The car almost drove itself as it twisted down the mountain road from Mister C’s Antares Hotel in Piancavallo to Aviano AB, Italy. Capt John A. “Buster” Cherrey and I had been up and down this road often enough to unconsciously negotiate the sharp turns in the darkness in our mighty Fiat Punto. What interested us most, at 0130 on that morning of 30 March, was the clearing sky visible for 10s of miles to the south. From the switchbacks on the south side of the Dolomite Mountains, we could look down the Adriatic Sea in the direction of Kosovo and then, looking up, could see bright stars through the thin layers of stratus clouds.
As we pulled up to the 510th FS (F-16CG) building, we saw many other cars in the parking lots and noticed a hubbub of activity in the cramped quarters of our generous hosts, the Buzzards. Our squadron, the 81st FS Panthers, had shared its small operations building since 7 January, and it had come to feel like home. In the main briefing room that morning, we would brief the first-ever large, multinational force package to participate in an AFAC mission. It was also the first time in combat history that A-10s would lead such a large mission package. The package would include the following aircraft types: NAEW, E-8 joint surveillance, joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS), ABCCC, Dutch F-16AM air defender, F-16CJ SEAD, EA-6B electronic jammer, F-15Es, French Super Etendard, and British GR-7 Harrier striker.
It was not obvious that A-10s would, or even should, lead this highly visible and complex mission. While we had deployed to Aviano on 7 January to backfill the Buzzard’s AFAC tasking, we had focused on preparing for the CSAR mission from the time of our arrival to the first OAF air strikes on 24 March. We had flown AFAC sorties in Bosnia and participated in practice interdiction packages, but we spent most of our time training for CSAR, with our own pilots and our likely collaborators—US Special Forces and Italian and French helicopter crews. We had also coordinated extensively with the ABCCC and NAEW crews and provided them with standardized CSAR checklists and procedures.
The A-10s initially had a low priority for mission resources.
We knew that the CAOC was serious about ensuring a ready CSAR capability, but since CSAR was a foggy notion for most fast-mover aviators, we had to fight long and hard to ensure we had what we needed to accomplish that mission. For example, the plan for the 24 March start of the OAF air campaign called for our A-10s to be on CSAR ground alert at Aviano AB. Tankers were in short supply, and all noncritical refueling had been eliminated. Since our A-10s cruise at only 300 knots, it was obvious to us that it would take more than two hours to reach and help recover an airman who might be shot down striking targets 600 miles away in Serbia. We convinced the planners that our response time was too long, and they agreed to let us fly an airborne CSAR alert over the Adriatic, without scheduled air-to-air refueling support. We would take fuel from an unscheduled tanker (aka bootleg a tanker) only if a shoot down occurred. After the successful 27 March rescue of the F-117 pilot (Vega 31), our priority for resources increased, and a dedicated tanker was routinely scheduled to support the Sandys on airborne alert.
Before March and except for us, few people thought about using A-10s to attack ground targets. During the weeks between the end of our planned 30-day Operation Deliberate Force rotation and the start of OAF on 24 March, we had quietly increased the number of our A-10s deployed to Aviano from six to 15. Part of the buildup was consciously approved through all channels. We had convinced the CAOC that CSAR alert for both northern and southern Serbia would require a minimum of eight combat-ready A-10s with at least two spares. Some of the other forward-deployed Hogs were the consequence of the 31st AEW’s approving our requests to park more jets in its allotted area and the dynamics of moving crews and aircraft in and out of Aviano. For example, after six weeks at Aviano, I had returned to Spangdahlem on 7 March and left Lt Col Mark “Coke” Koechle, the 81st operations officer, in charge of our detachment of 12 A-10s. Two weeks later we received the warning order to be ready to go on 24 March. I returned with a two-ship of A-10s to Aviano, increasing our force to 14. A couple of days later, another Hog pilot transported some critically needed parts to Aviano, and, voilà, we had 15 A-10s—our force structure at the beginning of OAF.
How would these Hogs be used? Our recent Bosnia experience (1994 and 1995) convinced us that our bosses would ask for A-10 expertise when we began to engage fielded forces. Maj Goldie Haun, our squadron’s weapons and tactics officer, had already given this question much thought and had prepared a concept on how to conduct AFAC-led NATO force packages against fielded forces. On 12 March Colonel Johnson and Colonel Carpenter (CAOC division chiefs for operations [C3] and plans [C5]) came to Aviano to discuss employment concepts with Col Jeffrey Eberhart (our 31st EOG commander). Coke and Goldie were invited to their meeting, and Goldie quickly briefed them on his AFAC concept. During the next two days, FS weapons officers and leadership representatives (rep) from the 81st (A-10s), 510th and 555th (F-16CGs), 23d (F-16CJ), and 492d and 494th (F-15Es) hashed out the plan’s details. The result was Goldie’s plan, which had A-10s leading the day missions and F-16CGs leading the night missions.
The plan was briefed to Brig Gen Dan Leaf, commander of the 31st AEW, on the morning of 15 March by Colonel Eberhart and Maj “Bro” Broderick (31st AEW’s weapons chief). General Leaf gave it a “thumbs up.” Presumably, since the current campaign plan called for night operations only, there was no discussion of A-10 AFACs. They were mentioned solely in the context of CSAR. After Bro’s briefing, Goldie lobbied hard to include A-10 daytime AFAC missions in Colonel Eberhart’s briefing to Lt Gen Mike Short. General Short, as the dual-hatted commander of USAFE’s Sixteenth Air Force and NATO’s AIRSOUTH, was briefed that afternoon and approved the plan to use F-16s as the primary night AFACs and A-10s as the primary day AFACs. The concept was titled the Combined Air Interdiction of Fielded Forces (CAIFF).
Lt Col Gregory A. “Snoopy” Schulze, my predecessor as the commander of the 81st FS, was then stationed at Ramstein AB, Germany, as the chief of USAFE’s flying standardization and evaluation. He had been tasked to take the briefing General Short had approved and make it ready for presentation to Gen John P. Jumper, the USAFE commander, and Gen Wesley K. Clark, who was dual-hatted as supreme allied commander Europe (SACEUR) and combatant commander, United States European Command. During his preparation Snoopy called me at Aviano to get additional details on two unique A-10 target-acquisition capabilities—our binoculars and Pave Penny. Our hand-carried, gyrostabilized 12- and 15-power binos provided a sharper, more color-contrastive, and larger image than the low-altitude navigation and targeting infrared for night (LANTIRN) targeting pod. With the aircraft-mounted Pave Penny laser-spot tracker, we could confirm that another aircraft’s targeting laser was designating the right target before we allowed the pilot to release weapons.
Snoopy called later to say that the CAIFF concept was approved. It was great to get SACEUR to buy the concept, but it was another challenge to translate that concept into a coherent tactical plan that would work in flight. Some expressed concern that circling A-10s over known threats—radar-guided missiles, radar-directed antiaircraft artillery (AAA) sites, and an abundance of man-portable missiles—would be asking to get shot down. Those folks thought the best way to attack Serb armor would be to assemble a strike package just to the south of Kosovo. When alerted by JSTARS of the exact location of a convoy on the move, the attack package could push forward and attack. Still other aviators thought A-10s would be particularly vulnerable due to their large size, slow speed, and radar cross section. Jim Bitterman, for example, was an exasperating nonaviator “expert” and Cable News Network (CNN) correspondent who habitually reported from the end of Aviano’s runway. He generally provided an informative, accurate, and useful commentary. However, as he observed A-10s taking off, he would invariably intone “the low, slow, vulnerable A-10” and muse that we really had no reason to fly in this campaign. Of course, the media did not yet know that Hogs had successfully led the rescue of the F-117 pilot and that they were getting ready to lead the very first attacks on fielded Serb forces.
We ignored those affronts and continued to work on our plan. We knew that no professional army would drive around in convoys, waiting to be picked off like ducks at a carnival—at least, not more than once. We also knew that even tanks would be very hard to find once the Serb ground forces hunkered down in the hilly, forested terrain spotted with villages. Most of all, we were convinced that any Serb foolish enough to open fire on a flight of Hogs would make himself an easy target and a big loser in any weapons exchange.
The CAOC order, which gave us three days to prepare, stated that day-only CAIFF operations would commence 30 March and would be led by A-10s. We speculated that this decision, more than anything else, reflected the need for positive target identification—a task for which the A-10 and its pilots were well suited. Leading these large force packages would pose a new challenge for the Panthers. Although our weapons officers had led large force packages as part of their USAF Weapons School graduation exercise, no one had ever put a mission like this together—with these kinds of targets and so many NATO participants. By contrast, the F-16CG mission commanders who so ably led the first interdiction strikes on 24 March had been practicing AI packages in Bosnia for weeks, and had even done a couple of “dress rehearsals” for the day-one strikes. We would get no such practice—or so we thought.
