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.