• Пожаловаться

Paul Grahame: Fire Strike 7/9

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Paul Grahame: Fire Strike 7/9» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. Город: London, год выпуска: 2010, ISBN: 9780091938062, издательство: Ebury Press, категория: nonf_military / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Paul Grahame Fire Strike 7/9
  • Название:
    Fire Strike 7/9
  • Автор:
  • Издательство:
    Ebury Press
  • Жанр:
  • Год:
    2010
  • Город:
    London
  • Язык:
    Английский
  • ISBN:
    9780091938062
  • Рейтинг книги:
    3 / 5
  • Избранное:
    Добавить книгу в избранное
  • Ваша оценка:
    • 60
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Fire Strike 7/9: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Fire Strike 7/9»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

‘Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods — unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction.’ — Duncan Falconer Meet Sergeant ‘Bommer’ Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He’s an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller — pronounced ‘jay-tack’) — a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A-10 tank-busters, F-15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it’s at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone. Fire Strike 7/9

Paul Grahame: другие книги автора


Кто написал Fire Strike 7/9? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Fire Strike 7/9 — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Fire Strike 7/9», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

So powerful was the kickback from the cannon, that it had been known to stall the aircraft’s giant turbofan jet engines. In theory they could be restarted in mid-air. But I didn’t fancy being an A-10 pilot and trying. Either way, the A-10 was fast becoming my aircraft of choice in Afghanistan.

I scrabbled about in the rear of the wagon for the handset of my TACSAT, a UHF ground-to-air radio. The back of the Vector was my domain. JTAC Central. It might look like total chaos, but it was my chaos. My fingers grabbed the TACSAT handset from under the seat, and I jammed it against my ear.

Hog Two Two, Widow Seven Nine, do you copy?’

There was a burst of echoing static in my ear. It was drowned out by a volley of bullets slamming into the compound wall directly behind us, chunks of blasted mud wall hammering off the Vector’s armoured sides. I glanced skywards, cursing for the A-10 to respond.

From the TACSAT a black cable snaked out of the Vector’s open hatch, connecting to a satellite antenna atop the wagon. From there, the signal beamed skywards to the receiver embedded in the nose cone of the jet. But the TACSAT was a line-of-sight comms system. If the A-10s were out of sight they would miss my call.

Widow Seven Nine, this is Hog Two Two, you’re loud and clear.’

Yeah! We were on. ‘Sitrep: engaging enemy RPG team in north– south woodline two hundred metres due east of our position. Can you see our tracer?’

‘Negative. I don’t see your tracer,’ came the American pilot’s calm drawl.

I’d already talked the A-10 pilots around our position. I’d given them the layout of the three platoons below us, and their routes of advance into Adin Zai. Using maps compiled from aerial photos by our GeoCell unit, we’d located the three targets of today’s mission — Objectives Silver, Gold and Platinum. The last — Objective Platinum — was a suspected Taliban training school.

I’d briefed the pilots on the weapons systems Intel reckoned the enemy had in there. Apart from the usual — small arms, machine guns and RPGs — there was a B-10 107mm anti-tank gun, a big and nasty bit of kit.

The A-10’s one drawback is its speed. Maxed out it only does 420mph, about the same as that achieved by the P-47 Thunderbolt, the Second World War aircraft the A-10 is named after. That left it vulnerable to the kind of fire put up by a 107mm anti-aircraft gun.

I checked the GeoCell map propped opposite me on some ammo crates, searching for the enemy position. For a second it struck me how it would really chafe if those ammo crates got hit by an RPG. I forced the thought to the back of my mind.

I ran my finger along the map east from our position, and found the enemy treeline. I took a slug of flat, lukewarm Sprite from an open can, spat out a couple of dead flies, then spoke into the handset.

‘Enemy RPG team in treeline running north–south for one hundred metres from ridge line, then dog-legs south-east for fifty, terminating in a dirt track running west–east along riverside. D’you see it?’

‘Visual treeline,’ came back the pilot’s reply. ‘This is what I see: L-shaped wood with smoke plumes at north end, just below demarcation line.’

Result! I glanced at the GPS I had hung from the roof at the front of the wagon, and did a flash of mental arithmetic. ‘Enemy coordinates are 67473628. Nearest friendlies — our position two hundred metres west. Readback.’

The pilot read the details back to me.

