The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), abbreviated as 160th SOAR (A), is a special operations force of the United States Army that provides helicopter aviation support for general purpose forces and special operations forces. Its missions have included attack, assault, and reconnaissance, and these missions are usually conducted at night, at high speeds, low altitudes, and on short notice.
Nicknamed the “Night Stalkers” and called Task Force Brown within the JSOC, the 160th SOAR(A) is headquartered at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
On January 15th, 2014, a MH-60M Black Hawk of the 160th performed a hard landing at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. One soldier, CPT Clayton Carpenter of NY (posthumously promoted to MAJ), was killed with another two injured. On July 4th, 2014, during Operation Inherent Resolve, the Night Stalkers inserted Delta Force operators into Syria to rescue James Foley and other US hostages. One American was wounded, no hostages were found, but a substantial number of terrorists were killed. CENTCOM mistakenly posted a video on the internet of a flight of four MH-60Ms of the 160th SOAR conducting a mid-air refueling over Iraq in October 2014, the video was hastily taken down. On November 26th, 2014, MH-60s flown by the “Night Stalkers” took part in the first raid in the 2014 hostage rescue operation in Yemen.
The “Night Stalkers” continue to be deployed to Afghanistan as part of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission after Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan ended in late 2014 and was replaced with Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Throughout that night of December 5th, 2015, a group of Rangers engaged in a firefight with enemy troops near the Afghan-Pakistan border; after about 5 a.m. their commander called for an extraction after they learned of a larger enemy group approaching. A helicopter from the 160th SOAR arrived and began receiving heavy fire from the enemy, with an AH-64 Apache helicopter from the 1st Battalion 101st Aviation Regiment escorting the helicopter, put their Apache directly between the U.S. troops, the helicopter and the enemy forces to draw the fire. As a result, the extraction was a success.
Forces of Valor’s rendition of a MH-47G as it was operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment “Night Stalker” lifts off this autumn. Update: We’ve had quite a few inquiries as to the exact color being applied to the exterior of this particular helicopter. According to the manufacturer, the specific color being used is called Helo-drab. Essentially, it is a very dark olive drab color that, when viewed under daylight conditions, appears grey. Under nighttime conditions, however, the same color looks like a very deep green and is intended to help camouflage the aircraft while in flight. Moreover, a sandy weathering effect was applied to the lower fuselage of the MH-47G to give it a more weather beaten look. Lastly, a rear-mounted M60 machine gun was affixed to the ramp that is intended to provide the crew with suppressive fire capability against ground targets.
