Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

actions as tidy as possible. If, of course, your folks at the 366th can make it happen.'

The 366th Wing Tactical Operations Center, RTAFB U-Tapao, Thailand, May 8, 2000, 2200 Hours

'All right, Bob,' Brigadier General Jack Perry, the 366th's commander and the resident JFACC of the UN- sponsored action, said, 'give us a rundown on operations to date.'

'Yes sir,' the colonel commanding the Operations Center said. 'We've been running no-fly operations in the southern part of Vietnam for two days now, and we seem to have things under control so far. The light grays' — F- 15Cs—'from the 390th have gotten an even dozen MiG kills so far, and VNPAF air activity outside their borders has virtually ceased. Also, the movement of Vietnamese units and supplies from the north has slowed greatly, and they have a backup of trains going from Hue back through Thanh Hoa to Hanoi.'

'How about troop movements headed south?' the commander asked.

'Well sir, that's not so good,' the colonel observed. 'Satellite photos show large formations of light troops moving south on foot, with most of them headed for Mu Gia Pass and the old Ho Chi Minh Trail routes. National estimates make their numbers at approximately fifty thousand, in four identifiable divisions. They appear to have nothing heavier than personal weapons, and there are very few vehicles supporting them. Looks like a modern-day version of the Long March. They'll be through the pass and on the trail in less than a week. After that, you're going to have one nasty civil war down south.'

'Just wonderful!' observed General Perry. He then asked the logistics chief, 'And what happy news do you have for me, Harry?'

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Carpenter looked down at the notes on his laptop computer and began to speak. 'Sir, the last elements of the C-Package arrived this afternoon. The Bones from the 34th will start mining operations of all northern harbors, rivers, and estuaries tonight. It will take about two nights to get them closed off. The UN posted the warning to navigators right after the embargo resolution was passed, and Lloyds threatened to pull the coverage from any ship still in harbor after 0000 local time tonight. The B-1Bs will start laying the eggs around 0400 local tomorrow, with activation in forty-eight hours.'

'How about escorts and ROE?' the general inquired.

'Per your orders, sir,' the lieutenant colonel replied, 'no bomber shall drop any mine without logging it with a PY-code GPS receiver supplying the position. Also, each B-1B will be escorted by an F-15C loaded for air superiority and an F-16C with HARMs and HTS for defense suppression, if required. For tonight at least, the dark grays over at the 391st will do the no-fly job for us until that's done.' He took a long breath and continued. 'As for supplies and reinforcements, there's good news coming. Our old friends, the 8th FS from the 49th Wing at Holloman AFB, have just arrived this evening with twelve F-117s to help out with our leadership hunting, should that work out. In addition, we've been getting little bits and pieces of other things, like two RC-135 Rivet Joints to help out with the SIGINT problem. We also got two more E-3Cs from Tinker, to help out the three we already have. The first of the French and British fighters will arrive in about six days, as soon as they can get their tanker support settled. As for logistics, the first of the propositioned ships will arrive tomorrow, so we can stop sweating ordnance and fuel supplies. The Alert Brigade of the 82nd Airborne and 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade are standing by to help with the peacekeeping duties, if there ever are any. They'll bring elements of MAW-3' — Marine Air Wing Three—'and the 23rd Wing at Pope AFB if they ever arrive.' He gave a rueful smile at that, knowing that things were not going well in the area they were about to discuss.

'Okay, ladies and gentlemen,' General Perry announced, 'lets get down to cases. What the hell happened to the enemy leadership, our designated center of gravity? Where are our damned targets? I want some dammed DMPIs, and I want them now! I'm listening. I'm waiting for an answer.' The young brigadier had been under heavy stress already, and was now seriously irritated by a stupid tropical rash he had picked up in this hellhole, by the disappearance of the North Vietnamese national leadership, and by the dumb stares of his bright young intelligence officers. Had he been more of a screamer, he might have enjoyed a late night snack of lieutenant's butt on rye. But now, all he wanted was a target set for his Strike Eagles to hit.

