"Where Eagles Fly"
Author: Haruo Chikamori
E-mail: hhchikamori
Rating: M
Classification: K
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: Some of the events in Harm and Animal's second deployment to the Persian Gulf – The First Gulf War
DISCLAIMER: The characters Harm Rabb, Jr., Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie, Meg Austin, AJ Chegwidden, et al. belong (in concept if not name) to CBS/Bellisarius. No profit is being made from this story, nor is any infringement intended. Animal is the property of Heather and Hugo Chikamori.
Author's Note: The eagle in the story image was photographed by me on June 2, 2013. Bald Eagles have always been my favourite raptor, figuring both into my stories and into my wildlife photography. This story idea came to me from JAG – True Callings, where Harm is telling Skates about how he felt like "if he got in a plane he'd wasn't coming back alive." way back before the ramp-strike. In the Animal/Meg timeline, Animal has one month on Harm as a Lieutenant, considering that he went through Naval ROTC then went active duty Navy.
USS Seahawk, Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, December 1990, Firefighter 103
"Hey, Animal!" Harm radioed. "So what made you decide to turn down shore duty and head out with us?" Animal had switched over to VF-241 Howlers from the VF-41 Black Aces. "You get withdrawal symptoms or somethin'?" They had just launched from the USS Seahawk, their aircraft carrier which was transiting the Atlantic enroute to the Meditteranean and then through the to the Persian Gulf.
"Yeah, something like that. Harm" Animal retorted whimsically. "I'm addicted…to the smell of salt water. Firefighter 103 to Mother 1; Anybody out there yet, we're looking for a fill-up." His F-14A cranked a hard left turn as Harm sidled onto his wing.
"Roger that, Firefighter 103, Texaco is to your 045 degrees at 10 miles outbound."
"Roger that, Mother 1. Thanks for the tip". Animal said as he switched to ICS. "Scooter, give me a read."
"Roger. Contact 050 degrees, 8 miles."
As Harm and Animal came up on the tanker, Animal slotted in first to tank. Watching the basket waving in the wind, he carefully eased up, extending his refuelling probe; guided it into the basket. There were several interesting euphemisms for tanking; usually related to bodily functions which the male dominated aviation community was more than happy to talk about. The tanker aviators usually referred to their refuelling as "passing gas". The act of putting the refuelling probe into the basket was referenced to the copulation act between males and females.
"Texaco, Firefighter 103, good connection, taking on 11.2." Animal radioed the tanker.
"Roger that, Firefighter 103, transferring 11.2" the KA-6D tanker radioed back to Animal. Transferring 11,200 pounds to top the F-14 off was crucial if the Tomcat wanted to stay on station for a long time. Transiting the Atlantic wasn't a pleasure cruise. All too often, the Russians sent over a lovely little snoop, the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, a long distance strategic bomber that often tried to penetrate the aircraft carrier's maritime exclusion zone. Anything that got within 200 nautical miles of the battle-group was intercepted and escorted out.
After Harm had topped off, the two broke off and headed on their patrol. "Time for another exercise in burning holes in the sky." Animal quipped as the lead F-14 pointed its nose to 320 degrees and headed for their first waypoint.
Most of their patrols were mundane, boring exercises in keeping alert through monotony during the course of their transit. Not often did they run across Bear incursions, but had to always be ready to respond if one did occur.
"See our little snoop?" Scooter said. "I've got a radar surface contact bearing 090 off our nose, he's pretty much 50 miles off the stern of Mother 1. Betcha he's that Russian trawler. What do you say that we give him a wakeup call?"
"Maybe we should, but check with Mother 1 first." Animal replied.
Harm grinned as he looked over at Animal's aircraft. He somehow knew something was up, by the animated conversation that the crew in Animal's F-14 seemed to be having. Scooter was mentioning something to Animal.
"Firefighter 103, Mother 1, Little Snoop is on your six. Should we pay him a visit?"
"Roger that, Firefighter 103, You're cleared to give him a wakeup. That should let him know that we're on to him."
"See if he calls back to Moscow for instructions." Animal snorted, as he clipped his oxygen mask on. "Firefighter 104…you on my six, Harm? We're going surfing in the waves." Animal rolled his F-14 and descended to Cherubs 2 (200 feet above sea level).
