Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (69 page)

           
The “Missile Warning” light was
still on, and they were driving closer and closer to the Chinese destroyer.
Atkins still had no jammers on the missile acquisition radar—jamming the signal
too early would surely elicit a very angry response from the Chinese. “We gotta
shit or get off the pot here, kids ... a few more miles and we’ll be under
attack. . . .”

           
“Sixty seconds,” the crew navigator,
Captain Alicia Kellerman, announced. Like most of the crews from the High
Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Kellerman was an ex-crew member—formerly
on KC-135 tankers—who put their engineering degrees to good use at the
Dreamland research facility. Although flying was part of their job descriptions,
flying into combat was completely unexpected—but Kellerman loved it. “Start
countermeasures in forty seconds, release configuration checks completed . . .
thirty seconds.”

           
Suddenly Atkins got an inverted “V”
bat-wing signal on his radar threat-warning scope. The computer monitor
hesitated momentarily, then issued a stream of identification data. “I’ve got a
fighter,
twelve o’clock
,
range . . . range is undetermined yet, but he’s outside forty miles. Stand by,
Paul.” Paul Scott was ready to use the EB-52’s attack radar to lock onto the
fighter and provide fire control instructions for their AIM-120 air-to-air
missiles, but it might not yet be necessary. “I’ve got a range-only radar.
Skyranger type 226, probably a J-7 fighter, Chinese copy of a MiG-2 IF. Max
range of the radar is only twenty miles, and he’s well outside that . . .
fighter radar’s down.” The Skyranger radar was useless for searching for
targets because it supplied only range information to the fighter’s
computers—this J-7 fighter needed ground-controlled intercept radar to attack
targets. It was still deadly, but it was not very sophisticated—Atkins’ tiny
AIM-120C missiles had a better radar than the J-7 fighter. “There could be more
than one out there.” .

           
Great, Carter thought. Here’s where
the shit hits the fan. “Paul, get a range and a firing solution on them,”
Carter said. “We can’t stay radar-silent forever.”

           
“Copy,” Scott said. He slaved his
attack radar antenna to Atkins’ threat-warning receiver bearing and switched it
to “Radiate.” “Got ’em,” Scott called out, switching off the radar immediately.
“I counted at least four fighters, forty- five nautical miles, slightly above
us. Could be four groups of two.”

Liang-2 Fight, Chinese PLA
Navy J-7 fighter group

           
Aboard the lead JS-7 fighter of
Liang-2 air-defense group, the threat radar suddenly lit up with a
fighter-style threat symbol—but it was from one of his own fighters. “Liang
flight, lead, keep your damned radars off.” The radar indication quickly
disappeared. He was leading a group of rather young, inexperienced pilots on
their sixth overwater air- defense mission, and they were constantly flipping
switches in their cockpits to keep from getting too bored.

           
The JS-7 fighter was one of the
newest and best fighters in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Originally
offered only for export as the Super-7, but later purchased in small numbers by
the Chinese government itself, it was a major upgrade of the J-7 fighter,
incorporating a lot of imported technology to bring it up-to-date with the rest
of the world’s best fighters—a French-made multimode attack radar and heads-up
display similar to the American F-16 Fighting Falcon, West
German/British/Italian-built high-performance Turbo-Union RBI99 engines,
additional weapons racks to carry ECM pods, and greater fuel capacity. Because
there were so few, and because they were so far advanced over their older J-7
cousins, they were used only as flight leads for fighter patrols, where they
could vector other J-7 fighters in on targets while attacking targets of their
own.

           
Another radar threat indication
flashed on his Thomson- CSF BF screen. He was about to chastise his charges
once again ... before realizing it was from in front of him instead of beside
him this time! There was
another
fighter out there! An American fighter—out
here?

           
“Fayling, this is Liang flight,” the
lead J-7 pilot radioed, using the universal call-sign for all Chinese seaborne
radar controllers instead of broadcasting the destroyer’s name. “Fighter
warning.
Twelve o’clock
,
type unknown. What are you tracking?”

           
The Sea Eagle radar operator aboard
Kaifeng
replied, “Liang flight, we have been
tracking a B-52 bomber at your
twelve o’clock
position, not a fighter. Over.”

           
“I have a fighter-type radar, not a
bomber.” Curse it, the destroyer had been tracking this intruder all this time
thinking it was a
bomber.
How could
he be so stupid . . . ? “Request permission to close and identify. Over.”

           
“Liang flight and
Sichuan
flight, you are clear to close and
identify. Liang flight, say your bingo.”

           
“Liang flight is two minutes to
bingo,” the flight leader reported. “Request permission to send all but myself
and one wingman back to base. We will identify the aircraft and engage until
Sichuan-Ten flight is in position. Over.”

           
After a short wait, the radar
controller aboard
Kaifeng
replied, “Request approved. Homebound Liang
elements* climb clear to twelve thousand meters on heading two-nine- zero,
vector clear of inbound Sichuan-Ten flight. Liang-Two flight of two, your target
is at
twelve o’clock
,
seventy kilometers, altitude ten thousand meters, climb to twelve thousand
meters to intercept. Sichuan-Ten flight maintain heading one-five-three. Low
patrol, descend to five thousand meters and go to frequency yellow. High
patrol, descend to nine thousand five hundred and meet your controller on
frequency yellow-5. Target is four-four-zero bullseye. Good hunting.”

