Field Guide to Flying Death: Rockets and Missiles on the Apache Helicopter

Apache Longbow Helicopter 38 rockets and eight Hellfire Missiles under its stub wings.

Death flies in many forms. Two weapons very often confused are rockets and missiles. In the broadest terms, missiles follow a guidance system to their target. Rockets are pointed at the target, fired and follow a ballistic path, gravity and wind resistance, to the target.

A missile is a guided rocket: a rocket is an unguided missile. 

The difference is similar to the difference between smart bombs and dumb bombs.  When released from an aircraft, smart bombs fall to their target but correct their course. Dumb bombs fall and hit wherever their ballistic path takes them. 

A good example o the difference between rockets and missiles is the basic load of the Apache attack helicopter. In all of its various models, the Apache carries both rockets and missiles.  The standard load is 38 rockets, 19 per pod on each side of the aircraft, and eight Hellfire missiles. 

Four Hellfire Missiles and a fully-loaded rocket pod. 

I watched Apaches fire salvos of Hydra 70mm rockets. The pilots point the aircraft at the target and release pairs of rockets, one from each pod, at the target.  The rockets blast from their tube to a speed nearly a half-mile a second, then fly unpowered up to five miles to their target. 

Hellfire missiles were originally designed as tank-buster missiles. They have a dual warhead in the nose with an armor-piercing shaped charge. When fired, it blazes to about 1,000 mph then flies up to five miles locked on the target. If the target moves, the guidance system steers the missile to the target. 

So why would fire rockets when missiles will track a moving target? Cost.  An Apache helicopter with a full load of 38 rockets and eight missiles has a million dollars in munitions hanging on its pylons: $900,000 worth of Hellire missiles at $115,000 each and $100,000 in rockets costing $2,800 each.  A full load of 38 rockets costs less than just one Hellfire missile. 

Rockets are dumb, missiles are smart, but if either one hits, the target is destroyed. 

Everything That Flies is Ballistic

Every flying object from a football to a Saturn V rocket follows a ballistic path through the air as soon as the ball leaves the quarterback’s hand or the rocket burns all of its fuel.  Rockets, missiles, bombs, bullets, and every sort of ball follows a ballistic path once it is thrown, fired, kicked, hit or launched. 

For Americans, the path followed by a long pass in a football game is a beautiful example of a ballistic path.  The thrown ball leaves the quarterback’s hands at about thirty degrees and climbs rapidly in a nearly straight path to its maximum height. After it reaches maximum height, the spinning football drops rapidly into the arms of the running receiver.

Rockets, missiles bullets and bombs follow the same path with a higher starting speed.  Until the advent of cruise missiles, the term ballistic missile was redundant.  The fuel burned in seconds and from then on, the missile was on a ballistic path all the way to its target. 

Cruise missiles are jet planes with one high-explosive passenger in Seat 1A.

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Field Guide to Flying Death: Artillery

Royal Thai Army firing an M198 Howitzer, 155mm. 

The 90-pound projectile jumps from the gun at nearly a half-mile per second. 

It can hit a target 18 miles away in less than a minute.

With so many wars either ramping up or about to begin, I decided to write about all the many, many projectiles that I have fired, I have seen fired, or have been fired at me.  My first post will be about artillery, then I will talk about bombs, bullets, ballistic missiles and guided missiles. I will also talk about how the various forms of flying death start their flights, whether from a gun, an airplane, a submarine or a ship.

Artillery comes in many shapes and sizes, but the M198 is typical. It fires a 90-pound shell anywhere from direct-fire right in front of the gun to nearly 20 miles away. A good crew can fire two rounds per minute for hours or up to four rounds in a minute for a short period. The most common round is HE, High Explosive: 90 pounds of detonator, explosive and a case designed to break into sharp fragments.  The round leaves the gun at more than 2,200-feet-per-second or almost a half-mile per second. The shell can fly to a target 18 miles away in less than 45 seconds.  The kill radius of the blast is 50 meters, the casualty radius is 100 meters.