Coke, Goldie, Buster, and I, with a lot of help, worked intensely during those few days. We coordinated with reps of all the plan’s players: NAEW, ABCCC, JSTARS, tanker, SEAD, jammer, air defender, and striker aircraft. We then put the final touches on our command and control procedures, frequencies, airspace deconfliction, attack coordination, and tactics—basically, all the details a good plan requires. The CAOC directed the force to operate over Kosovo for three hours, an operational constraint which reflected the limited availability of F-16CJ SEAD, EA-6B jammer, and tanker aircraft. The CAIFF mission did not have top priority, so to save on tankers, we used Lakenheath F-15Es. They were there primarily to fly in the air defense orbit that day and would then come down and be our first strikers if we found something. This was a win-win situation, since each of the highly respected Strike Eagles carried six 500 lb laser-guided bombs (LGB) under each wing! For airspace and target-area deconfliction, we split Kosovo into two sectors, with aircraft entering and exiting via Albania into the western half and via Macedonia for the eastern half. We planned to launch a total of eight A-10s. Two two-ship flights would cover the first 45 minutes in each of two sectors, with the other two two-ships swapping in as the first four went to the tanker. We planned to repeat this rotation to cover our 3-hour “vulnerability,” or “vul,” period. I would be the mission commander on the first day, with Goldie as my deputy leading the second four-ship. On the second day Buster would lead, with me as his deputy. Coke would fly on day one in my foursome as the element lead in the opposite sector. My wingman would be Maj Wade “Biggles” Thompson.
I walked into the 510th that morning exactly 30 minutes prior to the time of the mass briefing and exactly 12 hours after leaving the afternoon before. That was as late as I could arrive and still be prepared for the briefing and as early as I could arrive to meet “crew rest” requirements. The hubbub in the hallways took on an ominous tone as a breathless major, who worked in the “Wingtip” (31st AEW’s planning cell), ran up to us with maps in hand. He said, “The CAOC didn’t get approval to use Macedonian airspace to attack Kosovo and you’ll all have to go through Albania. I’ve got some new proposed orbit points on these maps.” This was not good news. The F-15Es would be the only fighters that would be allowed to fly through Macedonian airspace, since they were categorized as air defense. Everyone else—the F-16CJ SEAD patterns, the EA-6B jammer orbits, the two dozen strikers, and us (the AFACs)—would all have to assemble in northern Albania. Moreover, our new plan had to be ready in less than 30 minutes. A mission’s execution often reflects the quality, discipline, and tone set in the briefing. We started the brief with a punctual time-hack—there was no way we were going to begin our first mission command with a late hack and set a less-than-professional precedent! In short, the planning and briefing worked out fine and we launched on time.
The weather, however, was not going to cooperate. Because of the weather and the day-one rules of engagement (ROE), we were unable to engage any targets. Those ROEs attempted to limit risk in an uncertain threat environment by restricting operations to not lower than 17,500 feet and a penetration of not more than 10 miles into Kosovo. Now, 17,500 feet is fine for an aircraft with plenty of thrust and precision-guided munitions (PGM). Its pilot can acquire the aim point using its targeting pod, fly a straight-and-level weapons-delivery pass, and then release its LGBs. A Hog driver, however, must enter a dive and point its nose at the target to expend weapons. At that altitude, a pilot has to enter a steep dive to acquire the target within release parameters. A jet engine’s ability to produce thrust decreases with an increase in altitude, and the thrust required to sustain flight increases with extra weight and drag. It is, therefore, easy to understand why a Hog’s maximum employment altitude is reduced when it’s fully loaded. So our challenge was to find targets from as high an altitude as possible, maneuver the aircraft to put the nose on that target, get a weapons lock-on, launch the missile, and recover without busting the 17,500-foot “hard deck” (minimum altitude, period—not just the minimum weapons-release altitude). Our choice was to operate within this ROE or be slow-speed cheerleaders. On that first mission Biggles and I were working in western Kosovo, south of the town of Pec. I found a hole in the clouds and, using my binoculars, identified a single convoy of four small, dark-green-painted armored cars driving south with military spacing between them. Leaving Biggles up at 22,000 feet, I gingerly pushed the stick forward, lowered the nose, and attempted a Maverick missile lock-on, but my altitude alert sounded just as I brought the armored cars in my TV screen and before I could slew the missile to get a lock. I had set the alert to 1,000 feet above the hard deck, which reflected the amount of altitude I would lose during my dive recovery. Getting a kill on the first sortie was not worth an ROE violation—that sort of breach in air discipline would mean an instant end to our mission leadership. As I cleared Biggles to try a pass, the Serb convoy went under a cloud deck.
That was the best shot anyone had all morning, and the next day, the weather was completely overcast. After surviving the first several missions, we received permission from General Short to lower the ROE hard deck—first down to 15,000 feet and then to 10,000 feet. (One of the themes in chap. 5, ROE will be discussed there by several people at greater length.)
The weather pattern continued to repeat itself and provided us with six unexpected days to practice and perfect our mission leadership. It was challenging for us to keep track of 40-odd aircraft as they flowed into and out of an engagement area protected by enemy air-defense systems and filled with cloud layers. It was a task we learned to accomplish without incident.
The self-initiated pressure to get results was building. We had drilled holes in cloudy skies for seven days without expending any ordnance or slowing down the Serb ground offensive. Finally on 6 April, we got our chance. The Serbs hadn’t started hiding yet. We caught and destroyed several small convoys and other vehicles parked in the open. After landing from that seven-hour sortie, I was pressed to get out the door to comply with crew-rest restrictions (normal crew rest is a 12-hour period that begins when a pilot departs the squadron and ends when he returns for the next day’s mission) but took time to do three important things. First, I distributed the prized bits of weapons arming and release hardware to the ecstatic maintainers and weapons loaders. These swivels, links, and bits of arming wire are attached to the aircraft’s bomb racks and missile rails and arm the weapons when they are released or fired. The maintainers and loaders are proud when their aircraft returns without its weapons and are pleased to get these souvenirs. Second, I briefed the following day’s mission commander on the tactics that worked and those that didn’t. Third, I returned a call General Short had made while I was flying. He was very supportive and asked how the mission had gone. He reminded me to keep the target-identification process rigorous and the “kids” above his ROE altitude. I thanked him for the 10,000-foot hard deck and asked him to consider 8,000 feet. He said he’d think about it.
After the first week of AFAC sorties, the CAOC changed the name of the CAIFF mission to VMEZ (V=VJ [Serb army] and M=MUP [Serb Interior Ministry police] Engagement Zone). About the same time, we were allowed to seek out and destroy targets throughout Kosovo, but still without using Macedonian airspace. VMEZ then changed in mid-April to KEZ, and on 15 April, we finally received clearance to attack Serbia and Kosovo through Macedonian airspace. (For simplicity’s sake, the air campaign against fielded forces is hereafter called “KEZ operations” and the area in Kosovo and southeastern Serbia where we engaged fielded forces is “the KEZ.”)
During the first week of OAF, daily KEZ operations were limited to a single three-hour period from 0600 to 0900. After our early successes, the CAOC expanded KEZ operations to two three-hour daytime periods, with F-16CG FACs from Aviano joining us. Unfortunately, the Serbs were quick to adapt their operations to ours. We soon noticed that the Serb army simply hid its armored vehicles while we were roaming overhead, and then wreaked havoc on the Kosovar civilians when we left. We saw a critical need to increase our ability to influence events on the ground and sent a proposal to the CAOC to expand our operations to near-continuous coverage. That proposal required more aircraft (how and where we got those Hogs is discussed at length in chap. 3, whose theme is beddown). Eventually, with more A-10s and carrier-based F-14 AFACs, KEZ operations reached a cruising speed of 18 hours daily in late April, divided into three-hour periods. There were two “holes” in the schedule around sunset and sunrise, due to limitations in the availability of some key assets (jammers and SEAD). This 18-hour coverage continued until the end of hostilities. The F-16CGs did most of the FACing at night and were assisted by ANG A-10s after they arrived. At night, A-10s, F-16CGs, and British GR-7s flew with night vision goggles.
Extensive coordination was required to make the KEZ operations work well. By late April there were dozens of units, from nine NATO countries, which operated from 15 bases and three aircraft carriers to support OAF. Those nations provided aircraft, which regularly flew the indicated missions during KEZ operations (table 1).
| Country | Mission | Aircraft Type |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium | Attacka | F-16A |
| Canada | Attack | CF-18 |
| France | Attack | Super Etendard, Jaguar |
| Germany | SEADb | Tornado ECR |
| Italy | Attack | Tornado GR.1 IDS, AMX |
| Netherlands | Attack | F-16AM |
| DCAc | F-16AM | |
| Spain | Attack | EF-18 |
| Turkey | Attack | TF-16 |
| United Kingdom | Attack | GR-7 Harrier |
| Supportd | E-3D NAEW | |
| United States | AFACe | A-10, F-16CG, F-14 |
| Attack | A-10, F-16CG, F-15E, F-14, F/A-18, AV-8, B-1, B-52 | |
| SARf | A-10, MH-53J (Pave Low), MH-60 (Pave Hawk) | |
| SEAD | F-16CJ, EA-6B | |
| DCA | F-15A, F-15C, F-16CG, F-15E | |
| Support | E-3 AWACS, E-8 JSTARS, EC-130 ABCCC, EC-130H Compass Call, E-2C Hawkeye, KC-10, KC-135 | |
| Recceg | Predator, Laser Predator, and Hunter |
a attack aircraft that employed weapons under the control of an AFAC.
b suppression of enemy air defenses.
c defensive counterair.
d specialized aircraft that support operations in areas of command, control, communications, reconnaissance, intelligence, refueling, and electronic warfare.
e airborne forward air controller.
f search and rescue.
g reconnaissance using unmanned aerial vehicles.
