by Bob Mayer
"Well," Mitchell intervened, "we haven't had much luck with helicopters. We'd just feel a little more comfortable if we could talk to the pilots."
"What's the problem? Maybe I can answer it for you."
Mitchell pointed at the chart in the man's hand. "The first question we have is that from Misawa to the target area and back is a little long for a UH-60 to be flying. I know you all have thought of that, but we'd like to know what the plan is."
The captain unrolled his chart and laid it on the table. The four of them gathered around it. "The operational range of the UH-60 is two hundred and sixty nautical miles on internal fuel. We're going to put four external tanks on the outside of the birds on pylons above the cargo bay. These will increase the range to a total of one thousand and ninety nautical miles. A straight shot from Misawa to your pickup zone is eight hundred and fifty-one nautical miles. As you've noted, the aircraft aren't going to be able to do the round-trip without refueling.
"Additionally, they're not going to be flying straight in and out. We've planned a low-level route over land, avoiding the known radar, that we figure will add around fifty to a hundred miles each way. To accommodate that, on the way in they'll refuel off the U.S. Navy frigate Rathburne, which will be located here at checkpoint 2, in international waters in the Sea of Japan. Topping off there will give them enough fuel to make the trip from the Rathburne to your pickup zone and back. On the return trip they'll refuel again on the Rathburne and fly you back here to Osan. We're also ready to fly on a twenty-four-hour weather delay if the primary exfil day doesn't go."
The captain rubbed his chin. "The only tricky part is going to be the weight. With four full external tanks, a Blackhawk can't lift any cargo. We figure that the aircraft will have burned enough weight in fuel by the time they get to your pickup zone to just be able to put six men with no equipment aboard each bird. Even then it's going to be real close to the weight limits."
Riley interrupted him. "What if only one bird makes it? Are you telling me I'm going to have to leave half my team behind?"
"That's the way it is, Sergeant. With that much fuel the helicopter can lift only so much weight. You could fit all twelve of your people on board with no problem, but the bird wouldn't lift. It's a trade-off we've had to make."
Captain Mitchell and Riley were not at all happy. Mitchell stood up. "What you're telling me is that there's no backup. How many aircraft do you have over at Misawa?"
"Just the two."
Captain Mitchell wasn't satisfied. He knew from his wife's stories that helicopters were terribly prone to being down for maintenance. "What if one breaks down? There's no latitude here for any problems."
"That's not my decision." The captain didn't seem too concerned. "We've got only the two anyway. There are no more." The aviator smiled at them. "What's the big deal? We haven't even gotten the offset mission yet. Maybe the training area will be closer and we won't have to put on so much fuel; then we'll be able to put all twelve of you on one bird."
Hossey jumped in with both feet before Riley or Mitchell could. "Captain, you have a problem, and that problem is your attitude. As far as I know this mission is real, and your men will be flying to that pickup zone in China. If you're thinking this is a game, you've got your head up your ass, and you'd better pull it out."
The captain quickly realized he had made a mistake. "Yes, sir. I want to assure you that both birds are up now and I can damn near guarantee
that they'll be up for this mission. They were test flown last night and both worked fine. We're not going to crank them again until it's time to go."
Mitchell wasn't buying it. "Why can't you get other army or air force helicopters to back you up?"
"Like I said, both birds will lift. Based on the enemy threat, we feel we can't get more than two birds into the airspace anyway. Putting more aircraft on the mission will just increase the chances of being detected."
Hossey decided to intervene. "All right. I'll contact the SFOB at Meade and ask for helicopter backup, but I doubt that we'll get it at this late notice." He turned to the aviator. "I hope you tell your men to take this seriously. Until we find out different, this whole mission is to be treated like the real thing."
"Yes, sir."
Mitchell and Riley were still not satisfied, but they knew they were hitting a stone wall. Maybe Hossey's request would get some action through the SFOB. Otherwise they'd have to go with what they had.
The news that a navy ship was now involved further increased the reality of the situation, Riley thought. The SFOB was sure pulling a lot of strings.
1:23 p.m. Local
Down the hall from the Special Forces isolation area, the aircrew was laboring over charts and wading through the intelligence they'd been fed by the SFOB.
Major Kent, the Talon's electronics warfare officer, was concerned primarily with the electronic threat that the aircraft would face. In his opinion, from an aviation viewpoint, the target was in an extremely difficult location to reach. The routes in and out were fraught with numerous problems.
Kent had quickly ruled out going over the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) and flying the length of North Korea. The DMZ was one of the hottest spots in the world and was heavily guarded. Despite the Talon's capabilities, Kent knew that their odds were poor of making it over the DMZ without being detected.
That meant they had to make an end run either east or west. Both were about equidistant from Osan. Kent looked at a classified map that listed the various radar and air defense installations in the area. It was obvious that the western route, up over the Yellow Sea, was the more heavily guarded, both by the North Koreans along their west coast and by the Chinese.
