Hellfire

SIEGE

In March 2006, 16 Air Assault Brigade’s elite, twenty-five-strong Pathfinder Platoon deployed to Helmand province. Their primary role was to pave the way for the 3 Para battlegroup’s forthcoming deployment. The last time the Parachute Regiment had been involved in heavy fighting was during the Falklands conflict in 1982 – two years before I joined up – and they weren’t expecting much of a ruckus this time round. Their only task was to provide security while reconstruction got under way…

Travelling in heavily armed WMIK Land Rovers with Pinzgauer 4x4 trucks as support, the Pathfinders put in long-range patrols across the province. They were attacked almost immediately by Taliban, and engaged in virtually continuous combat for the rest of their tour. By the time they left the province, the 3 Para battlegroup had suffered the loss of fourteen soldiers, one interpreter and another forty-six badly injured.

In June, US forces moved out of Musa Qa’leh and the Pathfinders, who had already spent some days in the town, were ordered to relieve them. What was meant to be a six-day occupation until relief by A Company 3 Para turned into a six-week nightmare.

The compound they shared with local police came under daily attack from small arms, machine guns, snipers, RPGs, mortars and a sangar-busting 82 mm recoilless rifle. A Company were ordered to hold Sangin and CO 3 Para informed the Pathfinders that he did not have the resources to relieve them.

Living conditions were grim, with dust, temperatures of nearly 50°C, and dwindling supplies of food and water. Even the rules of engagement were against them. They were prevented from firing until they had physically seen a weapon being raised against them. To make matters worse, some of the ANA and ANP they were working with were either high on drugs or tipped off the Taliban, the Americans had a habit of carrying out operations they didn’t tell their allies about, and directives kept coming back from the top brass in Northwood that they were using too much ammunition.

The Pathfinders must have thought we were on a bungee cord. I lost count of the number of times I’d been crashed out to Musa Qa’leh. I had every firing point committed to memory and knew the place as intimately as Crossmaglen. The fighting was just as ferocious as at Now Zad and Sangin but luckily for the Pathfinders, they never had that many serious injuries; lucky, because it was impossible to get in and out safely by air.

One Chinook trying to pull out injured lads was shot up four times and the crew had to go back for another bird. It was so dangerous the lads were told to ration themselves because they would not be resupplied by air.

Finally, after over a month and an average weight loss of a stone each, they were reinforced by a bunch of Danes in armoured vehicles. The Danes took five days to get into the town because of the tenacious resistance of the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Norsemen brought a new problem with them. Once they were in they couldn’t get out, and they began to eat the Pathfinders out of house and home.

A huge operation to resupply Sangin and to build up its defences was mounted by 3 Para. Once this was complete all efforts were directed towards pulling out the now emaciated Pathfinder Platoon and replacing them with two platoons of Royal Irish.

Yesterday that mission failed badly.

We lost three soldiers trying. Musa Qa’leh has a high concentration of Taliban and a long Green Zone in which they could move virtually at will. It was in the Green Zone that the Taliban ambushed the armoured recce cars, killing a JTAC and two members of the Household Cavalry. We flew our arses off in support of the beleaguered troops. Jon and I had to swap aircraft because we had flown the arse off the one we started in.

After firing the Hellfire just over two weeks ago, we were sent to KAF for three days to sort out the broken aircraft. The technicians worked us hard at KAF. The Apaches were getting a bit ragged and the techs needed us to test them morning, noon and night. It wasn’t without risk either.

We had a four-hour lull late one night and decided to go for a pizza instead of having a late dinner at the all-night American Dining Facility (Dfac). We stood outside the arctic-trailer that was Pizza Hut on the boardwalk – a large wooden walkway with trailers scattered around it acting as shops.

The place was mobbed with soldiers of every nation. Weapons were being handed over to each other so photographs could be taken – this is me with an Armalite – and it all seemed a bit surreal.

‘It’s like leaving the jungle in Nam and going to Hanoi on R&R,’ Jake said as he waited to be served. As he did so I heard something that reminded me of my days as a paratrooper in remote outposts of Northern Ireland. It came very quickly and the pitch change made me squat before throwing myself under the Pizza Hut trailer.

