Fire Strike 7/9

‘Six pax have taken cover in a narrow ditch in the woodline,’ the pilot replied. ‘Visual with muzzle flashes from out of that ditch position.’

‘Right, I want you to drop a GBU-12 airburst right on top of ’em,’ I told the pilot. ‘Attack line coming in from the south-west to north-east. Confirm.’

The pilot repeated the details back to me. Coming in on that run he’d be flying over the heads of our lads as he launched his strike. But the trajectory of his attack should throw the blast away from our forces, or at least that was the theory.

A GBU-12 is an eight-hundred-pound smart bomb that can be set to ‘airburst’ mode, meaning it detonates one hundred metres above the target. It sends its explosive force downwards in a funnel of shrapnel that follows the bomb’s momentum. It was the only way to hit those enemy fighters in that ditch, and keep the blast away from our lads.

I listened in as Devo Two One warned his wing of his attacking run, to deconflict the air, and then he gave me the sixty-seconds call. But as Sticky went to pass the warning to the platoon, there was the scream of an incoming mortar.

Sticky and I dived into the open turrets, but we were too slow. An instant later there was a crunching impact, the round smashing into the dirt not sixty metres from our wagon. The wave of the explosion tore across us, and I felt the stinging pain of blast-driven dust and rock and shit smacking into me.

But I was halfway through doing a live run with an F-18, and I was the JTAC who was calling the bomb: I didn’t have the time to worry about getting hit.

‘Time to fucking man it out!’ I yelled at Sticky.

We let out a demented cackle, and thrust ourselves back out of the armoured turrets of the Vector. I swivelled and searched the skies to the south-west for a glimpse of a speeding F-18 Hornet. Almost immediately I spotted the gleaming dart of the aircraft on the far horizon. The pilot was right where I wanted him.

Let’s get the bomb in.

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

‘No change friendlies. Clear hot!’

‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’

The GBU-12 is three metres long, and it ‘flies’ on a set of tail wings. It can be released from several kilometres away, gliding into target with a nine-metre margin of error. At a cost of some $20,000 it was far from being the most expensive munition in the F-18’s arsenal, but it was a peachy one.

Released at height and distance it could take a good thirty seconds to reach target — plenty of time for the 2 MERCIAN lads to get their heads down. This time, there was no conventional ground explosion. As the GBU-12 detonated, the sky above the Green Zone erupted in a massive ball of raging fire.

The blast tore downwards from the epicentre of the explosion. Fingers of hot shrapnel rained on to the enemy position, throwing up a plume of dirt and debris where they smashed into the earth. That enemy ditch position had to have been smashed, but still I needed a BDA.

‘BDA: there’s nothing left alive down there,’ came the pilot’s voice. ‘Correction: one male pax crawling away from the blast site.’ A beat. ‘Correction: he’s stopped moving. Unsure of how many killed, but there are tiny heat spots everywhere.’

‘Tiny heat spots’ equalled body parts. The six enemy fighters in that ditch had been shredded, along with anything else caught in the airburst’s downblast.

Devo Two One had to break off and head for the refuelling tanker. I pulled Devo Two Two in over the lead platoon, and gave him the grid of the most forward troops. The pilot confirmed he was visual with our lads, and happy with their route of advance. He told me that he was scanning the terrain up ahead for any sign of the enemy.

As the F-16 went about its work, Sticky held up an Army-issue Yorkie bar. He traced the distinctive red and yellow wording printed on the metallic blue wrapping.

‘Yorkie!’ he drawled, putting on a deep and manly voice as he did so. ‘It’s not for civvies!’

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had any scoff. I grabbed the proffered bar, tore off one corner with my teeth, and sucked the molten chocolate down in one greedy blast. Everything melted in the intense Afghan heat: food, shoes, your brains even. This was the only way to eat a Yorkie, plus it gave the body an instant burst of energy.

There was a squelch of static in my TACSAT. ‘Widow Seven Nine, Devo Two Two.’ There was an urgency in the pilot’s voice. ‘Tell your lead platoon to go firm! Repeat: your lead platoon to go firm.’

I flicked my eyes across to Sticky, knowing that he was monitoring the air net. He gave me a nod, and put the call through to the OC. Not a word had been spoken between us. That instinctive communication was all part of the joy of conducting the ground-to-air war.

‘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.