Kent studied the eastern route over the Sea of Japan. It looked good except for one major problem—China didn't have a seacoast there. To go in, the Talon would have to cross a strip of land that belonged to either Russia or North Korea. Kent shook his head. Vladivostok was a major Russian port. Although Kent felt that they could avoid its ground air defense radar system, he was concerned about the possibility of Russian ships in the Sea of Japan.
Next he studied the North Korean radar array. Then he examined reports on the alert status of the North Korean and Russian air forces. His conclusion: The scale tilted toward the North Koreans being the greatest threat to alert and launch. Kent decided to make the primary route a shore crossing over Russia rather than North Korea.
Kent lifted his gaze from the maps and leaned back in his chair. Time to put it all on the overlays. He got up and headed over to the navigator to start working on their route options.
5:00 p.m. Local
Mitchell felt it had been a profitable day. The team had gotten a lot accomplished and was ready to try its first practice run of the briefback. He took his place in front of the team and quickly looked through his notes.
"All right. Listen up. Before we start this practice there are a couple of things I want you to remember about both the briefback and this mission. The primary thing is to treat the mission like it's real. For all we know, right now it is. Every plan you come up with, every little thing you say you're going to do, you damn well better be able to do it."
He swung his gaze to O'Shaugnesy. "If you say you're going to blow the radios in case of compromise, you'd better have requested thermite grenades from the engineers to do just that. Since the sergeant major is giving us the real shit for this mission, I'd also better see a thermite grenade with your radio's name on it among the gear you're packing."
Mitchell took in the entire room. "Saying something during a briefback that you don't really mean or couldn't really do is one of the worst mistakes any of us can make. So when you all listen to each other in this practice, I want you to sharpshoot. If I brief that I'm going to wear yellow underwear with purple stripes, someone better ask to see it."
"No thanks," Riley laughed. The team sergeant turned serious. "Let me add something to what the captain is saying. I know I beat you guys to death on t
his, but remember first and foremost we're a team. If a fellow team member gets up there in the real briefback before the colonel and says something stupid or answers a question wrong, I don't want to see anybody correcting or contradicting him. To take the captain's analogy a step further, if I brief that every member of the team is going to wear yellow underwear with purple stripes, I'd better see eleven heads sitting here nodding, saying, 'Yes, sir, that's what we're going to be wearing.' "
Riley looked around the room. "We're a team. We stick together no matter what."
"Therefore I say: Know the enemy and
know yourself; in a hundred battles you will
never be in peril."
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
6
FOB, Osan Air Force Base, Korea Monday, 5 June, 1000 Zulu Monday, 5 June, 7:00 p.m. Local
"Good evening, Colonel Hossey, Sergeant Major Hooker. I'm Captain Mitchell, commander of Team 3. This briefing is classified top secret. Team 3's mission is to infiltrate Operational Area Dustey, located in Manchuria in northeastern China, at 1600 Zulu time, 6 June 1989, and destroy target Dagger, between 1600Z and 1900Z on the eighth. The purpose of this mission is to stop the flow of oil through the Daqing-Fushun pipeline for a minimum of seven days. We will be exfiltrated at 2000 Zulu time, 8 June.
"First, I'd like to introduce the members of Team 3 and give you a brief operational overview. I'll be followed by the members of the detachment, each briefing their own specialized areas." Hossey and Hooker knew everyone on the team, but Mitchell wanted to follow the standard format for a briefback. It was good training.
For three hours after the introductions the team presented its plan and then defended it. Mitchell led off by giving an overview of the concept of operations. He was followed by Olinski, who briefed terrain, weather, and the enemy situation in excruciating detail. At the conclusion of his portion Olinski handed Colonel Hossey the team's E & E plan.
Hoffman then stood up to give his portion. "Sir, I'll be briefing our demolitions plan for destruction of the target. The actual tactical plan at the target will be covered after me by Sergeant First Class Riley. First I will cover the target analysis we did on the pipeline, so you can understand why we chose to destroy this portion, and then the actual actions at the target.
"The trunk line of the Daqing-Fushun pipeline is eleven hundred and fifty kilometers long and runs from . . ."
Mitchell tuned out the history lesson on the pipeline as he'd heard it several times before. The entire demolition plan had been formulated by Hoffman and his assistant, Corporal Smith. When they had briefed Mitchell and Riley on the plan, Mitchell had understood only about half of what they'd said. He'd turned to Riley, who had nodded his approval. That was good enough for Mitchell. But the captain had had the two engineers explain things again to the entire team, and in language everyone could understand. Then the team had rehearsed, as well as they could in the isolation area, the actual placement of charges, until every team member could do it.
Hoffman was on a roll. He pointed at a grid he had drawn on a sheet of butcher paper. "I analyzed the entire length of pipeline inside operational range of infiltration and exfiltration aircraft using the CARVE formula. This acronym stands for criticality, accessibility, recuperability, vulnerability, and effect. As a result of this analysis, we have chosen this portion, where the pipe crosses the Sungari River, as a critical node and our target. As you can see on this satellite imagery, the pipe is suspended above the river by means of cables running over these pylons on opposite shores—in effect a suspension bridge of pipe similar to the Golden Gate Bridge."