Drop a 155mm shell from an M198 on a football field in the middle of the fifty-yard line and both teams including the coaches and players on the bench, the camera crews, the refs and everyone with midfield seats near the field will die. Injuries from shrapnel and blast will maim hundreds more in the stands and blow all the windows out of the fancy skyboxes.

But the most important specification is the price.  A brand new howitzer costs just over a half-million dollars.  High explosive rounds cost about $500 each.  So a million bucks buys a brand-new howitzer and a thousand rounds of ammo.

Relative to guided missiles, artillery is cheap and deadly. Dictators on a budget who cannot afford aircraft and high-tech missiles can buy lots of artillery.

And they do.

This cheap, traditional weapon is the key to why the malignant lunatic leader of North Korea holds the civilized world right by the short hairs. Kim Jong Un has thousands of artillery pieces and rocket launchers pointed at Seoul, the capital of South Korea.  If we attack North Korea, his guns start firing at Seoul.  More than 20 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area and tens of thousands of Americans are also in range of those guns.

Unlike long range missiles and aircraft, there is nothing that can stop an artillery shell in flight. And there is no effect early warning system.  If North Korea starts firing artillery at Seoul the first salvo of shells and missiles will hit in one minute after the command to fire.  Crowded streets, markets, tall glass buildings, apartment complexes, and stadiums are perfect artillery targets.

When armies want to stop artillery, they have to find a way to blow up the enemy guns. Guns can be attacked by aircraft and by artillery, called counter battery fire. But there are too many North Korean guns.  Even if we win a war against North Korea, Seoul would be rubble.

Although accuracy hardly matters when firing artillery against civilians on streets and in glass buildings, modern guns are very accurate.  A well-trained crew will put their first round they fire within the 50-meters of the target at a distance of 20 miles. With a good observer guiding the crew, the next round could hit a golf cart.

Artillery is cheap, effective, mobile and terrible.

Riding at Breakneck Speed, Literally, Almost Ended my Re-enlistment

As in this crash, no one was hurt but me in my big crash.

On May 9, 2007, at about 5 p.m., I started down Turkey Hill on River Road in Lancaster County with eleven other riders.  I hit 51 mph near the middle of the ¾-mile hill, then I hit another rider. It was more than a half-hour later that I reached the bottom of the hill, being carried on a stretcher heading for a MEDEVAC helicopter.

In seconds, my chances of re-enlisting in the Army at 54 years old went from good to gruesome.  Although I can remember nothing from five minutes before the accident until almost five months after, I could read a medical report when I was discharged form the hospital more than a week later.  I had broken нине bones, the worst was a smashed C7 vertebra that the neurosurgeon on call scraped out and replaced with a cadaver bone and a titanium plate. 

In addition to the smashed C7, I cracked C2, broke four ribs, my right collarbone and shoulder blade and my nose.  The worst obvious injury was my forehead peeled up at my eyebrows.  I got plastic surgery the same day. Neck surgery the next day. 

I was in a neck and chest brace until August 2, but I started walking as soon as I got out of the hospital and started running in June.  I was convinced I could still get back in the Army as long as that waiver took three months. 

Here's what I wrote on the second anniversary of my crash just a week into my deployment to Iraq.

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I flew in the chase bird on a few MEDEVAC missions in Iraq. Ten years ago, I was the on the back board and the cause of the MEDEVAC mission.

Ten Years Ago: Closer to Re-Enlistment, One More Step

On May 1, 2007, all the paperwork was approved for my re-enlistment, except one more approval. Jessica Wright, The Adjutant General of the Pennsylvania National Guard, had to sign a waiver for me to re-enlist.

By the official calculation, I had eleven years and two months of prior service. On the following day, May 2, 2007, I would turn 54.  With the enlistment age up to 42 and eleven years of prior service, I still needed Wright to waive the one additional year because I would be 54 before the paperwork could be signed.

