Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

us, we accounted for seven tanks and four trucks. Storm’n Norman, who was ELI
21, also had a 20-mm round explode in his own gun barrel.
TWO DAYS LATER, ON APRIL 10, WE WERE BACK UP NORTH again, looking for mobile
SAMs. Six CeeJays, divided into three flights of two, had started the day north of
Baghdad hunting ROLANDs. This missile system was originally a joint Franco-
German project and, with the history of love and cooperation between those two
nations, you can imagine how that panned out.
However, it was fielded eventually, and Saddam bought about a hundred of the
ROLAND II version back in the early 1980s. It’s an all-weather, short-range
system with its own Pulse Doppler radar and optical tracker. Very quick and
mounted on trucks, all-terrain vehicles, or tank chassis, the ROLAND was
extremely hard to see visually or electronically. Iraqis would hide behind buildings
or under overpasses to escape detection. They’d get target information from their
own system, spotters, or air traffic control radars, then scoot out, lock and shoot,
then scuttle back into hiding, like hermit crabs. Iraqi ROLANDs had killed a few
Iranian jets, several British Tornado fighters, and at least one American A-10.
We’d put a Killer element (of the Hunter Killers) over the area at about 15,000
feet. Their job was to listen to the Hunters, develop a “picture” of the situation, and
be ready to attack. The Hunters would then take turns flying low over suspected
locations to draw fire. We called this “slapping the bull.” If a ROLAND, or any
target, could be provoked into firing then, while the Hunters evaded the missiles,
the Killers got a visual on the SAM and would swoop in to attack.
This was best done with six aircraft, called a Six-Pack, with the extra flight
acting as spotters. The spotters would fly between the Hunters and the Killers and
watch the ground. This was absolutely critical when hunting SA-6s, SA-8s, or
ROLANDs. The spotters would also act as extra Hunters or Killers, if needed. A
Six-Pack also gave us lots of flexibility with weapons and extended our time over a
target by rotating flights back and forth to the tanker.
The communications involved were the simple “attacking-defending-shooting”
contracts we’d used against the SA-3s on April 6. This was almost always done on
a clear frequency, using plain English. Weasels don’t usually have the luxury of
convoluted code words—and the delay inherent in using secure radios could be
fatal. So we just talked. And it usually worked.
But not today.
“FABLE 33 . . . this is ELI 63 on your Victor.” Storm’n had been leading the