Keeping these mixed gaggles going the same way on the same day required three levels of planning and coordination. First, CAOC planners would build the packages from the available units to ensure the requisite capability. These packages would be published in the daily air tasking order (ATO) and, more importantly, in the draft ATO. The information in the draft allowed the units to get a head start on planning for the next day’s 0600 vul period.
Aviators representing each of the tasked units accomplished the second level of planning in the Wingtip, the wing’s mission planning cell at Aviano. They turned the ATO KEZ package information into two-page “coordination cards” to be used in the next day’s missions. The cards listed frequencies, code words, types of aircraft, and their ordnance. We always had an A-10 pilot there to put the cards together and send them to us at Gioia del Colle. Maj Peter R. “Bro” Brotherton, one of our guys doing his time at Aviano, was the first to appropriately indicate “lots” under the A-10’s ordnance column.
The third level of planning and coordination took place in the units. There, a group of young pilots, under the guidance of a field-grade supervisor, would produce the two-page lineup cards with tasking and tanker information, navigation way points, and weapons parameters. If units wanted to change something on the coordination card or alter their contribution to the KEZ packages, they simply communicated the details to their reps at the Wingtip and the CAOC. This vertical coordination for KEZ operations, after some initial hiccups, ran quite smoothly.
The horizontal coordination among the units participating in hunting fielded Serbian forces did not work as well. During the first week, while most of the “players” were still at Aviano, it was fairly simple for an A-10 AFAC mission commander to drive down the street to pay a visit to the EC-130 ABCCC squadron to work out command and control kinks, or walk down the hall to compare notes with the F-16 AFACs. Once we moved to Gioia de Colle and the F-14 AFACs started flying KEZ sorties off the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), coordination among the AFAC units consisted of whatever handoff briefings we managed in the air. In general, we relied too much on the CAOC to provide coordination among units. There was no one playing “Daddy FAC” at the CAOC since there were few, if any, senior FAC-qualified pilots. We knew that the F-16 and F-14 FACs had different capabilities and therefore used different tactics. We had no insight into how they were doing—what did not work, or what worked and got results.
Lt Col Paul C. “Sticky” Strickland ably described our initial situation in an article entitled “USAF Aerospace-Power Doctrine: Decisive or Coercive?” He stated that the initial CAIFF operations did not have an air operations directive to guide them—that is, to provide clear, measurable objectives for the CAOC and the units to attain.[1] Our job was simply to hunt down and destroy Serb weaponry within 10 miles of the Albanian border. Although we enthusiastically applied our talents to this nebulous end, our frustration grew as we went out day after day, often without finding and destroying Serb targets and with no way of assessing our contribution. Certainly we were making a difference: after the first two days, the Serbs stopped driving in convoys, and after a week, they stopped driving armored vehicles during the day. After a month, we knew we had destroyed a significant amount of Serb weaponry, but was the destruction sufficient to achieve NATO objectives?
As FACs we became aware during the KEZ operations of what OAF’s commanding officers have since made public: Gen Wesley Clark was eager for a major NATO effort against Serb fielded forces, while General Short preferred using NATO’s air resources in a concentrated interdiction campaign against Serb infrastructure. (General Short was always a straight shooter with us and essentially explained these preferences during an official visit to Gioia del Colle after the end of the campaign, while graciously praising our contribution to NATO’s victory.) Through our contacts at the CAOC, we learned that, despite the good intentions of many superb officers, this tug-of-war for mission priorities had resulted in ambiguous guidance and a lack of overall direction on our ultimate objective.
During late April, Lt Col Arden B. “Surgeon” Dahl, our 52d Fighter Wing chief of weapons and tactics, had a “eureka style” revelation while we Hog drivers discussed this problem at Gioia. Surgeon drew on his experience at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) and noted that, while KEZ operations attacked ground forces, they did not explicitly seek a ground-force objective, such as “occupy the high terrain by X date” or “reduce the combat effectiveness of (named enemy unit) by X percent.” This should have been obvious to A-10 guys from the start, since we had grown up supporting the ground commander’s scheme of maneuver from the air. However, we had not been given an “on the ground” objective to achieve in Kosovo. We understood that our KEZ operations sought airpower victory over deployed enemy ground forces, but we did not know what would constitute “victory.” Through our chief CAOC representative, Lt Col Craig “Walrus” Heise, we proposed that intelligence experts identify Serb army units and their locations in Kosovo so we could systematically attack them and achieve a yet-to-be-defined joint objective. We also proposed a FAC conference at Vicenza that would allow us to compare notes and hammer out a common way forward. Both of those initiatives won approval. Afterward, our ATO listed the Serb Third Army as our main objective.
Defining our objectives did not make a big difference in our daily results, since KEZ operations did not have sufficient priority on reconnaissance assets to locate and track Third Army command posts and operational units (see chap. 5 for more details). We argued at the FAC conference for the need to develop a joint concept of attacking Serb ground forces that included NATO ground assets stationed in Macedonia and Albania. Later in the campaign, we understood that the CAOC was working closely with Army counterbattery radars. We, however, had practically no contact with our NATO ground colleagues throughout the campaign.
KEZ operations did keep daily pressure on the Serbs, and although some days resulted in very little battle damage assessment (BDA), we often forced the Serbs to make seemingly stupid mistakes. On at least three occasions, Hogs caught and destroyed significant armored forces (10–15 tanks and armored personnel carriers [APC]) congregated in the open. We termed these puzzling groupings of real armor (they burned black smoke or caused secondary explosions) Serb army “picnics” or “meetings” that got interrupted. Continuous AFAC pressure paid off most when the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA [English] or UCK [Albanian]) started its meager, but certainly effective, ground offensive in the last 10 days of the conflict. When the Serbs came out to fight, there was no place to hide. We were then able to inflict very heavy damage, especially on enemy artillery, mortars, and APCs.
A-10 Sandys had CSAR responsibility for the entire theater of operations throughout the campaign. If required, they could also lead a search and rescue (SAR) mission in friendly territory. The location and reaction time for CSAR alert were two aspects of the mission that did change over time. Friendly forces can make only an educated guess as to where the risk of having one of their aircraft shot down is greatest. Therefore, CSAR is an alert mission that initially has many unknown factors, including the location and condition of the survivor, as well as the enemy threats in that rescue area. CSAR forces can “sit” ground alert or fly an airborne alert. During ground alert, the aircraft are loaded with ordnance appropriate for a CSAR mission and then “hot cocked” by the pilots. The pilots hot-cock the aircraft by starting the engines, aligning the aircraft navigation systems, performing ground checks up to preparation for taxi, shutting down the engines, and then presetting the switches. In the event they are “scrambled,” all the pilots have to do is start the engines and go. During an airborne alert, appropriately loaded A-10s take off, fly to, and remain at a specified orbit to cover the time window during which friendly aircraft are flying over enemy territory. Usually, at least two flights of A-10s are tasked to cover CSAR. One flight locates and stays with the survivor; the other escorts the recovery helos and/or relieves the Sandy who is functioning as the on-scene commander when that Sandy must depart the area to go to the tanker for fuel.
The key considerations that drive the decision to use ground or airborne alert are the level of enemy threat, the reaction time to a potential survivor, and the availability of A-10s in the tasked unit. If there were an unlimited number of A-10s and if CSAR were the only mission, all strike packages could have a dedicated airborne Sandy alert. However, flying an airborne alert takes more aircraft than ground alert and diminishes a unit’s ability to execute other required missions. Ground alerts were therefore regularly used to allow a squadron to better manage its limited resources to support other important missions during nonstop operations.
One of the thorniest puzzles we faced throughout the campaign was optimizing the available A-10 sorties. We needed to cover the tasked AFAC and strike missions while ensuring adequate CSAR coverage for all other OAF missions being flown. At the beginning of the air campaign, the 81st was based at Aviano and was expected to reach target areas in both northern Serbia and Kosovo from a single CSAR alert posture. To satisfy this requirement, given the distance to Kosovo and the uncertainty of the surface-to-air radar-missile threat, we insisted on having at least one two-ship airborne over the Adriatic and another on ground alert. We also assigned an experienced A-10 pilot to ride aboard every C-130 ABCCC during the first week of air strikes to help coordinate rescue efforts and minimize the confusion that normally breaks loose when an aircraft goes down. Airborne OAF aircraft would have to be directed to support the CSAR effort or leave the recovery area. We expected our pilots on board the ABCCCs to help with those tasks, as they did on the evening of 27 March, when they helped coordinate the efforts of six A-10s and numerous other aircraft during the successful rescue of Vega 31 (see chap. 7 for a detailed discussion).
We started flying AFAC missions and a heavy schedule against ground targets on 30 March. As a consequence, A-10 Sandys were scheduled for ground CSAR alert at night, instead of airborne alert, to maximize the number of day AFAC and strike sorties. We adopted an innovative scheduling technique to provide CSAR for the hundreds of day missions that took friendly aircraft over bad-guy land. We “embedded” at least four Sandy-qualified pilots in the AFAC and strike-mission schedule to ensure a continuous airborne Sandy presence in the target area. These pilots could easily respond to a CSAR mission should the need arise. When we were not able to schedule a continuous Sandy presence, we provided ground-CSAR alert.