Mitchell always insisted that every briefback be given in the simplest terms possible. Everyone had to understand every part of the plan; in fact every member on the team had to be able to get up and give any portion of the briefback from memory. One person missing one critical part could spell disaster. They'd rehearsed for this briefback by randomly choosing people to give the different parts.
"Each pylon has six, 2.5-inch-diameter steel cables running over it. These cables are anchored here at these berms, if I can draw your attention to the mock-up over here. We will attack the northern compound. We will place two and a half pounds of C-4, configured in a diamond charge, on each cable approximately four feet from its anchor point on the berm. Blowing these cables simultaneously will release the support and drop the pipeline into the river. This will cause that section of pipe to be torn away and dragged downriver.
"For a bonus effect, we will punch a hole in this section of pipe inside the compound with a platter charge, which is basically a shaped charge that focuses a cone of intense heat approximately four feet away from it. We will have two thermite charges on small wood rafts near the hole. The purpose of this secondary explosion is to start a fire in the northern compound, which will delay discovery of exactly what happened."
Hoffman looked up and smiled. "The concept is to add to the general mayhem and confusion in the first hours after the attack. This should aid in our exfiltration. The hole will allow residual oil to flow out into the compound. There will still be fourteen kilometers of oil between the hole and pump station 5, even if the pump station ceases operating immediately. The rafts will float on top of the oil and burn, igniting the oil."
Hoffman wound up. "This target, which we have code-named Dagger, fits the acceptable criteria of the CARVE formula. Dagger is critical to the successful function of the pipeline. There are only eight places on the entire length of the pipeline that are as critical. The others are either in a heavily populated area or too strongly defended. This target is accessible. Sergeant First Class Riley will describe how we will access the target.
"For the enemy to repair the damage will take an estimated minimum of three weeks. They will have to bring a barge, with crane, from Harbin, one hundred and fifty kilometers downriver, to repair it. Dagger is vulnerable to this detachment and the amount of explosives we can carry in. The effect on the local population will be minimal in the immediate vicinity. The effect on the Chinese economy is beyond the scope of this detachment to estimate. This concludes my portion of the briefback. I'll be followed by Sergeant First Class Riley."
"How long is all this going to take you, Sergeant Hoffman?" Hossey demanded, halting the engineer before he could regain his seat.
"Sir, we have given ourselves five minutes from start of action to completion of destruction."
Hossey shook his head. "That's not much time. You sure you won't take more than that?"
Hoffman gestured toward his team sergeant. "Sergeant Riley will give you the sequence of action and show you why we believe we can keep it under five minutes."
Riley stood in front of the maps and covered the tactical conduct of the mission from the moment the Talon's wheels would leave the ground at Osan, through the arrival of the exfiltration helicopters. He paid particular attention to the actions at the objective for Hossey's benefit.
Finished, Riley yielded his place as Devito got up and briefed the potential medical problems and how the team was prepared to deal with them. Riley knew they were as ready for medical problems as they could be. Every team member could run an IV and handle basic medical emergencies. The team medics were carrying a variety of medical equipment, including controlled drugs.
After Devito was done, O'Shaugnesy got up to explain the communications systems, both internal to the team, and the link back to the forward operating base. Riley tried to pay attention as Staff Sergeant O'Shaugnesy droned on in a monotone. "We will be using satellite communications back to the FOB. We will make our initial entry report, an ANGLER report. After that we will make one contact every twelve hours, according to schedule, with a situation report or SITRER We will receive a confirmation of mission 'go' two hours prior to target destruction at 1600Z on the eighth, and we will broadcast an estimate of target destruction—a PONDER report—within one hour of target destruction.
"Internal to the team we will have four PRC68 FM radios to use between
the ORP, the target surveillance, and the pickup zone surveillance element. The FM radios will be turned on every hour on the hour for five minutes by all three sites for monitoring. If any message needs to be passed, it will be done then. This will reduce battery consumption. The PRC68 FM radio has an effective range of only four kilometers. It will be keyed only in case of emergency. This is to reduce the possibility of enemy radio direction finding, known as RDFing, picking up the transmission.
"We feel that the possibility of being RDF'd is minimal. Enemy RDF equipment in that area is oriented mainly to the north, and also northeast toward Russia. Although intercepting satellite communications is not impossible, it is extremely difficult since the transmission is directional up and down. If we have to go FM communications on the internal net, the possibility of being RDF'd increases slightly. There are a lot of unknowns involved, but I'd estimate there's about a ten percent chance of being picked up on the FM if we have to use it and if the enemy is looking for us.
"I have all codes and frequencies needed. We will refer to all team members and locations by their code names in transmissions. As you may have noticed, all code names have been given a six-letter designation starting with the letter D. This is because our operational area has been given the D designation and we encode in six-letter groups for transmission.
"All team members are trained in the use of the PSC3 SATCOM radio and the PRC68 FM radio. If for some reason we have to go manual, all detachment members are trained to a minimum standard of five words per minute in Morse code, both sending and receiving. It is not likely that this will occur, since we will be carrying in two DMDGs."
