about.”
“Haunted crosses, shit.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to keep Clyston happy,” said A-Bomb.
“He gave me this thermos full of coffee. Want some?”
Doberman zipped his flight suit. “Next thing you know,
we’re going to have some stinking voodoo priest dancing on the wings. How the
hell do you get involved in this crap, anyway?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
CHAPTER 11
KING
FAHD
25
JANUARY 1991
0755
D oberman
rechecked the flap settings, then ran
his eyes over the Hog’s instrument panel for one final make-sure-I’m-ready-to-go
pass. He wasn’t rushing anything, especially today. Laying his hand gently on
the throttle bar, he flexed his fingers and loosened his shoulder muscles,
willing himself into something approximating a relaxed state. He swung his eyes
back around the cockpit, inspecting the paraphernalia of his office: altimeter,
fuel gauges, radio controls. These were the desk accessories no Warthog
executive could live without.
At spec and ready to rock.
The plane whined gratefully as he fed her engines a
full dose of octane and began galloping down the runway. Doberman blew an easy
breath out of his lungs, pushing the battle-loaded Hog into the sky.
Designed in the 1970s, the A-10A was conceived as a
close-in ground-support plane, built to give a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
Partly inspired by the success of the A-1 Skyraider in Vietnam, the plane was
an excuse to dump serious iron on an enemy. The two AGM-65Bs Mavericks and four
SUU-30s clusterbombs tied to Doberman’s wings represented one of several
dozen ordinance variations typically carried by the Hogs. The Mavericks were
guided with the help of an optical (in this case) or infrared camera in the
missile’s nose; once locked on target by the pilot, the missile flew itself,
leaving him free to play with others. A small screen on the right side of the
dash was devoted to the Maverick’s display. While originally designed as an
antitank weapon, the missile was effective against a variety of targets, as it
had proven since the first day of the war.
“SUU” stood for Suspension Underwing Unit, a nod to
the fact that the sophisticated weapons were more like dump trucks than conventional
iron bombs. Popularly known as cluster bombs, they packed several hundred
explosive and fragmentation devices, releasing them at a pre-set altitude after
being dropped. The CBUs were an optimal weapon against “soft” targets, which
besides men included unarmored vehicles and tasty treats like radar vans and
dishes. The SUU could accommodate specialized loads, depending on the mission;
Doberman’s were CBU-58s — which hosted a total of 650 BLU-63
fragmentation/antipersonnel bomblets.
Besides the AGMs and cluster bombs, the Hog could
carry an assortment of conventional iron — unguided, straight-at-you blowup bombs. But in the
opinion of most Hog drivers, the plane’s fiercest weapon wasn’t its bombs. It
was the GAU-8/A Avenger cannon that sat in the plane’s chin. The Gatling gun
could deliver as many as four thousand rounds per minute; during a typical
three or four second burst more than a hundred peas of Uranium and high
explosive darted from the revolving barrels. The plane had been designed around
the huge gun; the weapon was so awesome it could literally make the Hog stand still
in the air as it was fired.
The one thing the Hog couldn’t do was go fast.
Doberman had the stops out and he was barely making 350 knots. And without an
autopilot, the plane demanded at least a modicum of attention at all times.
Still, as he climbed through the Saudi sky en route to
a pit stop north at King Khalid Military City, the pilot’s mind started to
wander. This part of the mission, staging out to Al Jouf before heading into
Iraq , was very plain-Jane, as close to boring as you could get in a war zone.
Inevitably, his thoughts shambled back to the card game and to Tinman’s idiotic
cross.
A lot of the crew members and even a few
“Haunted crosses, shit.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to keep Clyston happy,” said A-Bomb.
“He gave me this thermos full of coffee. Want some?”
Doberman zipped his flight suit. “Next thing you know,
we’re going to have some stinking voodoo priest dancing on the wings. How the
hell do you get involved in this crap, anyway?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
CHAPTER 11
KING
FAHD
25
JANUARY 1991
0755
D oberman
rechecked the flap settings, then ran
his eyes over the Hog’s instrument panel for one final make-sure-I’m-ready-to-go
pass. He wasn’t rushing anything, especially today. Laying his hand gently on
the throttle bar, he flexed his fingers and loosened his shoulder muscles,
willing himself into something approximating a relaxed state. He swung his eyes
back around the cockpit, inspecting the paraphernalia of his office: altimeter,
fuel gauges, radio controls. These were the desk accessories no Warthog
executive could live without.
At spec and ready to rock.
The plane whined gratefully as he fed her engines a
full dose of octane and began galloping down the runway. Doberman blew an easy
breath out of his lungs, pushing the battle-loaded Hog into the sky.
Designed in the 1970s, the A-10A was conceived as a
close-in ground-support plane, built to give a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
Partly inspired by the success of the A-1 Skyraider in Vietnam, the plane was
an excuse to dump serious iron on an enemy. The two AGM-65Bs Mavericks and four
SUU-30s clusterbombs tied to Doberman’s wings represented one of several
dozen ordinance variations typically carried by the Hogs. The Mavericks were
guided with the help of an optical (in this case) or infrared camera in the
missile’s nose; once locked on target by the pilot, the missile flew itself,
leaving him free to play with others. A small screen on the right side of the
dash was devoted to the Maverick’s display. While originally designed as an
antitank weapon, the missile was effective against a variety of targets, as it
had proven since the first day of the war.
“SUU” stood for Suspension Underwing Unit, a nod to
the fact that the sophisticated weapons were more like dump trucks than conventional
iron bombs. Popularly known as cluster bombs, they packed several hundred
explosive and fragmentation devices, releasing them at a pre-set altitude after
being dropped. The CBUs were an optimal weapon against “soft” targets, which
besides men included unarmored vehicles and tasty treats like radar vans and
dishes. The SUU could accommodate specialized loads, depending on the mission;
Doberman’s were CBU-58s — which hosted a total of 650 BLU-63
fragmentation/antipersonnel bomblets.
Besides the AGMs and cluster bombs, the Hog could
carry an assortment of conventional iron — unguided, straight-at-you blowup bombs. But in the
opinion of most Hog drivers, the plane’s fiercest weapon wasn’t its bombs. It
was the GAU-8/A Avenger cannon that sat in the plane’s chin. The Gatling gun
could deliver as many as four thousand rounds per minute; during a typical
three or four second burst more than a hundred peas of Uranium and high
explosive darted from the revolving barrels. The plane had been designed around
the huge gun; the weapon was so awesome it could literally make the Hog stand still
in the air as it was fired.
The one thing the Hog couldn’t do was go fast.
Doberman had the stops out and he was barely making 350 knots. And without an
autopilot, the plane demanded at least a modicum of attention at all times.
Still, as he climbed through the Saudi sky en route to
a pit stop north at King Khalid Military City, the pilot’s mind started to
wander. This part of the mission, staging out to Al Jouf before heading into
Iraq , was very plain-Jane, as close to boring as you could get in a war zone.
Inevitably, his thoughts shambled back to the card game and to Tinman’s idiotic
cross.
A lot of the crew members and even a few
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