A-10s over Kosovo

by Christopher E. Haave Kimos

  His wave depicted an area, inside Kosovo along the Macedonian border, where we were prohibited from actively looking for targets. The restriction had been put into place for several reasons, including a desire to keep NATO ground troops inside Macedonia, but close to the Macedonia-Yugoslav border, from being drawn into the conflict. The Serbs had discovered our selfimposed no-attack zone and were using our ROEs against us. The restriction had an unintended consequence of turning the entire area into a “safe haven” for the Serbs. They roamed freely through that zone, and often we were powerless to stop them.

  I explained to him that the A-10s had to transit the restricted zone using the ingress routes planned by his CAOC airspace experts to get into their assigned areas. It was during their transit that, while they weren’t searching for targets, they had noticed the AAA. “Well, I don’t want them hanging out in there. Tell them not to fly over there any more. That’s too close to Macedonia!” He was excited, and his gestures only served to amplify his emotional outburst. A German colonel, who was standing behind him, smiled knowingly. He had observed this exchange and had probably overheard 10 more diatribes that night on as many subjects—par for the course when this particular officer was in charge. So I gave him the best “Yes, sir” I could manage and was dismissed from the main room.

  Most nights were uneventful. Our pilots flew the scheduled missions, reported their BDA, and the war went on. I will never forget, however, the contrast in leadership I witnessed in the main room of the CAOC. There were times when it seemed that the war was being run by people who had been there before, had the big picture, and were doing their best to make this operation run the way it should. At other times other people were in charge who did just the opposite. Many of us felt much aggravation and irritation when these types were in charge. I learned later that my frustration, from having to personally answer their questions in the CAOC, paled compared to that felt by the people flying operational missions over Kosovo when an officer of this type was in charge.

  I had been lost in my thoughts for some time when TSgt Damien Fortunato stepped lightly on the brakes—forcing me back to the present—and brought the aircrew minivan to a stop near my aircraft. Damien was one of our life-support NCOs. We had served together in the same squadron at Pope, and he was now part of the 74th FS contingent that had come over to supplement us at Gioia. It was nice to have some familiar faces in both squadrons. “Here you go, sir,” Damien said. It was time to start thinking about the mission at hand. I thanked him, stepped out of the van, and walked towards tail number 80-984.

  The weapons troops were busy putting the finishing touches on the CBU-87s slung underneath the aircraft. One of the ammo troops had written some personalized messages to the Serbs on the CBU canisters. I was sure that if I got the opportunity to drop them, the soldiers on the ground would have no question as to their meaning. We were all focused on the task at hand, and it was evident that everyone on the flight line took great pride in his or her work. This was the first shooting war for many of us. Morale was high, and so was our efficiency. The jets rarely broke, but when they did, they were fixed in a fraction of the time that we had come to expect back home. That accomplishment was due, in great part, to the great enthusiasm we had for our jobs and to the fact that we rarely, if ever, wanted for necessary parts. It was a great feeling to be part of that team.

  Crew chief performing an early morning preflight (USAF Photo)

  Amn Joe Ulshafer was busy annotating the aircraft forms to document the maintenance work that had been done on the jet since it had returned from the first go that morning. Joe was a young first-term airman on his first assignment with the 81st FS. In recent times, shooting wars have been scarce (thankfully), so I couldn’t help thinking that the experience he was gaining from this war would serve him well for the rest of his time in the Air Force. He looked up as I came around the jet.

  Joe flashed me a sharp salute and a smile. Salutes out here were a lot sharper than back home—probably a reflection of the excitement. He asked if I was ready to give the Serbs a dose of their own medicine. “They don’t stand a chance,” I replied. Continuing, I asked, “How did the jet come down?”

  We settled into some friendly banter about the jet. I always thought it was good to know how the jet, which I was getting ready to strap on, had been flying recently so I would know what to look for. I didn’t expect any problems. We were both part of the same team, and it was important to let the crew chiefs know what we were doing. I showed Joe on my map where we were going to start off—north of Pristina near Podujevo—and that we’d be looking for some tanks and APCs at the location where they had been located by imagery. They knew they were part of the team and liked seeing us take off with bombs and come home clean; he now had an idea of what we were going after, and that made a big difference.

