John: ‘Visual, all good… quite a late one, that.’
Doing over 100 knots we crossed the wires, held our height, crossed another set not on the map, banked right into the desert, descended and began setting up for the target. Charlie and Mark kept formation, searching for their own threats and matching us for height and speed. For the most part all was going according to plan. So far it had been an average night out over Libya.
With five miles to go we went into our pre-planned attack profile. Our target was a collection of storage buildings used by 32 Brigade to house soldiers and equipment. The aerial reconnaissance reports showed they were very active, and it looked a good Apache target set. We were authorized to hit specific buildings while leaving others untouched – typical of the discriminatory method of modern targeting. This is important from both a legal perspective and a moral one – we were interested in unseating 32 Brigade, not adding to the woes of the civilian population they were threatening. A neat Hellfire strike would do the job and contain the damage.
Our long transit was almost complete. We picked up the distinctive dried meander of the wadi that would lead us to the target and I flicked from gun to missiles, defence to offence. Now we were on the attack. I switched to the Bowman radio to coordinate the attack; this way it was possible for Ocean to listen in if she was close enough.
‘Running in, targets identified, no changes, continue,’ I transmitted.
The patrol split. John kept us heading straight for the target area, while Charlie and Mark flew momentarily east and then banked hard back toward the targets. We had now set up a coordinated strike, in which each aircraft attacked the target set, near simultaneously, from a different heading. This allowed us to get two different views of the same target, very useful when making sure no civilians were in the area, and also offered fewer places for the enemy to hide.
Mark fired first. I was counting down to my own shot when I saw one of my targets demolished by the familiar force of a Hellfire, followed by the destruction of another.
‘You’re taking my targets?!’ It was half question, half incredulous observation.
‘Yes, sorry, tumbleweed, better now…’, he replied. In Mark Hall country that’s as good as an apology gets. With no time to discuss manners I accepted, and we agreed who had what from the remaining targets and pressed on with the attack. Together we fired ten Hellfire in just four minutes – buildings destroyed, no movement within the wreckage. Outside, Gaddafi’s soldiers were rushing about in the vicinity of other buildings. Maximum effect, much chaos and the sound of the Apache rushing overhead.
We left the scurrying, panicked soldiers – they needed to tell their seniors and their friends that the Apache had been and done this, much as their colleagues had been doing for the last seven weeks up and down the country. None of them had a go at us. With such a weight of fire coming in on them in a small area, usually two or three Hellfire at a time, only one or two seconds separating each impact, it must have seemed like the world was ending. Cognitive effect builds its own momentum.
On the way out Mark put another Hellfire into the VCP guarding the site. That was our final target for the night. I gave a quick burst on the radio, in part to tell Ocean we were on our way, in part to collect the team and head for home.
‘All targets destroyed, one hundred, one hundred, head three-five-zero.’
Gun actioned, scanning for trouble, we made the mad low-level dash north up the wadi to the coast and then the search for Mother. No one stirred, not a shot came our way. Silence and the Apache was all that followed the roar of ten Hellfire that night. The plan had worked, audacious as it was. Crafty minds had kept us ahead of Khamis. That and ten Hellfire in four minutes.
There were three more missions like that during a single week in late July, all to locations being used by 32 Brigade to run their operations. Some of the targets were buildings, others no more than large sheds or storage containers. Two of the missions were coordinated strikes with Royal Air Force Typhoon and Tornado aircraft. These missions were put together by the CAOC with precise detail, down to what sort of weapon would be used for each target, what the attack heading would be and the order in which the targets were to be hit. In normal Apache operations we prefer more freedom to decide our way of working; but it was their air war for the most part, their big fast planes sitting up there five miles above us, and such a prescriptive method removed a lot of risk.
The idea was simple: disrupt 32 Brigade, create chaos, do it repeatedly and make a lot of noise with 500lb Paveway IV from the fast jets and the much smaller Hellfire from the Apache. And once the dust settles, all that is heard, if anyone can still hear, are rotor-blades as the Apaches tip in for another attack. Keep building that momentum, keep getting in their heads: you can’t stop us and we will keep on fighting you until you stop threatening the civilian population. You have no place to hide.
The fourth mission that week destroyed an ammunition and weapons storage facility just behind the front line. The targets, ten in total, were all within a walled compound just off the beach. We could stay feet-wet for this one, a straightforward run, shoot, watch the fast air weapons, say what we saw and get back to Ocean. Total simplicity, with all the coordination done in the CAOC and just the final details completed between me and the jet mission lead on the telephone that afternoon. I felt rather good about my gunnery as I controlled three Hellfire in the air at once, their discrete explosions delivering the precise effect I wanted. Then I called clear and watched the awesome sight of a Paveway IV obliterate the adjacent buildings. Big and clever, I thought – but I won’t tell them that! One target remained. I glanced at the map and the reconnaissance photo. It was a storage container, a huge air-conditioned metal box the size of a bus, allocated to Nick and Little Shippers.
‘Just your last target to go.’
Nick: ‘Yes… left it after the first run in. You still want me to have a go?’
‘Yes, I’ll watch you in. I have you visual.’
‘Wilco.’
In went a November Hellfire, and the storage container separated into millions of pieces as the ammunition inside went off. The explosion was enormous! The sound, after the initial Hellfire strikes and the Paveways, must have been incredible and heard, with the other strikes, all the way across the front line, giving heart to the rebels and the fear to 32 Brigade.
‘That’s the one!’
Nick: ‘Yep, that’ll do it!’
‘All good, returning to Mother.’
The total mission time was 45 minutes. We’d fired six Hellfire and observed the Paveway IVs take down their targets from way up at 25,000ft; and all that was heard between the explosions was the rhythmic thunder of our rotor-blades. Simple, safe enough, hard-hitting and back on deck in less than an hour. No missions were planned for the next few days. This deserved a beer.
In four missions a pair of Apaches had flown just twelve hours and fired twenty-seven Hellfire. We’d struck targets across the full depth of Khamis Gaddafi’s outfit and inflicted irrecoverable damage to his capability. We’d done so alongside HMS Liverpool and in concert with Typhoon and Tornado. And, of course, there were also several thousand Free Libyans on the ground doing the hard fighting. This combination of platforms and weapons created more problems than Khamis could deal with, left huge holes in his front line and saw the rebels begin to advance.
Back on Ocean we were in good spirits; it had been a very successful week. I wondered, privately, what it would take to get this operation completed. Brega was key, so was Zlitan, but the biggest prize was Tripoli. Only the rebels could make the difference on the ground, but with such a large and sustained aerial effort from NATO, it seemed to me that the tipping point was coming. The stalemate of April, May and June would give way in favour of the rebels and the newly recognized National Transitional Council (NTC), and the race for Tripoli would begin. While pacing the flip-flop or the Operations Room I kept my mind on the tactical detail of how we might be part of that, but in the wardroom we all discussed what forces would be unleashed in the final reckoning and how Gaddafi himself might try to defend his last bastion. A protracted urban battle with huge loss of life, displaced persons, destroyed infrastructure and arrested state functionality has no winner. In such a scenario the state is ruined from the inside out as the dictator clings to power and robs what he can from the remains. At the same time, the fighters tear each other apart to gain irrelevant advantage, and in every street and under all the rubble lie the civilian victims who had no choice but to stay and watch the whole shameful disaster unfold. This is what NATO sought to avoid in Benghazi when the jets first flew in late March. Keeping Tripoli from a similar fate must have been in their minds now.