the microphone. In an attempt to further improve the speed and accuracy of passing target locations, the CAOC directed that a Predator be modified to carry a laser designator. Late in the campaign Capt Larry “LD” Card, one of our weapons officers, flew a test sortie on the Albanian coast to validate the concept. The Predator marked a simulated target using its onboard laser. That spot was visible to LD using his Hog’s laser-spottracking pod, which proved that Predators and Hogs could operate efficiently together. The Predator’s laser could nail down a target location very quickly and avoid the lengthy talk-ons. We were eager to use this new tactic to locate and schwack hidden Serb tanks. However, we were never able to record a successful combat mission with Laser Predator due to the combination of poor target-area weather, limited Laser Predator availability, and—thankfully—the end of the conflict.
Hog success in CSAR included leading two immediate night rescues—the first in US combat history. Our CSAR experts were visionaries and had laid the right foundation to prepare us, and our allies, for this particularly tough mission. Our success reflected those efforts, the participants’ stupendous seat-of-the-pants flying, and their ingenuity. Goldie exemplified that ingenuity when he shut down Serb radars by making “Magnum” calls—those that normally accompany the launch of a high-speed antiradiation missile (HARM)—during rescue of the pilot of Vega 31.
We also put tactical deception to good use. During the first week of KEZ operations, ABCCC announced in the clear over strike frequency, “The KEZ will close in 10 minutes,” followed later by, “The KEZ is closed. All aircraft must depart the AOR.” We understood that the CAOC had directed ABCCC to make those calls. We suggested to the CAOC that code words should normally be used for “KEZ open” and “KEZ closed,” particularly when they were used in the clear. We then worked through our CAOC rep to set up a “head fake”—that is, announce that the KEZ would close and then go back in to look for any targets that might think it was safe to move and had broken cover. Capt Michael J. “Hook” Shenk Jr. describes that mission well.
Capt Ripley E. “Rip” Woodard’s story has nothing to do with employing ordnance, but is simply a feat of courageous airmanship that saved an aircraft with a dual-engine flameout under particularly harrowing circumstances. It is a must-read—twice—that makes it easy to understand why he won the Koren Kerrigan Safety Award in 1999.
One tactical innovation that had enormous potential and just didn’t work out was the employment of a joint A-10 and Apache helicopter team. The US Army had based Apaches in Albania. We had worked with these helicopters before and had some joint tactical-employment doctrine, but some tactical concepts needed to be adapted to reflect the Serbs’ 360-degree, ground-based threat to aircraft. Because the CAOC’s Apache and A-10 reps assumed we would operate together, they worked out a few “practice” sorties during the last week of April. We also looked for additional opportunities to further our orientation. Without compromising our planned KEZ missions, we attempted radio or visual contact with the Apaches as they progressively flew more ambitious training sorties in northern Albania.
To form an effective team, we needed to discuss several issues in detail: CSAR procedures, target identification, and responses to particular threats. We looked forward to the Tirana conference to hammer out those tactical details. As it turned out, Tirana was an operational-level decision meeting between general officers and not one where worker bees could engage in stubby-pencil work. Regrettably, the Apache briefers were not familiar with our KEZ operations and briefed employment concepts and tactics that had been developed during the Cold War. General Short was understandably uncomfortable; he and General Hendrix decided, at that time, not to go forward with Apache operations.
The A-10s and Apaches didn’t fly together in combat; therefore, their potential for success in the KEZ remains pure speculation. Our opinions differed significantly on whether we could have developed workable tactics, but most of us thought it would have been worth the try. The level of military pressure necessary to force a Serbian capitulation was eventually applied to the Serb army by the KLA during a two-week period in early June. Perhaps that same level of pressure could have been applied by the Apaches within days or hours in early May.
Some people may consider the A-10 a Stone Age jet, but its very limitations may have been the catalyst that led to our success. When human ingenuity, born out of necessity, is combined with a cultural desire to find creative solutions to difficult tactical problems, tremendous feats can be accomplished. Such feats accounted for a lot of destroyed enemy armor in the KEZ, and the Hog community should never forget the human traits that led to those results.
The First Night CSAR
Day 4: 27 March 1999. So far so good, if flying an A-10 for seven hours behind a KC-135 in a holding pattern over the Adriatic, while NATO’s air armada wreaked havoc over Serbia, is “good.” The really sad part was that flying nighttime airborne alert was a great mission compared to what most of my squadron mates were doing. They were either sitting ground alert or just watching the war go by from the sidelines at Aviano. We had only been tasked to provide CSAR support as Sandys. Our job was to respond to a jet being shot down and to be overhead in the A-10 —one of the most lethal war machines ever created—to orchestrate the pilot’s rescue. So far no one had been shot down, which was a very good thing, and, as a consequence, our operational involvement had been limited.
That night I was scheduled to fly during the graveyard shift. My wingman, Capt Joe Bro Brosious, and I were to take off at midnight. As we traveled from the hotel to the squadron, NATO cancelled its strikes for the night because of bad weather. The CAOC then cancelled our first airborne-alert CSAR two-ship and placed the squadron on ground alert. Capts Buster Cherrey and John “Slobee” O’Brien had been scheduled to fly first and were now pulling ground alert as Sandy 30 and 31.
I turned my attention to more interesting work. In two days our squadron would begin leading daytime attacks on the Serbian army deployed in Kosovo. I was in charge of planning those attacks, so I drove over to wing intelligence, on the other side of the Aviano runway, to review its information. I had just started looking at some Kosovo imagery when an airman in the room yelled, “An F-117 has been shot down!”
That couldn’t be right! The strikes had been called off for tonight. We didn’t even have Buster and Slobee airborne. Later I would learn that, although the NATO strikes had been cancelled, the F-117 was part of a US-only strike.
Someone handed me a set of coordinates and the pilot’s name and rank scribbled on a yellow sticky. I raced back to the squadron and pulled up as Buster and Slobee were stepping to their jets. I gave them the information I had and talked strategy with Buster for about 30 seconds. We decided to have the MH-53J Pave Low helicopters launch when Sandy 41, our second set of A-10s flown by Capts Meegs Meger and Scrape Johnson, were refueling on the tanker. Sandy 41’s job would be to contact the helicopters, update them on the rescue plan, and then escort them to the survivor.
I craved more information. The F-117 had to be a Black Sheep from the 8th FS, the only F-117s deployed at Aviano at the time. I grabbed Lt Glib Gibson and sent him to the 8th to get as much information as possible. Glib quickly procured copies of the pilot’s (call sign Vega 31) route of flight and, most importantly, his ISOPREP card, which contains personal data that only the pilot knows and won’t forget even under a lot of pressure. A pilot reviews that information prior to each combat sortie. Glib, acting on his own initiative, made the important decision to drive out on the flight line to give the ISOPREP-card information to Buster right before takeoff.
Meanwhile I was performing my cat-juggling act at the squadron. I had intelligence pull maps and plot the survivor’s coordinates. I was relieved when I saw that he was within 20 miles of the Croat-Serb border and well clear of major threats. CAOC personnel were on the phone wanting to know our plan. I told them the time we wanted the helicopters to launch and that they should muster as many air-refueling tankers as possible. Gas equals time in operations such as this, and there was no way to know how long it would take us to complete this mission. The F-16CG (Block 40) and F-16CJ (Block 50) squadrons had volunteered an additional six jets apiece for the mission. Thirty minutes after first notification of the shoot down, I was giving the most important briefing of my life, informing the F-16s on their roles in what proved to be the largest CSAR since Vietnam.