So Kevin Askew, my recruiter said I should just take it easy and wait. These waivers could three months.

And thankfully that is just about how long it took.  I got the waiver July 27. I did not actually re-enlist until August 15.  When Kevin called and told me I had the waiver in July, I told him I was going on a business trip to Europe August 3 and would take the oath when I got back.

But we both knew the real reason I was waiting until mid-August was that I would not get off the neck brace I had been wearing for three months until August 1.

On May 9, 2007, my re-enlistment hid the speed bump which I keep referring to.  On May 9 of this year, I will write about why the three-month delay was just perfect.

Visited My Former Unit

Echo Fuelers training for deployment to Afghanistan in 2012

I visited my former unit for the first time since I left the Army last year. I showed up at 4p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Most of the soldiers were getting ready to go home after a 3-day drill weekend that included the always-traumatic APFT--Army Physical Fitness Test.

One soldier I saw was Jeff Kwiecien, a flight medic who recently broke his leg pretty badly. We talked about living with plates and screws. His plates might come out in a year.  He working hard to return to full use of his broken leg.

Matt Kauffman and Bruce Reiner at Camp Garry Owen, Iraq. Jeff Kwiecien just hanging around.

Then I walked over to Echo Company. A group of guys outside their orderly room was talking about who flunked the APFT. Matt Kauffman saw me and said, "Tell these guys how fast you ran the two-mile when you were in Echo."  I told them and then Matt made clear how incredibly old I am.  So then they were talking about: Who is slower than a 60 year old. They also mentioned guys who were faster.

When I joined Echo Company Matt had recently joined the Army.  We ran together in training and he was my partner in Combatives--the Army version of fighting unarmed.  Matt is tall stronger and was 22 years old when we were in Combatives.  I lasted a minute before he pinned me in the dirt.  We were in Iraq together. We also were together in the summer of 2011 when I trained to go to Afghanistan, but ended up not going. Matt went.  Now he is one of the senior fueling sergeants in Echo Company.


Matt Kauffman in Afghanistan

I was also joking with Bruce Reiner.  He is the guy I wrote about walking a long way for a flush toilet in Kuwait. The link is here. He is in his mid 50s and has taken my place as the oldest guy in Echo Company.

I also saw Jordan Bannister in battalion headquarters.  She was NCO of the Year last year, leads the Color Guard at ceremonies and very good shot. She is an administrative sergeant. She put together the paperwork for my last attempt to get an extension. If it had gone through, I would be in the Army right now, but definitely getting out this month.

Jordan Bannister                                                                  Cathy Green

I also saw Cathy Green, the brigade medical officer.  She was telling me about her civilian business making and repairing costumes and other clothes.  We were also talking about protesting, because she is an officer and cannot in any way take a public political position.  

One of the big weekend events was a change of brigade command.  My last commander, Colonel Dennis Sorensen is retiring. His executive officer Howard Lloyd is taking over as the new commander.  I talked with both of them and a dozen other soldiers as I walked through the halls of the armory.

Howard Lloyd

Dennis Sorensen

Just before I left, I talked with Dell Christine.  He is up on all the latest threats and security issues around the world.  I told him about my upcoming trip and he said, "You better be careful. I don't want to see you TV in jail or worse." Senior leaders in the Army get plugged into all kinds of information about terrorist threats. I suppose if I read all that stuff, I would not go on my Eastern European bicycle trip in June and July.  I'll be sure and let Dell know I made it back alive.

Dell Christine

I was hoping to see my former boss Travis Mueller and Chad Hummel in Echo Company.  Maybe another time.  

Riding in Hong Kong: Hostile Buses, a Big Hill

[Before my ride from the Adriatic Sea, to the Black Sea, to the Baltic Sea this summer, I will be writing about the places I have ridden around the globe that may be more dangerous than where I will be riding in June and July.]

