 1, 2011. During that raid, the unit flew a classified, low-observable variant of the Blackhawk helicopter that has since been popularly referred to in speculation as the “MH-X Stealth Black Hawk” or “Silent Hawk”. Images of part of the secret helicopter were seen around the world when one of them crashed inside Bin Laden’s compound during the raid, leaving the tail section visible. Books and media accounts suggest only two of the aircraft were ever produced. During the years we have also speculated about the existence of stealthy Little Birds and stealthy Chinooks as well.
Anyway, just the Little Birds and Black Hawks can be seen in the footage filmed during the New York training last April.
The helicopters flying low over the East River were probably carrying special operators involved in a simulated terrorist attack on a vessel as reported by Rogoway who wrote that along with reports and videos of the choppers flying low level at night, there “were also reports that a Staten Island Ferry went sailing down the Hudson River flanked by police boats. It is possible that the special operators rappelled onto the vessel in response to a mock terrorist attack or hostage scenario.”
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Not only are the Night Stalkers involved in urban training even though most units carry out such training far from residential zones: in 2017 we took part in “Realistic Urban Training” (RUT), a live fire assault on an “urban complex” on the ranges at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) in Twentynine Palms, CA. The activity was part of 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) workups to the deployment to the Pacific on the U.S.S. America (LHA-6) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) The MEUs, the smallest Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) numbering about 2,200 Marines, are “broadly capable, forward deployed forces prepared to quickly respond to a global crisis of a humanitarian or military nature”. That’s why they conduct RUT to assess the combat capabilities of the MEUs to exfiltrate forces or secure and hold ground, even when the contested space is a large city.
Kinetic “urban operations” are carried out using live armament in “fake towns” specifically built to practice firing rockets, guns and laser-guided training rounds. Such as “Yodaville” near Yuma, Arizona, within the Urban Target Complex or R-2013-West, an isolated town built in 1999 and surrounded by terrain similar to that you can find in the Middle East or Asia. Yodaville provides the most realistic target environment for pilot and ground controllers to improve their skills in CAS (Close Air Support) conducted in urban areas – aka UCAS (Urban CAS). UCAS sorties are also launched as part of MOOTW (Military Operations Other Than War) to assist civilians during NEOs (Non-combatant Evacuation Operations), as happened in the past, in Saigon or Tirana.
H/T to @thenewarea51 for sharing this on Twitter!
