That was my last sortie of Allied Force. Scratch and I went on to find some other targets. I wound up earning a rather important medal for this particular excursion into combat and someday hope to show it to my grandson. I will, however, remember that truck more than anything else we did that day. Even now I often wonder what that driver is doing. Perhaps he told his buddies—at some cheap Belgrade bar—about the day he gave the finger to two A-10s in broad daylight, or how he thinks we were too scared to attack him. Perhaps he never even knew we were there. I knew that with one push of my right thumb, several hundred pounds of missile would have slammed into the top of that truck and cartwheeled it into a fiery heap. It’s that image—seen only in my imagination—that I will remember the best.
The Call Sign Was Cub 31
Capt Marty “JD” McDonough
I joined the squadron at Aviano on 28 March and was immediately tasked to go to Vicenza to be one of the squadron’s CAOC representatives. Eight days later I returned to Aviano and flew my first sortie. After a couple of weather days, I was selected to be a member of our advance team and was sent to Gioia del Colle.
I will not soon forget my first opportunity to fly after the squadron moved to Gioia. It was 14 April 1999 and only my second sortie of the conflict. I was the flight lead, Lt Col Surgeon Dahl was my wingman, and our call sign was Cub 31. The first half of our AFAC sortie in the eastern half of the KEZ was uneventful. We were flying above a broken deck, which made our search difficult because it was hard to see targets around and through the clouds. After completing our first vul period, we went to the tanker; by the time we returned the weather had cleared significantly. I checked in with Maj Joe “Dice” Kopacz, the other AFAC on station, and learned he was busy dodging AAA. When he finally got a chance to talk, a couple of expletives were quickly followed by a recommendation not to come over to his area. He had found some targets along the Kumanovo Valley road and had, in his words, “stirred up a bees’ nest.” He suggested I give it a little time to cool down in case I wanted to come over and take a look. I took his recommendation to heart and continued to search for targets south of Urosevac.
Shortly after Dice departed, Moonbeam (ABCCC) transmitted that Bear 21, an F-16 AFAC in the western half of Kosovo, had found and was preparing to engage a large convoy of more than 100 vehicles. Bear 21 had requested that Moonbeam send any available fighters, and I was not about to miss an opportunity to engage some targets. I called Bear 21 and told him that my flight was holding in the eastern half of Kosovo and that we were available as strikers. Since I was fourth in his stack of fighters, I continued to look for targets on my side of the KEZ.
While waiting, I spotted a large truck on the road below me but couldn’t immediately confirm whether it was civilian or military. I used my binoculars to investigate, but I still couldn’t get a good look because he was moving down the road. I decided to try to stop the truck by firing a couple of rockets. I had previously observed rockets being fired on a range and knew they made a lot of noise but created a very small amount of frag or blast. I estimated the distance in front of the moving truck where I needed to aim so that the impact would occur far enough in front of him to get his attention but avoid hitting him with frags. I set up, flew the pass, and launched two rockets that bracketed his position. The truck immediately came to a stop, and I tried to get a closer look. It appeared to be a deuce-and-a-half military truck—but I wasn’t sure.
While I was trying to confirm the truck’s identity, I got another call from Moonbeam. Apparently someone at the CAOC had questioned the composition of the 100-vehicle convoy target being attacked in the western half of the KEZ. Moonbeam wanted an aircraft equipped with binoculars to check out the convoy to make sure it was a valid military target. I contacted Bear 21 to get the location of the convoy. I was not sure that I had sufficient fuel to fly all the way to his target, observe the convoy, and still make it to a tanker with the required reserves. I was required to have enough gas when I reached the tanker to be able to recover home in case the refueling was not successful.