Hong Kong island viewed from Kowloon on the mainland

Between 1998 and 2001 I made a half-dozen trips to Hong Kong.  Usually the trip to Hong Kong was just a stop on a longer trip from America, to Europe, to Singapore or Perth and then through Hong Kong on the way back to America.  My first trip to Hong Kong was early in 1998, less than a year after Hong Kong was re-united with China.  I was told to be very careful that the bustling center of free enterprise in Asia was going to be more subdued under Communist rule.

They were so wrong.  This vibrant city pasted against a cliff on an island just south of the mainland was more alive 24 hours a day than any city I have ever visited. In every way it was an exciting and dangerous place to ride a bike.

The city itself is mobbed with traffic, much of it buses. The two main types of buses are the lumbering double deckers and the screaming minibuses. The turbodiesel engines of the smaller buses seemed always to be at full throttle.

The real bicycling challenge though was above the city.  I usually was in Hong Kong for just two or three days. Each day I would ride from the city up the mountain to Victoria Peak on Stubbs Road and Peak Road.  These long, steep roads were a series of switchbacks that rose above the city passing the houses of Hong Kong millionaires. English-language academies nestled in the trees along this road.  After the long climb up, I had a blazingly fast descent.  As I dropped off the mountain into the city I carried some of the speed from the descent and hit the six-lane Hennessey Road at more than 35 mph.

After descending the mountain on a two-lane road, I was in heavy traffic on Hennessey, between  lumbering buses and darting motorbikes.  One day, I came down the mountain and started to pass a big orange bus in the right lane. The bus was two stories of flat steel on its left side.  Hong Kong, like most former British colonies has right-hand drive. The middle lane was empty when I passed the back end of the orange bus, but then another double decker started turning into my lane. The mid-afternoon sun disappeared as the distance between those buses disappeared.  I pedaled liked I was in the final sprint in a Tour de France stage.  As I passed the bus on the left, the driver looked at me and kept moving right.

In China, bicycles a lower class transport.  Worse, Asia has no tradition of chivalry, so ties in traffic go to the bigger vehicle.  I shot past the orange, slower bus and swerved in front of it to escape being crushed.  I kept pedaling and did not look back till I passed under a yellow light and the buses had to stop.

I was so jazzed, I went up the hill again. Too much adrenaline to waste.

A Hong Kong Double Decker Bus

The Double Decker Buses own the Hong Kong streets

While I had the occasional near miss with a double decker bus, I had daily trouble with the minibuses. These buses are often full beyond their 26-passenger capacity. These 10,000-pound vehicles are powered by a 3-liter turbo diesel engine mated to a five-speed manual transmission.

From a traffic light, I would pull rapidly away from these overloaded buses, pissing off the driver who hates all bikes. I would get a great sprint workout riding as hard as I could while hearing the turbodiesel screaming behind me, the driver shifting at max rpms to have the best chance of squashing me under his wheels.  But he and I both knew, someone would want to get out of the bus before he could complete his plan to make a spandex smear on a Hong Kong Boulevard.

The Evil Minibus

Despite the evil buses, I loved riding up and down from the Peak.  There is a cable car that goes straight up mountain and beside it an old Army trail with a 35% grade.  Hong Kong is crowded, beautiful and an amazing place to ride.

Looking down to Hong King and Kowloon from the Cable Car

Dante's Inferno in Iraq: A Podcast

This post is just a link to a podcast on Sectarian Review. The podcast is about the Dead Poets Society Book Group I led on Camp Adder, Iraq.  Also on the podcast is a professor who teaches Dante every year.

That group started almost eight years ago in July 2009.  Here's the link.

Ten Years Ago Today: Cold War Soldier Does the MEPS Duck Walk

Doctor at MEPS shows recruits how to Duck Walk

Ten years ago, I woke up at 0400 (4 a.m.) with about 40 other recruits to take the physical and the other tests that would allow me to re-enlist.  Everybody except me and one other guy were between 17 and 20 years old.  I sat with the other Old Guy at breakfast. He was 29 years old, I was 53. We were the old guys.