‘Hey dude, it’s not—’ Jake was cut off mid-sentence as I covered my head in the foetal position.

There was a huge crash followed by two more in rapid succession only a couple of hundred metres away.

I crawled to the edge of the trailer and as I started to get up everyone else was diving for cover.

‘I think you’ve got it the wrong way around, lads,’ I laughed. ‘You’re supposed to take cover before the rockets hit.’

The sirens sounded and everyone ran off to the air-raid shelters. To me it was all a bit too late really. I was left alone except for a shadowy figure about fifty metres away, sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette.

‘Nice Para-roll, crap-hat,’ he shouted.

When I moved closer I realised he was an ex-Para mate now working for the boys in black.

We shot the shit for thirty minutes until the sirens sounded the all clear. We’d missed our pizza but I felt lucky that the three Chinese 107 mm rockets had missed me. Not by far, but they had; they’d landed in the Dfac a couple of hundred metres away, killing and injuring late diners.

On our return to Bastion we flew relentlessly every single day and I was feeling physically and emotionally drained.

Colonel Wild came out to visit us and was shocked by what he saw. I’d flown for him when he was a major in charge of AAC’s Special Forces Squadron. We knew each other well and he couldn’t get over how haggard and old I looked.

He made direct references to the fact we were killing – within the ROE – without blinking an eye, and treated death and destruction as a part of daily life. What shocked him most was the level of stress we were experiencing, from ROE to shooting far too close to our own troops to being shot at and shot up. ‘At times you have to play God,’ he said – a very poignant statement from a dedicated practising Christian.

This leap into attack aviation took a lot of the top brass by surprise. I don’t know what they thought Apaches did, but Billy’s account of his introduction to the US Apache course should have been shared with the army’s high rankers: ‘If anyone here doesn’t think they can look a man in the eye and kill him stone cold dead, then he’d better get up and leave. This course is for attack pilots.’

Wild had come out to explain the factors that were causing more and more battlefield helicopters to crash every year. He went home with a brand new agenda: to brief the AAC, JHC and MoD on how kinetic, fluid, ferocious and tiring being an Apache pilot was in the Helmand.

It didn’t pay to think about the sleepless nights, or being crashed out to platoon house after platoon house, or the stifling heat of the tents. I was never one for counting down the days; that only made the tour seem longer. I threw myself into paperwork and kept myself busy unless there was something more interesting to do, like a good old knees-up.

WEDNESDAY, 2 AUGUST 2006

Camp Bastion

We held a ceremony to claim ownership of the flight lines. We christened it Chinthe Lines after the squadron symbol on our flying badges, the lion-like creature that often guarded the entrance to holy places in South-east Asia. In local mythology, chinthes almost always travelled in pairs, and served to protect the pagoda or temple.

After curry, poppadums and soft drinks, the youngest air trooper in the squadron, Emily Leggett, was to unveil the sign. All the boys sang the theme to The Stripper as she unwrapped the plaque in a fit of giggles.

Lieutenant Colonel Tootal, the guest of honour, was presented with a flechette rocket mounted on a board. A rocket had misfired in one of the tubes so the lads had got the Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) to remove the explosives and pull the flechettes out as trophies. Tootal gave us a few words.

He said he’d been an outspoken critic when the MoD first bought the Apache, and didn’t mind who knew that he thought it was a waste of money. We should have bought something cheaper and we should have bought a hell of a lot more of them. The Apache was too role-specific and wouldn’t have the flexibility needed for modern warfare. He’d had no idea how he was going to employ it in this theatre, and had been totally in favour of buying armed Black Hawks instead.

He was now converted, and made a point of telling every visiting military and parliamentary dignitary. He described the Apache and the crews who support and fly them as valuable assets that he couldn’t do without. They’d saved his men’s lives on many occasions. His men were always confident when the Apaches were above them. He also congratulated us on our jointery; the fact that we were purple air-joint service – and worked seamlessly together.

