Will Laidlaw - Apache over Libya

Nick had no wish to kill him. This man was the bearer of the message, part of the cognitive effect, and Nick led the patrol away: ‘Done. Regroup at the western holding point. My lead, one-hundred, one-hundred.’

With enough fuel and still plenty of ammunition left, they turned for home, contemplating another daunting coastal crossing. The easy desert transit went quickly. Flat, empty nothing was soon broken up by lights, roads, buildings and the hinterland. With 30mm guns actioned, infrared over right eye and all systems slaved to the trigger, the patrol spread their formation wide and hunted for hostility among the compounds, ditches, roads and trees.

With the coast in sight both front-seaters’ eyes were drawn to a long slow stream of traffic ending at a military checkpoint just a couple of miles to their left. This was the road to Zuwara in the west and Az-Zawiyah and Tripoli to the east, a critical artery and a pro-Gad supply route. The regime had to control it, and that made them vulnerable.

With his right-hand trigger Nick sent out a pulse of laser energy that returned the bearing, distance and precise coordinates of the checkpoint. His right thumb tracked the target with the infrared, keeping it steady on the checkpoint, while with his left hand he stored the information in his target database.

Pressing the transmit switch on the floor with his left foot, he spoke to Reuben in Valkyrie Two: ‘Checkpoint left nine o’clock two miles, stand by for data.’

Two seconds later, Reuben’s onboard modem told him a new data package had arrived.

‘Seen. Good data. Ready your QBOs.’ Reuben now had the tactical picture and was ready to react.

Nick took the patrol out over the sea to relative safety while he made his plan of attack. They had passed the checkpoint close enough for the pro-Gad soldiers to hear them and start running. The recent experience of checkpoints along the same road only a few weeks before would have struck fear through their hearts. The pattern was well established: a checkpoint was set up, however surreptitiously; NATO would identify it and helicopters would be heard; seconds later, the checkpoint was destroyed. Manning a military checkpoint was both boring and dangerous work.

This checkpoint was outside Nick’s target area and he needed NATO permission to strike an opportunity target. He got on the net to Matrix and described what he could see. Within seconds the answer came: ‘You are clear to attack. Report BDA.’

Nick hit the transmit switch again: ‘QBOs. Me shooter, you looker, trail left, break right. Attack heading one-nine-zero. Hellfire to gun, first trigger pull at 4,000m. Turning in now.’

Reuben read back the message to confirm his understanding as JB manoeuvred their Apache to keep the lead aircraft in sight just ahead. He had to watch the target to observe the strike and assist if required; they also had to watch out for any incoming fire in return, effectively becoming the guardian for the patrol.

It was a straight, uncomplicated shoot. The checkpoint soldiers had made a poor attempt to hide themselves and their vehicles among some trees near the road. In taking the patrol out to sea Nick had gone out of audible range, making the soldiers on the ground think they had hidden successfully. But by not joining the traffic they had differentiated themselves, displayed their weapons and underlined their legitimacy as a target. The two or three minutes all this had taken had also been enough for the traffic to move on, leaving a clear, unambiguous target free of any civilians. Hiding among trees may have given sufficient cover to avoid a high-up jet strike, but the low-flying Apache could see beneath the branches, right into the hiding place. There was no cover, and hell was about to thunder in off the sea.

Little Shippers counted down the range: ‘All steady… in constraints… five hundred to go. Missile will come off the left side.’ His calm tone was intended to reduce the adrenaline that accompanies shooting.

In the front seat Nick was absorbing the forty or so pieces of symbology in his right eye telling him the Hellfire was ready and locked-on and his laser was functioning correctly, and giving him every detail he would ever need about the aircraft’s height, speed, power and heading. He could tell where Little Shippers was looking, where the other aircraft was in relation to him, where the target was and where the coast was. He had to select which information was immediately important. He knew the target was his priority. Reuben and JB would do everything he needed from the wing aircraft, and Little Shippers would deal with their own positioning and aircraft management. Now Nick just had to select the target and decide whether it was good to shoot or not.

He could see which vehicles were manned and which were empty. Selecting the empty vehicle furthest from the pro-Gad soldiers, he actioned a Hellfire missile with his left thumb and pulled the trigger with his index finger. The missile roared away from the aircraft and obliterated the vehicle.

Nick paused. He could have launched two more missiles in quick succession and controlled all three in the air at once. But this would have given no chance to pro-Gad on the ground, and he didn’t need them to die. He needed to deny their vehicles, their weapons and their equipment, but he wanted them to have a chance to run for their lives. And they did so with impressive speed. Ten soldiers threw away their AKs and leapt over each other to put distance between themselves and the checkpoint. Three more missiles followed into the technicals at the now abandoned checkpoint. Four vehicles gone, no loss of life, checkpoint scrubbed and more pro-Gad out of work. Job done. The patrol turned north and headed for Ocean .

Back in the Ops Room the JCHAT feed that had been idle for 90 minutes streamed a SITREP:

Valkyrie. 7xHellfire, 540x30mm. Targets destroyed. 6xTechnicals, 1xbuilding, multiple mil pers. Zero CD. Zero civcas. Outbound. ETA 10mins. [10] Brief factual text conversations keep all commanders informed. Here Nick had transmitted to the ABCCC, who had then sent the text on JCHAT. His full message was, ‘Callsign Valkyrie has fired 7 Hellfire and 540 30mm destroying 6 armed pickup trucks, 1 building and several Regime soldiers. There was no collateral damage, nor were any civilians injured or killed. We are now returning to HMS Ocean where we expect to arrive in 10 minutes’

Another result, and they were on their way back. Ocean got into position to receive the aircraft, and a couple of minutes later Nick came over the net: ‘Valkyrie inbound, Mother visual. Weapons safe.’

I remained in the Ops Room until the roar of both aircraft could be heard on the flight deck. The front-seaters would be getting out of the aircraft very soon and making their way down to the flip-flop. My next job was to debrief the patrol, review the guntape and draft the MISREP. John and I took the maps and the timeline and headed off to the flip-flop. We descended the chain ladder into the planning compartment and saw Nick already in and signing in his personal weapons and morphine.

John was straight in with the baiting: ‘Sir, seven Hellfire and no ZSU 23-4? What happened, did you miss it?’

‘Didn’t see it, must have been switched off and hiding,’ Nick offered, knowing he was about to be mauled.

John turned to me. ‘See, if we’d been on it that ZSU would have been done right with the first trigger pull, no problem.’ He looked at Nick. ‘So, just me and the boss with the ZSU kill then. Shame, I thought you were going to join our exclusive club. Never mind.’ Then, with an even more sarcastic inflection: ‘Come on, load up your guntape and let’s see what a pick-up truck looks like when a Hellfire hits it… again.’