A “case study” in RTFM and bad timing
Conducting an OCA strike in Balkans where I was tasked with bombing one of the Zemunik airbase runways while #3 in my flight was tasked with bombing an ammo dump.
Approaching the enemy airbase area and setting up Falcon 2 for the bombardment, I set my steer point to my target, command the flight to “attack targets” (this is where my tragic mistake occurred though I didn’t know it yet), then dived and rolled in. Attack commenced!
Lined up over the enemy runway and at an altitude respecting the new fragmentation damage model of my BLU-107s, I pickled off my first bomb. Suddenly, an explosion and plume of smoke just in front of me on the runway! “CAUTION! CAUTION!” Betty is blarin’ in my cockpit. The HUD display is gone. I hear the sound of my engine sickeningly spooling down. I had only just released my bomb - there’s no way I fragged myself, right? Enemy air defenses were supposed to have been wiped out in this area previously! Was something hiding in the fog of war?
After fighting with the controls and desperately trying to relight my engine at low altitude, I finally ejected just north of the enemy airbase. Not the best place for that sort of thing…
I loaded up the ACMI in Tacview to figure out what happened. Fast forwarding to the attack, I see myself lined up over the runway, first BLU-107 released and then I see it - #3’s GBU-10, which is supposed to be targeted at one of this base’s ammo dumps, far enough away from where I am attacking, impacting directly in front of my flight path on the runway!
Given the precision with which #3 hit his target I figured either I had forgotten him an owed beer at the O’club or I had done something very dumb. Taking a look at the commands in the manual it was readily apparent I had mixed up “attack targets” with what I actually wanted to command the flight to do - “weapons free AG”. #3 had hit right where I commanded him to (where I set my steer point) with a healthy heaping of bad timing on my part.
Lesson learned - I won’t be making that particular mistake again (at least not for a little while ).
Has anyone else put themselves in their flight’s crosshairs like this and “lived” to tell the tale?