Fire Strike 7/9

splat?

By calling a bug-splat, I was gambling on the exact trajectory of the bombing run. I’d be dropping five- hundred-pound bombs twenty-five metres from our lads, hoping the momentum of the drop would hurl the frag away from us and into the enemy.

‘A bug-splat? You’re fucking cleared!’ The OC yelled, without waiting for me to explain. ‘Just get the jets in!’

‘Dude One Three: I’m calling a bug-splat!’ I pawed the dirt-spattered map in front of me, double- and triple-checking our positions. ‘I want you to drop a GBU-38 twenty-five metres to the north-east of our lead grid, coming in on a 045-degree line of attack. Confirm.’

The pilot repeated the instructions. ‘Banking south-east to begin attack run. Stand by.’

As the jet came around in a screaming turn, my heart was in my mouth. I knew if I had the grid one digit out, I’d kill a lot of our guys. Plus if I’d got my map-reading wrong, or misjudged the line of attack, I might kill the enemy but smash the lads at the same time.

The OC’s blind faith in me, his JTAC, was humbling. Yet right now, I didn’t have a clue whether I was about to save us, or damn us all to hell.

Twenty One SAVING PRIVATE GRAHAM

I guess Chris didn’t know what a bug-splat was either, but he knew I was about to try something completely fucking desperate. As the jet tipped in, he was screaming for all stations to get their bloody heads down.

Above the crack and thump of battle, I had a call coming in on the TACSAT. I guessed it had to be the F-15 pilot seeking final clearance to do the mother of all insane airstrikes. It wasn’t. It was his wing.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Dude One Four: I’m visual with more enemy rushing your lead position. Scores of heavily armed fighters converging on your lead grid.’

‘Roger. Stand by. Dude One Three: attack now! I need that fucking bomb in! No change friendlies danger-close twenty-five metres from drop — you’re clear hot!’

‘In hot,’ the pilot confirmed. A beat. ‘Stores.’

‘Thirty seconds! Thirty seconds!’ Chris was screaming over the radio, so the lads still fighting could get their bloody heads down.

As the JDAM plummeted earthwards from 20,000 feet, its four V-shaped tail fins steered it into target. The dumb bomb had been rendered smart by the addition of a simple GPS-based homing system. It was upon that I was relying to smash the enemy, and not us.

In the bomb came, a five-hundred-pound blunt-headed warhead the height and breadth of tree trunk. As it screamed down, the snarling wolf-howl of its inrush drowned out even the battle noise. Then the detonation.

The flash was right on top of us, white-hot and searing. The blast wave punched through the trees like a tidal wave, the snarl of the explosion entombing us in a roaring wall of deafening noise. As the blast thundered onwards across the valley, all around me soldiers lifted their heads and their weapons from the dirt. I could see that the lads here were still alive: it was the boys of 2 Platoon who’d been right under the bomb.

‘BDA!’ I screamed. ‘BDA!’

‘BDA,’ came the pilot’s voice. ‘Bomb impacted thirty-three metres north-east of your lead platoon. Five enemy pax killed outright.’

YES! GET IN! But we needed confirmation from 2 Platoon that none of them had been smashed.

The OC was yelling for the lads to check in. ‘Arsenic Two Zero, Charlie Charlie One: confirm all OK.’

Silence.

‘Repeat: Arsenic Two Zero, Charlie Charlie One: confirm all OK!’

Silence again.

‘I repeat,’ Butsy yelled. ‘Arsenic Two Zero: confirm all OK!’

Chris and the OC got on the net, screaming for the lads to get on the air and respond.

Finally, a voice came up on the net. It was 2 Platoon’s radio operator.

‘Arsenic Two Zero: sorry about that, but we’re deafened. We couldn’t hear you. Confirm all are A-OK.’

‘Dude call signs: friendlies are all OK,’ I yelled into the TACSAT. ‘Repeat: all A-OK. I want immediate re- attack, same ordnance, advise best target.’

‘Dude Zero Four: visual enemy pax north-east your lead platoon. In static positions, thirty metres from nearest friendlies.’

‘Roger, attack as before: come in on a 045-degree run exactly, no change friendlies.’

‘Roger. I’m tipping in with a GBU-12 to hit that position.’

Chris and the OC put out the all-stations warning for the lads to get on their bloody belt buckles. The GBU-12 is an eight-hundred-pound bomb, so bigger than the first drop. It homes in on the hot point of a laser beam, as opposed to being GPS-guided. As Dude Zero Four went in to do the drop, his wing would have a laser fired at the target, to guide in the bomb. In theory, laser-guided was more accurate than a JDAM. But it relies upon the person firing the guidance laser, so more could go wrong.

The pilot started his run, as rounds and RPGs slammed into the bush all around us. We had to smash the enemy fast if we were to get our wounded lads out, and the bigger the bomb the more we could kill.

‘Call for clearance,’ came the pilot’s voice.

‘No change friendlies,’ I yelled. ‘Clear hot.’

‘In hot,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Stores.’

The second warhead came howling through the skies like it was coming in right on top of our position. For an instant I wondered if the pilots had lost their laser spot, or got the grid a digit off. I held my breath, tensing for the impact.

And then the bomb was tearing past and slamming into the earth. The pulse of the blast was more powerful this time, like a giant’s sledgehammer smashing through the trees, as eight hundred pounds of high explosives tore the ground and the air asunder. Blasted chunks of shrapnel and rock and shredded branches were spinning through the air, and smashing back down to earth. I yelled for a BDA.

‘BDA: the bomb hit in the centre of the enemy mass,’ the pilot reported. ‘Scores of dead and injured.’

An instant later we got the call from 2 Platoon: again, they were deafened, but still breathing.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Dude One Three: visual with pax extracting their wounded to the north-east of your lead grid. Plus visual with six-man RPG team approaching your positions.’

‘Leave the wounded, smash the RPG team. No change friendlies, same attack run, you choose munition.’

‘Roger. Tipping in with a GBU-12. I can see them firing an RPG: get your boys to get their goddamn heads down.’

I cleared the pilot in, and the second GBU-12 was on its way. As the eight hundred pounds of high explosives tore into the earth some thirty metres to the north of us, the lads and I were burrowing into the dirt of the ditch like proverbial fucking rabbits.

A third massive, ear-splitting explosion engulfed us, the violent suck of the detonation tearing the air from my lungs. It left me shell-shocked and reeling, with the blood pounding in my head and ears.

The crushing roar of the bomb was followed an instant later by the crump of secondary explosions, as RPG rounds cooked off in the bush alongside us. A belch of black smoke spat into the sky high above, blocking out the rays of dawn sunlight that filtered through the trees.

‘BDA: direct hit,’ came the pilot’s voice. ‘I saw one guy with a backpack of RPGs exploding all over him. Four pax killed. But two stood up two metres from the impact point and ran off northwards. I have no idea how they’re still alive.’