Dan Hampton - Viper Pilot

Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw a large, dirty-brown cloud rising from the center of the site and knew the cluster bomb had hit.

“ELI Four… see any secondaries?” Secondaries were one very visible indication that you’d hit something. But even without them, my CBUs could still really mess up a SAM site. Close detonations can knock launchers off their mountings and put fatal holes in things that don’t burn, like radars or people.

“Four… negative.”

Well, I hadn’t, either.

But I also hadn’t seen any more missile launches, so maybe the Iraqis were dazed or hiding in shelters with their skulls ringing. Maybe not. Didn’t matter. What did concern me was the fact that there was an entire SAM site down there no one had known about. A missile battery that could kill our attack helicopters on their way into Baghdad to support the Army and Marine ground units.

AT 10,000 FEET AND TEN MILES FROM THIS NEW TARGET, I crossed Highway 2 and pulled the power back to hold 400 knots. ELI Four had reappeared and was hanging fairly close off my left wing. I smiled. It was always disconcerting for young wingmen to get separated from a flight lead, especially being shot at while over enemy territory. But it happens, and he’d managed to rejoin without garbaging the radios, hitting me, or getting himself shot down.

“ELI Three is 6.1.”

“ELI Four… 7.2.”

I nodded. I’d done a lot more maneuvering than he had, so I’d be shorter on fuel and it was better that way. Beginning a wide, right-hand turn, I looked back at Baghdad, and switched over to the AWACS.

“LUGER… this is ELI 33.”

The Tigris was a sage-green ribbon against the darker green fields on either bank. A good-size suburb known as Taji lay just west of the city. As a vital rail depot for Baghdad, this place was supposed to be a nest of SAMs, including a few SA-6s, so we’d give it a wide berth. Shaking my head, I tried to see the railroad tracks but could not. (I’d actually bombed the Taji railway station in 1991 to keep the Republican Guards from moving. Small world.)

LUGER wasn’t talking, so I scanned my comm card and found the frequency for HYPER. Iraq was divided into north, center, and south sections, based on latitude. HYPER was the AWACS that controlled north of the 35th Parallel, so maybe I’d have better luck with him.

I didn’t.

“ELI Three… LAPEL One.”

“Go.”

“Ah… LAPEL One has a stuck refueling door and I need to RTB. I’d like LAPEL Two to join up with you.”

“Where’s LAPEL Three?”

“They came off the tanker ten mikes ago… probably inbound and close by.”

“LAPEL Three is Bull’s-eye two-five-zero for eighteen. Just west of the airport,” he added.

I looked over the wingtip at Iraq. Baqubah was off to my northeast and that little auxiliary field was just off the nose. This was as good a place as any.

“ELI Three flight and LAPEL come up on Cobalt Eight.” This was LAPEL’s frequency but if their flight lead was going home he wouldn’t need it. Now we could all talk and data-link together. “LAPEL Two you are now ELI Five.”

“Five copies. 10.6.”

Good—he had plenty of fuel. ELI Five was a young, cool-headed captain named Dave Brodeur, otherwise known as Klepto. I slewed the diamond over Baqubah, took a mark, and data-linked it. Several bends in the Diyala River were heavily irrigated and looked like big green testicles. It was the perfect rejoin point for a bunch of guys with more balls than brains.

“LAPEL Three, cleared overhead above fifteen thousand. ELI Five stay overhead at twelve K and head’s up for Taji.”

They all acknowledged. I had one can of CBU-103 plus a full load of 20-mm for the cannon. Number Four had a HARM left and the gun, while ELI Five had two cans of CBU with his gun. Glancing at the lineup card, I saw LAPEL Three had CBUs and his wingman had HARMs.

I’d sketched out a rough picture of the compound and figured, based on the northerly winds, we should hit the southern revetments first, so the smoke and dust wouldn’t obscure the rest of the compound.

“ELI Three this is LUGER.”

Of course it is.

“LUGER, ELI Three… come up Zinc 14 and stand by for data.”

Zinc 14 was a secondary strike frequency. This way, I could pass him the information without trashing the radio for the other fifty jets listening in. I peered at my scribbling and diagram. “North three-three… two-five… four-one. East four-four… two-seven… two-nine.”

Staring south at Baghdad, I saw more missile launches toward the southeast, and I wondered about ELI One. But Zing was a big boy and knew what he was doing. I’d never get down there and get involved quick enough to make a difference. These situations all had a “flow” to them, and it was difficult to mesh with flights that were already on station and involved in attacks.

“LUGER… this is an SA-3 complex… at least three batteries observed. Fifty-seven mike mike Triple-A.” I remembered the last bunch of shit whizzing by the cockpit and added, “Probably Zooce as well.”

“Zooce” was slang for the ZSU-23-4. This was a very small, very mobile anti-aircraft gun. A four-barreled, high rate-of-fire system, it was nearly impossible to defend against and was a really nasty piece of work.

“LUGER copies all. Say intentions.”

That word again.

“LUGER, keep all friendlies clear of the northern half of Killbox 88 Alpha Sierra. ELI and LAPEL are working the target from the north and east. Will advise.”

I came through my third orbit and saw Triple-A over the little tan airfield to the south.

“LAPEL Three is on station.”

I looked up but saw nothing. The upper-level clouds seemed a bit lower though, and much thicker. All the more reason to destroy this site today so they wouldn’t try to move it under cover of bad weather.

“LAPEL… when I call ‘Attacking,’ you arc southeast of the target. Turn in and attack when I call ‘Rifle’ or ‘Defending.’ Any defensive call gets a HARM from LAPEL Four.”

This was a Hunter Killer attack I’d personally developed and refined over the years. One pair attacks from one axis, while the other pair arcs on another side of the target. This forces the SAM to react to both threats and usually resulted in shots fired. If the attacking flight is fired on, then they simply abort, turn sideways, and begin to arc. The other pair immediately turns in and attacks. HARMs are fired to distract, and eventually someone works in close enough to kill the SAM. If all went well, which rarely happens, when the first pair released weapons, the second pair would begin their attack. “Rifle” was actually a term for shooting a Maverick missile, but I’d always hated extra words. In a perfect world, we’d use three pairs, called a six-pack, to overwhelm and nail the site. These guys all knew the attack but it felt better to reiterate the major points.

Incidentally, attacking and killing a SAM site is at least as difficult and dangerous as killing an enemy fighter jet. These days, I believe, it’s harder, because modern missile technology is deadlier than the quality of any enemy pilot who might face us. During the Vietnam War, over eleven hundred fixed-wing aircraft were shot down from SAMs and Triple-A; seventy-seven were shot down by MiGs. The U.S. military had lost just one fixed-wing aircraft to air combat in Operation Desert Storm and Kosovo, but eighteen were downed from ground threats. Yet, despite this, there was still no such thing as an air-to-ground “ace.” Makes you wonder.

“Copy all,” LAPEL Three replied. “What target?”

I glanced at the diagram. “If I abort then take my target. If not, I’ll zap you a DMPI.”

Designated munition point of impact. Proof that whenever possible, the military will always use four words when one would suffice. DMPI meant “target.”