‘Affirm,’ I confirmed. ‘I want immediate attack with three-zero mike-mike strafing treeline on a south-to-north attacking run.’

I checked the GeoCell map one last time. The tiniest fraction of a mistake — one digit wrong on the coordinates — and I would bring down the strafe on to our position, or worse still that of the lads below. I double-checked the A-10’s line of attack: it should keep the 30mm cannon fire well away from us and the 2 MERCIAN lads.

‘Tipping in,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Requesting clearance.’

It’s the JTAC who ‘buys the bomb’ — always. It’s our call to ID and clear a target, to choose the weapons system, and to make sure friendly forces are a safe distance from the strike. Without my final clearance, the A-10 pilot would abort.

I stuck my head out the top of the wagon and searched the sky to the south-east, the direction the A-10 should be attacking from. As I did so, a barrage of rounds started sparking and whining off the armoured roof of the Vector. I needed that bloody strafing run, and I needed it now. But I couldn’t see the A-10 anywhere.

I caught the distant flash of sunlight on metal. It was an aircraft, but it wasn’t where it should be. It was coming out of the rising sun directly to the east of us. On that line he’d be hitting the treeline cross-wise, which was no fucking use to anyone. Worse still, we were directly in his line of fire. Those 30mm cannon rounds would make mincemeat out of the Vector.

I yanked the handset up on its lead. ‘Abort! Abort!’ I yelled. ‘Abort! Fuck off and attack from south to north! Attack line as instructed!’

‘Roger, aborting,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘South-to-north attack run. Banking around now.’

I watched the pilot pull out of his dive, and roll the aircraft into a tight left-hand turn. Thank fuck for that. The squat ugly form hadn’t been nicknamed ‘the Warthog’ for nothing. It was neither graceful nor pretty, but as a ground attack aircraft it has no equal.

‘Repositioning,’ the pilot confirmed. He popped the jet, bringing it up in a screaming climb. ‘Visual with enemy pax in the woods,’ the pilot continued. ‘The treeline is twenty metres across, and I can see armed figures running around in there.’

From the front of the Vector I could hear Chris briefing the OC, Major ‘Butsy’ Butt, on all that I was doing. The OC was a blinding commander, and he had total trust in the air power. Previous contacts had proven what a battle winner it was.

Still, he was down in the bush of the Green Zone, having gone firm on the start line, and he had to be wondering what the fuck was going on. Before his men had even begun their advance we’d started world war three up here, and there were rounds and RPGs and jets screaming through the air.

It was Chris’s job to keep the OC informed of all that I was doing. He was monitoring my frequency, which was reserved solely for JTAC-to-air comms, and relaying all to the OC, which left me clear and focused to call in the warplanes.

The A-10 reached the top of its climb and keeled over, coming nose-down on to the enemy position. The seven-barrel cannon fires wherever the jet is pointing, so the pilot has to dive directly on to target.

‘Tipping in,’ came the pilot’s drawl. ‘Requesting clearance.’

At that moment a third pair of RPGs came howling towards the wagon. I ducked, my head and shoulders buffeted by the powerful shockwave as the rockets howled past the Vector’s open turrets. They were fag-paper close to us.

‘No change friendlies!’ I screamed into the handset. ‘You’re clear hot!’

‘In hot,’ came the reply. ‘Engaging.’

I was oblivious to the enemy gunfire now. I had to see the attack go in. It was crucial for the JTAC to confirm the success of any airstrike. The pilot might report a good hit, but the aircrew didn’t always see everything. To wrongly report a target eliminated and allow your lads to advance could cost many good men’s lives.

The A-10 seemed almost to stall in mid-air, as the Gatling gun opened fire. There was a long, thunderous ‘brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’, as the roar of the seven-barrel cannon echoed around and around the valley. It sounded like one of those automatic machines that counts tenners at the bank, only magnified a thousand times over.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Fire Strike 7/9»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Fire Strike 7/9» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Dakota Meyer: Into the Fire
Into the Fire
Dakota Meyer
Ed Macy: Hellfire
Hellfire
Ed Macy
James Rouch: Blind Fire
Blind Fire
James Rouch
Джон Шеттлер: Sea of Fire
Sea of Fire
Джон Шеттлер
Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
Отзывы о книге «Fire Strike 7/9»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Fire Strike 7/9» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.