On 1 May, four ground-alert Sandys were launched from Gioia del Colle to lead the rescue of Hammer 34, an F-16 that had been shot down in northern Serbia. While it was successful, the time required for the A-10s to arrive on scene meant that daylight was approaching by the time the pilot was picked up. The additional risk associated with daylight rescues and the response time from Gioia del Colle led the CAOC to decide to open a second CSAR ground-alert base at Taszar, Hungary. The Killer Bees from Trapani graciously accepted the tasking to man this detachment and provide a faster response to a possible CSAR in northern Serbia. The 81st and 74th EFS, under the OPCON of the 40th EOG at Gioia del Colle, retained 24-hour CSAR responsibility for KEZ operations and interdiction strikes in southern Serbia.
Although A-10s had successfully led the CSAR missions for the only two pilots shot down during OAF, nobody knew it. Those recoveries also happened to be the first time that immediate combat rescues had been attempted at night. The press speculated that the Marines, or perhaps the special forces, had been involved. In fact, both special forces and Air Force rescue helicopters did the pickups, but they remained appropriately discreet about who had accomplished the CSAR missions. We would have loved to have called a press conference at the squadron after each pickup and introduce the Sandy heroes to the world. However, it was much more important to maintain the ambiguity. We had little to gain by publicly announcing to the Serbs that Hog drivers would be the first to come to the aid of a downed pilot and were ready to do whatever it took to provide protection and lead a successful recovery. After Allied Force, our Sandys got the rich recognition they deserved. Capt John “Buster” Cherrey received a personalized State of the Union thanks from President William J. Clinton, and the six Sandys who participated in the Vega 31 rescue were given the “Jolly Green Rescue Mission of the Year” award.
We had proved that A-10 drivers could successfully take the reins of major AFAC and CSAR missions. These were notable “firsts” in the history of the A-10, and we owe our thanks to many senior officers who ignored our reputation as a specialized CAS aircraft, recognized our potential, took us off the sidelines, and gave us the chance to lead. Those officers were not in our normal peacetime chain of command and included the USAF leadership in Italy, notably Colonel Eberhart, General Leaf, and General Short. Neither could we have led in combat without the unequivocal support of our home-station and major command leadership: Brig Gen Scott Van Cleef, the 52d Fighter Wing commander; Col Jan-Marc Jouas, the 52d Operations Group commander; and Maj Gen William T. “Tom” Hobbins, USAFE director of operations (also an “attached” pilot in the 81st FS).
Our general lack of experience in large-force mission command showed at times in the air, and some missions didn’t go smoothly. During our unit debrief at the end of the war and thereafter at the Allied Force lessons-learned conferences, we highlighted these shortcomings as important areas for improvement in the A-10 community. We could visualize a future of low- to medium-intensity conflicts in which air dominance was easy to achieve but ground dominance was not. Experts in mud moving, such as Hog pilots, will be called upon in those future conflicts to lead joint and multinational force packages of great complexity.
A lowly squadron can make a big difference in the conduct of a large air campaign—it’s not solely up to the component-level or theater-level headquarters to develop tactics and strategy. This lesson repeated itself often during the campaign but never ceased to amaze us. Our inputs to the CAOC on tactics, coordination procedures, ROEs, flying schedules, and package composition significantly changed how the fight was fought.
In the European theater, the best expertise for finding and killing green-painted vehicles in green fields and forests resided in the A-10 unit, first at Aviano and then Gioia del Colle. Ironically, this capability had been developed during what many of us old-timers call “unrealistic” training 15 years ago in the Cold War’s European theater. We had cut our teeth on training flights in Germany long ago trying to find a single “tank in the trees.” We would complain about having the most unrealistic scenario possible. What enemy would hide his best combat power to begin with, and then, why would we ever waste the time to attack a single tank?
I feel lucky. After getting weathered out of yesterday’s sortie, I was flying back into the KEZ. Maj Philip “Dirt” Fluhr was my wingman and a good friend. Dirt was an experienced A-10 instructor pilot who never lost his cool. That morning I was the mission commander for a 45-ship package of AFACs, strikers, command and control, and SEAD aircraft. Our objective was to destroy as many Serbian tactical vehicles (armor, artillery, and soft-skinned vehicles) as we could find. As AFACs, Dirt and I were to locate, identify, and attack these mobile targets. The entire package provided continuous coverage over Kosovo by splitting the country in two, with two sets of AFACs rotating on and off the tanker to cover our three-hour vulnerability window. On this day, A-10s had the east, code-named NBA, while the F-16CGs had the west, code-named NFL.
For AFAC operations, my A-10 was loaded with two pods of 2.75-inch Willy Pete rockets for marking, four Mk-82 500 lb airburst bombs, two 500 lb air-to-surface Maverick missiles, and over 1,000 rounds of 30 mm GAU-8 armor-piercing and highexplosive bullets. That gave me a variety of munitions not only to mark targets, but to kill them as well. With F-15Es, Canadian CF-18s, and British GR-7 Harriers available to me, I also had a lot of LGBs and CBUs at my disposal. Life was sweet.
That day’s five-hour mission included an hour’s flight to the KC-135 tankers holding over Macedonia for refueling, followed by an hour in-country over Kosovo, back to the tanker for more gas, another hour in-country, and then an hour back to Gioia del Colle—our deployed location in southeast Italy.
The morning’s mass briefing was only so-so. The weather looked workable, but our ability to employ weapons was threatened by midlevel cloud decks. On top of that, the bad weather during the last few days had prevented the accumulation of any good imagery, and we were forced to go it alone, looking for Serbian military vehicles with limited help from reconnaissance and intelligence sources.
This was becoming familiar. The Serbs had stopped using the roads during the day so I didn’t expect to find anything out in the open to shoot. I had two options available: systematically search the towns for military vehicles or comb the outlying areas for revetments. Visual reconnaissance in urban areas was extremely difficult. In the towns, the Serbs had been parking their tanks next to houses and sometimes in the houses. On a previous mission, I had been able to find Serb vehicles, but it had still taken about an hour to locate one target—and the attack had been only partially successful. My second option was to search the hills for revetments and see if any of them contained APCs, tanks, or artillery. The Serbians had hundreds of dug-in fighting positions all over the foothills that overlooked the main lines of communications (LOC) leading south and east out of Kosovo.
I was determined to give some revetments south of G-Town (Gnjilane, in eastern Kosovo) a first look. I knew where to find 20 juicy revetments that were full of APCs and artillery just two days ago. I found the revetments, called for fighters, and was given F-15Es and Belgian F-16s. Waiting for the F-15Es, I attempted to lock up and shoot a Maverick at one of the APCs, but the target contrast was too poor and I came off target dry. As I called to get an update on the fighters, I looked back at the target and saw a long trail of white smoke off my left wing. It had looked like the smoke trail off a Maverick missile, and I had been angry that my wingman had shot one on his own. I hadn’t given him permission, nor had I been able to provide cover for him. When he responded that he’d made no such attack, chills went up my spine. The smoke trail was evidence that a shoulder-fired SAM had been shot at my flight.
I didn’t have to wait long for the second SAM after I directed my wingman to roll in on the revetments where the smoke had come from. He came off dry with a hung Maverick only to see another SAM come streaking up for him. I called for flares and then held safely to the south until the strikers showed up. The F-15Es called in but were low on fuel. I talked them onto the target, but they bingoed out (reached the amount of fuel required to fly to a tanker and then on to their divert base if refueling proved unsuccessful) for gas before they could splash any of the revetments with their LGBs. Now I was running low on fuel, and before I could get the Belgian F-16s on target, I hit bingo myself. While flying formation on the tanker and waiting my turn to refuel, I plotted my revenge. Unfortunately, while I refueled, low-level clouds moved into the target area, and we had to leave all 20 revetments unmolested. It still burned me that they had been able to take two shots at us without retribution.
I was now eager to wipe the slate clean and start over. Dirt and I took off from Gioia, under the call sign of Cub 31, and headed east towards Macedonia. Coming off a tanker I turned north to see the weather over southeastern Kosovo looking good. I armed a Maverick as we returned to the revetments south of G-Town. Dirt covered me as I rolled in, but the APCs were no longer there and I came off dry—thwarted. The Serbian army had been extremely adaptive to our tactics. We never got a second chance in the same place with these guys.
I was forced to search around G-Town, looking at the hilltops for signs of other revetments. After 10 minutes I found what I was looking for: two groups of revetments three miles east of G-Town in a group of foothills. I put my binos on them and found the northern group filled with eight artillery pieces. In the southern group were two APCs. I called Moonbeam, the call sign for ABCCC, and requested a set of strikers. First up was Merc 11, a two-ship of Canadian CF-18s carrying 500 lb LGBs. I passed them coordinates and gave them an update as they came into the target area. My plan was to drop a single 500 lb Mk-82 bomb on one of the revetments to get the CF-18s’ eyes onto the target area and then let them drop their LGBs onto the artillery. Everything went as planned until I rolled in on the target. I dropped my bomb and then came off target, rolling up on my side to see where it landed. As luck would have it, the bomb was a dud. “The best laid plans and all,” I said to myself. I asked Dirt if he was in position to drop, but he wasn’t. It would take a while to build up the energy (airspeed and altitude) to roll in again, so I began a talk-on.