It could easily have been mistaken for a sweetener for the nightmare to come, but he was much too genuine to play games. We would be going back into Musa Qa’leh in three days, and this time the Taliban wouldn’t stop us.

We had our squadron, flight and aircrew photos taken, and then got stuck into a game of floodlit volleyball. The Apache crews opened up a can of Whoop-ass on their Chinook counterparts.

FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST 2006

The day started with bad news.

Our IntO interrupted a briefing for a Special Forces job. A walk-in source had tipped them off that the Taliban were ready to bring down a helicopter with an anti-aircraft gun at Musa Qa’leh.

The ANP in Musa Qa’leh had gone out on patrol in the Green Zone and came back unscathed. They should have been under fire within 100 metres of the gate. It didn’t add up; they were traitors in the eyes of the Taliban.

The Pathfinders reported Icom chatter suggesting the Taliban had been reinforced to twice their original strength, and the newcomers had brought forty more 107 mm rockets with them.

The penny began to drop; they were being tipped off. The Taliban now knew that Musa Qa’leh was off-limits to helicopters and that the men were so desperate they had taken to drinking goats’ milk. They knew they had to be resupplied at some point, and it would have to be by road. They knew vehicles were an easy target in Musa Qa’leh because of their limited movement, and had had great success against us three days ago. They were preparing to defend Musa Qa’leh.

Taliban morale was very high.

SATURDAY, 5 AUGUST 2006

0730 hours local

Straight after breakfast, all aircrew were summoned to the briefing tent.

The mission orders would be slick and make a point of everyone knowing what everyone else’s part would be. The tent was jam-packed. However, as big as it was, there still wasn’t room for all the participants, so only the head sheds appeared; for us that now meant all of the aircrew on the mission and everyone likely to support it on IRT/HRF.

A lectern had been set up at the front, next to the usual briefing boards containing satellite images and the all-important scheme of manoeuvre – every individual’s part in the mission at any given time.

We went and sat at the back with the Chinook boys. In front of us were the Mortar Platoon and Patrols Platoon commanders, a couple of company commanders, their platoon commanders, platoon sergeants – anybody, in fact, who had some control and could affect what was going to happen on the day. There was a buzz in the air. Everyone knew this was our last chance at getting into the DC at Musa Qa’leh. If this failed, we would have run out of options.

‘Yes, we’re going to attempt a resupply of Musa Qa’leh.’ Lieutenant Colonel Tootal nodded at the sea of expectant faces. ‘It will be codenamed Operation Snakebite. We have tried to get in there before, and failed. We must make this work at all costs.’

He described the enemy. There were two distinct groups of Taliban, he said, with forty to fifty men in each, operating either side of the wadi on the approach to the town. Many of them were Arab fundamentalists who’d infiltrated through Pakistan. With these well-trained fighters there would be an untold number of additional fighters. We could expect a hard fight.

Everyone would have his or her part to play. We had to push a convoy through so they could get in thirty DoS-Days of Supply – ammunition, fuel and food; enough to withstand any onslaught the Taliban could muster. We would pull the Pathfinders out and put in two platoons of Royal Irish. They would be backed up by more ANA and ANP, who were going to form the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF).

The Danes were going to stay in place. They would be responsible for securing the LS and providing the additional firepower.

Tootal sat down. The Ops Officer of 3 Para got up and stood by the maps.

‘These are the orders for Operation Snakebite. It’s a resupply convoy mission into and back out of Musa Qa’leh on Sunday, 6 August. Tomorrow.’ He pointed at the map. ‘This is Musa Qa’leh town…’

On its western edge was a huge north-south wadi. We’d need to cross it to get into the town. The wadi was wide open and we’d be very vulnerable crossing it.

Bordering the western edge of the wadi was a north-south strip of Green Zone, about 200 metres wide, where the Taliban moved freely, fought and hid. We’d need to fight through this to reach the wadi.

Just to the west of this Green Zone was an urban area about a hundred metres wide, where the Taliban would be waiting for us. We’d need to clear it before we could get into the Green Zone.

