‘Pred?’ I asked. ‘I mean, on the mission night.’
‘No,’ fraid not. Jets, either F-16 or Tornado, are being allocated.’
‘Great, so we’re on our own again then.’ John Blackwell injected some humour. ‘Bit like in Brega when the triple-A and SA-6 were lashing about and nothing came from on high to make a difference…’
Jay cut him off: ‘Well, you’re not really on your own, John. See, you and the boss are together, in the Ops Room on the radio. You’re not on the mission, either of them, look at the schedule!’
Everyone laughed, apart from John and I. I looked at the schedule. Jay was right.
John was cut down to size: ‘Right, I’ll go and make the tea then, just as soon as I’ve finished counting the morphine and polishing your boots!’ He accepted his place. Eight aircrew kept laughing and John and I waited for them to stop. We would sit these missions out. Everyone had done so before and now it was our turn.
Nick had three days to plan. The target areas were given, but the target imagery was weeks old. He held on to the promise of better pictures and spent his time working the route in and the route out. Target packs would always grow as reconnaissance sorties confirmed the viability of the target. When a target area was being considered the NATO Targeting Board would take interest and demand more information. More reconnaissance was flown, better images were obtained and analysed and weapon types were recommended. Eventually, the Targeting Board would agree to the target and allocate it to a particular aircraft type. Often late in the afternoon of the mission the Targeting Board would say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to our target for that night. To us this meant ‘fly’ or ‘cancel’.
If the mountains were a genuine target area the old imagery would have to be updated. However, this target pack didn’t develop. Nothing much had happened in the area for weeks, and it was not receiving much NATO interest. With this scant level of understanding a similar mission along the coastline around Zlitan or Tripoli would have been dismissed early or cancelled on the day. However, as we had never been there before, we had surprise on our side that de-risked the mission just enough to get a green light. The senior men decided the risk was worth the reward. In the background Glen had worked hard to convince them and he knew this would open up a whole new range of options for us. So, while we had very little detail apart from coordinates and an outline description of a collection of vehicle checkpoints, the mission was gaining traction. It looked like a ‘Go’.
With a day to go, Nick agreed the launch point and the recovery point with the ship’s Ops team. He selected the ingress point and a separate egress point on the coast, a key vulnerability for us. Little Shippers and JB spent hours scrutinizing the satellite imagery looking for wires and other hazards over all 50 nautical miles to the target and the 50 nautical miles back. Adding the 50 nautical miles of sea transit meant they would have little time for diversions or unscheduled fights if they were to have maximum effect at the target end. They also knew that if they turned for Mother with little ammunition and fuel left, the run home could be a ragged gauntlet.
Bi’r al Ghanam is the first significant settlement after a northerly descent from the mountains on to the low desert plain. An army on the march had two options: head north to the coastal city of Az-Zawiyah and then east along the coast to Tripoli; or straight north-east to the capital. Owning the town and the road meant control of the region. Our target checkpoints were strung out along the main road that ran northeast towards Tripoli. This road was considered to be a key strongpoint for pro-Gad. It prevented the FLF getting out of the mountains and it enabled easy re-supply to help keep them pinned down. Disrupting that strength might help open a gap in the pro-Gad defence and just might encourage the FLF to exploit an opportunity to advance.
Although the mission would be long, it was planned in our now standard way. Take-off and low-level sea transit, up to 30 nautical miles of it. Cross the coast, guns ready. Race into the desert and cover 50 nautical miles still at low-level, lower than the wires, to the target. Arrive, observe, decide shoot or no shoot. Three separate strikes. Break off. Another 50 nautical miles, again lower than the wires, cross the coast, low on fuel with guns ready, and then out into the black to find Ocean 20 nautical miles north in the Med. Seven phases, each briefed in minute detail. They knew their heights, speeds, times, approach angles, weapon choices and trigger pulls. They also knew how they might undo heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, triple-A and anything else pro-Gad might throw into the sky.
It was a typically aggressive plan: strike the most heavily defended area first with surprise intact, then see what was left. Depending on the weather conditions and the flight profile, the enemy would likely hear them during their run in to the first target. Pro-Gad might get as much as 40 seconds of prior warning if he was listening hard and was able to break out and interpret the low thunder of the Apache on its attack run. The first Hellfire impact would confirm any doubts. After that, the meticulously briefed and rehearsed plan was just a set of ideas Nick could shape into hasty orders for subsequent strikes.
The first and second sites were within a few miles of each other, so surprise would be lost at the first trigger pull. This was about rapid target confirmation followed by maximum firepower. Nick wanted to minimize the attack runs to get as much firepower as possible down on the target with minimum time between trigger pulls. He would have to locate, identify and prosecute as many of the enemy as possible, ideally all in one run. The CO and Jack Davis had been meticulous in their discussions with the CAOC lawyer – the ROE were good to go, pro-Gad owned the space and no one else was there. If it looked military, it was a valid target.
So the evening arrived. The plan was briefed. It was agreed. It was low to medium risk – good for all. Even without any new imagery it was a ‘Go’ from the CAOC and the Commodore. Aircraft ready, Ocean in position. They were set.
I went up to the briefing room and signed the flight authorization. Nick and Reuben countersigned, picked up their personal weapons and ammunition and disappeared out through the airlock on to the flight deck. While they were starting up the systems an intelligence update came over the net from Matrix suggesting that there might be a ZSU 23-4 in the target area.
Nick thought, ‘Result!’ I thought, ‘Risk!’ It wasn’t enough to change the plan; they had considered the chances of something like this happening and how they would respond. The dispassionate risk appreciation had been done. It was still a ‘Go’. I settled in the Ops Room, John Blackwell beside me, radio headset on, text JCHAT streaming on the screen in front of us. I laid out the mission timeline and a printout of the map and plotted the potential ZSU 23-4. It was right on the first target. Still a ‘Go’.
Up on the flight deck both aircraft were online, engines up, and without a word or a signal they lifted one after the other exactly according to the timeline and disappeared into the low-level night transit south to Libya. I could read on the JCHAT that they’d checked in with Matrix and were on their way. Within ten minutes they were out of radio range of Ocean and I expected to hear nothing more until their in-flight hot report was given on their way back over the sea an hour and a half later. The clues as to what might be happening at the target end would be lines on the JCHAT if they spoke to Matrix and he, in turn, reported to the CAOC and us at sea. For the first time as the squadron commander I felt totally without control. I sat back and glanced at the timeline. At the top of the A3 page the crew names were shown: Nick and Little Shippers as Valkyrie One, Reuben and JB as Valkyrie Two. I quickly totalled up their combined experience. Valkyrie One: 4,400 flying hours, 400 deck landings, 2 years in Afghanistan in the Apache. Valkyrie Two: 7,600 flying hours, 250 deck landings, 2 years in Afghanistan in the Apache. They could win in any fight, and I had nothing to worry about; but I still wanted to know how they were at every stage of the mission.