A talk-on simply describes the target area to the strikers and, with no more than a radio, gets their eyes on the target. It sounds like a much easier task than it is, as both the AFAC talking and the striker listening were flying war birds three to four miles above enemy terrain. At those altitudes, the revetments looked smaller than the head of a pin. Also, since the jets were flying at speeds of five to eight miles per minute and since English is not always the mother tongue of the strikers, (not so in this case but true of many others) a talk-on can easily be more difficult than just “laying down a mark.” Over the course of the war, I controlled USAF, United States Navy (USN), Canadian, British, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, and Belgium strikers.
I responded to Merc 11’s check-in: “Copy. We are just east of the target and setting up for another mark. Call visual on the factory that is just east of the huge town that is on the east-west hardball” (hardball was our term for a hard-surface road, which we differentiated from a dirtball or dirt road). G-Town is the only large town in eastern Kosovo, and since Merc 11 had eyes on my flight, it was the only town they could see. On the east side of G-Town was an enormous factory complex next to the highway leading east out of the town.
Merc 11 replied: “Copy. I see one factory. Large structure has a blue-roof building to the west.” Merc 11 not only responded that he saw the factory but confirmed it by giving a positive description of a distinct feature. I had confidence that he had the right factory in sight.
“That’s affirmative. Let’s use that factory east-west one unit. From the eastern edge of factory go two—let’s make that three—units east on hardball. Then use factory from hardball. You’ll see a pull-off on the north side of the hardball. Go one unit to the south off the hardball. In between two small towns you’ll see some light revetments.” I continued the talk-on by setting the length of the factory complex east to west as a unit. I treated that unit as a yardstick to measure the distance along the road to another feature (a pull-off from the highway). I talked Merc 11 down between two towns where the artillery was lying.
Merc 11 responded, “Copy light revetments; there appear to be four to the south and four or five to the north.” Merc 11 had the revetments in sight and again gave a description of what he saw. The revetments appeared shallow due to the light, sandy soil in that region of Kosovo in comparison to the darker-green grass of the field where the revetments had been dug.
“Copy. That is affirmative. Say your laser code.” I wanted his laser code so that I could use my Pave Penny pod (a laser-spot tracker that can “see” where another jet’s lasers are pointed) to ensure that his laser was actually pointed at the right target.
“Laser code is 1633.”
I was ready for his attacks now. “Copy, currently I am visual you, and I am under you currently on the west side. I’d like you to take out the far western pit with a single LGB.”
Merc 11 wanted one final confirmation. “Copy far western pit. Confirm the line of pits intersects the road at an angle.”
I reassured him. “That is affirmative. The road between the two towns is at an angle. And the arty sets almost in a saddle in the ridgeline. Say how long until attack.”
“One minute,” Merc 11 called as he set up his attack.
I saw him extend to the southeast some 10 miles from the target. Though they move much faster than A-10s, CF-18s take a long time to set up their attacks. I was not used to fighters extending that far from the target and could barely make them out as they turned inbound. I had to make up my mind on whether to clear him to drop. I couldn’t pick up his laser with my pod yet, but I was confident from his responses that he had the target. I decided to clear him, and he shacked (made a direct hit) the first artillery piece. He set up for a subsequent attack and took out another piece of artillery before he ran low on fuel and departed.
In the meantime, I was holding south of the target, coordinating with Moonbeam for another set of strikers. Next on the list was Dragon 61, a two-ship of F-15Es carrying a bunch of GBU-12s (500 lb LGBs). While I waited for Dragon, I took out one of the southern APCs with a Maverick. Finally, Dragon checked in and I gave them my position. I got a friendly buddy spike, which meant Dragon had locked me with one of their air-to-air radars. I told him to call me when he had me visual. Normally, acquiring a visual on A-10s is fairly easy. A two-ship of A-10s circling a target looks like a pair of large Xs in the sky. Dragon called visual, and I rolled in to mark, this time with Willy Pete rockets. I shot three rockets, hoping to get them to blossom into small white-phosphorus clouds on the ground. As long as Dragon saw where I was shooting, he could easily see the smoke generated by my rockets.
“Marks are away. Expect impact in 15 seconds.” That gave Dragon a heads up on when he should expect to see the smoke.
Dirt called to me on our internal Fox-Mike (frequency modulated, aka FM) radio: “Your first mark is closest to arty line.”
Dragon 61 confirmed the smokes, “Six-One is contact two smokes.”
“Copy. Look at the further northeast smoke. It’s setting just on the east side of four arty pits south of a road.” Even though the smokes were visible, the arty pits were so small that I had to ensure Dragon was seeing them.
Dragon called contact on the target area. I was starting to run low on fuel and wanted to get the F-15Es dropping as soon as possible. Dragon was not an AFAC and could not pick his own target. He could, however, continue an attack once I gave him permission. My plan was to have him take out as many artillery pieces as he could while I was off to the tanker.
I passed control of the targets to Dragon: “You have flight lead control on that target area. I’d like to take out most of the arty sites at that position; two have already been struck. Those are two just north of the east-west road.”
Dirt and I left for the tanker that was waiting for us some 50 miles south over Macedonia. While we were on the tanker, Dragon continued his attack and destroyed three more, bringing the total to five artillery pieces and one APC destroyed.
After a half-hour refueling, we returned to the artillery sites. Dragon had long since departed. A cloud deck had moved in from the northwest and forced us to work east, out of Kosovo and into the southeastern part of Serbia. A large valley wound its way down towards the town of Kumanova in Macedonia. We called it the Kumanova Valley. For several days, we attacked positions in this valley when the weather was not good enough in Kosovo. The Serbs were fortified against a ground attack from the south and had hundreds of defensive positions built into the hillsides overlooking the valley.
Near the border I could hear a couple of A-10s working targets. I called them and coordinated to work well north of their position, 10 miles north of the Macedonian border. I found the town of Bujanovac and began searching the roads and surrounding areas. I worked my eyes south of the town and finally picked up six revetments. They were on a hilltop but were different than any other revetments I had ever seen. They were several miles from any major LOC and well camouflaged but were visible from the southwest. Because the weather had moved in and clouds were just above us, we were now limited to flying below 21,000 feet. I kept Dirt in a trail position and took a good look with the binos. The targets were hard to make out. I could see the ends of large tubes, which I took for long-range artillery tubes, sticking out from both ends of the revetments.
I rolled in and dropped two Mk-82s to mark the targets for Dirt. The bombs hit next to two revets, but I couldn’t see any secondaries. I called Moonbeam and asked for Dodge 61, a two-ship of British GR-7 Harriers carrying BL-755 CBUs.
“Two’s got both your marks. Two has a series of brown revets,” Dirt called.
“Yeah, I got six revets in the triangle area.” I made sure he saw all of them.
“Underneath your smoke now?” The smoke from my bombs rested over the revets.
“That’s affirm.”
“Got’em now.”
“Let’s extend out to the south towards good-guy land, and I’ll work up a five line for these guys.” The targets were very difficult to see. I was planning to pass Dodge five pieces of information to help them find the targets: IP (initial point—the place where they should start their attack), heading, distance, elevation, and coordinates. I also gave them a target description once they were within visual range. The Harriers had an electro-optical targeting pod, which they could use to look closely at targets. I was planning to use this device to get their eyes on the revetments.
Dodge 61 came up on the ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio:
“Cub Three-One, Dodge Six-One.”{1}
“Three-One go ahead.” Dodge didn’t hear my response, and the radio went quiet—but not for long.
While plotting the revets on my 1-to-250-scale map, I dropped the map between my ejection seat and my right control panel. Pushing the jet over with some negative Gs, I tried to get it to fly back up to me, but only got it hopelessly trapped directly beneath the ejection seat. I called Dirt on our Fox-Mike frequency, where no one else was listening: “You are not going to believe this but I just dropped my 1-to-250.”
Dirt’s response was not at all what I expected: “OK, triple-A now… triple-A coming up… I need you to come down here southbound.” Dirt was trying to keep me clear of the exploding AAA rounds cooking off right underneath us.
“Copy, I got the triple-A now. I’m visual the triple-A now.” For a moment I could make out a ridgeline, where I could see the puffs of smoke coming out of the guns in a group of four to six positions. The AAA pits were two miles west of the target we were working.
“I didn’t get a good look at the firing position.” Dirt had seen the AAA rounds exploding just underneath us but had not seen where the guns were located. The problem with flying over AAA during the day is that they aren’t as visible as they are at night. The only evidence of AAA is usually the explosion of the airburst rounds that have been set to detonate after a specific time of flight, or at a specific altitude. This looks like popcorn popping, or, in a group, they sometimes look like a strand of pearls with four to eight rounds going off in a line. Since not all AAA is set for airburst, we assumed that popcorn going off below us meant that unseen bullets were streaking up, around, and past us.
Dodge repeated his call, unaware of the AAA activity, “Cub Three-One, this is Dodge Six-One.”
I answered and Dodge continued, “Holding IP Brad; authenticate Alpha, Foxtrot, November.” Dodge was following procedure and was authenticating me, using authentication cards that we carry to make sure a Serb wasn’t spoofing him.
On UHF I responded to Dodge, “Stand by, I’m taking a little triple-A.”
Dirt asked me on the Fox-Mike radio, “Are you seeing it? You get a hack at the firing position?”
“I saw it coming up, but I couldn’t get a good hack. These roads have me screwed up, and I have my 1-to-250 dropped.” I had been watching so many roads that I was not positive where the AAA was located.
