Talk:Operation Acid Gambit

underground radio

Sounds like the cia helped set up an underground radio station more then anything. Which led to him being arrested and need to be set free again. Pretty much the only fishy thing in the article I felt should be clarified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.102.76.49 (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Gross Lack of Completeness

The largest and by far the most complex part of this operation was the role played by Task Force Gator, the mechanized infantry battalion task force (4-6th Mech) charged with penetrating the outer defenses of the Commandancia/Carcel Modelo complex and placing a cordon around it to distract defenders from the rescue attempt. Yet it is completely ignored in this article.

TF Gator operated under the command of the Special Mission Unit for this operation, and suffered greatly due to the SOF commanders having no idea how to employ mechanized forces in urban terrain. Just prior to the attack starting, the SMU directed TF Gator to leave its attached company of paratroopers behind and not take them on the attack. This meant there were insufficient dismounts to secure adjacent buildings on the cordon (itself appx 20 blocks long), and the isolated tracks quickly became ripe targets for RPG gunners. In short order, seven tracks were knocked out with many casualties resulting. One of these was hit by an AC-130 during three separate gun passes. To put these losses in perspective, this one battalion, consisting of two under strength mechanized companies lost more armored vehicles in a space of two hours than any DIVISION lost in Desert Storm. The level of combat around the Commandancia was far greater than the SMU commander expected, because he chose to ignore the intelligence reports of those stationed in Panama who observed the Commandancia on a daily basis. The price for this was fully borne by TF Gator, not the SMU, yet TF Gator gets no recognition in this article?

The reason the rescue team could operate so freely was due primarily to the fact that TF Gator was simultaneously smashing into the complexes' defenses - something completely ignored in this article. Nevertheless within a half hour of the operation's start, two little birds and one OH-58 (on an unrelated mission) had been downed by the AAA which had not been silenced in the Commandancia (these are the actual loss figures - those in the text are wrong), the rescue team was down somewhere behind enemy lines, a little bird pilot was missing INSIDE the objective, two crewmen from the OH-58 were dead, seven tracks were knocked out and casualties were piling up in TF Gator. It was a fiasco, pure and simple.

Despite the loss of 1/4 to 1/3 of its tracks, TF Gator nevertheless hastily organized a rescue column and fought its way to the downed extraction helicopter and safely evacuated all US personnel - a point this article minimizes shamelessly. Yes, the prisoner was rescued, so it must be considered a victory, but given the scope of the errors, miscalculations and losses, it can be considered a qualifed victory at best.

Finally, at the conclusion of the rescue of Mr. Muse, the SMU hijacked an ad hoc company team (consisting of M113s, M551s and Lav-25s) from TF Gator to provide "wheels" for ther follow-on missions, leaving a badly bloodied and much reduced TF Gator to try to carry on with its attack to take the Commandancia complex. The whole operation was a shambles, and only stabilized when TF Gator returned to TF Bayonet's control and the latter committed the brigade reserve. It would later take the further reinfocement of the paratrooper company and a Ranger company to finally secure the objective after 18 hours of steady fighting.

The more significant point is that this was a dress rehearsal disaster for the later SMU full scale disaster in Mogadishu, less than 4 years later, and involving many of the same operators. It had proven too costly to use helicopters at night, at low level, over hostile urban terrain in Panama. For some reason, the SMU thought it would be a good idea to use even larger helicopters, in broad DAYLIGHT, over hostile urban terrain in Mogadishu. In Panama, the necessity of an armored reaction capability was proven. The SMU tried to get by with thin-skinned vehicles in Mogadishu, which failed miserably. Only the use of Pakistani and Malaysian armored saved them in Mogadishu.

Even as a stub, this article needs major revision. As it is, it limits its focus to about 5% of the forces and 1% of the fighting that actually took place. 97.77.30.161 (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, you've written a lot here. Why not add it to the article? Mark Shaw (talk) 16:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Bias

Is there any basis for the statement that "A Delta operator eliminated the guard who was responsible for killing Muse in case of a rescue". A guard was murdered, but what evidence is there that this guard had instructions to kill Muse? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 06:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Guard left to kill Muse

The article currently says that said guard was not there at the time of the raid, and that he was killed in the raid. Does anyone have a source with a good explanation of which way it went down? Juno (talk) 12:01, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

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