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fighter helicopters wallpaperIt looked like the civilians had been ordered to stay put to provide human shields for the enemy mortar units, and now that game was over they were moving out en masse so the real fighting could begin.
If this were so, then the advancing British troops on the ground would be walking straight into an ambush.
Two hours earlier, a murderous barrage of mortar fire had erupted out of the apparently peaceful village.
The British ground troops had been pinned down and taken casualties. One British soldier, Lance Corporal Paul Sandford, had been killed.
Scrambled from their Camp Bastion base, Ugly Five Zero and another Apache, Ugly Five One, had already flown one two-hour sortie over the village.
But each time they’d been given the co-ordinates of a mortar firing point, all they’d found was a group of women and children.
‘The enemy would stop and hide,’ says Ugly Five One pilot Steve James.
‘Once we’d gone, they’d start firing again. Ten minutes after we left, ground troops would get a load more mortar rounds raining down on them from that location. It was a game of cat and mouse. We were totally frustrated.’
It was the summer of 2007, and Afghanistan was a baptism of fire for the British Army Air Corps’ Apache-equipped 662 Squadron.
Each pilot was flying an aircraft that the Ministry of Defence describes as ‘the most advanced and significant weapons system to enter service with the British Army’.
But that weapons system comes at a price: the British Apache programme has an overall project cost of £4.2 billion. Critics argued the money could have been better spent on kit and armoured vehicles for ground troops.
Manufactured in America by Boeing, the standard US Apache is heavily modified at Britain’s AgustaWestland helicopter factory in Somerset.
The British AH1 version is fitted with powerful Rolls-Royce engines and an unrivalled missile-defence system and radar.
The Army Air Corps took delivery of the first of 67 Apaches in July 2000, although it wasn’t until 2007 that its attack squadrons reached full operating capacity.
The deployment of eight aircraft in Afghanistan was their first real test in combat, after training in Salisbury and the wilds of Arizona.
The Apache helicopter squadrons had been deployed to Helmand Province to open up the battlefield and to support a more mobile form of soldiering.
Unlike other forms of air power, the Apache is able to spend extended ‘loiter time’ over targets, working with the ground troops to hunt out enemy forces.
‘The Apache crews are intimately involved with the planning of operations,’ says Lieutenant Colonel Jon Bryant, commanding officer of 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps.
‘So they have an excellent awareness of what the ground commander is trying to achieve and how.’
Back in Rahim Kalay, no enemy targets had yet been identified or destroyed.
With the village apparently deserted, the Apaches would now have to flush the enemy out of hiding. Hunter put himself into the mind of the enemy, trying to imagine how he would ambush the British troops.
He scanned the track leading into the village, the route of advance of the British soldiers. Hunter spotted a white vehicle parked right at the apex of a fork in the road.
It immediately struck him as being odd. No Afghan would ever have parked in that way. It was in the full sun and would already be like a furnace inside.
With the Apache’s camera on full zoom, it was clear that this was no derelict vehicle.
It was a smart, white estate car, and any soldier advancing into Rahim Kalay would be forced to pass right by it. It was the perfect set-up for a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device – a car bomb.
Hunter had seen the terrible effects of such weapons during his time in Northern Ireland. He punched the co-ordinates of the vehicle into his flight computer. He had a feeling they’d be hitting it soon with a Hellfire missile.
But first they needed to find the enemy. A British Harrier jet had joined them overhead, circling at altitude, and with its help a plan was hatched to fox the enemy.
‘It was obvious that the Taliban wouldn’t attempt to fight while we were overhead,’ recalls James. ‘So we decided to move out to the desert as if leaving the area. We asked the Harrier to check for any movement in the compound adjacent to the car.’
The two Apaches turned west and left Rahim Kalay. Once they were out of sight, they dropped down to treetop height, powering back in towards the village at low level.
As they did so, the Harrier pilot came up on the radio. Sure enough, figures had emerged. There were four of them – and they were all males of fighting age.
Aiming the surveillance pods on the Apache’s nose towards the co-ordinates provided by the Harrier, they thundered in to take a closer look at the enemy compound.
The Apaches hugged the contours of the ground, remaining hidden until the very last moment. At less than a mile out, they power-climbed to altitude, their cameras catching a figure in the open.
A male dressed in black robes had taken up a vantage point that overlooked the British positions.
