Ed Macy - Hellfire

I instinctively placed the crosshair in my right eye over the target building and called, ‘Gunner – Target – HMD – Target building low left.’

Billy had already switched his acquisition source from the previous grid to my Helmet Mounted Display and pressed the slave button. Following every movement of my right eye, the TADS swivelled itself towards where I was focused. Billy scanned the picture the TADS was giving him on his MPD; I couldn’t look away until he was happy.

‘On…’ he said. ‘De-slaved.’

The TADS was back under his control and not slaved to my eye; my gaze could now sweep wherever I wanted. I glanced at my MPD to confirm he had the correct target.

I kept in tight to the target, a trick I’d learned in Northern Ireland. Whenever a helicopter circled directly above anyone who was in the wrong, they assumed the helicopter crews could see everything they were doing. They weren’t always right. The sky had very little in it, so a helicopter was blatantly obvious. The ground, on the other hand, was full of clutter: buildings, trees, walls, bushes, high ground, alleyways, low ground, deep avenues of trees, you name it. It was a huge expanse from our perspective, and pinpointing the enemy was like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

‘I’ll increase the radius of the turn to make it easier on the TADS,’ I told Billy. ‘We’ll fire a witness burst into the compound, just as we clear the smoke, starting ninety degrees out from the boys and finishing at the forty-five.’

I was still nervous about this first shot. It was dangerous practice to fire over the heads of your own troops – or even point towards them in case the range information was wrong and the rounds went long or short of their intended target. That was why we were offsetting.

Billy placed his crosshairs on the centre mass of the target building and I confirmed on my MPD that he had the correct target. ‘Widow Seven Zero, Wildman Five One, target identified. Ready with thirty mike mike.’

‘Widow Seven Zero – fire as soon as you can so we can extract to the west, over.’

‘We’ll kick off with a witness burst. I need you to confirm that we have the correct target. If we do, we will cover your extraction.’

He acknowledged.

Billy scoured the target for innocent civilians, but could see no one in the compound at all.

‘Clear to engage, Billy.’

From a standing start to full speed in a quarter of a second, the M230 cannon thundered away beneath our feet.

‘Firing,’ I called. ‘Confirm splash.’ I wanted the JTAC to confirm that the rounds were landing in the right place.

The cannon fired all twenty rounds in two seconds but I could still hear and feel every single one. The sheer brute force of the thing pushed the Apache’s nose to the right and twisted us, ever so slightly, left wing low. She regained her perfect orbit the second she stopped, with me following her on the cyclic.

I called Camp Bastion. ‘Saxon Ops, this is Wildman Five One, engaging compounds with covering fire, out.’

I looked out of my cockpit, low and left. The twenty rounds went straight into the middle of the compound, with no collateral damage. Billy’s firing was absolutely accurate, and more importantly still, so was the gun’s. The rounds kicked up enough dust to obliterate the view inside the compound but the Widow couldn’t see them land behind the wall.

I asked Billy to change to a ten-round burst and go for the building instead.

I transmitted, ‘Stand by for a further witness burst.’

Then to Billy: ‘Clear to engage.’

Billy squeezed the trigger again until the cannon had dispensed its ten rounds.

I transmitted, ‘Firing now.’

The rounds impacted on the target building, ripping holes in its roof and gouging into its sides. Even from this height I could make out slivers of rock and adobe blasting all over the place.

‘Negative, negative.’ Widow Seven Zero shouted. ‘Go fifty metres south-west. The enemy have moved; go fifty metres south-west.’

As we flew over our troops I spotted a square compound with one single single-storey building hidden in the trees fifty metres further south-west.

‘Confirm the very next compound south-west of our fire is the compound you want us to attack.’

‘Yes, yes,’ came his urgent reply.

‘Stand by while we set up.’

I lined up the Apache to the east of the target, heading north, so I could keep an eye on the Widow’s position.

Billy called, ‘Ready.’

He let go with another ten-round burst onto the wall facing the Widow so he could observe the splash they made through the trees.

‘Firing now,’ I informed the Widow.

The Widow shouted, ‘On target, on target’ the second we saw the rounds impact on and around the compound wall.

Billy changed the burst rate back to twenty and unleashed two further onslaughts into the building on the north-western edge of the compound. I watched the boys break from cover then looked at the MPD to see what Billy could see.

The rounds exploded with a ferocity I had never imagined. The training ammo we used was inert; these High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) rounds were the real McCoy. I knew what they claimed to be able to do, but I was completely unprepared for what I saw. They were far more deadly than their name suggested.

I saw the heat haze swirling behind the succession of little black dots that flew up the image and dropped onto the building. Each one produced an almighty flash as the armour piercing punched its way through roof and walls. Once through the building’s skin, the incendiary set the interior alight. Thick black smoke billowed from a small window like steam out of a pressure cooker. I could only guess at the effectiveness of the HEDP’s fragmentation. The blast should have sent red-hot shards of metal winging their way into every corner.

Chunks of rock and adobe flew off the exterior and the courtyard entrance remained empty. Either there was no one at home or the frag was working big time. My money was on the latter; the Patrols Platoon had been able to get the hell out of that field without being engaged again.

I lost my visual lock on them in the plantation to the south for longer than I was comfortable with. I couldn’t raise the Widow. Then I spotted them moving fast into an orchard to the south and south-west of where they’d been pinned down.

The boss should have been extremely thankful that they’d managed to hold out. I wouldn’t have wanted to explain why we hadn’t been ready to Tootal. Without Apache cover they’d been sitting ducks, out in the open, nowhere to go.

When I finally got hold of them they were moving through the orchard 200 metres west of the compound Billy had just annihilated. Widow Seven Zero informed us that they had broken contact and were going to search the area they’d come under fire from. ‘Report any movement in the target compound.’

Saxon Ops at base gave us grid 41S PR 3957 8673. The target was a suspect white pick-up in the north of Now Zad. With the threat brief earlier, this target was deemed to be a direct threat. Billy handed it over to Nick and Jon because they couldn’t speak to the ground troops.

I kept a close eye on Jon as he peeled away to the north.

We couldn’t see anything moving or leaving the compound or the wood alongside it. We covered the lads through what seemed to be a cross between an orchard and open parkland.

They looked like ants from my vantage point, but I could see them employing good FIBUA tactics as they entered the compound. No surprises there; 3 Para were masters at Fighting In a Built-Up Area. Once inside they reported loads of blood and blood trails all over the place, but no human life.

‘They must have dragged the injured and dead into the trees, undercover of the dust and smoke,’ I said.