Paul Grahame - Fire Strike 7/9

‘Roger. Lead platoon going firm,’ I confirmed to the pilot.

‘I’m visual four males going into the treeline three hundred metres ahead of your lead troops. They’re taking up positions on the track along which your men are advancing. I now have six pax spaced thirty metres apart, visual two with AK-47s.’

‘Roger that. Wait out.’

I asked Chris to confirm with the OC that we could attack. They weren’t firing at our lads, but they had been PID’d with weapons, and they were in ambush positions on our line of advance. The OC came back saying he was happy for the strike to go ahead.

For a second I considered what weapon to use. The F-18 carries an M61 Vulcan cannon, so maybe a strafe would do it. But the enemy were well spread out in a 150-metre stretch of dense woodland. The F-18’s six-barrel 20mm cannon wasn’t quite the A-10 Warthog’s seven-barrel 30mm Gatling gun. Instead, I opted to go for bombs.

‘ Devo Two Two, Widow Seven Nine . I want immediate attack on target using two GBU-38s, coming in on a north–south attack run.’

‘Affirmative. Two GBU-38s dropped simultaneously on target.’

I cleared him in to attack, and he gave me the ‘in hot’ call, the last before ‘stores’ — bombs away. Before he was able to release, Chris spotted the plume of a mortar firing in the far distance. At last: we were visual with that bastard enemy mortar team .

Chris gave an ‘all stations’ warning of the F-18 bombing run, so all ground call signs could get their heads down. He also warned the OC that he was visual with the mortar firing point. He reached for his map, and began trying to work out the grid from where the mortar was firing.

I got the ‘stores’ call from the F-18 pilot at the same moment that the OC came up on the net, telling us to smash that mortar tube — for under the rules of engagement we had every right to do so. The F-18’s bombs were in the air, and there was nowt I could do but wait for the impact. So I dialled up Devo Two One , the F-18’s wing.

‘ Devo Two One, Widow Seven Nine , sitrep: enemy mortar located three kilometres to the east of our position. Just fired, so tube will be hot.’

‘Roger. Fully refuelled and two minutes out of your ROZ. Just as soon as I’m in the overhead I’ll start my search…’

The pilot’s last words were lost as a massive double blast roared across the valley: BOOOM-BOOOM! Two GBU-38s had ploughed into the earth one after the other, smashing apart either end of the woodline.

Each threw up a boiling plume of debris, from out of which an angry cloud of dark smoke billowed skywards. As the explosions reached their zenith they merged into one giant wall of searing greyblack stretching all along the woodstrip.

‘ Devo Two Two , BDA. Wait out.’

I wanted a battle damage report from the pilot, but first I had to control the jet searching for the mortar.

‘Jackpot!’ Chris exclaimed, as he passed me back a scribbled note of the mortar’s grid.

‘ Devo Two One, Widow Seven Nine , I have enemy mortar grid: 46278190. Repeat: 46278190. Readback.’

The pilot repeated the grid.

‘Affirm,’ I confirmed. ‘I want you to find that base plate and smash it.’

‘Roger. Two minutes out from…’

‘ Break. Break ,’ his wing aircraft cut in, using the codeword to clear the frequency of all traffic. ‘BDA: four pax dead. Low fuel. Tanker.’

The brevity of the pilot’s message said it all. He was sipping on air and breaking off for an urgent refuelling.

Chris briefed the OC that he would lose air cover for several minutes, as we had one F-18 refuelling and the other searching for the mortar. There was another distant bang and a plume of smoke. It was dead on the grid that Chris had given for the mortar.

To formulate a grid from a visual reference point is about the hardest thing in our game. Chris would’ve checked out the terrain as he could see it nearest the mortar, and chosen a couple of distinctive features — maybe an odd-shaped compound or distinctive hillock. He’d then have matched those with what he could see on the map, and worked out the grid from there. Chris was a bloody genius at it. The best I’d ever seen. I’d never known him get a single digit wrong. And he was bang on this time.

‘ Devo Two Two, Widow Seven Nine ,’ I radioed the F-16. He was still a minute out and I wanted to refine the plan of attack. ‘Bank up to 30,000 feet, and don’t come below. I want you to search around that mortar grid and tell me what you see.’

‘Roger. Climbing to 30,000. Zooming in my optics to grid as given now.’

With one F-18 having left the airspace, I didn’t want the mortar crew to know I had another jet coming in. At 30,000 feet the F-18 would be totally silent and invisible. That mortar was the single greatest threat we faced right now: it was targeting us and, more importantly, the lads in the Green Zone.

Ninety seconds later I got the call that I was waiting for. ‘Sitrep: at grid given I see three males standing around a glowing metal tube. And guess what — I’ve just seen ’em reloading it.’

Chris radioed an all-stations warning that a mortar round was about to go up, so the lads could get into some good cover. There was a distant boom, and the pilot radioed me that he’d just watched the muzzle flash of its firing.

‘Confirm no civvies in the area,’ I asked the pilot.

‘Affirm. No other pax present.’

The enemy were renowned for sighting their mortar tubes with women and children gathered around them, as cover. I had to double-check and brief the OC. Ultimately it was his call, but one that he’d delegate to me.

‘ Devo Two Two , hit it as fast as you can any line of attack,’ I told the pilot. ‘Your choice of ordnance.’

I gave him final clearance and he gave me ‘stores’. We were all eyes on the far horizon. There was a sudden flash, followed by a boom, and a couple of seconds later a mushroom plume of smoke rose into the distant sky. He’d hit it with a 500-pounder, I reckoned.

‘ Devo Two Two ; BDA.’

‘It’s a Delta Hotel,’ came back the pilot’s reply. Direct Hit. ‘There’s bits of warm pipe everywhere. And nothing left of the three pax around the tube.’

Fucking result.

It was 1630 by now, and we’d been in the game for eleven hours solid. Unbelievably, we’d yet to take any casualties. The platoons were just short of the three targets — Objectives Silver, Gold and Platinum — and the limit of their advance. They’d been bar-mining their way into compounds, blowing holes in the walls and clearing them as they went.

The bar-mines were hammered on to the wall with spikes, and the flick of a switch set off a fifteen-second fuse. There’d be the cry of ‘MINE!’ Then the crump of an explosion. As soon as the hole was blown, the lads would follow through with grenades. We didn’t know which doors and entrances might be booby-trapped, so the only ‘safe’ way in was by blowing the walls.

As each new patch of territory fell to us the radio chatter was going wild, with enemy commanders urging their men to stand and fight. It was far from over yet.

The two jets were ripped by a singleton F-18, call sign City Desk Four One . I was getting shedloads of F-18s launched off an American carrier steaming in the Gulf. It was all good by me. The American pilots were doing sterling work of smashing what I told them to smash, whenever I told them to smash it. It was a top job.

As I talked the new pilot around the battlefield, the lads of the 2 MERCIAN sniper team came over to have a natter. They’d been up on the high ground all day long, but hunkered down in their hides. They’d seen little or no action, for most of the contacts were happening at the far end of their effective, eight-hundred-metre, range. I was feeling a little sorry for them.