TOP SECRET STORY TIME: Today #DesertStorm30 I moved from the slightly sinking USS Tripoli to the battleship USS Missouri’s SIGINT team to watch reactions of Iraqi 11th & 19th Infantry divisions to a fake amphibious attack we would make to hold them while Kuwait was invaded.
My space was the STRIKE WARFARE on 03 Deck, a WW2 Battle bridge w/18” steel walls/doors aft of the 16” gun Mount 162. The Big Mo RQ-2 Pioneer Drone team asked me to help identify viable targets. First mission: bombard a Iraqi weps depot. 16” shells hit it within 200m fm 23 miles
16” gun shells were called “bullets”. We fired bullets all night 24-25. At 0400ish I hear a terrifyingly familiar radio call “ALL STATIONS THIS IS HMS GLOUCSTER! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!” It means Volkswagen sized Iraqi SILKWORM anti ship missiles are flying at us. Unhealthy!!
Gloucster was a British guided missile destroyer covering us for air attack fm North. She saw the missile and was going to shoot it down. So did USS Curtis our air defense to the south. Report was 2 missiles. History shows one crashed after launch. We started countermeasures.
How to you decoy a missile fm a giant WW2 Iowa class battleship? You don’t, but just try anyway. The SILKWORM was tracking us easily. On secure radio we heard the action. Gloucster went “weapons free” then “missiles away”. They had SEA DART anti air missiles. Curtis tracking too
The SEA DARTs destroyed it but USS Curtis was tracking it too & turned on its CIWS, the Gatling gun. It saw a big target, a WW2 Iowa Class battleship & fired where the missile should have been. They BRRRTTR off 100 bullets ... into our ship! We barely knew it. Bc 18”steel walls
One Warrant officer was wounded pulling the Full “Mr Roberts: Drinking coffee in the wardroom. It really just chipped paint. That night was the big show. We pummeled Faylaka Island just in case. Next day the war ends. Not for me. I go ashore hunt prisoners, missiles & mines.
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