  The mission that I briefed to Joe wasn’t going to be as easy as it appears in Hollywood movies. Imagery was suspect; our needs were not high on the CAOC’s targeting and intelligence-support priority list. Satellite reconnaissance was well suited to support interdiction strikes against fixed targets, but most of our targets were mobile forces. Those forces would be photographed at 1400 on the day prior, and the information was accurate at the time it was taken. However, unlike fixed targets, they had 18 hours to move before we would be in the predicted area. Out of necessity, Lt Stephen “Al” Smith, our intelligence officer, and his enlisted troops did their best to get us the most current pictures from all sources. Al and the others spent all night sifting through image databases, which were sorted only by basic encyclopedia (BE) numbers that had no correlation to the target type, date of the imagery, or its location. It was a laborious and dull task, repeated every night to find the right combination of target type, location, and date of image. Without the hard work of Al and his team, we would have had far less success at finding targets. Their pictures told us where the enemy forces had been and when they had been there; they also provided us with a starting point for our searches. Although our confidence in the target’s current location was not as good as we would have liked, it was far better than nothing. With people like Al and Joe on our team, we were optimistic.

  Ground ops were pretty standard. It had been a beautiful day so far and a stark contrast to the previous foggy mornings. The light from a brilliant sun, filtered by high cirrus clouds, fell onto red poppy fields dancing in a gentle, wind-driven rhythm just outside the base perimeter. Looking at that beauty, I found it surreal to imagine that we would launch in 40 minutes—take off to wage war and wreak havoc and destruction on the Serb army.

  As I led Capt Rip Woodard airborne, I felt another surge of excitement.

  This was it! I was in the lead of Taco flight, making the decisions. I was the one who would do the target search, ID the target, and dictate the tactics. I had been excited on my first six sorties, but this was different. This time I was responsible for the flight, which was both exhilarating and sobering. It reminded me of the first time, after I had received my driver’s license, that my parents had let me take the car out by myself on the interstate. I had approached that with a nervous excitement—excited about the new opportunity and praying, “Please God, don’t let me screw this up.” This was no different.

  Rip joined on me and we flew east over the Adriatic, performed our systems checks, and looked over each other’s jets. We continued east across Albania and into southern Macedonia, where we rendezvoused with our tanker—a KC-135 that would refuel most of the A-10s going into the KEZ during our vul period. The actual air refueling was a relatively simple task. Because of the distances, almost every aircraft required aerial refueling to complete its mission. That demand made the management of aircraft schedules, flow patterns, and gas offloads critical. I had witnessed firsthand the CAOC’s complex planning process which ensured that it all flowed smoothly during execution. Their planners developed tanker, SEAD, and ABCCC schedules, put together airspace-control plans, and integrated the resources and
the requirements of the 700-plus aircraft armada. Even the A-10, which consumed relatively little fuel, still required refueling if it was to stay airborne in the target area from three to six hours at a time. Tankers seemed to be everywhere, but unless they were well managed, there would never be enough gas when and where it was needed. So while hitting the tanker (our term for the actual refueling) was a relatively simple task, it required a great deal of coordination and effort to make it work.

  We flowed on and off the tanker during our planned refueling time and headed for the eastern side of Kosovo. The AFAC today was one of the augmenting Pope pilots—Capt Larry Card, a young 74th FS weapons officer. I was glad to be working with Larry, whom I had known since we were in the same squadron at the academy. He had been a sharp, introspective cadet then, and he had since become an excellent fighter pilot. I checked in with him just prior to crossing the Kosovo border. He was busy FACing a pair of British Harriers and sent us north to check on sites near Podujevo. I put Rip in a wedge formation position—about 45 degrees back on the left side—where he could comfortably maneuver and clear for threats as we flew north.