He appeared agitated after spotting the two incoming Apaches.
A few yards to his left, leaning against a wall, was a regular-shaped object wrapped in a thick blanket.
‘Anywhere else in the world this could have been ignored,’ says James. ‘But not in Afghanistan. This was possibly a weapons bundle. We continued to watch the figure closely.’
The airmen tracked him as he joined up with two other males, each of whom had a similar bundle.
The Apache pilots discussed what they could see. If the British troops advanced into the village they would be directly in the line of fire of these figures. There were only three visible, but how many more were hidden?
This had all the hallmarks of a classic Taliban ambush, with weapons wrapped in cloth to disguise them from watching eyes above.
Ugly Five Zero radioed the Joint Terminal Attack Controller (the ground soldier co-ordinating air power, call sign Widow 79) and asked for permission to open fire.
Prior to combat the men had been given in-depth briefings on the rules of engagement, which identified the main legitimate target types. Any decision to open fire was taken with those rules in mind.
‘The rules of engagement were of special interest to us,’ says James, ‘especially when you consider the damage our munitions can inflict, and the fact that we video every engagement. We knew full well that our actions would be reviewed at the end of the battle, and that the tapes would be available to any inquiries.
Hunter adds, ‘Unlike fast jets, we can actually see an enemy soldier pick up a weapon, so we have to call it ourselves in the moment. Do we engage or don’t we?’
As the pilots waited for clearance, an overweight male emerged from a building, making hand signals in the direction of the British troops.
Widow 79 gave the clearance to attack. The Apaches prepared to fire warning shots.
From the underside of Ugly Five Zero, the 30mm cannon barked, and its spent shell casings rained down below. There was a couple of seconds’ delay, and then the rounds tore into the hard-beaten surface of the dirt track in front of the compound.
The figures inside didn’t seem to so much as flinch.
A second warning burst was fired, this time much closer.
One figure turned away, putting his arms behind his back as if on a leisurely stroll. Both aircraft then opened fire, two 20-round bursts tearing into the position, the 30mm shells throwing up mud and shrapnel. Figures came running out of the dust storm, abandoning their blanket-bundles in their haste to escape.
The figures paused momentarily, and as they did so the Apaches hit them again. Four sprinted for cover,
but there was nothing left of the fat man or the black-robed fighter. The survivors split up, running in opposite directions. The guns of the Apaches tracked them, firing 20-round bursts, shrapnel exploding at their heels.
A figure sprinted towards a gate and a smaller structure on the far side, which would turn out to be an arms dump. He clutched an AK-47 assault rifle in one hand.
Ugly Five Zero targeted him with a ten-round burst that smashed into the ground around him.
Enemy fighters made for the cover of a pair of dome-roofed buildings. From just over a mile out, the Apaches lined up for a Hellfire missile strike.
Keeping their laser sights aimed at the centre of each target, Tim Porter and Alex Wagner, the Apache gunners, pulled the triggers on their pistol-grip controls.
There was a flash of flame as each Hellfire was fired, followed by a shimmering veil of heat thrown out by the missile’s rocket motors.
Four seconds later two massive explosions threw up plumes of smoke and debris. As the dust cleared, a gaping hole in each roof showed where the Hellfires had hit.
Survivors streamed out of the buildings. All of a sudden, the enemy compound was alive with armed fighters.
‘Men were running everywhere, with us shooting as soon as we saw them,’ says Hunter.
‘It was fast and furious as we circled above.’
A figure broke cover carrying a PKM – a Russian machine gun that can fire 650 rounds per minute.
It’s accurate up to 1,000 metres and a highly effective light anti-aircraft weapon.
He sprinted out of the gate, Ugly Five One tracking him as he ran. He went to raise his weapon, but as he did so the Apache’s 30mm cannon spat fire. A 20-round burst slammed into the earth and the figure disappeared in a cloud of dust.
As the dust cleared the figure was spotted crawling for a small, crescent-shaped patch of shadow at the base of the wall. His arm shot out, grabbed the machine gun, and he rolled inside, disappearing completely from view.
There was no way that 20-round burst could possibly have missed him.
Either his heart was still pumping on pure adrenaline or the Taliban fighters were drugged with amphetamines. With his system full of massive amounts of ‘speed’, a wounded man could keep fighting until his body was literally blown apart or his blood drained into the sand.