Fuel trucks destroyed by Capt Marty McDonough on 8 April 1999 (USAF Photo)
I communicated my concern to Bear 21 on the common strike frequency. He pushed me to a different radio frequency, checked us in, and said he was sure that he was striking a good target and that he really just needed me to come on over and check it out. I figured it would take me at least 45 minutes to get to the tanker and back, during which time the attacks on this lucrative target would be halted. I had refueled many times before without any problems. I considered the consequences of having a malfunction today and decided that even if we had difficulties, we would still be able to land at a friendly airfield—just not at our home base. We would get refueled on the ground, and with a fast turnaround we could quickly be on our way home. We had Moonbeam confirm that tankers would be available and proceeded to Bear 21’s target.
The convoy, which had been heading to the southeast, was stopped near the town of Dakovica, on the main road to Prizren. At 20,000 feet and with my naked eyes, I could tell the target was not military—at least most of it wasn’t. It consisted of lots of colorful vehicles. I could see blues, reds, and a lot of bright silver from bumpers reflecting the sun. I let Arden know that I was going heads-down to use the binos. I could then see that a number of civilian cars and tractors had pulled over to the side of the road. I also noticed a couple of larger vehicles leaving the area to the west. One of them was a large charter bus with some colorful paint marks down both sides. There were one or two other west-moving vehicles whose identity I could not confirm before they entered the town of Dakovica and disappeared.
Convoys near Dakovica on the road to Prizren
I then noticed a strange-looking pattern south of the road and took a closer look. I identified it as a crowd of people who had left their cars and tractors and had run away to a safe distance. They were waiting in the fields for their vehicles to stop exploding. I immediately transmitted that the convoy was definitely civilian. Bear 21 ensured that all attacks and weapons expenditures were stopped. The CAOC quickly closed the KEZ and sent everyone home. We had been trying to extend the target-area time to prosecute this target—that was obviously no longer required.
Our day wasn’t over. We flew to the tanker to get a little fuel before going home. I took gas without a problem, but Arden started getting a lot of fuel spray from around the refueling receptacle, the location where the tanker’s boom connects to the nose of the aircraft. He disconnected, reconnected, and tried again with the same result. Since the A-10 tech manual recommended that refueling be discontinued in the event of fuel spray due to the potential danger of fuel pooling in the electronics bays, Arden ended up taking on only about 500 pounds of gas. We did the math to figure out if we had enough fuel to get home. It didn’t look good for flying straight home, but we could make it to our divert base. While we waited for the jets to be refueled at Brindisi, we learned that CNN was already covering the attack on the convoy. Immediately after landing at Gioia del Colle, Arden and I wrote our reports and submitted them to our CAOC rep at Vicenza.
It was not a glorious moment for either the Air Force or NATO. However, we thought it could be a critical lesson learned and a memorable chapter in Hog history. There are plenty of things technology can do, but experience and training in the basics remain critical. When it came time to confirm a target with vast political implications, it was not a high-tech targeting pod but a set of 12-power binoculars in the hands of an experienced AFAC that provided the accurate and critical identification.
A-10, as seen from the tanker, just prior to refueling. Note the refueling receptacle located in front of the windscreen. (USAF Photo by SrA Greg Davis)
I watched the post-incident briefing at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) on public television a couple of weeks later. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of the episode. I wouldn’t describe the briefing as misleading, but the description just didn�
�t quite match what we had experienced. Arden and I had submitted our written reports to the CAOC through our rep at Vicenza—but I didn’t recognize any of those details in the SHAPE brief. I suspect that our reports were not part, or at least not the focus, of SHAPE’s investigation. Its briefing went into much detail on the circumstances of the incident, including identifying Bear 21 and showing his F-16’s cockpit video. The briefing appeared to focus on “how” this tragic incident could have happened.
The A-10’s role in terminating the attack was understated during the SHAPE briefing. A-10 AFAC expertise did not get credit for its critical role in identifying the noncombatant nature of the convoy, terminating the attack, and preventing further civilian casualties. Like the role we played, our call sign was also abbreviated. We were simply referred to as “Cub flight,” which could identify any one of several Cub call signs flying that day. I appreciated our leaders’ desire to explain the circumstances of “how” this could have happened to the public, get this tragic incident quickly behind us, and refocus on our continuing combat operations. However, my hope is that we don’t forget an important lesson—technology cannot completely substitute for training and experience. This is especially critical in basic tasks like looking at the ground and being able accurately to identify and understand what is really there—particularly when fighting a cynical enemy willing to use civilians as human shields.