Getting back to business I responded, “Copy, I’ve found some AAA positions and/or arty. You’ll have to stand by for a while. I’ll have to get it plotted.” I was going to try to take out both the long-range arty and the AAA positions with the CBU. I made a quick guess of where the hillside was on my remaining 1-to-50 map and passed it on to Dodge. “OK, general target area, I’ll give you an update later, is Echo Mike six five nine three… and I can give you an update now six nine nine six.”
“Echo Mike six nine nine six, copied.”
I turned my attention back to my flight and planned with Dirt how to carry off the attack: “If you can get eyeballs on the triple-A area, we’ll take it out. We know it’s active.” What I really meant was that I was planning to use Dirt to suppress the AAA while the Harriers were attacking the long-range arty. I turned my attention back to filling in the blanks as I reached the target area: “And Dodge go ahead with your line up.” From his call sign I knew Dodge was the two British GR-7s I had asked Moonbeam to send. The ATO stated that Dodge had been “fragged” with CBU, but I wanted to confirm it, find out how much playtime they had, and most importantly, get their abort code.
“C aircraft, four CBU, India Bravo mikes on station… Alpha Quebec Uniform, abort code,” came Dodge’s James Bond response. My supersecret-spy decoder ring told me that Dodge was two aircraft carrying a total of four cans of BL-755 CBUs with 30 minutes of time to work the target. Moreover, if I yelled “Papa” over the radio, they would abort their attack.
As I got back to the target, the weather had deteriorated significantly. The visibility at altitude was decreasing as a high deck continued to move in, making it difficult to find the revetments. Fortunately, I had taken the time to see exactly where they were located in relationship to some distinguishing features. “Dodge, I’m trying to get better coordinates, but call when you are ready to proceed to the target area and I’ll plan to mark it with a Mk-82.”
Finally I got my eyes on the small, triangular field where the revetments were located: “For a description, I have five to six berms with arty pieces in them.” I double-checked the coordinates, and the 69 and 96 grid lines off the 1-to-50 map overlapped the target like a set of crosshairs. “And new update—coordinates I passed you are good.”
“Copy. Are we cleared to leave Brad yet?” Dodge was ready to go. He had been holding just south of the Serbian border at the IP Brad and was ready to depart.
“You are cleared to leave Brad and proceed northbound. Be advised you’ll be able to work base plus 16 and below in target area. Call when you are northbound.” This informed him that the weather is bad above 20,000 feet.
“OK, we’re northbound this time.”
“Copy that; I am currently base plus 16. Will be holding just south of target. Be advised triple-A in area approximately two miles west, northwest of target.”
With the weather and the Harriers’ run-in, Dirt and I were forced to overfly the AAA: “Two, any luck picking up triple-A sites?”
“Negative. They have been quiet.”
As we were looking for the AAA positions, Dodge broke in: “Dodge Six-One visual with Cub.”
I was starting to get impatient. With the bad weather, the difficulty in locating the target, and the amount of AAA, this target preparation had taken way too long. “I will be in out of the east. It’s on top of a ridgeline; there are about four revetments. Do you have your targeting pod on that location?”
“Stand by.”
“Disregard. As long as you have eyeballs on Cub, I’ll just go ahead and mark.”
Dodge responded, “I just lost you for the moment.”
“Copy. You’ll pick me as I’m coming off target. I’m in with a single Mk-82.” I would have dropped more, but this was my last Mk-82. As the bomb came off the jet, I called, “Marks away; impact in 10… call visual mark.”
“OK, I have the mark.”
“Call visual the four berms that are just to south and west of mark.”
“Copy. Looking.”
“They are just on the west of that dirtball road.”
Finally, the words I had been waiting to hear: “Visual the berms.”
I wanted the Harriers to start taking out the revetments and planned to cover them on the west side, watching for the AAA to get active again. “Copy, we’re proceeding westbound. You are cleared on those positions.”
“Cleared on those positions. Do you have another mark available when we run in?”
This was not exactly the question I was hoping Dodge would ask. This would mean another time rolling down the chute. Before I could respond, Dirt called me on FM: “I’ve got three,” which meant, “Goldie, you’ve been having all the fun while I’ve still got three of my four bombs left.” I quickly answered Dodge’s question: “That is affirmative.”
Dodge began to prepare for his attack, “I’ll call for the mark.”
I knew the timing of this mark was critical for Dodge. I wanted the smoke from the bombs to appear in his targeting pod with enough time for him to be able to drop his bombs on this pass. With Dirt marking the site, I figured he would need some lead time to roll in: “I’ll need about a minute and a half for that call.”
“Copied, no problem.”
As I waited just west of the target, I again turned my attention to the AAA pits. I had taken a snapshot in my mind of where the AAA was coming from and the position of the pits. They were visible only when I looked northeast. I did a belly check and saw them directly below me. I called on Fox Mike to Dirt: “OK I know where those triple-A pits are now.”
Dodge interrupted my call: “Requesting mark one minute 30.”
“Copy that.” I turned my attention to Dirt: “Try to put in those Mk-82s, and I’ll extend to the northeast.”
Dirt called back, “Tell me when you want the roll in.”
“Yeah, as soon as you can.” Dirt dropped his three bombs for direct hits on two of the revetments. Their explosions caused huge secondaries.
“Visual, in hot.” Dodge saw the mark and requested permission to attack. I cleared him and watched as his CBU tore through two more revetments.
As Dodge reset for his wingman to drop more CBUs, I began to focus on the AAA sites. I put my binos on the position and noted four gun pits. They were tiny and impossible to lock up with a Maverick, but I still had my 30 mm gun available for strafing them. As I considered my next move, I noticed a large truck and trailer, not more than 100 meters from the pits. They were barely visible in a tree line down in a ravine. There was only one reason for that type of vehicle to be there next to AAA pits. It had to be the ammo truck, a far more lucrative target.
That decision was easy. As Dodge 62 began his bomb run, I called up a Maverick. The AAA, which had been silent, began to come up as Dodge’s CBUs rained down. AAA exploded in a string of pearls just beneath me. This was a pass I wanted to make only once. I got a steady cross on the truck and hammered down on the pickle button. It seemed an eternity before the 500 pounds of missile began to move off the rail. In reality it was less than a second, and as it accelerated towards the target, I pulled off hard and began jinking. It was going to take 20 seconds for impact, so I waited a few seconds before rolling the jet over.
The impact took me by surprise. The missile slammed directly into the trailer and set off a series of secondaries like I have never seen. Fire reached for the sky like the Fourth of July.
“Unbelievable,” was all the ever-cool Dirt could muster. Most importantly, the AAA shut down instantaneously and Dodge 62 could call for his next mark. Completely out of bombs, I returned to place two Willy Pete rockets on the site. Dodge 62 dropped good CBUs before the flight returned to base.
Because the British Harriers worked alongside us at Gioia, I was able to compare notes with Dodge flight the next day. Reviewing the film from their EO targeting pods, we made a startling discovery. The long-range artillery tubes we took out were actually launchers for Frog 7 surface-to-surface missiles, similar to Scuds.
It was incredible to watch as the Frog launchers exploded under the rain of CBUs. We counted secondaries off five launchers, all pointed towards the Macedonian border.
All told, Dirt and I, the Canadian CF-18s, F-15Es, and British Harriers destroyed five artillery pieces, an APC, five Frog 7 launchers, and an ammo-storage trailer. Not bad for a day’s work.
After flying numerous pseudocombat sorties over Bosnia during several earlier deployments in support of the no-fly zone, the 81st FS received orders to return to Aviano AB, Italy, to fight what was certain to be a shooting war over Kosovo. I sat in the back of the 81st FS briefing room on that cold and rainy February afternoon. I listened to the deployment brief, ready to go to war and fight for what is right in the world—but my name was not on the Aviano deployment list.
“What do you mean I have to ask my boss if I can deploy with the squadron?” I asked incredulously.
Lt Col Kimos Haave replied, “Devo, you work for Colonel Jouas (ops group commander) now, and he will decide if you can deploy with the squadron. Of course we would love to have you, along with all your experience.”
I had several regrets leaving my job as the squadron’s assistant operations officer in November of 1998 and taking over as the chief of the 52d OG’s Standardization and Evaluation (Stan/Eval) Division at Spangdahlem AB, Germany. I felt as though I had been set up by being assigned to take over the Stan/Eval shop just one month before a major inspection. I also missed the Panthers’ camaraderie and their day-to-day operations. Stan/Eval made it through the inspection with an “excellent” overall, and I still flew training missions with my family—the Panthers. But because of my new job, I was no longer a sure bet to deploy with the Panthers on what was sure to be a great chapter in the history of the A-10. With all the maturity and poise I could muster, I watched my squadron mates deploy to Aviano AB while I stayed behind. My plan, if the war lasted that long, was to swap out in two weeks with Capt David S. “Ajax” Ure, my assistant in the Stan/Eval shop. I had my doubts.
After the longest two weeks of my life spent watching the air strikes on CNN and hearing about the heroics of my squadron mates during the rescue of the downed F-117 pilot, I was afforded an opportunity to go to Aviano for just three days. Not being one to quibble, I jumped at the chance and packed my bags. On 5 April I would fly my first combat mission over Kosovo with Maj Joseph A. “Lester” Less. Due to continuing poor weather over Kosovo, no A-10 pilot had yet been able to employ munitions. As I performed my walk-around, inspecting the live weapons on my Hog, I was more excited than I had ever been about a sortie. I had flown lots of missions over Bosnia with live weapons, but this time it was real. We could actually shoot something today. We launched as a two-ship AFAC mission over southwest Kosovo.
