Kevin Miller - Raven One

Nevertheless, all the pilots tracked the missile’s bright, elongated tail. It looked much closer when intensified by NVGs, but it soon fell aft. Wilson figured it to be a tactical SAM.

One of the Zaps called, “ Magnum from Zap two-five.”

Looking high out his right side, Wilson saw a supersonic HARM missile fired by one of the Zaps climb high into its profile, searching for a threat emitter to home in on.

As they neared the target area, they began to pick up some AAA off to the left from one of the islands south of the harbor. Unguided barrage fire, this heavy stuff resembled popping fireworks. It was no factor as the Hammers pressed on without reacting.

Cajun came up on aux. “Anyone having trouble with their weapon?”

Wilson punched up his weapons display and selected both JDAMs that were to be dropped on separate DMPIs near the harbor. At first all looked normal, then NO GPS flashed up on the screen. A chill of foreboding came over him as he deselected and reselected the weapons.

Dutch came up and said, “Mine are degraded.”

“ Hammer one-two concur,” Olive added.

Dammit, Wilson thought. We’re less than two minutes from release!

Cajun came up again. “ Irons from Hammer. How are your weapons?”

“Good so far,” the Iron lead replied.

“Roger, Iron , continue as fragged. Break, break, any luck, Hammers ? Check BIT status.” Cajun asked his pilots, who each answered negative .

Why are our weapons bad? Wilson wondered. When the Irons only a few miles away are receiving good guidance? Localized GPS jamming? Were they tracking his division and spoofing the JDAM somehow?

Wilson looked at his display in disbelief. The target area was passing under their nose! And the RWR was suddenly cluttered up with threats, sending distracting deedles into his headset.

Cajun Lassiter had a decision to make and, at their transonic run-in speed, less than a minute to make it. Without GPS guidance the JDAM accuracy decreased, and near misses on the assigned aimpoints were unacceptable. JDAMs could be delivered with a tolerable degree of accuracy from a visual dive, but that would bring the Hammers down into greater concentrations of AAA and would significantly increase each pilot’s risk. Lugging the bombs out of the target area meant degraded maneuvering off target and not accomplishing the mission. Simply dumping the JDAMs in the ocean before recovery was a non-starter for Cajun.

With 40 seconds to the roll-in point, Cajun keyed the mike. “Okay, Hammers, we’re gonna put ‘em all on the wharf. One run. Standard visual division roll-in to the left. I’ll take the southernmost boats… Olive and Flip the middle… and Dutch the northern boghammars . Egress left and south. Check right twenty. Go! Olive, cross under.”

Now alarmed, Cajun’s anxious wingmen responded in order. They set up their switches, found the wharf on their FLIRs in the remaining seconds before rolling in on their targets, and designated where Cajun wanted them to aim.

Wilson eased closer to Cajun and took a look over his LEX at the harbor. He noted several blinking AAA guns, some sending near solid streams of fire into the sky. It was into that image he and his squadronmates would soon dive. Through the goggles he could make out the clusters of boghammars moored along the wharf.

“Don’t ferget yer chaff program,” Cajun reminded them. “Four miles to go,” he added. “ Tapes on! FLIR!”

Wilson’s mouth felt like the desert below. He fought to control the quick breaths through his mouth that seemed to suck in his oxygen mask. Between the Sweeps and Knight clobbering strike common about the will-o-the-wisp contact to the north and the Irons calling in and off on their aimpoints, his mind neared sensory overload. Even more insistent, though, was his own RWR screaming threat indications in all quadrants with near incessant threat tones in his headset. It was all Wilson could do to ensure his switches ready and to maintain position in formation. Adrenaline coursed through his body.

What Wilson could not hear was the AAA below his aircraft, but he sensed the muffled flashes of shells going off underneath him. He moved his head constantly to keep situational awareness inside and outside the cockpit. With too much closure, Olive slid into her new position between Wilson and Cajun and had to throw a wing up in a desperate move to stop her overshoot. Dutch was high and even with Wilson’s wingline. Ready to go.

Was that another SAM to the east? Wilson ignored it and focused on the next 15 seconds… the reason they were there.

“ Hammer one’s in hot,” Cajun called in a calm voice. He pulled his jet across the horizon then overbanked and pulled down into the target area — a move he had performed hundreds of times during his long career.

Once Cajun’s nose was down, Olive followed in the same manner. Through his goggles, Wilson observed the hot exhaust gas that shot from her tailpipes as she selected military and pulled the airplane around. Bright explosions of chaff expelled behind her from buckets on the bottom of her jet. Once her nose committed, Wilson said, One potato, and pushed the throttles to military, rolling left and pulling his nose across the horizon.

For an instant, Wilson looked out his left canopy at the wharf below him. He observed muzzle flashes from several guns, including one big one with a slow rate of fire north of the wharf. He then rolled further left, pulled the stick in his lap so his g-suit inflated, and then sucked the throttles to idle. When he banged out a chaff program and craned his neck to full extension to keep the target in sight, his goggles picked up multiple rows of tracers crisscrossing his view. Some moved fast and some slow against the stationary lights of the harbor and the dark water in the background.

Holy shit! he said to himself. They were diving into a confused buzz saw of AAA, heavier than he had ever seen.

Pulling his nose down to the target, Wilson unloaded and rolled out wings level in a steep dive. As his Hornet accelerated and raced downhill carrying a heavy load of ordnance, his years of training took over. Wilson noted Olive still in her dive, but he didn’t see Cajun. He shot a glance at Dutch, who was behind him with adequate separation, and brought his attention back to the HUD to track his target. Wilson struggled to line his aircraft up on the green HUD aiming cues, which required a lightning quick scan to ensure proper weapons delivery. He made crisp corrections with the stick while slewing the aiming diamond on his exact aimpoint — the middle group of boghammars .

With release altitude fast approaching, he heard Cajun call, “Lead’s off.” Wilson made a last-second azimuth correction, pressed the red “pickle” button on the stick with his thumb, and held it down hard. His HUD release cue “flew” through the velocity vector and signaled the computer to eject the bombs. The airplane shuddered as hundreds of pounds of ordnance was suddenly released from each wing.

Wilson heard Boom! Boom! Boom! in rapid succession off his right side. He pushed the throttles to military and hauled back on the stick to stop his dive. He sensed a bright flash to his left, banged out another chaff program, and jinked hard right into Dutch for a count. He then rolled back to wing’s level in order to catch his bombs’ impact on the FLIR.

He then heard an alarmed Olive call out. “ Skipper!”