"Roger, 103, we're in your wake." Harm responded, as he clipped his MBU-14/P onto his HGU-55/P.
"Scooter, get me the channel that the Russian trawler is broadcasting on." Animal said digging into his meagre knowledge of Russian to try to find the word he was looking for to startle the shit out of the trawler's Russian crew.
Trawler "Moskva", Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, 55 nautical miles behind USS Seahawk
"Gde vozdushnyh sudov perevozchika? [Where is the aircraft carrier?]" the trawler's captain said.
"Pjat'desjat pjat' mil' vperedi nas, Kapitan. [55 miles ahead of us, Captain]" said the radarman.
"Po-prezhnemu na jetot kurs [Continue on this heading]" the captain responded as he looked out the windows. Just then an American accented voice said loudly over the radio "Udivlenie, tovarishh [Surprise! Comrade]" in badly accented Russian.
Just then a persistent whine that was steadily growing louder culminated in a roar as two F-14A Tomcats whistled past his trawler so fast that all they were, were blurs as they went overhead and rocketed into the distance become pinpoint dots, just as fast as they had appeared.
"V proshlom mesjace! Amerikancev poobeshhat' [Goddamnit! Damned Americans!]" the captain swore voraciously; half amused that the Americans had managed to pull such a trick on him.
"Â sčitaû, čto oni ne cenim naše prisutstvie v ih vodah, kapitan. [I believe they do not appreciate our presence in their waters, Captain]" The first officer said to him.
The captain looked at his first officer with a jaundiced expression. "Ochevidno. [Obviously]" One did not have to be Russian to understand the dripping sarcasm in his voice.
Firefighter 103
Scooter chuckled to himself as he looked up at his front-seater. "Animal. Good one." He grinned in such a way that Animal could see him in the rear view mirror. "If they weren't awake before, they sure as hell are now."
"Always happy to help." Animal snickered. "Maybe they'll think twice about the exclusion zone, the next time it could be F/A-18s hauling iron." He commented bringing about a sober reminder that even though perestroika was underway in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union wasn't dead yet. And the surveillance trawlers were considered a threat that would be met by F/A-18s with 500 lb bombs if the trawler didn't take the hint to 'back off'. Though President Gorbachev the President of the Soviet Union was making strides in trying to bring democracy to his country, the old Stalinist regime was still entrenched and making a last-gasp effort to overturn Gorbachev's reforms.
The rest of the six hour patrol was uneventful, asides from Scooter complaining that his ass had fallen asleep and they made their way back to the carrier; trapping in short order after being relieved by the next crew that were already airborne. Raising the canopy, Animal took a deep whiff of the salty sea air and smiled as he removed his HGU-55/P, still decorated with the Black Aces tape across the helmet. The fact that the Black Aces with two kills (the first Gulf of Sidra incident) and the VF-32 Swordsmen with two (the second Gulf of Sidra Incident) were the only two blooded squadrons in the United States Navy was a good solid point during any trash-talking sessions whenever Harm or any of the other Howler squadron members bugged him good-naturedly about how Animal still kept his VF-41 markings on his flight helmet. One never forgot the first fleet squadron that they ever flew with and naturally the aviators were loyal to their fleet squadron.
As they headed in, debriefed and got out of their flight gear, leaving them only in their recreational flight suits, Mace looked over at Harm and said. "Y'know what, Harm, I'm getting kinda hungry. What say we go head down to the mess and see if we can scrounge up something to eat?"
"Sounds good to me." Harm grinned. "Hey, Animal, you and Scooter coming?"
Animal mentioned rather laconically as they treaded through the knee-knockers as they headed towards the mess. "Yeah. I hear though that we got donkey dicks and rabbit poop this time." Donkey dicks were hot dogs and rabbit poop was slang for beans; they were small enough to be what was excreted out the back end of a rabbit and considering that whenever Big Blue served up the beans, they were either slathered in ketchup or gravy; the analogy to rabbit poop was pretty self-evident. The meal that most aviators preferred were the sliders with cheese. That was usually a special day. Animal usually grabbed a Coke or Pepsi if the latter was available.
"You know how they make this shit they feed us?" Mace asked.
