Why was air support not provided during the Battle of Mogadishu, 1993 (Black Hawk Down)?
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The answer lies in two considerations:
First, the specific operation that led to the Battle of Magadishu was designed as a capture operation: the Americans should have landed, capture and go back. All of that fast, with special operators. In this context, artillery or fixed-wing air support was supposed to be dangerous in terms of collateral casualties, for minimal gain since their was no time for one of the special operator to direct the fire support/
Second, there was not that much available in Somalia, or in close-by bases (such as Diego Garcia: you'll find B-52 there, but not A-10 nor artillery)
So the answer to the "why" is: the Americans did not think they would need that, so they did not prepare such assets in Somalia. For the specific battle of Magadishu, they did not anticipate the need either.
Now why did they think that?
- Because the state-of-mind of the time was "end of history, end of "true wars", only police operations"
- Because the ability of Somalian militias to fight hard with high willingness was not known before the battle. If that willingness was not known prior, the Americans would have had less problems with destroyed helicopters: the special operators and other helicopters could have established a security perimeter in a context of "police operations". But it appeared that Somalian militiamen were far more willing to fight downed American soldiers
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