Chapter 6
THE GREAT HUNT FOR RADARS
Introduction
Lt Col Chris “Kimos” Haave
NATO wanted Montenegro to remain “neutral.” Yugoslav forces normally did not use Montenegrin territory for their operations, and our ROEs reflected that Serbian discretion by normally precluding attacks in that territory. Early in the conflict however, the Serbs positioned a long-range acquisition radar on a narrow peninsula on the Montenegrin coast. From that position the radar provided the Serbians important intelligence as it tracked all NATO aircraft flying through the southern Adriatic and Albanian airspace. Serbia’s action forced NATO to make an exception to its normal ROEs and directed that the radar be eliminated. Our experiences while we hunted for that single radar on the coast of Montenegro were typical of both our frustrations and our successes during the Hog’s participation in Allied Force.
We could not determine whether the Serbs kept the same radar, or even the same type of radar, at that strategic coastal location. At different times it appeared to be a Flat Face (Soviet-built) radar, and at other times it exhibited the characteristics of a Giraffe (Swedish-made) radar. It was clear, however, that the CAOC wanted to remove that Serb capability (no matter what kind or how many radars) to track NATO strike packages and KEZ-bound aircraft.
Coverage of suspected Serb radar
The Serbs weren’t stupid enough to operate their radar continuously and expose it to a classic NATO interdiction attack. Rather, they emitted unpredictably—just long enough to get the information they needed—and then relocated their equipment to a different residential or wooded area near the Montenegrin coast. Therefore, the aircraft that got the opportunity to kill the radar was simply the aircraft that happened to be in the area at the time the radar was detected.
Flat Face radar (Photo courtesy of FAS)
The CAOC, we believed, had decided that our A-10s at Gioia del Colle were the preferred weapon system to kill the radar. We would be able spend more time in the target area, had the best chance of finding the radar, and had a wide range of weaponry with which we could engage it. The radar’s location in Montenegro made identifying the target essential and minimizing collateral damage even more critical. The CAOC’s choice of the Hog’s low-tech binoculars reflected the earlier success that Coke, our operations officer, and others had during Desert Storm knocking out Flat Face radars while they hunted for Scuds in Iraq.
The good news was that we were the privileged few to be allowed to go after this elusive and high-priority prey. The bad news was that it was both elusive and high priority. It was the focus of the CAOC’s attention, and that meant we would fly many frustrating sorties without finding it. Some of our pilots started daydreaming about being the lucky one to see the radar in his binos, move it to his gunsight, and hammer down on the trigger.
Fighter pilots are naturally aggressive and generally avoid looking for the definitive answer to an ambiguous rule that would remove all ambiguity—and their flexibility. Thus, most fighter pilots worth their salt have done something in the course of their careers that they would rather not have to explain to their commanders. These natural tendencies, coupled with our pilots’ desire to succeed in the difficult hunt for the Flat Face and Giraffe radars, almost resulted in a tactical victory and a strategic disaster.
I began my tour as squadron supervisor at 1800 on the evening of 4 May and would be on duty until 0600 the next morning. The poor weather over Serbia precluded the launch of our normal interdiction strike packages. The CAOC planners, however, had checked with their weather forecasters and believed that the cloud layers over the Adriatic Sea and the Montenegrin coast would be scattered enough for our crews to draw a bead on the Flat Face radar.
Capt Edward D. “Sped” Sommers was a highly qualified weapons-school instructor, generously sent from Nellis to participate in a strategic planning cell headed by Col Daniel “Doc” Zoerb. He also helped our unit representatives at the CAOC explain the finer points of A-10 employment to the CAOC leadership. Sped called from the CAOC to ask if our two CSAR (ground- and airborne-alert) two-ships could be retasked from covering strike packages to a radar-hunting mission. “Yes,” I replied. Although in my enthusiasm I may have said something more colorful.
