Unfortunately for history, certain generals in the Air Force read the reports, tried to have them burned, and, failing that, classified them secret. Then the same generals disciplined a few pilots and crunched at least one historian. The historians, also being sane and rational, took their cues from the pilots and started telling the generals what they’d believe.
The two Iraqi pilots walked slowly toward their squadron building. They had lots of time to kill. Then what started as a low chuckle in both men grew to a guffaw. Johar looked at Samir and roared with laughter. “It worked, didn’t it?” That was life in an air force.
“Colonel Martin, what we’re dealing with here is a classic case of ‘you tell me what the threat is and I’ll tell you what my tactics are,’ “ Matt said. He and Furry were closeted with the DO, Bill Carroll, and the Gruesome Twosome going over their plans and training for an attack on Kirkuk. “We’re going to have to take on die same defense array that Amb and I encountered when we hit the Syrian headquarters in Lebanon.”
“Gadflies and ZSUs?” Dennis Leander, the junior, very short, overfed elf half of the Twosome, asked.
“Right,” Furry answered. “We were okay ingressing to the target,” the wizzo explained, recalling the attack, “until we had to pop above a hundred feet to acquire the target while we were still outside the range of the ZSU-Twenty-threes that were surrounding the place. That’s when the Gadflies became a problem. We popped to designate the target, dropped back down to get below the Gadflies, but then had to pop back up to get an upward vector so our smart bomb could get a release signal from the weapons computer. I want to tell you, things got hairier than hell.”
“But,” Matt interrupted, “we’ve got just the weapon and tactics to counter that threat.”
Martin was way ahead of them. “So we use GBU-Twenty-fours and Israeli B’nai tactics.”
“Sorry,” Larry Stigler, the stork half of the Twosome said, “you’ve lost us.”
“Explain it to the Meatheads,” Martin grumbled, “and work out a low-level attack. Tell me when you’ve got the simulator ready and I’ll fly the first mission profile.” He heaved his bulk to a standing position and stomped out the door.
“He likes you,” Furry told the Twosome.
Martin stuck his head back inside the room. “I want the sim ready by tomorrow morning, Meatheads.” Then he was gone.
“He doesn’t like us,” Leander corrected. “No way we can do that. It’ll take us five days to reprogram your simulator.”
“You want to tell him that?” Carroll asked.
“We’ll try to have something by tomorrow,” Stigler moaned. “You better tell us about GBU-Twenty-fours and B’nai tactics.”
Furry explained that the GBU-24 was a two-thousand-pound bomb with a guidance control unit on its nose and folding wings on its tail. The weapon could be released in level flight very low to the ground and “tossed” onto the target when the aircraft was still over five miles away. The wings on the GBU-24 would snap open and the guidance control unit would “fly” the bomb onto the target. The bomb would actually climb in-flight and the control unit would dotrajectory shaping to optimize the impact angle. The bomb could penetrate fifteen feet of earth or three feet of concrete and, according to Furry, “not even scratch the paint.”
But for pinpoint accuracy, the target had to be lased during the final seconds of the bomb’s flight. The guidance control unit would sense the reflected energy and fly the bomb to within inches of the “usable laser spot.” The GBU-24 was a very smart bomb with infinite courage.
Then Matt took over and covered B ‘nai tactics. In order to lase the target, two F-15Es would fly a coordinated attack in what could best be described as a pincers movement. The aircraft tossing the bomb would ingress slightly ahead of the other. It would toss the bomb while still well clear of the ZSU-23s used for close-in defense and under the minimum guidance altitude of the Gadfly SAM. The second jet would come in on the other arm of the pincers and would close to within eight thousand feet of the nearest ZSU-23, which was outside the ZSU’s range but still close enough to see and lase the target without popping into the Gadfly’s envelope.
Stigler stood up, ready to go to work. But something in him had changed; instead of looking like a stork, he resembled a lean and hungry hawk. “How soon,” he said to Carroll, “can you get us the exact location of every SAM site and ZSU gun emplacement that’s a player?”
“In thirty minutes,” Carroll answered.
Leander’s elfin grin changed to one of pure mean gremlin. “Martin’s gonna find out who the meatheads are tomorrow morning.”
The activity swirling around the Ganef in the command and control bunker was brisk and efficient. The officers were showered and rested as they hurried about their business directing the war effort, and the halls and command room had been recently cleaned. The chief of Mossad noted with grim satisfaction that the change in morale was driven by the status boards and that there was no doubt that Israel was now pushing the Syrians and Iraqis back on two of the three fronts. The Golan Heights had been cleared and Northern Command was massing for a push toward Damascus, eighty kilometers, or forty-three miles, away. On the front opposite Jerusalem, the Syrians and Iraqis had been pushed back across the Jordan River and Jerusalem was no longer being shelled by artillery. But the Israelis’ last attack as they tried to force the Jordan River had stalled.
Only on the Lebanon front had all progress ground to a halt. The Iraqis had tried to push down a long valley just as Ben David had transferred forces from Lebanon to the Golan to exploit the breakthrough there. The battle in Lebanon had turned into a bloody slugfest and only the timely withdrawal of the Iraqis had saved the situation.
Now Ben David was pressing for a counterattack in Lebanon, claiming that the Iraqis had withdrawn because they were hurt. The Ganef shook his head because he would have to tell Ben David that he was wrong. All his latest intelligence said the Iraqis were re-forming for another attack.
The air attack warning lights on the panel above the main boards started to flash, capturing everyone’s attention in the bunker. The sophisticated warning system had detected numerous incoming missiles and was analyzing their trajectories. Now the panel’s readouts lit up, identifying the type of missiles and their targets. Sixteen Scud Bs and Scaleboards were headed for targets where Israel’s Jericho missiles were bunkered. Then another warning flashed as twelve more missiles were detected headed for the same type of targets. The panel illuminated with a third warning as nineteen more missiles were detected. The Patriot batteries were saturated.
Ben David was on his feet, shouting. “So they want to escalate!”
The Ganef studied Ben David, more concerned about the prime minister’s reaction than the attack. A new worry claimed the Ganef’s thoughts. Everything about Ben David pointed to a man on the edge of physical and mental exhaustion. The minister of defense, Benjamin Yuriden, was calming him, urging him to wait for the results of the attack before acting.