"Papa Foxtrot Mike. Lieutenant JG." Animal said loftily "not a fucking clue! It's Pure Fucking Magic. Anyways, it could be worse, we could be in a foxhole eating C-rats. I'll take this crap any day over C-rats; they say they dug the C-rats for our forward ground troops in Saudi Arabia from the Korean War store-rooms."
"No shit." Mace asked.
"I think he's kidding." Harm replied. "You are, aren't you?" Harm looked nervously at Animal. If the C-rats were of Korean War vintage, he didn't want to ever get shot down to spend a night with the grunts.
They reached the mess and walked in to the friendly jeers of the Howlers. "Hey…Harm, ya dick. Ya visited the Russians and didn't bring us any caviar?"
"Yeah, we visited them… at about 700 knots for about half a second. Not much time to pick anything up." Harm riposted. The other squadron mates jeered good-naturedly with a chorus of "Yeah…riiiight."
"So what's on the menu?" Animal queried the jovial squadron-mates.
"Hamsters!" (Chicken Cordon Bleu).
"Awesome!" Scooter said. He definitely enjoyed that particular menu item. It ranked just below sliders and wayyyy above donkey dicks and rabbit poop.
Digging in, they finished off the meal. The next eighteen hours were going to be filled with rack-time, readying for the next patrol, working out, briefings and meals.
"What you going to do after you finish up your food?"
"I think I'm gonna hit the rack for about 6 hours, then I'm gonna go work out." Animal replied. With the g-forces that were pulled in the F-14 Tomcat, one had to keep physically fit; that meant lifting weights, running the hangar deck.
"Meet up for a game of hoops later?" Harm asked.
"Yeah, sure." Animal replied, looking over at Harm. "2 on 2?" he queried asking if Mace and Scooter were also invited.
"Yeah, the more the merrier." Most JO (junior officers – ranked from Ensign to Lieutenant (0-1 to 0-3)) quarters were small and cramped. But at least unlike the enlisted, they didn't have to hot-bunk. The enlisted really hated it when the mess served rabbit poop. That usually invoked an attack of gas and God help whoever hot-bunked after someone had eaten 'rabbit poop'. They had their quarters which they had to share with another officer. Usually it was with a different officer than the one that they crew with when up in the air.
Animal found that he definitely needed the rest after spending a good six hours in the air. He ended up bunking with Harm in the room since the two aviators were usually on the same flight schedule. It also meant that the room was empty when they were airborne. It made life a heck of a lot easier since the schedule made it so that one didn't disturb the other; they were both up and flying at the same time. Harm usually was wide awake after a patrol so he usually left Animal to sleep before he usually crashed. Usually by about the time that Animal woke up from his sleep, was when Harm ambled in. Life on an aircraft carrier was gruelling and tight-quarters, but somehow they made the best of it as well as keeping their friendship intact. Harm's buddies from the Academy; Luke Pendry had gone to fly with some other squadron and Sturgis Turner had decided to hang out with the bubbleheads. Luckily Animal was on the same wavelength as an aviator and the two had teamed up to become the tops on the greenie board. Usually Harm was in the lead, then Animal, but sometimes the results seesawed back and forth.
Animal yawned as he ditched his "fartbag" – his flightsuit and crawled underneath the covers and was soon sawing logs.
USS Seahawk, Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, December 1990
"Hey, I'm open." Mace said, as he jinked under Animal's arm and came up with the ball that Harm passed to him. Spinning to get open, he looked up at the basket and shot. Considering the lack of space on the carrier, the hangar deck was lucky to even have a half-court let alone a full one. A swish as the ball met nothing but net. "2 points." Mace grinned at Animal. "So how many straight have we scored on ya?"
"What's the score?" grumbled Scooter. "I think this game's rigged." Animal had the ball, doing a crossover dribble, he evaded Harm's RIO, and no-look passed the ball to Scooter, who deftly evaded Harm, and jump-shot from the three point line. The ball went through the net. "That's three points…" Scooter grinned back at Mace.
"Yeah. 42 points to your 25." Mace riposted "You guys need to pick up your pace or you're going to get your butts handed to you."