During that day at MEPS (Military Enlistment Processing Station) we got blood tests and probes stuck anywhere they would fit.  I knew all that was coming. But my big worry was the duck walk. We had to squat down and walk across a room, about 20 feet, in a squat, with our hands on our hips.

At the time I re-enlisted, I was an avid bicycle racer. I was in shape, good shape "for my age." But the Duck Walk worried me. I might be in good shape for my age, but the Duck Walk is easy for any reasonably fit 18 year old, not so easy for those of us over 50. As it turns out, it was not so easy for my new 29-year-old friend.  We lined up with a half-dozen kids in the third Duck Walk wave and waddled across the room.  The other old guy and I grunted, struggled, wobbled but finally made the distance. We were slowest finishers by a lot.

The Duck Walk Outdoors

We passed. We high-fived each other and made the kids laugh, and whisper about WTF the old guy was doing enlisting.

After the needles, latex gloves, turning and coughing and eye charts, we got dressed and went to another part of the building for the aptitude test.

This was the third time I had taken the entrance exam. In 1972 when I first enlisted in the Air Force, and again in 1975 when I re-enlisted in the Army, I took the test. Back then it was on paper. Today it was on a computer.  By the time we left the test room and returned to the waiting area, we knew the results.  No waiting.

When I walked back to the testing room, the Navy Chief Petty Officer in charge of the test stood up, walked around his desk and shook my hand in front of the group.  He said, "You just got the highest score of anyone we tested this year.  Congratulations! You qualify for any job in the Army, Hell, any branch of the service based on these scores."

Then he added, "But at your age, there are damn few schools that will take you. But good job!"

I thanked him.  He was right.  Everything good in the military has an age limit.  But I knew that coming in. I was just happy I passed the Duck Walk.  Now more paperwork.

Chemical Weapons: Feeble in War, Powerful Against Civilians

Nearly a hundred civilians died in agony this week and hundreds more will be crippled by a Sarin gas attack in Syria.  Murdering unprotected civilians is the most effective way to use chemical weapons.  Since they were introduced 102 years ago, they have been a failure on the battlefield, but a terrible success against civilians.

German Captain Fritz Haber gave the command to release chlorine gas from hundreds of cylinders at Ypres in April of 1915. At that moment, chemical warfare became part of the horrors of trench warfare for the remainder of World War I.

Chemical weapons were not used in World War II, or subsequent wars, except the Iran-Iraq War in the late 80s. Military leaders soon found that chemical warfare is less effective than kinetic (bombs and bullets) warfare.  With the additional problem that the winners often cannot occupy the territory they take.  An area contaminated with Sarin or other nerve agents will take weeks to decontaminate.

While they are not very effective against trained, protected soldiers, chemical weapons work very well against civilians, particularly in cities.  Closed, crowded spaces are perfect for chemical weapons. Subways, meeting halls, sports arenas are all perfect places to use chemical weapons.

In 1977, one of my additional duties as a tank commander in West Germany was CBR NCO. I was the Chemical, Biological, Radiation Weapons Sergeant for our unit.  Each month I gave and hour-long class in a different weapon of mass murder and how to survive.  Although we tank soldiers had a better chance of surviving than ground troops, everyone knew that in a war with gas and nukes and weaponized bugs, we were going to die.

At the end of each class I would yell, "On your feet!"  The room stood up and I presented the doomsday scenario of the month.  What should we do if our position is hit with a nuclear weapon? Or what should do if we are attacked with artillery shells full of nerve gas, the kind that will kill you even if you get a drop on your skin?

The soldiers answered in unison, "Sergeant Gussman, we will put our heads firmly between our legs and kiss our ass goodbye!"

We walked out laughing, but no one thought these weapons were anything but terrifying. They still are.

Ten Years Ago: Re-enlistment Paperwork

At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 2009 running the Army Physical Fitness Test

in a gas mask. My official job was Chemical Weapons Decontamination Specialist.

