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Old 18th May 2015, 19:24
  #163 (permalink)  
Mechta
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: At home
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There's always the possibility in the OBL raid, that after the hit itself, a sizable piece of a redundant experimental helicopter was dropped on the site (maybe from one of the CH-47s reportedly involved in the raid) to:

  1. Make an iconic photo opportunity of an otherwise pretty nondescript location.
  2. Give other nations the impression that the Americans were further ahead with putting stealth helicopters into service than they really were.
  3. Add a significant amount of 'wow-factor' to the story.
  4. Establish the level of co-operation between the Pakistanis/Chinese and/or others, before the subsequent retrieval of the 'wreckage'.
The Americans would have been well aware that the wreckage would soon be inspected by knowledgable foreign parties, thus a film set type mock-up would have been rapidly outed. Whatever was left behind would have had to be pretty convincing.
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