Dan Hampton - Viper Pilot

Each canister had about two hundred softball-size bomblets inside. The number of bomblets per thousand square feet is called the pattern density, and was mainly decided by how far above the ground the canister opened. This was controlled from the cockpit and varied according to the target. You’d need a greater bomblet density to knock out tanks versus unarmored targets like SAM sites.

Wheeling around to the right, we came back to the south on a fourteen-mile arc. The “3” was glowing softly on the RWR at about my two o’clock position. Orange-colored tracers shot up several miles off the nose and slightly right. They were aimed in our general direction but too far away to be a threat. I remembered that there was a small auxiliary airfield in that area and angled away slightly. As the next stream of tracers passed well behind my tail, I keyed the mike. “ELI Four… Slapshot SA-3, bearing two-two-zero.”

The other F-16 turned, vapor streaming from his wingtips, and pulled hard across my tail to point at Baghdad. I checked to the right far enough to keep him in sight and stared at the target area. The Diyala River twisted out from the city like a dirty green snake. East of it, where we were, the khaki-colored ground was deserted. Past the river, toward the SAMs, the earth became a mottled quilt of sage-green fields, gray roads, and scattered villages.

“ELI Four, Magnum SA-3… Bull’s-eye zero-two-two for nine.”

A huge plume of white smoke mushroomed beneath his wing as the HARM came off. We both pulled away to the south, away from the missile’s path as it flattened out and sped toward Baghdad.

More Triple-A arced upward from the downtown area and the southern suburbs. This had to be directed at the Marine Hornets beating up on the Kut Highway and bridges over the Tigris. So much the better, as it would be a distraction to the Iraqi Air Defense units.

The target I’d marked was now directly off my right wing at twelve miles. Zippering the mike, I rolled almost onto my back and pulled to center the steering in the HUD. Popping upright, I brought the throttle back to hold 450 knots and quickly searched the ground. At my left, ten o’clock position, the downtown Triple-A had opened up again and the Tigris River was nearly fluorescent green in the weird light. A big canal ran along the Madina slums on the northern edge of the city, and I was surprised that one entire section was bright red. Iron in the water or sewage—either way, it was strange.

“ELI Three, attacking.”

With my right thumb, I called up the SMS display and checked the CBU settings one last time. The CBU-103 was a vast improvement over older cluster bombs. It could correct for winds, and in Iraq the wind was a very real variable that could easily mean the difference between an effective attack or a miss. Fins on the tail would also cant to spin the canister, and once it reached a preset rate, the canister would open and the bomblets would deploy. I confirmed all these settings, pulled the power back to hold 425 knots, and kept a slight descent as I passed 10,000 feet.

Black smoke continued to rise from the south and east, and my radar was speckled with contacts. Occasional flashes along the river caught my eye; it looked like the downtown fighting was still very heavy. Farther west, I saw the hanging gray fingers from more SAMs but hadn’t seen them launch. The RWR was saturated and useless, so my eyeballs were everything at the moment. The Strike frequency was alive with close air-support chatter, so I turned the UHF radio down.

At seven miles, I was in the sweet spot. The jet was throbbing perfectly, I was dead on-target, and everything was working. The HUD symbology for this particular weapon was called a “staple,” because that’s what it looked like. The top and bottom represented the maximum and minimum release ranges for the CBU based on my altitude, airspeed, and winds. There was a smaller staple for the optimum zone, and this is usually where we tried to release—situation permitting. I watched the little caret slowly slip down the staple and squinted through the HUD. The TD box was sitting firmly where I left it, but I was still too far away for fine-tuning.

“ELI Three… break right. Now!”

My throat clutched, but my hands instantly moved. Instinct and training habits took over again and I shoved the throttle forward, over-pulled to the right, pumped out chaff, and yanked the fighter sideways back toward the north. I was directly over some shitty little town on Highway 5 with a perfect four-way canal-road intersection. Rolling out directly over the road, I slammed the stick forward, felt my helmet smack the canopy, and blinked as the cockpit dust floated into my face.

“Missile in the air! Missile… ah… north Bull’s-eye ten.”

I twisted in the seat and looked back over my left shoulder, bringing the jet along, too. There! I picked up the smoke trail as it cleared the horizon line. Actually, there were two.

“ELI Three’s tally two missiles. Left eight o’clock… they’re climbing eastbound and correcting north.”

That’s why I hadn’t seen them. They’d come from the edge of the city just past the main canal and everything down there was some shade of gray.

“ELI Four is blind.”

I kept my eyes on the SAMs. The wingman would be fine. It was hard to say which of us was targeted, since the RWR was still saturated. Flying by feel alone, I pulled the power back a bit and brought the nose up. Still looking back past the tail, I checked left and thumbed the decoy on again just in case. I also sent a data-link.

“Four… stay above ten thousand until visual. One is re-attacking from the north.”

Cranking up hard on one wing, I swung around in the no-man’s-land between the highways and put Baghdad on the nose again. With the target in the HUD, I pushed over and called up the CBU symbology again.

Even as I watched, another immense cloud of light smoke billowed up against Iraq’s greenish-gray background. Slewing the diamond left, I put it directly over the smoke and stabbed forward to make a new steerpoint.

“ELI Four’s visual.”

I zippered a reply and squinted through the HUD. Like tan warts, I could make out several raised berms in a flat area just north of the canal. But without a better picture, I’d have to get a lot closer.

Where’s the fucking targeting pod when I need it?

Up the Pentagon’s ass.

Suddenly, several glowing streams shot upward from the site, and I flinched. The heavier Triple-A looked like fiery tennis balls as they rose quickly, hung in space, then fell back toward the earth. These seemed to be aimed right at my forehead, and for a long moment, I pressed ahead directly toward the ground fire. Descending through 9,000 feet, I was in range of anything down there except a kid with a slingshot.

That was probably next.

Leaning forward, I followed the last hanging smoke trail back to the ground and… there! In front of the center earthen berm were four horseshoe-shaped revetments. Where the smoke trail began, I could plainly see the light-colored, pointed tips of missiles. Triple-A began flashing from the top of the center berm, but I ignored it and concentrated on refining my aim just a hair. As the white-hot balls whizzed up past the nose, I put the tiny pipper on the center of the revetment, bunted forward slightly, and mashed the pickle button.

One CBU canister kicked off, and I instantly pulled straight up and shoved the throttle to mil. They’d been leading me with the anti-aircraft fire, so I had to change position now. As the jet came through the horizon, I snapped over onto my back and sliced back toward the farmland north of the city.

Slapping the throttle back, I was now passing through 5,000 feet and 500 knots, and I yanked violently right, then rolled out. Bunting again, I came back to the left in time to see the puffy white bursts overhead. Pulling back hard on the stick, I popped some chaff and zoomed up a few thousand feet, adding power as I climbed. Twitching my tail like this would hopefully defeat the stuff I couldn’t see but knew they were shooting.