The mission Mennzinger's unit had been assigned was going to be long and most unusual. Ten of the battalion's eighteen aircraft would move south that night to Abu Simbel. Their departure was scheduled for after dark, at a time when there would be no Soviet reconnaissance satellite overhead or approaching. Immediately after their departure, their places would be taken by ten inflatable dummies that looked like Apaches from the distance and gave off similar heat signatures. The next day some of the eight remaining Apaches would fly about the area at designated times that coincided with Soviet satellite overflights. By mixing real Apaches with the dummies, the deception just might work.
The ten Apaches assigned to the mission, accompanied by eight UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, would arrive at the airfield at Abu Simbel early the next morning. There the helicopters would be put into hangars during the daylight hours while the crews rested. Because there were only ten Apaches, the battalion had enough personnel rated to fly them to have two crews per helicopter. The assigned crew would fly to the target, execute the mission, and return to a forward refuel point. That feat would require only eight hours and forty minutes at the stick. The relief crew would take over at the refuel point and return the Apaches to Egypt when the raid was completed.
Beginning at twilight the following night, 18 December, six UH-60s with fuel handlers, some of the spare Apache crews, and equipment for a refuel point would depart south. Their destination was a point on the north slopes of the Meidob Hills, over six hundred miles inside Sudan. There they would establish a refuel point where the Apaches would be able to stop en route to and from the target. Two hours after the advance party left to establish the refuel point, the ten Apaches would follow, in two flights of five Apaches each. Moving along separate routes, each flight of Apaches would be trailed by a Blackhawk carrying the spare crews. As with the transatlantic flight, the Blackhawk would recover any crew whose Apache went down en route due to mechanical failure.
Shortly after the Apaches left Abu Simbel, three U.S. Air Force C-130 transport planes would depart Cairo. Aboard two of the aircraft would be nine 400-gallon fuel blivets. They would be air-dropped at the refueling point, which had been marked by members of an American Special Forces team operating in Sudan. Aboard the third C-130 would be an ad-hoc airborne infantry platoon that would secure the blivets until the Blackhawks arrived with the fuel handlers and their equipment. Once the fuel handlers were on the ground with the blivets, they would have two hours to set up the refuel point. Using the Blackhawks to gather up the scattered fuel blivets by sling-loading the blivets under them, the fuel handlers would arrange the blivets in the proper manner and hook up the fuel lines and pumping equipment.
The operation would not, and could not, be conducted in a vacuum. The Soviets had airborne early-warning aircraft operating out of Ethiopia, along their air corridor from Ethiopia to Libya. In order to draw off those aircraft and the fighters that would respond to their calls, a deception operation was needed. The U.S. Navy was assigned this task. In an operation similar to the deception operation used to support the Son Tay raid in Vietnam, the Navy would commence massive air and surface operations off the coast of Ethiopia and Sudan on the night of 18 December. These operations, feigning preparations for an attack on seaports and airfields, would coincide with the approach flight of the Apaches in western Sudan.
To further reduce the effectiveness of Soviet (as well as the sparse Sudanese) air defenses, electronic warfare aircraft would be used. Navy EA-6 Prowlers operating with the fleet would jam as many radar and communications frequencies as possible. This would cause Soviet airborne early-warning aircraft to fly closer to the coast in order to burn through the jamming and monitor the activities of the American fleet. Coming down from Egypt, a pair of EF-11 Is would also jam radar and communications frequencies. This would have the effect of throwing a wall of jamming between the Soviets moving to the coast to observe the U.S. Navy and the Apache strike in the west.
As a final insurance policy, if the naval demonstration off Ethiopia and the electronic warfare aircraft failed, a squadron of F-15 Eagles operating out of Abu Simbel would provide cover for the Apaches during their run-in and return.
The Apaches, upon reaching the refuel point, would refuel and regroup. Any last-minute information or instructions would be passed out at that time. One hour after arriving at the refuel point, the Apaches would take off and head south for the last leg of their run in to the target, the airfield at Al Fasher.
Their lift-off would coincide with the crossing of the Egypt-Sudan border by six F-111 bombers. Once on station at Al Fasher, the Apaches, in conjunction with Air Force F-111s, would attack the Soviet facilities. The F-111s would strike first. Six Apaches, using their laser designator-range finder, would spot targets for the F-111s. The other four Apaches would take out Soviet air defense systems and radars.
The F-111s would approach Al Fasher low and at high speed. Their fire control systems would detect the laser spots provided by the Apaches — the reflected laser energy bouncing off the targets — and lock onto where the laser spots were illuminating. Each plane's system then would automatically compute release time for the aircraft's bombs.
When the F-111s were thirty seconds out, the four Apaches targeting the air defense systems would open fire. Great care had to be taken during this phase. The Apache's angle of attack and the air defense systems attacked had to be considered so as not to interfere with the laser designation of the F-111's targets. It would do no good to destroy an air defense system if the smoke and debris blocked a laser beam designating a target for an approaching F-111. Each F-111 would make only one pass. With the F-111s screaming in at five hundred miles an hour, there was no room for error, as there would be no second chance.
Targets for the F-111s would be fuel tanks, maintenance facilities, ammo dumps, and the runway itself. The F-111s would use Rock-eye cluster bombs for the fuel tanks and munitions dumps, 750-pound general-purpose bombs for the maintenance facilities, and Durandal antirunway bombs to crater the runway. Inside of sixty seconds the main facilities at Al Fasher would be smashed.
With the bombers gone and the chaos created by the sudden and massive destruction by the F-111s, the Apaches would move into their positions and commence their attack. They would use 2.75-inch rockets, Hellfire missiles, and 30mm guns. Where the F-111s had come in and hammered the airfield like a sledgehammer, the Apaches would move from firing position to firing position, carefully setting up their targets as a sharpshooter would. Transports, fighters and helicopters that happened to be on the ground, and surviving facilities such as the control tower, truck parks, and equipment would be systematically destroyed in a twenty-minute attack. When there was nothing worthwhile left to destroy, the Apaches would break off the attack and return north.
Mennzinger and his men were told that aside from the obvious one — the destruction of the facility — the objective of the raid was twofold. First, it would demonstrate to the Soviets how vulnerable their line of communications and supply was. More important, however, was the need to communicate to the Soviets, in a manner that left little doubt in the minds of their leadership, that the United States was not going to allow their use of chemical weapons to go unpunished.
So as Mennzinger and his men checked their Apaches, they took special care, especially when it came to the weapons. A lot, a hell of a lot, was riding on their ability to put steel on target. Everyone, from the youngest aviation warrant officer to Mennzinger himself, wanted to pull it off without a hitch.