U.S. Replaces Afghanistan Warplanes

[thedrifter]

Associated Press
October 23, 2002


BAGRAM, Afghanistan - The United States has moved Marine Corps attack jets to Afghanistan, the military said Wednesday, replacing carrier-based warplanes in the Arabian Sea that have moved closer to Iraq.
The last of six Harrier jets arrived at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul this week, Col. Roger King said. They will provide fast air cover across the entire country, a role previously filled by the aircraft carrier jets.

On Wednesday, two Harriers from the Marine Attack Squadron 513, based in Yuma, Ariz., roared into the sky for a five-hour mission over Afghanistan. The planes can land vertically, fly 300 mph faster than the A-10s planes based at Bagram, and can reach any part of the country within minutes.

King said the changes were decided upon by the Navy and Central Command, which directs U.S. military operations in the Middle East. King said he did not know if it was meant to free up aircraft carriers for a possible strike against Iraq.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was the last aircraft carrier to send jets over Afghanistan, and it left for the Persian Gulf in September. The USS George Washington departed for the Gulf earlier in September, and is now in the Mediterranean.

Air Force A-10s and Army AH-64 Apache helicopters have provided air cover for U.S. troops since the departure of the carriers, though faster planes from the carriers had remained on call.

"Carriers were on station until just a few days ago, when the Harriers got up and able to perform," King said.

He said the forces in Afghanistan are less reliant on air power from outside the country because of repairs to Bagram's runway, which had been heavily damaged by two years of war.

Fewer planes are needed because the U.S. campaign has shifted to pinpoint raids, rather than large battles, he said. In recent months, the U.S. military has set up several smaller bases along the Pakistani border and sends out platoons to search villages and suspected al-Qaida hide-outs.
"As the face of this war has changed, we have not needed as much close air support because we've been concentrating our activities in certain location, which lessens the area that has to be covered," King said.

Harrier pilots said they would take some of the workload carried by the eight A-10s, which fly from Bagram day and night.

"The amount of sorties and missions they are flying is really wearing down the crews," said Marine Capt. Toby Moore, 32, from Pendleton, Ore.

Harrier crews said they had been practicing new techniques for the high altitudes and rugged terrain of Afghanistan.

The Bagram airfield lies nearly 4,900 feet above sea level, compared with 200 feet in Yuma. Pilots said the thinner air dramatically affects the performance of their airplanes: they can't take off vertically here or hover, and can land vertically only if they are carrying no weapons and little fuel.

Pilots of the Apache helicopter gunships have reported similar problems, saying they can't make it over many of Afghanistan's mountain ranges.

Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, October 25, 2002



BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — The Marines are causing quite a stir in Afghanistan.

Six Harriers from Marine Harrier Squadron VMA-513 — the “Nightmares,” to be precise — began arriving at Bagram from their home base at Yuma Marine Station, Ariz., over the weekend, with the last two landing on Monday.

And when the gray fighter jets started screaming through the brilliant blue sky, everything else halted. Merchants stopped their dickering, while children dropped their schoolbags to point, eyes wide with awe.

Not all of the VMA-513’s Harriers are in Afghanistan. The squadron has 16 aircraft, and the other jets are out with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, VMA-513 commander Lt. Col. Jim Dixon said Wednesday.

The Harriers have taken their place on the flight line alongside eight Air Force A-10s from Davis Monthan Air Base in Tucson, Ariz., “which is right down the road from Yuma,” Dixon said. “We’re neighbors.”

Until the Harriers arrived, the A-10s were the only fighter jets stationed in Afghanistan, although planners at U.S. Central Command — the Tampa, Fla., regional command that is responsible for Operation Enduring Freedom — have placed Air Force fighter jets at K-2, a U.S. base in Uzbekistan, and at other locations in Central Asia.

Meanwhile, Navy carriers and Marine Expeditionary Units have been stationed in the Arabian Sea, with jets prepared to respond to requests for close air support from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan.

The A-10s have been busy. Military officials don’t talk about specific missions, but the aircraft known as the Warthog take off and land at all hours of the day and night.

So, it’s not surprising that the A-10 pilots welcomed the Marine pilots with open arms.

“They’ve been pulling a really heavy [mission] load,” Dixon said.

The Harriers and A-10s have similar missions: The Marine jet is designed for air-to-ground combat, while the Warthog is the only jet in the Air Force’s inventory whose primary mission is close air support.

Harriers are only rarely “forward-stationed” — positioned inside a foreign country on deployments, instead of ships. Most of the time, deployed Harriers are part of a MEU. The jets can take off and land vertically and hover so that they can be easily accommodated aboard MEU ships, which are much smaller than aircraft carriers.

U.S. military commanders decided to move the Harriers to Bagram because of a shift in Operation Enduring Freedom’s air support requirements over the summer.

“The face of the war in Afghanistan has changed,” Col. Roger King, spokesman for U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday. “The last time naval air support was putting rounds on target [in Afghanistan] was some time in September.”

With the Taliban out of power and al-Qaida fighters either gone or well hidden, the big battles for control of Afghanistan are done, King said.

U.S. troops are now focusing their combat missions on smaller areas, principally Afghanistan’s southeast border with Pakistan, and long-range air support from a carrier is “not needed so much,” King said.

The nature of the U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan is also revealed in the kinds of armaments Dixon is choosing to leave behind when his Harriers fly: Sidewinder missiles, which are used in air-to-air combat.

“There’s no air threat here,” he said.

Instead, Dixon’s Harriers will hit the skies loaded with various mixes of its no-nonsense ground attack weapons. Those include the GAU-12 25 mm five-barrel Gatling gun which can fire 3,600 rounds per minute, 5-inch rockets, 2.75-inch rockets, Mark-80 series munitions, cluster munitions, and GBU-12 and -16 laser-guided 500-pound “smart” bombs.

Some of the Harriers also have “targeting pods” — avionics that include television cameras, laser designators and infrared “pointers” that tell smart weapons exactly where the enemy is.

Another reason the A-10 squadron had Bagram to itself for so long while Navy ships provided a platform for other jets was that Bagram’s airfield was in such poor shape that “in May less than one quarter was usable — just half the length and width,” King said.

With so little of the airfield in decent shape and much of it needed for helicopters and Force transports coming in and out every day, there wasn’t room for the Marine contingent.

But airfield improvements have been a top priority for Army engineers and a group of about 80 engineers from the Italian Army who spent the spring and summer repairing and reinforcing the runway, clearing mines from surrounding fields, improving ramp space and constructing maintenance shelters.

By early October, the airfield was ready for the Harriers, although the runway is still not as sturdy as those at standard U.S. military airfields. Because the runway’s surface is less than ideal, and because Bagram is at 5,000 feet above sea level, Harrier pilots are not able to perform one of the jet’s most amazing stunts: vertical takeoffs and landings, Dixon said.

The runway may be iffy, but Bagram’s accomodations sure beat living on a ship, according to VMA-513 maintenance crew members.

“It's a lot better than I expected here,” said Lance Cpl. Derek Estrada, a Pittsburg, Calif., native who works loading ordance on the Harriers. “We actually have real showers. I was thinking we’re going to be sleeping in the dirt and taking showers out of our canteens.”

As a matter of fact, it is almost like home, according to Lance Cpl. Peter Bushby, an ordnance loader.

“It looks just like Yuma, only at 5,000 feet” elevation, he said.


Sempers,

Roger