Alex Duncan - Sweating the Metal

The Taliban started firing at him as soon as he started running but he made it across in one piece and slumped down behind the wall. Although he could see the house clearly from where he was, the Apaches were a lot higher up and further away – around two kilometres from his position. It was imperative that they identify the Taliban’s position accurately and, given the proximity of friendly forces to the target, the choice of ordnance was vital too; there’s a real chance of fratricide with rockets at that distance, due to their spread on impact, and it’s even close for the 30mm cannon – although the 30mm is accurate to within three metres, Carter’s position relative to the target was still outside of what’s considered safe distance back in the UK. So he had to get it right.

Back in the cab we can tell he’s having a lot of difficulty getting his message across to the Apaches. We can hear the intensity of fire that he’s taking down there, because every time he keys the mike we can actually hear the RPGs flying over his head and the frantic sound of the guys around him returning fire, the sound of heavy machine-guns engaging and the noise of rounds zipping past and hitting the ground next to him.

Lt Col Tootal’s voice comes over the radio. ‘This is Sunray. Can any Chinook to the west of Now Zad assist Widow Seven Zero and describe where the Engagement Zone is?’

‘Sunray, this is Splinter Two Four. We’re visual over the engagement area,’ I call looking at my map. ‘Ugly Five Zero, Splinter Two Four. The enemy is in the vicinity of Blue Five, repeat Blue Five.’

‘Roger that, Splinter Two Four, Blue Five.’

The Apaches now have a rough idea of the vicinity of the farmhouse, but Matt needs to be sure that they have a dead-on, accurate fix on the position of the target. He and the Paras involved in the firefight are so close that if the fire is remotely off target it will wipe them out instead of the Taliban.

‘Ugly Five Zero, Widow Seven Zero. Confirm, it is the compound south of my position. Distance 200 metres. Three enemy.’ As he keys the mike, I hear the ‘whoosh’ of an RPG followed by an explosion. Things are desperate down there. The Apaches still can’t identify the specific target that Matt wants taken out. ‘Ugly Five Zero, Widow Seven Zero, wait one,’ says Matt.

He explains his predicament to Captain Mark Swann, the head of Patrols Platoon, and they come up with a rather unconventional idea: they’re going to mark the building with a Light Anti-Tank Weapon (LAW). A Para called Bashir Ali (‘Bash’) picks up the LAW and prepares to fire it at the enemy position. As he does so, he’s struck in the chest by several 7.62mm AK-47 rounds. They hit his body armour and ignite some tracer rounds in a magazine on his chest webbing, which catches fire.

The impact knocks Bash off his feet and a quick-thinking buddy pulls him into cover and rolls him in the dirt to extinguish the flames. Incredibly, he is unhurt. He dusts himself off, picks up the LAW and positions himself once again in clear view of the enemy, the rocket launcher on his shoulder.

Matt informs the Apache of his plans. ‘Ugly Five Zero, we’re going to mark the building with a LAW.’

‘Widow Seven Zero, Ugly. Confirm… with a LAW?’ asks the pilot, surprised.

‘Roger that, with a LAW,’ says Matt. ‘Standby.’

Bash fires. His aim is dead on and the warhead explodes against the firehouse sending a huge pall of black smoke and flames skywards.

‘Widow Seven Zero, Ugly. We have the building.’

‘Ugly, look south from that building and thirty metres away you’ll see a wall with a load of Paras behind it; that’s us. You’re clear hot, initials Mike Charlie.’

Whenever a JTAC calls in anything that’s Danger Close, he has to give the pilot his initials to indicate that he’s taking responsibility for it if it goes wrong. In effect, the ordnance he calls down is his but it’s fired by proxy.

‘Widow Seven Zero, Ugly Five Zero. Roger that commander’s initials are Mike Charlie. Visual with target, engaging now with 30mm. Keep your bloody heads down!’

A hail of 30mm cannon shells rain down on the house, killing or injuring everyone inside it. Matt and the Paras then move forward and clear the house, but all they find are splashes and pools of blood on walls and in the dirt, some flip-flops and the detritus left by the enemy. No bodies. The Taliban try to take their casualties and dead with them, just as we do.

From our vantage point above the town, we see everything happening below us; the radio calls colour in and add detail to the picture. I’m greatly impressed by Matt – by his coolness under pressure and his ability to think outside the box. Clearly others are too (partly for his actions in Operation Mutay, and his bravery in exposing himself to enemy fire to call in air support, he is awarded the Military Cross).

By now, we’re low on fuel again. The ground units are still involved in firefights and pushing forward, so we return to Bastion to refuel. Several hours later we get the call that they’re ready for extraction so we return and, after a short time holding off station, we get a new grid reference. The guys are falling back under contact so they cross the wadi and dig in on the far side to put some open ground between them and the Taliban. I’m anxious as we make the approach. As always, we’re a big, slow target and rounds are flying.

Andy goes in first again and kicks up the mother of all dust clouds. He lands next to a wall, which is protecting the waiting Paras from enemy fire. There’s no modern expertise, no complex engineering in the compounds and the walls that define them. It’s two-thousand-year-old technology – mud, straw and dung baked in the sun. It’s hard as concrete and utterly impenetrable to almost all of our weaponry. Small arms fire literally bounces off it, leaving barely a dent.

Craig does an amazing piece of flying as, due to the brownout from Andy’s cab, we’re going in blind. He manoeuvres the aircraft gently using the Doppler (an instrument that tells you how you are drifting), the altimeter and the artificial horizon to descend, and gets us down perfectly. The troops board and we take fire but nothing hits us – the Taliban are at least 600 metres away and it’s a tough distance to hit anything unless you can work out angles, the effect of gravity on rounds and take it all into consideration. We get out without a scratch, as do all of the ground troops.

When we get back, we’re invited to the debrief. It’s a first, and we all feel honoured to be included. We’re aircrew, they’re soldiers and it’s really all about them, but there is a huge amount of mutual respect. Listening to what the guys were involved in is humbling in the extreme. It’s an open and honest exchange with the ground units going over the events, the various contacts and asking what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they could improve upon. We hear some astonishing stories.

One of the guys mentions that he was driving a Pinzgauer when he saw a man pop up out of a ditch running parallel to the track, level an RPG and fire at him. The warhead flew between his arms and legs as he was holding the steering wheel and exploded harmlessly against a wall several tens of metres away on the other side. What saved him was the fact that the doors had been removed from the Pinzgauer before the patrol to allow some ventilation and this allowed the RPG to pass straight through. Another Para was walking along and a Taliban gunman stepped out of a compound about twenty metres away and opened up on him with an AK-47. Twenty metres and nothing but empty space between them and the Taliban had the element of surprise. He emptied his magazine and every single round missed the Para, who raised his SA80 to his shoulder, sighted on the target and fired two double taps. Four rounds hit the attacker, who dropped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, dead.