altitude on the way home. He received CAOC clearance and shifted the entire KEZ package to the west to provide SEAD cover. Once again, there was a low-weather deck. Based on their experiences during that first night attack and their mistaken belief that to kill this radar they had been given an exception to the normal altitude restrictions, they flew another attack below the “real” ROE altitude. On this mission, Stu’s gun malfunctioned just as he lined up the enemy radar in his gunsight. We all listened raptly to their mission debrief.
Col Al Thompson (40th EOG commander), Maj Scratch Regan (74th EFS commander), Lt Col Coke Koechle (81st EFS operations officer), and I were the normal ROE gatekeepers at Gioia. Perhaps this sounds like a scenario from
The disconnect between what various pilots understood to be minimum-allowed altitude during an attack on the radar site was illuminated as a result of the debrief of a Flat Face mission flown by Scratch and Maj Dirt Fluhr. Due to the weather along the coast and with CAOC direction, they were forced to fly between cloud decks to search for the radar. As they neared the suspected coordinates of the elusive target, they dropped through a thin “scud” layer at about 4,500 feet. Once below the clouds, they searched the area along the coastline for the radar, threats, and a way back up through the weather, which they knew they would eventually need. During this search the Serbs shot a heat-seeking missile at them. Scratch and Dirt promptly defeated the shot, popped up through the clouds, and returned home.
Following their close call, Scratch and Dirt conducted the standard debrief with our squadron’s intel personnel. They stated that they were probably at about 4,000 feet at the time of the missile shot. Our excellent intel troops faithfully recorded their details and dutifully forwarded the mission report to the CAOC. That statement of flying at 4,000 feet—below the normal ROEs’ 5,000-foot minimum altitude for identifying targets, and 8,000-foot minimum used during attacks—without an operational explanation was certain to draw attention from anyone without our earlier understanding of the ROE “exception.” I learned an important lesson and noted that a timely operations review of the unit’s mission reports by its supervisors will provide a clearer picture of what is actually taking place and help reduce friction and fog. I had suffered a miscommunication on what I thought was a “onetime exception.” to the minimum attack-altitude for that firstnight sortie to use while they attacked the radar. I had understood that we were back to adhering to the normal ROE altitudes. If I had reviewed the mission reports, I would have been alerted to the squadron pilots’ inconsistent understanding of the ROEs’ minimum altitudes. We fixed this immediately. Although it seemed contrary to letting the intel troops do their job, in a shooting war with highly politicized ROEs, it is essential to use every available means to stay informed and ensure a good information flow at all levels.
The lightning bolt from the CAOC was swift and unequivocal. The two pilots involved, plus a supervisor
We had to get the details together fast. We heard pilots express surprise that the CAOC was upset about Scratch and Dirt inadvertently flying at 4,000 feet in daytime since the CAOC had already approved flying below 2,000 feet at night on that target. That’s when I realized the disconnect between the ROEs the CAOC understood to be in place and the ones our pilots were using. I interviewed all the pilots involved and looked over the mission reports from the previous two Flat Face sorties. They all told the same story—they had assumed that low-altitude attacks on the radar were approved. They had not listed their attack altitudes in their mission reports since that data was normally sought only for weapons-release conditions and threat reactions. These were the same guys who had routinely put themselves at risk to comply with the ROEs—as they understood them. They had enforced the ROEs to ensure that they, and the NATO fighters they controlled, would never come close to hurting civilians in Kosovo. I had no reason to doubt their integrity, professionalism, or sense of duty. When it came to accepting a higher personal risk to take out an important target, they went all out. I concluded that a couple of pilots had let their fangs get a mite too long and had taken unnecessary risks. They were grounded a day or more as a result— not to punish them because they went below any particular altitude but to recalibrate their in-flight and on-scene assessment of risk and payoff. These same great pilots justifiably earned important medals for heroism during other sorties.
Colonel Thompson had to decide who would accompany Scratch and Dirt to see “the Man.” I was the commander, present at the beginning of the misunderstanding, and offered to go. Stu nobly offered to explain to General Short his previous sorties and the source of any misunderstanding. Colonel Thompson, although thankful for the offers, doubted General Short would have time to understand all of the convoluted details before grounding our entire group for insubordination. Colonel Thompson had worked for General Short before and decided to lead the two majors to Vicenza. General Short carefully explained to them, Colonel Thompson reported afterward, that he could not tolerate any more ROE deviations, intentional or otherwise. He would expressly approve any exceptions.
Capt Joseph S. “Joe Bro” Brosious’s story provides a happy ending to this tale. One of the guys who had twice been after the Serbs’ pesky Montenegrin acquisition radar finally strafed it with his mighty GAU-8 Avenger cannon. The Hog had proved its versatility once again, showing that it is well adapted to handle some particularly knotty missions. All the guys who had gone after the radar survived, maintained an aggressive edge, and continued to take the fight to the enemy. However, we all learned an important lesson—we could do the enemy’s work for him if we dropped our guard on the ROEs.
The Giraffe
I’ll warn you up front that this is a long narrative. I’ve told this story only a handful of times and have found that it’s best received at the bar on a Friday night over a couple of beers. Its telling usually involves a lot of fighter- pilot hand gestures, and a good deal of profanity—sometimes it even evokes audience participation. A buddy of mine describes this as a story about a few days of “knife-in-your-teeth combat flying,” and the attitude—aggressive or foolhardy—that one can develop while attempting to accomplish the mission. It is an important story, however, that has existed only in the memories and personal journals of a few pilots. Even though it will lose a little in translation, it should be preserved in print.
I was “Sandy 1” on the night of 4 May 1999, sitting 30-minute CSAR alert with Maj Dice Kopacz as my number two. I had arrived at the squadron around 2000 hours, in time to be ready for our normal ground alert from 2100 to about 0500. I noticed a buzz in the air about a “priority target,” and Kimos, the squadron commander, was on the secure telephone for a long time. Most of the night flyers had already launched on their sorties, and everyone else was in pilot rest for the next day’s missions. Finally, after a half hour of pondering, Kimos came to me with a set of coordinates on an orange sticky pad. He simply stated, “There’s a Flat Face radar here. Go kill it.” As it was shaping up, the only available bodies for this priority target were the guys on CSAR alert.
Attack pilots find nothing better than having their squadron commander tell them to go kill a target. We tried to plot the coordinates on our maps only to learn it was too far west. We grabbed a computer and found out that this early warning radar wasn’t in Kosovo, or even Serbia for that matter. It was located on the coast of Montenegro—which, incidentally, was supposed to be a third party during this bombing campaign. Not only did the politically sensitive nature of attacking targets in Montenegro worry me, but also I had concerns about the three unlocated SA-6 batteries that intel claimed were in the area.
I put everyone to work: building maps, working on timing, and getting our night-vision goggles ready. Then I went to the weather shop. The weather forecaster explained that the ceiling was low—real low—2,000-foot overcast with four kilometers of visibility, to be precise. There was not much we could do except fly below the clouds, which would put us well below the altitude prescribed in the ROEs. While I was planning the attack, the