Five hours later, the general was awakened in his hooch by the Operations Chief and Major Goldberg, a particularly disheveled-looking officer, even for an intelligence weenie. After rising and turning the overworked air conditioner to its maximum setting, the general sat down across a small table from the two officers and said, 'This had better be good.'

Goldberg pushed a book across the table. The paper binding was yellowed and stained, and the edges of the pages were ragged. It was in French:

LES CAVES DE TONKIN,

INVESTIGATIONS PRELIMINAIRES GEOLOGIQUES,

ARCHAEOLOGIQUES ET ZOOLOGIQUES, 1936

'What the hell is this, Major. I don't speak Frog,' the General snarled, realizing he would have to stop saying that when their French coalition partners arrived.

'The Caves of Tonkin, sir. Back in the thirties, a French geographer named DuBois did a thorough exploration of the karst caverns near Hanoi. I figured that's where they might be hiding their command and control infrastructure, so I called… an… old friend in Paris. She tracked this down for me. Please be careful with the fold-out maps in the back, sir. The paper is kind of brittle, but they're better than anything that NRO, DMA, or USGS could come up with.'

The general picked up the book, leafed through it, and unfolded the first map as carefully as he would have treated the original manuscript of the Constitution. After two hours of study with Goldberg translating — as the first rays of sunlight began to light the eastern sky — he handed it back, almost reverently. 'Get this all translated, and get the maps digitized and correlated to our datum references. Also, get access to someone who's an expert on the geology of limestone karsts. Now. That means right now, Major!'

A sigh of relief passed around the room. 'We got 'em,' the three officers muttered simultaneously. As the trio broke up, another thought about the French came to Major Goldberg, and he decided to make another phone call.

U-Tapao Royal Thai AFB, May 9, 2000, 2300 Hours

The twelve F-117s lifted off from U-Tapao, topped off their tanks from a pair of 22nd ARS KC-135Rs well out of radar coverage, and headed northeast. Through their FLIR imaging equipment, not a few pilots looked down on Thud Ridge, the karst finger pointed southeast towards Hanoi, which had guided their fathers and grandfathers in daylight on their own missions 'downtown.' But this was a different time, and the new USAF preferred to fight at night, when the optically aimed AAA batteries were largely useless. One of their targets was the Paul Doumer Bridge, proof that at least one colonel who had experienced the Vietnam War on the CBS Evening News had a sense of humor. The mission was to turn Hanoi into a darkened, isolated city, and do it in a single night. The whole purpose of the mission was deception, albeit deception with highly desirable effects. The missiles were still there, the SA-2s and -3s from the 1970s, and a few newer systems were in place, bought from Russia or cash-strapped clients of the now-defunct Soviet Union. Hanoi thought it still had a formidable air-defense system, remembering how many American aircraft had fallen in its rice paddies. Indeed, there was a large museum of such trophies. It is often said that countries prepare to fight the last war. But in the case of Hanoi, the war they planned to fight was two wars back.

Two hours later, the lieutenant colonel flying the lead Nighthawk looked with satisfaction on the image of the Paul Doumer Bridge as he began his attack run. A generation earlier, at the dawn of the age of precision guided weapons, his father had led a flight of four F-4Ds with Paveway I LGBs against this same bridge. Now he was flying serenely over Hanoi, with not a shot flying up at him, lining up on the same structure his dad had nearly died for exactly twenty-seven years ago this day. His target was a bridge piling, which provided structural support for the center of the bridge, in the deepest part of the Red River channel. The two GBU-27/Bs with their BLU- 109/B warheads dropped accurately and hit the target with a pair of huge explosions. When the FLIR screen cleared, he smiled at the result. On either side of the piling, the bridge was down, like a giant V into the river. The piling itself looked as if it had been chopped off by a meat cleaver, the support tower having been completely destroyed. It would be a while until this link in the Hanoi-Hue railroad would be fixed.

Ten seconds after his bombs hit, he saw the flash off to his right of two more LGBs taking out the air