The regiment had divided into separate flights and endeavoured to attack the targets the ground troops wanted taking out once those assigned to AAA suppression had cleared the way. Morimsky himself leading a flight of four, two pairs of aircraft with one to identify the targets in question and then to highlight by laser designation whilst it was attacked with 500kg LGBs.
One of the targets the ground forces wanted neutralising was described by them as a Milan anti-tank crew beside a large tree on the hillside, but despite providing a ten figure map reference his laser partner could not identify it. It was a long hillside with a lot of trees on it and few features to get their bearings from. Eventually the voice on the ground had a tank fire a smoke round at the spot they wanted attacking and a laser was aimed at that point.
Not only the attacking armour had targets for them, artillery spotters and the crews of the Soviet helicopters had targets they believed were best dealt with by the SU-39s. Consequently it was not just 1CG that was to receive their best efforts, but 2REP, 2LI and the Argyll’s also.
Once the lasing aircraft had identified the targets the flak suppression elements attacked and the strike aircraft waited a few moments before beginning their runs.
Morimsky had come straight across the valley, east to west and thirty seven seconds behind the AAA suppression sortie, and all he needed to do was follow a line projected onto his HUD until the automated weapon release system pickled off the ordnance. With his right hand he held the aircraft steady at 400 feet as the thumb of his left hand rose and fell on the counter-measures switches, discharging flares and chaff from the wingtip pods.
The first thing he’d noticed was the amount of smoke in the valley, and then he was passing above a trail of destruction as if some child had thrown a tantrum with his toys, smashing and scattering them. The trail ended at a line of stationary vehicles some eight hundred metres from the first visible NATO foxhole, rendered immobile by the mines that had blown off sections of track and then destroyed by tank rounds or missiles. The attack was stalling and unless a serious cull of the enemy anti-tank units took place it would never progress.
One of the AAA suppressors had already fallen; with its tail blown off it had crashed into the forested slopes of Vormundberg, whilst a second was limping home on one engine.
His aircraft rose as a bomb fell away and he banked hard right to follow the side of the hill, wincing as he saw an SU-27, one of their escorts, exploded by a missile.
The lasing aircraft reported the bomb he had released had detonated exactly on the illumination but there had been no secondary explosions, which led the Colonel to correctly assume they had attacked a remoted firing point and not the crew. He extended the air brakes by twelve degrees before reversing direction, having seen the whirling rotors of two British helicopters hovering just above the hilltop, and the turn brought down his speed even more.
Although he carried two AA8 Aphid missiles, one under each wing, he selected the belly mounted 30mm cannon and used the rudder pedals to line up on the first target. He fired a half second burst and saw fragments of perspex glint in the sun as the rounds struck home. He had kept the pipper of the gun sight on the engines above the cargo deck but the helicopter, a Lynx, was turning towards him and the cockpit bore the brunt. It immediately fell the short distance to the ground but he did not see it impact, he was already using the opposite rudder to bring the nose into line with an Apache gunship. His burst was high and he saw the cannon rounds hitting the ground beyond it, throwing clods of earth skywards and there was no time to adjust his aim.
Morimsky overshot and banked left, craning his neck as he did so to see if the Apache was still in sight but it wasn’t. What he did see though were smoke grenades going off, drawing his eyes to a tank he had not noticed before.
He called his lasing partner but the man had kept his eye on the boss and already the British Challenger was being illuminated.
Selecting another 500kg laser guided bomb, Col Morimsky pulled back on the stick, gaining another 500 feet before turning back. The tank was moving towards the brow of the hill, half concealed by smoke but it was as good as dead. The Colonel had nothing against the men who were manning the vehicle but he had a job to do and as such he chose not to notice the figure stood in the commander’s hatch, so to him the fighting vehicle was nothing more than some robot.
He heard the pilot of the aircraft illuminating the target shout, the airwaves carried a half formed word, which he could not recognise but the alarm in the voice was clear. The laser illumination ceased and Morimsky de-selected automatic release of the weapon, turning instead to manual at the precise moment something struck his aircraft hard. He cursed loudly because the impact startled him into inadvertently releasing the weapon.
He did not try to see how close the bomb had come to his target, the smell of fuel had seeped through into his mask and the needle of the engine temperature gauge for his starboard engine was climbing rapidly. He shut down the engine but found that something was causing a lot of drag on the right side of his aircraft; far more than a dead engine would cause, and only by keeping constant pressure on the left rudder was he able to correct the yaw the drag was inducing.
Things got markedly worse a second later when he was hit again as he overflew the French legionnaires, a wall of small arms fire rose to greet him but he heard only one audible impact. It was no louder than a loose chip flying up off a road makes when it hits the bodywork of a car, but his instrument panel and radio died, the needles sinking to zero and their illuminating lamps cutting out.
He made it past the NATO units to open countryside, heading back towards the Elbe but without a compass he was uncertain of the heading. Turning his head he tried to pick out a recognisable landmark but instead he saw the fins of a Stinger missile protruding from the starboard engine housing just behind where he was sat. After the initial shock of seeing the unexploded weapon he shook his head in wonder.
“How lucky can a guy get?”
He obviously could not tempt fate much longer and he was going to have to eject before the Stingers warhead decided to go off. Removing his feet from the rudder pedals and reached down for the ejector seat firing handle between his lower legs, but froze when he saw about two inches of fuel sloshing about in the foot well. The voids in the fuselage behind him were probably also awash with the highly inflammable liquid, and the rockets that would throw the seat clear would ignite the jet fuel which would set off the unexploded warhead.
Colonel Morimsky took back all he had said about being lucky and abandoned all ideas of leaving the aircraft in flight, looking instead for somewhere flat to put the machine down on.
He was still west of the Elbe but in territory the advancing ground forces had already passed through so every road would eventually be carrying logistical support convoys. He need not have to walk too far before finding a ride on an empty truck heading back towards the river. It was a mainly wooded area though and that was troublesome, because he had no way of knowing when his remaining engine was going to flame out for lack of fuel.
Just as he was starting to think he would never find somewhere to put down he saw a long clearing ahead, and he brought his damaged machine down lower, overflying it as he looked for obstacles. It looked clear as well as being a decent length so he circled around, jettisoning his remaining ordnance over the trees and spotting an east/west running road about two kilometres south. Easy walking distance provided he could get down in one piece.
Once he was lined up he jettisoned the cockpit canopy, tightened the straps holding him to his seat, and began the approach for a wheels up landing.