Well, unfortunately that was exactly what happened in the game; the final score being 55-36. Grabbing a towel, Animal wiped his face. Looking up at Harm, "Hey. Good game." He acknowledged Harm's and Mace's win as he picked up the water-bottle and took a long swig. "We're a week out from transiting the Suez. Sandbox is going to be a hell of a grind" Animal having had his first Med tour with the Black Aces knew that the flying was going to be intense and endless. In his first tour alone, he had well over a thousand hours of flying time in the Tomcat – that coupled with the amount of flying he had done in RAG and he was closing in on three thousand hours in the type. Sandbox was the nickname for Saudi Arabia in Navy lexicon.
In November, the UN Security Council had passed Resolution 678, taking a hard-line towards Iraq's illegal occupation of Kuwait. The UN Security Council demanded that Iraq withdraw its forces unconditionally from Kuwait to the positions in which they were located on August 1, 1990. So far, Saddam Hussein had refused to budge. It appeared as though the United States and its coalition forces would have to remove him from Kuwait by force.
"I'm not looking forward to it." Harm said. "It's gonna be a hell of a mess." He stated referring to the constant fatigue that was going to be plaguing the entire crew of the USS Seahawk with regards to the round-the-clock missions that were going to take place after the 16th of January, which was the deadline for Hussein to remove himself from Kuwait. At this point, even through the ZNN newsfeed, it was pretty evident that the deadline would come and go. As a matter of fact, Iraqi Republican Guards were taking up defensive positions around the Kuwait City perimeter and their advance forces were making for the Kuwait border with Saudi Arabia.
"Did you ask Ops when we're up again for the next round of patrols?" Animal asked as he took another swig from his water bottle.
"Yeah, got the ensign salute." Harm did a comical parody of shrugging his shoulders "Didn't know anything. So it doesn't look like we're on this rotation. I presume the rotorheads are going to be covering our transit through the Suez." Harm looked more than bored.
Animal looked out the aircraft elevator at the open ocean, nodding his head. "Yeah; with itchy trigger fingers…" his expression of crossed eyes and psychotic grin while pantomiming holding a 50 calibre, making Mace crack up laughing. "waiting for some target* (* target is a derogative term for Iraqi) to hop up and make their presence known." He paused a long moment. "I get the feeling that Skipper is holding us in on reserve. Tops on the greenie board, y'know. 'Cause we'll be doing the majority of the mission load over Sandbox. We're not going to be getting too much rack time." Harm sat down on the tractor that the four were hanging out on cooling down from the impromptu basketball game. Animal got up "well, guys…I think I'm going to go hit the showers."
January 1991
The New Year's celebrations onboard were short and ship's watches were maintained as the USS Seahawk made its way through the Suez Canal. The shorelines were visible from either side of the ship no more than a stones' throw away and the lights of the Egypt on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other. Only the helicopter squadrons were on ops duty, due to the fact that the speed through the canal was not enough to support fixed wing flight ops. The Seahawk would have to maintain a minimum 30 knot WOD (wind over deck) to commence fixed wing flight operations so fixed wing ops over the canal was impossible due to the minimal speed that the Seahawk could generate going through the locks.
Harm and Mace were looking out the hangar deck. Mace had a Nikon F401s in his hand that he had bought back in Naples. Periodically taking a shot, he finished his roll of 400 ISO film in the waning light that preceded twilight.
Harm gazed into the twilight at the lights of Egypt. The quiet tempo of work on the ship belied the tense atmosphere within the ship. The Suez transit would be the last quiet that they would have; the tense-stand-off waiting for them at the end of the canal. Harm had the experience of one solid cruise behind him, but war wasn't in the picture back then. Patrols never involved the possibility of live ordnance or missiles fired for real by them or at them. It was a sobering realization that this could very potentially cost any of them their lives.
"Anything interesting." Harm asked his RIO as Mace raised his camera again.
"Nothin' much, Harm ol'buddy." Mace said. "What I need is a damned tripod. The light sucks. So where's Animal? Has he driven Ops batshit insane yet?"
Animal was by nature ebullient, eager to get up and fly and get things done. The transit was driving him buggy, so he was constantly in Operations driving the 04s nuts. The O3 equivalent of 'Are we there yet, Are we there yet?'.
Ops, USS Seahawk
"Are we there yet?" Animal asked, an irritating grin on his face as the Lieutenant Commander in charge of Operations looked at him malevolently…
…and replied testily "No! Lieutenant Nakamura, we are not there yet…we still have at least 16 hours to this transit at the current 10 knots that we are doing and we won't be anywhere near our destination for at least another week!" He was hoping to get rid of Animal for at least the rest of the week. It didn't work.