  Over the radio we could hear Larry working the flight of Harriers on his target. It sounded like they were missing short. The Harriers were normally great to work because they had actually been trained for CAS, which meant they were proficient at looking outside the cockpit to visually acquire targets. Even though we weren’t flying CAS missions in Kosovo, what we were doing required many of the same strengths and skills. We saw a big difference between pilots who trained to acquire targets visually and those who trained to bomb coordinates. It was much easier to talk the first group onto targets. The Harrier pilots could be expected to find the target visually, but their BLU-755s hit short almost every time because of a software glitch in their aiming and delivery system. I couldn’t help thinking how frustrating that was for both the Harrier pilots and the AFAC as I continued leading my flight north.

  In the midst of the communication between Larry and his Harriers, we heard a standard call from NAEW: “Aircraft, Derringer 060/80, say call sign.” Most of these calls reflected the dynamic environment and the difficulty NAEW had in keeping track of many maneuvering aircraft. NAEW would occasionally lose track of someone, locate a return, and then query him or her to make sure the controller had the correct call signs. “Derringer” was a geographical point from which to describe a radial direction and distance in nautical miles. Derringer was colocated with Slatina, the Pristina airport. The NAEW had asked the aircraft located on the 060 radial (east, northeast) from Slatina at a distance of 80 NM to identify itself. We were about 10 minutes north of the border when I heard an NAEW transmission on strike frequency that I had not yet heard during OAF: “Outlaw, spades, Derringer 070 for 75, southwest bound!”

  What did those brevity terms mean? It had been a little while since I had reviewed all the terms in our manuals. Nevertheless, I knew “outlaw” meant that an aircraft met the bad-guy point-of-origin criteria, and “spades” said that it wasn’t squawking the right IFF transponder codes—that wasn’t good. Usually I would hear those calls right before an unknown aircraft was declared a bandit (enemy aircraft), and that wasn’t good either. I quickly pulled out my 1:250 chart to plot the position. The plot came out right near the Bulgarian border, inside Serbia. And it was heading this way.

  Another, older voice came over the radio: “Aircraft, Derringer 070 for 75, tracking 230, this is Magic on Guard; identify yourself immediately!” This wasn’t supposed to happen. The F-16CJs, who had been in an orbit overhead providing SEAD support for us, called NAEW and departed their orbit to intercept the intruder. I could hear their fangs sticking through the floorboards over the radio. Blood was in the air, and they could smell it.

  Looking back at my map, I tried to get a rough estimate of the distance between us and the contact the NAEW had identified. It was about 45 miles. Time for us to pull back a bit. We both still had all of our ordnance on board. I had two cans of CBU-87 and Rip had four Mk-82s, along with our Mavericks. I didn’t feel like getting into an air-to-air engagement with all of that on board, but I sure didn’t want to get rid of it and give the outlaw a mission kill. “Taco, let’s hook left. Line reference steer-point five.” I had given Rip a copy of my lineup card when we briefed the sortie; today, steer-point five was Skopje, Macedonia—nominally friendly airspace.

  Rip maneuvered into a good defensive line-abreast position, about a mile and a half off my right side. NAEW transmitted on Guard again, directing the unknown aircraft at Derringer 080 for 65 to identify itself. There was no response. I looked down at my map—30 miles to Skopje. He was obviously going a lot faster than we were. Thirty seconds passed as I increased my scan outside the cockpit, looking across the formation and behind us. I knew that Rip was doing the same thing in his cockpit.

  “Mink Three-One, Bandit, Derringer 080 for 60, southwest bound, hot!” NAEW called out to the F-16CGs. “All aircraft in NBA, this is Magic. Chariot directs retrograde.” NBA was the code word that we were using for eastern Kosovo.

  Great. NAEW was now declaring the contact of a bandit—an enemy aircraft heading towards friendly aircraft. Time to make sure that both of us had our switches ready for an air-to-air fight. “Taco, check AIM-9 in Select, master arm to arm, gun rate high. Let’s push it over. No lower than 160,” I said as I traded altitude for airspeed, but still stayed above 16,000 feet.