As we flew into Kosovo, the first thing I noticed was how beautiful the country was. The landscape was magnificent—a wide, green, fertile valley surrounded by majestic, snowcapped mountains on all sides. I could see why generations have fought and died over the right to live in this country. The weather that day was exceptional. You couldn’t buy a cloud. The sky was clear—except for the smoke from all the beautiful villages 20,000 feet below us that had been set ablaze by Serbian forces. The roads leading to the southern border of Kosovo were jammed with refugees fleeing the country. As they approached the border, they were forced to leave their cars and walk with little more than the clothes on their backs. Their abandoned vehicles stretched from the Albanian border to more than 20 miles into Kosovo. Seeing the villages being burned and the mass exodus of refugees firsthand made me want to aim my 30 mm gun at the ground and kill those responsible for this devastating crime against humanity. But on this mission I didn’t get to fire the gun or drop any weapons. Although we saw several vehicles moving in and around burning villages that we suspected were Serbian military and police (VJ/MUP) forces, we did not find any hard-and-fast “military” targets. After two hours of scouring the countryside and witnessing the carnage, we returned to Aviano with all our ordnance. Frustration was mounting in the Panther clan and at the CAOC. After the first day of really great weather in the KEZ, not one bomb had been dropped. Less than 24 hours later, all of that would change.
I had never seen that look in Kimos’s eyes before. Normally a very mild-mannered family man and exceptional leader, Kimos revealed a different side of himself that day. As the mission commander for the 6 April CAIFF package, Kimos briefed the pilots assembled in the 510th FS briefing room in Aviano like a football coach giving a locker-room pep talk to a team that has narrowly lost every game that season. He was the coach, and this was his final game—he would not retire a loser! After his brief, I was ready to go out and do some damage to some Serbs! After that mission I called him Kimos “we are going to kill something today” Haave to the guys assembled around to hear about the first Panther kill. I was proud to be on his wing that day because I knew from the brief we were going to take the fight to them.
We were Bull 11 flight, AFACs for an 18-ship package that included British GR-7s and French Super Entendards as strikers. After the tedious two-hour flight down the Adriatic Sea to Kosovo, we refueled over Macedonia and began searching for targets. The weather was like yesterday’s, ceiling and visibility OK (CAVOK). We set up a search pattern around the town of Rogovo. The first target we acquired was a military scout vehicle parked on a hillside. Kimos rolled in and marked the target area with two rockets to allow Cougar Flight, two British GR-7s, to acquire the target and employ BLU-755s. Unfortunately the Brits’ bombs hit well short of the target. With the vehicle now on the move, Kimos rolled in and employed a Maverick missile while I covered his attack. He scored a direct hit.
We went on to employ against a petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) storage facility and a military-vehicle compound near Pirane (a small town located near a rail line about halfway between Orahovac and Prizren). Kimos coordinated an attack by Griz 81 flight, a second two-ship of GR-7s, on the vehicle compound while I coordinated with ABCCC for clearance to attack the POL site. Griz flight dropped CBUs on the east side of the vehicle compound, which contained about 15 personnel carriers. We dropped our remaining bombs on the west end, destroying all the vehicles in the compound. Both Kimos and I employed everything on the jet that day: Mk-82s, Mavericks, and even the lethal GAU-8 gun. Not a single shot was fired back at us. I started to get a false sense of security. It felt like another routine training mission except for the fact we were dropping live weapons. Unfortunately, the rest of my sorties over Kosovo would not be as easy.
The true significance of this mission was not the targets we destroyed. Those attacks by no means turned the tide of the campaign. The significance was the effect that our two A-10s had on our maintenance personnel when they saw their aircraft pull into the de-arm area with empty missile rails, empty bomb racks, and bullets missing from the gun. The significance was also in an attitude change among the Panther pilots after hearing that we actually employed this time. Things would never be the same. Milosevic’s days were now numbered because the Panthers got their first taste of blood and were hungry for more. Me, I had to go back to Spang to an empty base and CNN. But I was there—there, for the first Panther kill!
After two more long weeks back in Germany, my boss allowed me to join the Panthers in their new home at Gioia del Colle. Once again, my first mission back in country was action packed. It was 22 April and I was leading a strike mission with Capt Kevin “Boo” Bullard, one of the 75th FS pilots. Boo and several other Hog pilots from Pope had recently joined us and brought along six additional A-10s to add to our firepower. This was his first sortie in OAF.
You could hear the excitement in Lester’s voice: “We have military vehicles down there!” Lester had to be one of the most laidback pilots in the squadron. Nothing excited him. That’s why I knew from the tone of his voice that we had hit the mother lode when he called us in as strikers to work the target area. Lester had found a group of 20–30 military transport vehicles parked in an area around several small buildings near Urosevac. It appeared to be some sort of VJ/MUP headquarters. After allowing his wingman to employ Mk-82s on the south side of the target, he handed the target area over to my flight. Boo and I proceeded to wipe out every vehicle in that compound with our Mk-82s and guns. The Mk-82s’ FMU-113 airburst nose fuses caused them to detonate approximately 15 feet above the ground. This made them lethal weapons against the soft-skinned vehicles we were attacking, as well as any troops within 100 yards of the impact area. Deep inside I hoped that this was one of the rape camps I had heard about in the news and that we were making a difference in this campaign.
After Boo made his last pass, we began searching the area for other targets. There was a dry riverbed that ran from the target area down a narrow ravine towards a town. I noticed several peculiarly shaped rocks in the riverbed, too square to be just rocks. From 15,000 feet they appeared to be the same color and texture as the rocks in the riverbed, but their squared edges led me to believe they were man-made. My first thought was that they were cement blocks used to contain the river, but they were not positioned at the edges of the bank. I set my formation up for a reconnaissance pass, utilizing the A- 10’s top-secret, hi-tech targeting system—a pair of Canon space-stabilized binoculars. My suspicions were confirmed; those shifty Serbs were attempting to hide six tanks in this riverbed by putting them next to rock formations and covering some of them with tree branches. When I keyed my mike to talk to my wingman, I am certain I sounded even more excited than Lester. I talked Boo’s eyes onto the tanks and quickly briefed him on my attack plan. I maneuvered into position, rolled in, and fired an AGM-65D Maverick missile on the tank at the north end of the riverbed. As I came off target with flares, I observed a direct hit on the lead tank. I instructed Boo to hit the tank at the south end of the formation to pin them in the riverbed. As Boo maneuvered for his shot, his target began to move in an attempt to escape. Boo scored a direct hit on the “mover,” pinning down the other tanks in the riverbed. The rest of the tanks were now urgently trying to escape as we continued our assault.
For some strange reason, the Serbs were getting a little tired of our act and began firing some pretty intense AAA at us. Most of it exploded below our altitude. We changed our axis of attack and continued our assault on the tanks with our remaining two Mavericks and then made one pass with the GAU-8 gun. Out of gas, we reluctantly handed the target area over to another flight of A-10s, who found more vehicles close by and continued the attack. That was my first experience finding concealed armor in an environment other than a desert, be it Iraq or the Nevada/California desert. It was a completely different ball game, but the learning curve was high for most of us. The Serbs quickly learned that they were going to have to do a better job of concealing their fielded forces with A-10s on the prowl. We were patient and persistent in our pursuit of targets. It was a great day for the Panthers!
After two all-night squadron top-three tours and a weather cancel on my next sortie, I was starting to feel the fatigue I had seen in everyone’s eyes the day I arrived at Gioia. That was the only time I was grateful for my time at home in Germany with my wife and three-month-old son while my squadron was fighting in the skies over Kosovo. We knew we were in this for the long haul. Milosevic would not fold easily.
Since I was not an AFAC, I coveted the sorties when I was scheduled as a striker because I could lead the mission and have more control over the outcome. On 30 April I briefed my wingman, Lt Scott “Glib” Gibson, like I briefed all the other missions. We were going to take the fight to the Serbs as Chili 11 flight. I had demonstrated my ability to find lucrative targets with some degree of success, so the AFAC assigned to my sector allowed me to perform my own reconnaissance, but I had to confirm the validity of targets with him before attacking. This day’s weather was forecasted to be “severe clear” over Kosovo. I was climbing up the A-10 ladder to enter my “office” and go kill stuff, when Maj Thomas J. “Bumpy” Feldhausen, the top-three supervisor, drove up and handed me a target photo, complete with coordinates. A “top three” designation is reserved for the squadron commander, operations officer, or another senior squadron member responsible for the execution of the day’s operations. The Brits had flown over a small compound southeast of Urosevac that morning and had taken a recce photo of some tanks parked next to a house. Once again, I couldn’t believe my luck. I could hardly wait to get across the Adriatic, hit the tanker, and get into theater to see if the tanks were indeed still there.
As I pressed into the area of responsibility (AOR), I called my AFAC and told him about the target area. Since he was busy with his own flight’s carnage and destruction, he cleared me to engage that target area. Glib and I circled the area at 15,000 feet and found the house and the tank. The tank was nestled close to the house, so the Maverick was the weapon of choice to prevent any collateral damage. I rolled and acquired the tank in the cockpit’s Maverick video display. It was white hot from sitting in the spring sun all day. I locked the target, waited for a valid weapons lock, and fired the missile. The Maverick roared off the rail like a locomotive, finding and destroying its target in a blaze of smoke and fire.