"OK…" Animal replied cheerily. "See you tomorrow." He tossed back as he exited Ops. Lieutenant Commander Telly Bravura held his head in his hands as he groaned in frustration. LCDR Bravura didn't know whether to write up a report on Animal's insolence or scream in frustration.
Lieutenant Mendez just grinned. "They're getting antsy."
"Don't I know it." Bravura replied. "I am too. There's lots of things I'd rather be doing than Ops." The operations officer and his staff continued to look over the map of Iraq and prepared war plans for the eventual invasion of Iraq.
January 13, 1991, Persian Gulf, 50 miles off coast of Iraq
"The actions taken today…will hopefully go a long way…to making Saddam Hussein realize just what he's up against." The voice of President George Herbert Walker Bush resounded through the ready room as the squadron members listened to the TV.
"That's it!" Animal said loudly "We're at war!" he said decisively as the other officers looked at him.
"You sound so sure about it." A Lieutenant Commander looked over in his direction.
"Call it intuition." Animal said. "I've never been wrong."
"Well, the president is giving the Iraqis 2 days to get their asses out of Kuwait." The Lieutenant Commander replied. "I don't think it's going to come to that."
"Well…suit yourself, sir." Animal said. "I think in two days time I'll be telling you, 'I told you so'." Two days later Animal's intuition was proven correct as Saddam Hussein flaunted the deadline and refused to move his troops and tanks from Kuwait. It was then, that Animal and Harm were told that the Seahawk would be waging air operations against Basra, a coastal city flying CAP (combat air patrol) for F/A-18Cs going into Basra and bombing the Republican Guard Base in that area.
On January 17 at 3:00 AM in the morning, the fuse was lit and carrier operations went into high gear. The 0030 wakeup was par for the course as Animal's squadron commander had them on midnight rotation for the last week and a half. Making sure that they were alert and ready for combat operations was not going to be much of a problem. The problem came when the adrenaline started pumping – when the bullets and missiles were being fired at them for real. It didn't matter. As far as Animal was concerned, it was going to be just like it was when they were flying, the last deployment. He was confident of the quickness of his reactions and confident that he would be able to do what it took to keep him, his wingman and their RIOs alive.
January 17, 1991, 0245 Feet Wet 50 miles southwest of Basrah.
"Harm, your head on a swivel?" Animal asked as they flew through the night sky over the Persian Gulf at over 580 knots, Mach point eight two. The coastline shone quietly as the coalition forces made their way to the multitude of targets to be attacked at the same time tonight at 0300 hrs. Synchronized time between all the attackers would result in a surprise attack on each and every single target.
At 0300 hrs, the F/A-18Cs targeted their targets in the Basra area and dropped their ordnance…and the sky lit up with AA fire. "Looks like we woke up the wasps' nest." Animal quipped as he circled the fray at Angels 30; the anti-aircraft fire looked like little green flaming golf-balls coming up at them. The aviators were all wearing HGU-66/P helmets with the night-vision goggles mounted on a T-bracket and the landscape and every heat source took on a green glow, especially anything that was shot at them.
"You think?" Harm shot back sarcastically as he banked to evade a steady stream of 30mm fire coming up at a diagonal trajectory. "Think the Hornets are finished diddling themselves down there?"
"Probably not." Animal responded as he circled watching the bright green flares as ordnance impacted on their targets. "Nobody's coming up to play." He sounded disappointed. Harm rolled his eyes behind his NVG (night vision goggles). Animal certainly wanted to get a few notches in his belt in terms of air to air combat.
Over Ar Rumaylah Southwest, Al-Zubair, Basrah, Iraq
The anti-aircraft fire was even thicker over Ar Rumaylah Air Base, a single-runway field cut out of the desert sands. Multiple GBU-16s were impacting all over the base, eruptions of sand propelled forward by explosions and making craters in the runway. Any aircraft there were targets and the enemy aircrew knew it. That's one of the reasons why they were not going anywhere near their aircraft. If they were destroyed in place, that was good enough. The Iraqi aircrew knew their worth to Hussein. They would be of no good to their country if they were shot down on the first night of the war and killed. There would be more attacks that first day of the air war over Iraq. But none would have the effectiveness of the first strike. In the first sweep of the war, the United States and the coalition had wiped at least half the Iraqi Air Force out of the air and the rest were running for Iran.