To the west of the urban area was a long, forward-facing slope up to a plateau. The Taliban would have good fields of fire across it from the urban area, and we needed to advance down it.

On top of the plateau was an empty desert and except for one wadi it spread as far west as the eye could see. This area was heavily mined during the Soviet invasion. We lost a vehicle when it drove over a mine in this piece of desert only four days ago during the first attempt at getting into Musa Qa’leh.

‘This is where we will start the operation,’ he said.

You could have heard a pin drop.

‘Today, the Patrols Platoon and the mortars, with callsign Widow Seven Zero as their JTAC, will move out and overnight in the middle of this desert to the west of Musa Qa’leh, in preparation for the following day. At the same time, India Battery with their three 105 mm guns, and the convoy with the resupply, will move out into the desert too, and they will occupy their lay-up position.

‘Early doors Sunday the sixth, tomorrow morning, the convoy will leave the gun position and route to a safe area north-west in the desert, in preparation for being called forward to pass through a safe passage.

‘The Patrols Platoon and the mortars will move forward simultaneously through the known minefield, to find, clear, prepare and secure an area for the LS. It will be as close to the plateau as possible and capable of receiving all the Chinooks.

‘There will be three levels of support. We will have indirect support from the guns and the mortars. There will be Close Air Support from nine airborne CAS sorties, giving us a seamless supply of fast air. Finally, there will be Intimate Support from British Apaches. There will be a permanent flight of Apaches over-head from insertion and these will be under the control of Widow Seven Zero, as will all CAS.’

‘On L Hour – the set time when the first Chinook touches down – four Chinooks containing B Company 3 Para and CO 3 Para’s tactical headquarters will land at the LS cleared by Patrols Platoon.’

‘On landing, the guns and the mortars will set up and register so they are accurate and ready to provide support,’ he continued. ‘This will also cause a slight diversion but we do not need the element of surprise. We’re not going to hide from the enemy or pretend we don’t have artillery. We’re going to let them know what we have and that we’re coming whether they want to fight or not.’ Guns and mortars within range would be a show of force.

‘On landing, B Company will get out of those Chinooks, and they will go to ground.’

The Chinooks would scoot back to Camp Bastion and pick up D Company then wait at Bastion until called forward.

‘With everybody on the ground, the convoy hidden so the Taliban don’t know where it is, the guns and mortars zeroed in, Apaches above us and CAS above them, B and D Company will prepare to move.’

Both fighting companies would move to the edge of the forward slope and take up positions ready for the advance to contact.

He indicated the map with a long stick.

There was a track leading from the ridge at the edge of the desert, east down the slope, through the urban area and through the Green Zone to the wadi.

‘Everything north of the track belongs to B Company, everything south, D Company.’

D Company would stay firm with their weapons trained on the urban area as B Company advanced to contact down the slope in a 500-metre extended line, oriented north to south. The track would be their southern border.

If they came under contact, D Company would fire into the urban area at all targets to cover B Company. Widow would call the Apaches to hit the enemy hard and fast from above, tracking any survivors. They would use artillery to suppress them wherever they were then smash them with CAS.

‘B Company will then systematically clear or assault every compound from east to west 100 metres up to the edge of the Green Zone, then south to the track, capturing or killing any Taliban that want to fight. They will refer to this list of building numbers.’

We all had a satellite image showing the outline of every compound 300 metres north and south of where the track ran through the urban area and into the Green Zone. Each compound had a designated number.

‘The numbers will cut down on the time it takes to get the Apaches to fire and will negate any errors induced by incorrect grids.’

This was a far cry from the escorting role we’d played during Op Mutay.

Once all the compounds had been cleared, D Company would do exactly the same on the southern half. As they cleared these areas a small force would be left behind, covering arcs, to maintain the security and integrity of the convoy route.

B and D Companies would then move the 200 metres through the Green Zone, west to east, systematically clearing 300 metres north and south of the track, fighting any Taliban that got in their way. They would keep one foot on the ground and move slowly to ensure the line was watertight until they reached the wadi.

