Fire Strike 7/9

‘Arsenic Three Zero, Widow Seven Nine,’ I yelled. ‘Give me a grid of your position and talk me on to the contact point.’

‘Roger. Grid coming up. Stand by.’

As the platoon commander spoke I could hear the whipcrack of rounds in the background. I could just imagine what that poor bastard was going through. He was in the midst of a shit fight, with thick vegetation all around him and terrified of losing some of his lads. And now he had some arsehole of a JTAC telling him to get out his map and compass and try to work out where the hell they were positioned.

I waited for his reply, with one ear scanning the TACSAT for any comms from the F-16. At the same time I got Sticky to grab the GeoCell map and spread it out on the roof of the wagon. Fuck any rounds that were coming our way. It was time to nail these bastards.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Arsenic Three Zero.’ The platoon commander sounded breathless, like he’d been running. ‘Friendly grid: 986745. Repeat: 986745. I’ve got eyes on the enemy firing point. They’re one-seven-five metres due east of us.’

Yeah! Get in! It was still danger-close, but 175 metres was good enough. It was time to smash ’em. I bent over the map, trying to convert the six-figure grid the platoon commander had given me to an eight-figure grid, the minimum the F-16 pilot would need.

‘Describe the enemy position,’ I yelled into Sticky’s handset.

‘Treeline one-seven-five metres to the east,’ the platoon commander yelled back. ‘Running north-west to south-east. There’s a kink at the southern end like the handle of a walking stick.’

‘Roger. Out.’ I passed the handset to Sticky, confident that he would do what was needed. He’d warn 3 Platoon when the bombs were coming in, and Chris would brief the OC.

I pressed the TACSAT to my ear, and dialled up the F-16. I gave him a sitrep, passed him the eight-figure grid of the friendlies, described the enemy position, and told him to get visual with that treeline.

‘Comin’ down for a closer look,’ came the pilot’s reply. ‘Zooming in my optics to your coordinates. Right, I’m visual with the friendlies.’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘Now visual with muzzle flashes coming out of a dog- legged treeline, one-seventy metres east of there. Visual with heat spots in that treeline. Six pax at least.’

‘Stand by to attack,’ I replied.

‘Jet visual with enemy pax in the treeline!’ I yelled to Chris. ‘Danger-close one-seventy metres to 3 Platoon. I need OC’s clearance.’

With a danger-close mission I needed top-level clearance. As Chris dialled up the OC, I could hear Sticky briefing 3 Platoon on what was happening. He didn’t know what bombs I’d be using, and in truth neither did I. I was running through the ordnance package of an F-16 in my head, and trying to work out what was best at 170 metres.

‘OC says to hit ’em!’ Chris yelled up at me.

We were on! ‘Wicked Four One, Widow Seven Nine. I want you to hit those heat spots with a GBU-38. Repeat: GBU-38. I want you coming in on an attack run…’

I gave the pilot a bearing that should throw the blast away from 3 Platoon. A GBU-38 is a five-hundred-pound JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition). It’s a standard Boeing Mk-82 ‘dumb’ bomb, turned ‘smart’ by having the JDAM precision guidance system strapped on to it.

Standing on end, a GBU-38 is about the same height as Throp, and twice as nasty. It’s not the heaviest bit of kit the F-16 carries: the thousand-pound JDAM makes double the noise and blast. But it was about as big a bang as I felt I could risk at 170 metres danger-close to our lads.

‘Visual with six enemy pax in the treeline firing RPGs and small arms,’ the F-16 pilot radioed. A pause. ‘I’m sixty seconds out.’

‘Sticky, give 3 Platoon the sixty-second call!’ I yelled. ‘And check they’ve not changed position.’

It was bloody hectic now. I had less than a minute to do a visual check of the F-16’s attack run, check 3 Platoon hadn’t moved, and make the call to clear the airstrike in or abort it. I glanced to the north-east, and bang on cue there was the knife-sharp wedge of the F-16 arrowing out of the burning blue of the Afghan sky.

‘Call for clearance,’ intoned the pilot.

I glanced at Sticky. He gave me a smile and a thumbs-up.

‘No change friendlies,’ I told the pilot. ‘You’re clear hot.’

‘In hot,’ the pilot confirmed.

There was a tense silence in my handset, as the pilot powered in towards the release point.

Then: ‘Stores.’

Sticky radioed the warning to 3 Platoon: ‘Bombs away!’

I saw the jet pull up over the release point, and then it was streaking past right in front of our noses. I didn’t see the bomb fall, but the flash of the impact was like an ammo dump blowing in a Second World War movie. An instant later the awesome roar of the explosion swept over us, followed by the air-rush of the shockwave.

‘Fuckin’ hell!’ I yelled. ‘Get in!’ I turned to Sticky. ‘Get a sitrep from 3 Platoon.’

The lads knew the bomb was going in, so they’d be on their belt buckles hard in cover. And the airstrike had looked to be bang on target. But the splinter distance — the safe range for friendly forces — of a GBU-38 is 275 metres, and that’s with the good guys in proper cover. I wanted to make totally sure the 3 Platoon lads were still alive.

‘Wicked Four One, BDA,’ I radioed the pilot. ‘Repeat: BDA.’

I was asking the F-16 pilot for a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA). I didn’t really need one, for the contact had died down to nothing. But with his sniper optics he was sure to see more than any of us lot.

‘Ground troops are all A-OK,’ Sticky reported back to me. ‘The impact point was right on top of the enemy. Platoon commander was visual with three enemy with RPGs as the bomb hit ’em.’

‘Widow Seven Nine, BDA,’ the F-16 pilot cut in. ‘The only thing left is a smoking crater. Enemy position obliterated.’ He paused for a second to let it sink in. ‘Repeat: enemy obliterated. And sir, I gotta bug out, ’cause I’m all out of fuel.’

Fair enough. Enemy obliterated. What more could I ask of him?

Four RIPPED

The F-16 got ripped by a pair of F-18s, which I’d have on station for two hours. It was 1445 by now, and the 2 MERCIAN lads were on the move again, pushing further into enemy terrain. But we now had a barrage of mortars smashing into the Green Zone.

From the Vector’s open turret I could see the smoke plumes of those explosions. The mortars were impacting four hundred metres in front of us, and two hundred behind our forward line of troops. The barrage was creeping closer to our lads, and it wouldn’t take long for the dicker to walk the enemy mortars on to target.

I split the F-18s. I got Devo Two Two over a two-mile-square grid where we reckoned the mortar team were firing from. I briefed the pilot to search with his FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) scanner for a hot mortar tube. If he found it he was to smash it.

I got Devo Two One over the Green Zone to the front of our line of troops. All three platoons were in fierce contact now, sandwiched between the enemy to their front and a mortar barrage at their backs.

The focus of enemy fire seemed to be coming from a patch of dense bush two hundred and fifty metres to the north-west of our lads. I gave Devo Two One the coordinates of a hundred-metre-square box to search. Within minutes the pilot came back to me.

‘Visual six pax two-two-five metres north-west of your lead platoon. Visual four pax with weapons. Visual with muzzle flashes all along the woodline.’

‘ Nearest friendlies 225 metres south-east of enemy,’ I told the pilot. ‘Describe enemy position.’

I needed a better idea of the target, so I could work out how best to hit it. Our lead platoon were close to the splinter distance of some of the weapons that the F-18 was carrying.