Knowing that tanks are usually not solitary creatures by nature, Glib and I searched the immediate area for more targets. Using the binos we could see tank trails running throughout the area. Once again, I noted something peculiar: a mound of hay isolated in a field, surrounded by tank tracks. Having lived in Germany for the past three years, I knew that German farmers piled their hay in stacks close to their barns. I never saw a single pile of hay just sitting in a field alone with no cattle. On my drives to work in Germany, I had watched the hay combines during the harvest season. The machines would pick up hay, “process” it, and drop the bundles out the back without stopping. This resulted in piles of hay in uniform, regularly spaced patterns, quite unlike what I was now seeing from the air.
I dropped down and took a closer look with the binos as Glib gave cover. My suspicions were again confirmed. The Serbs were trying to hide a tank under a pile of hay in the middle of the field. I clearly saw the turret sticking out from the hay. There was only one thing left to do. I rolled in with the mighty GAU-8 gun and put two 150-round bursts of 30 mm armorpiercing and high-incendiary explosive rounds into that tank. In classic Hog fashion, the gun vibrated the cockpit and rudder pedals and filled the cockpit with the sweet smell of gunpowder as the bullets found their mark. The tank went up in bright-red flames that shot 40 feet into the air, and it was still burning and cooking off unexpended rounds when we left the area 30 minutes later.
Glib and I continued our search of the target area; behind a building we found two square, green patches that just did not quite match the surrounding foliage and grass. I rolled in with my Maverick missile to get an IR image of what we were seeing. What started as a reconnaissance pass quickly became an attack as the Maverick’s imagery clearly showed two tanks concealed under a camouflage net. After I killed the first tank with a Maverick, I directed Glib to take out the second. He rolled in and took it out with a Maverick missile.
Out of gas, we reluctantly retracted our fangs and headed for home. The next day a fellow pilot on an AFAC mission saw the tank I had shot with the gun: the tank—with its turret blown off—was sitting in the field. For two days following the Brits’ discovery of this tank by the house, coalition forces found and killed numerous pieces of artillery and armor hidden in and around this target area. A picture is indeed worth a thousand kills. Once again, I learned that if something on the ground doesn’t look quite right, it’s probably a Serb hiding from the wrath of the Warthog. Thanks to my British war brethren for the great target.
The first of May began like any other day in Gioia. I was scheduled to fly as Maj Kirk M. “Corn” Mays’s wingman on an AFAC mission around the town of Urosevac. Corn was not alone in his feeling of frustration in not being able to find great targets. The Serbs were getting craftier at hiding their fielded forces because the A-10s were locating and killing them daily. Secret funerals were being held in Belgrade so the Yugoslav public would not know how many of their boys were dying in Kosovo. The Serbs were digging in deeper, and we were getting better at discovering their secrets of concealment.
Corn asked me to lead the reconnaissance portion of the mission since I had succeeded in finding some lucrative targets in the past. We flew into theater and began working with the operator of a UAV who had spotted a tank and Serbian troops hidden in a tree line. I searched the area of interest with both binoculars and the Maverick seeker, but could not positively identify the target in question. Neither could I talk to the UAV operator directly because he was located too far from the AOR. Instead, I relayed my radio transmissions through the ABCCC. This process took a great deal of time and required us to stay in the target area longer than I had wished to positively identify the target. I rolled in and put three Willy Pete rockets close to the area I thought the UAV operator was talking about in hopes that the operator would see my smoke and confirm its position in relation to the target. Minutes later I got the confirmation from the UAV pilot via ABCCC that I was looking at the correct target. At this point Corn and I were rapidly approaching our bingo fuel for our next aerial refueling. Corn was coordinating a handoff of the target area with another two-ship of Hogs piloted by Capt James P. “Meegs” Meger and 1st Lt Michael A. “Scud” Curley. I was positioning myself to roll in and drop my Mk-82s on the troop concentration in the trees.
Just as I was about to roll in, I heard, “SAM launch, SAM launch” over the UHF radio. Looking east towards Pristina Airfield, I saw a volley of two SAMs followed immediately by two more. I was amazed at the amount of white, billowy smoke they produced and the rapid speed at which they flew in our direction. All four SAMs were guiding towards us. I began evasive maneuvers and called the SAM launch out on the very high frequency (VHF) radio that all four A-10s were using to work the target-area handoff. All four A-10s began a SAM defense ballet, the likes of which I have never seen and hope to never see again. The sky was full of chaff, and the world’s greatest attack pilots were maneuvering their Hogs like their lives depended on it—and they did! A SAM, the second launched, malfunctioned and detonated in spectacular fashion about 2,000 feet above the ground. From my now-inverted cockpit, I could feel the concussion of the warhead detonating in a blaze of orange fire. The other three SAMs continued on course in an attempt to thwart our attack against the troops massed in the forest below us.
All but one of the SAMs failed to guide—and that one chose Scud as its soon-to-be victim. Wouldn’t you know it would pick Scud, who was the least-seasoned pilot in our four-ship—a formation that had over 3,500 hours of combined Hog experience. Meegs did an excellent job of defeating the threat, maintaining situational awareness on his wingman, and calling out the final evasive maneuvers that prevented the SAM from impacting Scud’s jet and ruining our day. All four SAMs were defeated, and the Serb troops in the forest below awaited the wrath of the Panthers. The Serbs failed to take a lesson from Desert Storm. In that campaign, the Iraqis quickly learned that if they shot at an A-10 they had better kill it because if it survives, it is going to shoot back with a vengeance.
Corn and I were out of gas, so we departed the area with our hearts in our throats and left the counterattack to Meegs. He dropped four Mk-82 airburst bombs on the troop concentration in the trees and eliminated those forces from the rest of the campaign. (I can make that statement with a high degree of certainty. One year later I received an Air Medal for my participation in that sortie. Afterwards a member of the audience approached me, introducing himself as the UAV operator with whom we had worked during that mission. He had personally witnessed Meegs’s Mk-82 attack, vouched for the devastation it created, and was pleased to finally meet one of the mission’s pilots.)
After getting fuel from the tanker, Corn and I proceeded back into the KEZ to look for more targets in the northern region of the country. We had received numerous intel reports about troops and targets in this region, but we had not achieved much success in finding them. We flew approximately 15 miles northwest of Pristina Airfield and began searching for targets. I found one area of interest that appeared to have mobile AAA and possibly some other military vehicles in a small valley. I was just starting to talk Corn’s eyes onto the area to get his opinion when I saw two SAM launches from just north of Pristina Airfield. I thought, “Here we go again.” I called out the SAM launch to Corn and directed his break turn to defeat the attack. As I dumped out as much chaff as I could muster and made the appropriate break turn, I looked back to see that Corn had turned in the wrong direction. He was heading straight towards the SAMs, increasing their probability of intercept. Realizing that he did not see the SAMs, I directed him to “take it down! Break right now and roll out west! Chaff! Chaff! Chaff!” As the second SAM guided in Corn’s direction, I continued to monitor his progress and update his maneuvers while attempting to talk his eyes onto the threat. I was certain the SAM was going to hit him, and I was just about to call out a last ditch maneuver when it began to drift aft to pass about 1,000 feet behind him.
Once we were clear of the SAMs, I plotted the area from which they were launched on a 1-to-50 map. I passed the coordinates to a Navy F/A-18 flight, which swiftly acquired the SAM system and destroyed it with LGBs within minutes of its attack on our flight. After the attack, we exited the area and headed home. The trip back to Gioia was very quiet. Not until we got to the cash register to pay for dinner that evening, Corn insisting that he pay for mine, did I realize the full magnitude of what had happened that day. Not feeling the effects of combat until hours after the mission and debrief is fairly common. It seemed that after a day of fighting the Serbs, the adrenaline level ran out somewhere between the order of steamed mussels with garlic and butter and the homemade gelato with fresh strawberries and cream on top. Dinner at the Truck Stop (a favorite eatery between Gioia and the hotel) was a savored ritual. The food was Italian standard—excellent—and the meal was a chance to recap the day’s events over a glass of wine. That’s when everyone seemed to “crash.” During those moments, I said a little thank-you prayer and just hoped that somehow what we did that day had really made a difference.
I flew several other sorties over Kosovo, fighting the Serbs with the best fighter pilots in the world. Milosevic did not stand a chance. The sorties I have recalled here were examples of the most memorable ones. For me, OAF was exciting, stressful, and frustrating. It was exciting because I finally got a chance to fight in the world’s finest attack aircraft with the best-trained and most professional pilots in the US Air Force. It was stressful because we were getting shot at daily and the physical demands of running a 24-hour wartime operation took its toll on all of us. And it was frustrating to see villages burning several weeks into the campaign and not knowing what to do at that moment to stop the carnage. I am grateful to God that he delivered us all home safely to our families and that the air campaign was enough to convince Milosevic to give in. My last sortie in the A-10 was on 17 May, when I took a jet from Italy back to Spangdahlem for required maintenance. Opportunities like flying in this campaign present themselves only once in a lifetime. I am grateful and honored to have been a member of the fighting 81st FS Panthers.
Lt Col Paul C. Strickland, “USAF Aerospace-Power Doctrine: Decisive or Coercive?” Aerospace Power Journal 14, no. 3 (fall 2000): 13–25.