A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

We could often get around the need to “pull” coordinates off the map by directing strikers to rendezvous at a known point and then talking the striker’s eyes onto the target, usually with the aid of a mark. Generally, the striker would still need the target elevation.

Several of our Allied Force innovations were genuine “Air Force firsts.” For instance, Lt Col Coke Koechle described the first cooperative employment of an A-10 with a USAF Predator drone. When we understood what had happened and what was possible, we asked for more interactive targeting. Sometimes it seemed rather comical when CAOC personnel, without FAC expertise, tried to use the Predator’s camera feed to describe a tank hiding in the woods. The Predator camera has a very narrow field of view (FOV), similar to looking through a soda straw. The discrepancy between that narrow FOV and the wide FOV an AFAC has when looking out of an A-10 canopy flying at 20,000 feet often resulted in lengthy and frustrating talk-ons. The CAOC transmission would sound something like “the tank is in the woods near a dirt road,” reflecting the only tank, woods, and dirt road the Predator feed displayed. However, the AFAC saw dozens of woods and dirt roads from 20,000 feet and was still no closer to finding the tank. The problem was amplified further when the target descriptions were passed through the ABCCC to the AFAC.

The CAOC recognized the problem, and talk-ons improved when it tasked a pilot with FAC experience to man the microphone. In an attempt to further improve the speed and accuracy of passing target locations, the CAOC directed that a Predator be modified to carry a laser designator. Late in the campaign Capt Larry “LD” Card, one of our weapons officers, flew a test sortie on the Albanian coast to validate the concept. The Predator marked a simulated target using its onboard laser. That spot was visible to LD using his Hog’s laser-spottracking pod, which proved that Predators and Hogs could operate efficiently together. The Predator’s laser could nail down a target location very quickly and avoid the lengthy talk-ons. We were eager to use this new tactic to locate and schwack hidden Serb tanks. However, we were never able to record a successful combat mission with Laser Predator due to the combination of poor target-area weather, limited Laser Predator availability, and—thankfully—the end of the conflict.

Hog success in CSAR included leading two immediate night

rescues—the first in US combat history. Our CSAR experts were visionaries and had laid the right foundation to prepare us, and our allies, for this particularly tough mission. Our success reflected those efforts, the participants’ stupendous seat-of-the-pants flying, and their ingenuity. Goldie exemplified that ingenuity when he shut down Serb radars by making “Magnum” calls—those that normally accompany the launch of a high-speed antiradiation missile (HARM)—during rescue of the pilot of Vega 31.

We also put tactical deception to good use. During the first week of KEZ operations, ABCCC announced in the clear over strike frequency, “The KEZ will close in 10 minutes,” followed later by, “The KEZ is closed. All aircraft must depart the AOR.” We understood that the CAOC had directed ABCCC to make those calls. We suggested to the CAOC that code words should normally be used for “KEZ open” and “KEZ closed,” particularly when they were used in the clear. We then worked through our CAOC rep to set up a “head fake”—that is, announce that the KEZ would close and then go back in to look for any targets that might think it was safe to move and had broken cover. Capt Michael J. “Hook” Shenk Jr. describes that mission well.

Capt Ripley E. “Rip” Woodard’s story has nothing to do with employing ordnance, but is simply a feat of courageous airmanship that saved an aircraft with a dual-engine flameout under particularly harrowing circumstances. It is a must-read—twice—that makes it easy to understand why he won the Koren Kerrigan Safety Award in 1999.

One tactical innovation that had enormous potential and just didn’t work out was the employment of a joint A-10 and Apache helicopter team. The US Army had based Apaches in Albania. We had worked with these helicopters before and had some joint tactical-employment doctrine, but some tactical concepts needed to be adapted to reflect the Serbs’ 360-degree, ground-based threat to aircraft. Because the CAOC’s Apache and A-10 reps assumed we would operate together, they worked out a few “practice” sorties during the last week of April. We also looked for additional opportunities to further our orientation. Without compromising our planned KEZ missions, we attempted radio or visual contact with the Apaches as they progressively flew more ambitious training sorties in northern Albania.