I gathered the four pilots together and told them of their new tasking. Capt Stu Stuewe, who was the highest qualified of the four pilots and had been scheduled as Sandy 1 that night, volunteered to lead the mission.
The weather was the biggest unknown. The forecast for the ceiling on the Adriatic changed several times during the night, but the one I believed that we all had settled on was broken at 4,000 feet. “Broken” denotes at least five-eighths cloud cover—unless the clouds are very thin, it is practically impossible to find and attack a target from above. To attack the Flat Face in that weather meant having to descend through and attack from below the 4,000-foot broken cloud deck. Doing so would directly conflict with our altitude ROE. General Short’s exact words on ROEs were seared into my brain, and his voice was still ringing in my ears from my trip to Tirana three days before. Never in my life had my understanding of my superiors’ direction been so lucid. Our current ROEs limited our altitude to no lower than 5,000 feet to identify a target and to no lower than 8,000 feet during our attacks.
The following is an example of what Clausewitz meant by “fog and friction.” Worried about the weather, Sped, Stu, and I had all independently checked it several times during the two hours from the start of mission planning to the pilots stepping to their aircraft. It was several days later before I was able to piece together each of our differing perceptions of the weather and the ROEs that applied to that night’s hunt for the Flat Face radar. I was convinced that the definitive forecast was for a 4,000-foot broken ceiling, which would require the CAOC’s approval to deviate below the ROE-established minimums. I told Sped, “Confirm for me that we have been cleared to go below the weather.” On the other hand, Sped, who was getting his weather information at the CAOC, was convinced that the ceiling was forecasted for 8,500 feet and saw no conflict staying within the current ROE and operating “below the weather to either identify or attack the radar.” Stu, the flight lead, had received several projected ceilings during the planning process from our Gioia del Colle forecaster and stepped with the conviction that the forecasted ceiling was at 2,000 feet. So when I told him, “Go below the weather,” he believed that meant he was cleared to operate below 2,000 feet.
There is one recollection on which Stu and I differ. I had required Stu to brief the flight’s attack plan to me in detail since I was cle
aring my guys to descend to low altitude at night, over water, and in potentially cloudy weather. Their plan called for a first pass using Mavericks and, if unsuccessful, a second pass at 2,000 feet for a level CBU attack that Sped and Stu had worked out over the phone. I approved the plan, with an additional restriction of maintaining at least 2,000 feet above the water since three of the pilots in the flight had not yet completed training at night below that altitude. If they encountered weather at 2,000 feet or below, they were to abort the mission and return home. Stu did not recall my 2,000-foot restriction and therefore interpreted my clearance to “go below the weather” as clearance to descend to any tactically safe altitude. I’ll leave the details of the mission to the stories in the chapter, but the unsuccessful attacks on this night occurred below 2,000 feet.
When the four intrepid aviators returned from their unsuccessful sortie, they identified the weather as the reason for their lack of success. They did not mention altitudes—there was no reason to mention them since they had adhered to the altitude ROE as they understood it. “Flat Face fever” hit the squadron. All of the pilots eagerly listened to tales about that night’s mission and hoped they might have a shot at the radar. A couple of days later, each of the same four pilots found himself leading an element when Stu spotted the infamous radar from medium altitude on the way home. He received CAOC clearance and shifted the entire KEZ package to the west to provide SEAD cover. Once again, there was a low-weather deck. Based on their experiences during that first night attack and their mistaken belief that to kill this radar they had been given an exception to the normal altitude restrictions, they flew another attack below the “real” ROE altitude. On this mission, Stu’s gun malfunctioned just as he lined up the enemy radar in his gunsight. We all listened raptly to their mission debrief.
A-10s over Kosovo Page 20