‘In this area,’ the Ops Officer said, pointing at the wadi and the Green Zone surrounding the crossing point, ’we will refer to spots from the Op Snakebite Spot Map.

A spot map had been produced as a one-off for this mission, dotted with coloured numbered spots for quick identification to speed up fire control commands from the Widow.

They would go firm at the wadi with a long string of men left behind, covering north and south.

‘During the move to the wadi, the engineers will be clearing the track to ensure there are no mines or IEDs waiting for the convoy.’

With the area sanitised and interlinking arcs all the way back to the plateau there would be no way any Taliban could get access to RPG or IED the convoy. The Taliban had buried a triple mine in the road a week ago and remotely detonated it under a Spartan. Then they RPGed the Scimitar trapped ahead of it. The occupants had had an almighty firefight to get out alive and then back in again to save their horrifically injured comrade. The IED killed three of them outright and left two burnt-out vehicles behind.

‘Once B and D are firm on the other side of the wadi, the Pathfinders and Danes will exit the DC on foot and in their vehicles. They will patrol the 350 metres west along the Bazaar road to the edge of the town where it meets the wadi. They will fan out and take up defensive positions. So now we have both sides of the wadi covered. If anybody tries to attack the convoy, they will have troops on either side ready to attack them.’

The convoy in the desert would be told to move out if they hadn’t moved forward already. They would make their way to the plateau, follow the route cleared down the slope by the engineers, through the urban area, through the Green Zone. The final push would involve darting across the wadi, the most dangerous part of their mission. The track across the wadi kicked left forty-five degrees when it left the Green Zone and cut across the wadi at this angle for 700 metres before kicking right forty-five degrees onto the Bazaar road leading to the Musa Qa’leh DC.

This angle meant that they were still vulnerable from the north and south, either side of the wadi, but it afforded them the best protection 3 Para could provide.

‘Once secure in the DC they will unload thirty DoS, deposit the men and then start to make their way back out of Musa Qa’leh the same way they came in. Patrols Platoon will jump into those vehicles, leaving the Danes, the Royal Irish and the newly formed ANSF behind.’

They would then do the dirty-dash back across the 700-metre wide wadi, under the protection of the Danes on the east, D Company and B Company on the west, until they reached the Green Zone.

‘From there they will backtrack through until they are safely back inside the desert; the mined desert.’

B Company and D Company would then fall back through the Green Zone to the urban area. D Company would move back to secure the high ground with B Company covering them until they finally moved up themselves.

‘The Chinooks will be called forward and everyone will fly back to Camp Bastion with the Apaches escorting the Chinooks. Job done. That’s the format and you all know your piece. Any questions?’

All of the what ifs, questions and answers had already been hammered out. We knew that we were Intimate Support, 3 Flight would go in first, and we would RIP them. We also knew the extent of the threat to us: anti-aircraft guns, RPGs, small arms, SAMs, snipers, even mortars. You name it; the Taliban had it. Our two trump cards this time round were artillery to keep the enemy’s head down, and a relatively small area to work in, just a couple of hundred metres wide.

All that remained was the Rehearsal of Concept (RoC) drill. The tent emptied and we went to the side of the secure area where 3 Para had set up a fifty metre by fifty metre scale model of the whole operation. The ground was scattered with minetape – a two-inch white or orange plastic ribbon used to cordon off mined areas – sandbags, rocks, cardboard and empty Coke cans.

Bastion and the LS were Coke cans, the white minetape tracked down the slope – and they’d made a slope too – through the urban area with compounds made of cardboard. It stretched through a sandbag Green Zone to an orange minetaped wadi into a rocky Musa Qa’leh and ended up at the DC Coke can. The convoy’s lay up point (LUP) was marked too.

‘Okay, Patrols Platoon and the mortars are going to be leaving shortly with Widow Seven Zero…so the commanders will go along here, and Widow Seven Zero will be with them…’

The three guys playing their parts moved and stood together.

‘And then the Battery Commander and the convoy leader will be in position here overnight.’ The BC and another guy I’d never met before sat down.