In the last blog post, I finally made the call to begin the re-enlistment process. After calling the recruiter, I pulled together all the documents I could find to confirm my prior service, scanned them and sent them. 

Two days after the call, I was the dog that caught the car.  I thought, “What now?!!”  What was I going to do if I actually got back in the Army. I thought about volunteering for some sort of chemical weapons job.  Most everyone dislikes chemical weapons in principle and in practice.  Wearing a gas mask and chemical protection gear is somewhere from uncomfortable to horrible.

But the fact that most people don’t like the chemical weapons branch made it attractive. It fit with the idea that I was replacing my failure at community service with Army service.  

Part of my thinking in re-enlisting was that I would join a Type A group of people in community service.  I had tried volunteering with local charitable groups. I failed. The people who run food pantries and women’s shelters and adoption support groups are really nice people. 

They drove me nuts.

When I volunteered, I just wanted to do something useful: Stack boxes, sort cans, something. But volunteering with nice people means a lot of hand-wringing. Also in the first years of the new century the economy was good. It was artificially good as it turns out, but in 2007, the economy seemed good, the terrorists had not attacked again.

I wanted the organization I volunteered for to have a goal and fight for it.  The Army was in two wars and needed soldiers.  The change in recruiting age that would allow me to get back in was proof the Army really needed soldiers.  By simply showing up I could definitely do one thing that I had done in 1972: Show up.  If I was in the Army, the Army needed to recruit one less soldier. 

So if things worked out and I got back in, I would volunteer for chemical weapons protection of some kind.  But first I had to get in.

Ten Years Ago Today: Cold War Soldier Starts Re-enlistment Process

The Night Before Basic, Killing Brain and Lung Cells

On January 31, 1972, I flew to Texas to begin basic training. On April 2, 2007, ten years ago today, I called Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Askew, recruiting sergeant for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, and began the process of re-enlisting after 23+ years as a civilian.  I was 53 years old at the time, about to turn 54.

In the Spring of 2007, The Surge in Iraq was in full swing and recruitment for the Army was down a lot. The economy was good, Congress would not even consider re-starting the Draft, so in late 2006 Congress raised the maximum first-enlistment age for the Army from 35 to 42 years old.

The program was a failure and was rescinded three years later. But that failed program allowed me to re-enlist.  The maximum enlistment age for soldiers with prior service is the enlistment age plus the years of prior service plus a one-year waiver.  I needed all of that.

I called three recruiters before I called Kevin. He was the first one to pick up the phone. I told him about my education and prior service before I told him how old I was. He did not hesitate. He asked for all the papers I had that would confirm my prior service dates. He thought there was a good chance I could get back in, but only as an enlisted man. I told him that was fine. At my age, there were very few programs I could be retrained in, and despite my education, nothing as an officer. I was way past the maximum age for officer and warrant officer programs.

Because the other recruiters did not answer the phone, I decided to go with the Aviation unit, which led to the one regret I had for the rest of my time on this enlistment. I should have gone back to an armor unit.  I really did miss tanks themselves, few things are more fun than speeding across open country in 55 tons of armor, or firing the tank's main gun.

Few places in the Army have the same camaraderie as a tank.  Except for crews with a platoon leader or commander, everyone in the tank is an enlisted man. I flew a lot of missions on Blackhawks and Chinooks. There was banter among the crew chiefs, door gunners and flight engineers and there was banter int he cockpit, but the divide between the officers and enlisted men was clear.  The tank crews I was part of were a team of more or less equals. We were all enlisted, even if only one of us was in charge.

April 2, 2007, was Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter.  The irony of signing up to go to war on the night before Good Friday was not lost on me.

At the time I was keeping my plans to myself. I did not want to worry my family, friends, co-workers or anyone else in my life with a crazy plan that had, as I saw it at the time, a low chance of success.

As it turns out, my enlistment plans would hit a Himalayan speed bump on May 9, 2007, but that is for a later post.