"Firefighter 103; you and Firefighter 104, make tracks for Ar Rumaylah. Cover the F-18s attacking the airbase. Firefighter 107 and 109 are inbound to fly cover for the 18s over Basrah."
"Roger, 103 copy." Animal replied as he rolled his F-14A pointing the nose west towards Ar Rumaylah, Harm following.
As the attacks wrapped up. Animal and Harm recovered on board the Seahawk. Trapping a 3-wire, Harm rolled out, tailhook retracting and the two F-14s parked on the flight-deck. Popping the canopy open, the two aviators stood up, deplaning first while their RIOs followed. Walking back towards the tower the two looked at each, giving each other a thumbs up. Though they hadn't had to contend with air to air combat, it was a good mission.
When they had stripped gear, had a quick Navy shower (wet down, turn tap off, soap down turn shower back on and quickly rinse off) and re-dressed in shipboard khakis, they were summoned to operations where they were met by Commander Ellsworth, the Howler's CO and Commander Dale Bishop. Howler's XO.
"Animal." Commander Bishop said, extending a hand. "Good work over Al Rumaylah today. I know that we're gonna be workin' you and Harm pretty hard over the next few days, but we've heard word that Hussein is gonna be sending up some heat tomorrow. I need you and Harm on CAP for a mission deep into Indian Country. We're gonna be launching for Nasiriyah tomorrow, full-scale combat air patrol. We're gonna have at least 4 Howlers protecting 16 Hornets. Command wants the Tallil Air Base cratered. Our Tomcats are going to fly mid-CAP ready to jump in if any MiGs decide to get off the ground."
"Aye, sir." Animal responded.
The two of them exited the briefing room and headed for the mess. The food was tolerable that afternoon and they both ate. Hitting the rack, they figured it was best if they got some sleep before the mission the next day.
0400 HRS, USS Seahawk.
The four F-14 crews were briefed then told to man their fighters. The F-14s were ready on the deck as Animal and Scooter did their preflights. Animal looked up at the fighter as he grasped the third rung of the ladder and hauled himself up after his RIO. As they settled in and put on their bone-domes (helmets), they started to slowly hear the steady whine of the turbines engaging on the neighboring F-14s. Their own huffer-cart started their F-14 as the crew went down the checklists prior to their hitching up to the catapult.
"Looks like we're already to go." Scooter replied to Animal's inquiry as to whether they were ready or not.
"Well, pardner…let's go flying." He said as he saw Harm's F-14 take to the air with a flight-deck resounding bang of the catapult. It definitely looked like a good solid cat shot as Harm's F-14 briefly dipped below the bow of the carrier then reappeared climbing. Looking down at the plane captain, he lifted up a thumbs-up…returning the salute of the plane captain and braced himself. Then his eyeballs caged as the force of the cat-shot never failed to take him by surprise.
"Good cat-shot…" he radioed back to the tower. "Firehall, Firefighter 103 airborne."
"Roger that, 103, Firehall, Have a good flight." He heard back from carrier combat operations center.
"Firefighter 106 & 107 form up on my starboard. Firefighter 104, form up on my port wing." Animal ordered. The four F-14s decided to use an old flight formation called the finger-four. Harm was flight wingman, Animal was flight lead, 106 was element lead and 107 was element wing. If attacked, they would split into two pairs thus making the enemy have to fight two sets of aircraft. Animal had earned his spot as a flight leader in his last squadron, the Black Aces and now with the Howlers, he was designated flight lead and Animal was grooming Harm for the flight lead position once he went back to his old squadron.
Trailing the F/A-18s which were flying about 1000 feet below their flight plan, the entire flight headed towards Nasiriyah and the target at Tallil Air Base.
Note: In the Gulf War, the F-14 Tomcats were shut out of the "fixed wing kill ring" by the USAF F-15s, F-16s and by USN F/A-18Cs. So unfortunately the only kill that the F-14s were able to notch up was a Mil 8 helicopter. However, that does not mean that the F-14 wasn't an effective dogfighter, it was inter-service politics that set the Tomcats up in such a way that they were unable to prove their effectiveness in air-superiority situations.