  “Two,” came Rip’s immediate response to indicate he understood and would comply with my instructions. I expected that he would have had his switches set, but I had to be sure. In the background, almost drowned out by the excitement of the moment, I could hear the low growl of the AIM-9 seeker head looking for a target.

  “Bandit, Derringer, 090 for 56, southwest bound, descending, hot!” I checked the distance—about 25 miles. Suddenly, despite all the coalition aircraft out there, I felt very alone. Time to get some information from NAEW.

  “Magic, Taco One, say BRAA to Bandit,” I transmitted as I asked the NAEW for the bandit’s bearing, range, altitude, and aspect.

  Pause. “Taco, Magic, unable, stand by,” came the reply.

  Stand by??!!! You can’t be serious! NAEW controllers had never shown stellar performance getting us information when we had trained together in the past, but at least they had given us some close control when we were at medium altitude. Now, when it really mattered—and we weren’t at Red Flag over the Nellis ranges—all they could do is say “stand by.” I wanted to reach out and wring their necks. They probably didn’t even know what my position was—let alone how close the bandit was to any of us. I increased the amount of time that I was checking six—the airspace behind our aircraft.

  “Bandit, Derringer, 090 for 52, heading 240, hot!”

  I looked down and checked my chaff and flare settings. We were quickly approaching the point where I was going to have to turn the formation to be ready to fight. Two green ready lights stared up at me from the panel. Everything was set. I hacked the clock and started mentally calculating the range.

  “Magic, Mink Three-One. Contact target, closing for VID (visual identification),” a charged but steady voice came over the radio. It was the same voice that I had heard earlier when the F-16s had departed their holding point to intercept the Bandit. There was a very pregnant pause. I checked six again. The next call sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Magic, Mink Three-One. Target is an EA-6. Turning south now.”

  I was relieved, upset, and mad—most of all I couldn’t believe my ears. We had almost shot one of our own aircraft—an EA-6B—because he wasn’t in his planned orbit, and the NAEW didn’t know who or what he was. I could have been taking part in an impromptu CSAR had it not been for the professionalism of Mink 31 and his ability to visually identify an EA-6B. I had a flashback to when that had not happened—when two friendly Black Hawk helicopters had been misidentified and shot down by friendly fighters, taking the lives of Lt Laura Piper and 25 other people flying
low over northern Iraq. I was also mad because we had lost about 10 minutes of our available time over Kosovo; it was time to get back to our mission.

  We deselected our AIM-9s and turned north. Rip floated back to a good wedge position, and I could see him pick up the gentle rhythm of checking our six and providing cover against AAA and SAM threats. Irregularly, his jet would move—slight changes in heading and pitch angles—just enough to give him a better view of the ground beneath us and to remain unpredictable. In front, I was doing the same thing. I picked out visual landmarks that would help orient and guide me into the target area. It gave us something to do while the adrenaline worked its way out of our system.

  We arrived near Podujevo after taking an easterly and slightly circuitous 20-minute route, about the same time the adrenaline wore off. Podujevo lay in the middle of a long valley that pointed south towards Pristina and terminated in the north at the Serbian border. Like most of Kosovo, this was an agricultural area, and the fields were full of the spring crops.

  Call sign… Outlaw… Bandit…

  We didn’t see many farmers operating heavy farm equipment these days. With the oil embargo in full effect, there probably wasn’t any gas to spare, and most of the work was likely being done by hand. We rarely saw any traffic on the roads. The Serbs either had learned their lesson or had figured out our ROEs. They knew that civilian vehicles were safe (at least from A-10s); therefore, civilian vehicles were the only type we would see on the roads.

  Today there was little movement on the ground, and the few vehicles I did see on city streets were definitely civilian. I checked along the tree lines and in other areas that our imagery from the past two days had indicated as likely locations for Serb equipment. There was nothing. If the Serb army was in the vicinity of Podujevo, it was well hidden.