‘At whatever time it is, minus L hour – and I don’t know how long it’ll take them to move – the convoy will then depart the gun position.’

The convoy guy moved round to the north-west.

‘At the same time, Patrols Platoon and the mortars, with Widow Seven Zero, are going to move forwards to secure the LS.’

They moved forward on the sand map to the site of the intended LS.

The 3 Para Ops Officer said, ‘Right, what’s the next thing we’re going to hear?’

The Patrols Platoon Commander put his hand up. ‘LS secure.’

‘Right, the LS is secure – that means we can go ahead with it. At that point, we’re going to send out the Chinooks with B Company and the CO’s JTAC. With them will be the first wave of Apaches.’

As four Chinook guys, four passengers, Pat and Chris walked to the LS, the BC said, ‘At this point we’ll be registering – we’ll be firing into this area, to make sure our guns are ready.’

The Mortar Platoon Commander said, ‘And at this point, I’m going to be firing too.’

The aircrew could see where the gun line was, where the mortar line was, how they were going to get in, how they were going to get out and the location of the gun-to-target line they needed to stay out of. The four Chinook pilots headed back to the Bastion Coke can where we stood.

The CO, 2i/c and Ops Officer of 3 Para threw in a constant stream of questions.

‘What happens if that compound fires at you now?’ the CO asked.

‘I would call you and D Company, sir. D Company would put fire down and your JTAC would get those two Apaches onto it.’

The whole rehearsal was done at speed but relative to the time-frame so everyone knew where everyone else was, what they would be doing or saying at any point along the line. We walked out and replaced Pat and Chris and the rotations continued until everyone at the RoC drill was standing back at the Bastion Coke can.

The rehearsal ended, a host of questions answered.

Later, we talked through the brief again within our squadron. We ironed out how we would RIP at any given moment because even on the day we wouldn’t know how slowly or quickly each phase of the Op would take.

There was still one nagging doubt in my mind.

I knew I had to voice it.

I had to address our operational effectiveness with the boss again. It had degraded to the point that we rarely hit our targets with a first burst. The main reason was the gun Dynamic Harmonisation (DH).

‘We RIP’d with Dan the last time we tried to get into Musa Qa’leh,’ I said. ‘Dan had fired 250 rounds at the Taliban and we still don’t know if they got a hit.’

Major Black tried to laugh it off. ‘Maybe his shooting’s not very good.’

I took a deep breath.

‘His firing was good. In fact, it was brilliant. He would have hit first time if the gun had been on. Pat had exactly the same problem on Op Mutay. He couldn’t even fire in zoom field of view because his rounds landed outside of what he could see.’

The boss hadn’t known because he’d only fired forty cannon rounds and a Hellfire, but the current policy between crews was to test fire into the desert on the way to a scramble. If they didn’t hit they would register in which direction the gun was off and aim off accordingly. It was ridiculously costly in time and munitions, dangerous to the point of a blue-on-blue, and a serious degradation in combat effectiveness.

‘If the gun fails to hit first time, the Taliban get a clear warning and the crews end up chasing their tails, not knowing where to aim to get a kill. And a whole lot of Taliban are living to fight another day.’

He wasn’t having it. He said he didn’t have enough flying hours to let us DH the guns.

I tried to keep the red mist at bay.

‘The Apache is an attack helicopter, sir. Its primary role is to fire weapons at the target. If the weapons aren’t accurate we’re not doing our job properly. If we fire at a target and it dies, we’ve succeeded. So we either waste time at the target or we use the time profitably by DHing the guns beforehand. The flying hours are the same, but the success rate is hugely better.’

‘I said no, Mr Macy.’

I felt like banging my head against the wall again. Our sister squadron, 664, had just landed at Kandahar and was coming up to replace us soon after this operation. What would they think when they saw our gun tapes? As the SWO I felt deeply embarrassed that we hadn’t completed an essential procedural task.

‘I will be briefing the next squadron commander on what I think we’ve failed to do, sir.’

Major Black returned my glare. His jaw clenched then he turned on his heel and walked away.