           
The lead pilot aboard the JS-7
fighter quickly determined the target’s range by the bullseye call—the distance
from Davao Airport, a common navigation point for all Chinese fighters—and
found that he was within radar range. The JS-7 fighter used an upgraded French
radar system called Cyrano-IV, which was very close in capability to the
amazing American F-16 fighter radar—it could lock onto multiple targets at
fantastic ranges and could attack several targets at once with missiles or
guns. “Liang flight, take combat spacing and stand by to engage. ...”

           
Up in the cockpit, Major Kelvin
Carter took a firm grip on the Megafortress’s sidestick controller. This was
not going to be an easy run. A million things were zipping through his head:
G-limits on the composite fibersteel structures, angle-of-attack limits,
airspeed warnings, pitch-angle versus airspeed . . .

           
“Fighter!” Atkins suddenly screamed
out. “
Twelve o’clock
... Jesus, very close, X-band pulse Doppler... calling it a Chinese JS-7
fighter. Man, he’s right on top of us . ..!”

           
“Lock him up and engage,” Carter
cried out. He doublechecked the rows of consent switches on his left panel.
“Stand by for descent, crew.”

           
Scott reacted first, hitting the
“Transmit” button on his attack radar and letting the radar lock onto the
fighters ahead. “Two targets,
twelve o’clock
, closure rate eleven hundred . ..
additional targets, climbing and going away, looks like they’re disengaging . .
. I’ve got a lock on the two heading for us . . .”

           
Atkins reacted next, activating his
forward jammers to shut down the X-band fire-control radar. He readied other
jammers to get the Skyranger radar when it came up as well . . .

           
Karbayjal activated his weapons
computers and watched as each AIM-120 Scorpion missile completed its
split-second built-in checks. “BIT checks completed, data transfer . . .
missiles away.” Two bright streaks of light flashed past the cockpit as two
radar-guided missiles sped into the darkness.

           
Just then Kellerman noticed several
low-flying objects on her ISAR side-locking radar display, overtaking them from
the left. They formed a slowly dispersing trail of subsonic missiles, all
traveling north westbound. “Tomahawks away, Tomahawks away!” she cried out.

           
“Missiles tracking . . . active
seekers on . .. bad track on one Scorpion, looks like a tracking fault,”
Karbayjal called out. Carter could see the missile plume from the right pylon
wobble a bit, seconds before exploding. “Lost track on one missile.”

           
“Descending, crew,” Carter called
out. “Nancy, watch my redlines. Here we go . . .” Carter pulled the
Megafortress’s eight throttles to 70-percent power, waited for fifty knots of
airspeed to bleed off, raised the airbrakes, then tipped the Megafortress into
a steep 70-degree right bank, keeping forward pressure on the control stick but
keeping the long, pointed SST-style nose on the horizon. With no more lift being
developed by the huge wings, the four-hundred-thousand-pound bomber descended
like Lucifer cast into Hell.

           
The radar target on his Cyrano-IV
fire-control radar had suddenly started descending, so fast the radar could
hardly keep up with it—it looked like it was crashing, and no one had shot a
missile yet. . .

           
Just then his radar threat-receiver
flashed a “Missile Launch” indication. “Liang flight, break!” he shouted on the
radio. In a pre-determined sequence, the J-7 fighter climbed and turned right,
and the JS-7 fighter, because it was more powerful and could climb faster to
re-attack, descended and turned left. The JS-7 fighter also carried
radarjamming and chaff and flare pods, and the pilot made sure all were
activated as he brought his weapons on-line and prepared to attack. “Fayling,
Fayling, Liang-Two flight under missile attack!” He dumped chaff and flare
bundles, rolled right, went to military power, and raised the nose to
re-acquire the bomber ... or whatever it was.

           
Just as he did, he saw a flash of
light above and a bit behind him, then a growing trail of fire, and he knew his
wingman was hit. “Fayling, Liang-507 is hit. 507, 507 can you hear me? You are
on fire. Repeat you are on fire. Eject! Eject! Eject!” No response. The trail
of fire began to grow as the J-7 fighter spiraled to the sea and disappeared.

Chinese destroyer KAIFENG

           
The radar blips first appeared as
helicopters and were classified as such by the destroyer’s Sea Eagle
three-dimensional search radar, but it was quickly obvious that the air target
was climbing and accelerating much too quickly for a rotary-wing machine. The
radar operator aboard the destroyer
Kaifeng
immediately rang his superior officer in
the ship’s
Combat
Information
Center
.

           
“Sir, rapidly moving air target
launched from a vessel in the
Sterett
surface-action group, bearing one-four-eight, speed . . . speed approaching
four hundred knots and accelerating, altitude decreasing to below one hundred
meters, range five-zero nautical miles.” There was no aircraft carrier out there,
so it could only be one thing—“Suspected Tomahawk cruise missiles in flight . .
.”

           
The officer in CIC reacted
immediately: he hit the alarm button and rang the line direct to the bridge:
“Bridge, CIC, missile alert, missile alert, we have suspected American cruise
missiles being launched from the
Sterett
surface action group.”

           
“Bridge copies,” came the reply.
“Give us a count and stand by to engage.”

           
“CIC copies.”

           
“Sir! Aircraft warning, attack
warning, Liang-Two fighter group reports they are under fighter attack ...”

           
“Fighter attack!” the commander
shouted.
“What fighters?
You said
there was only one bomber up there!” “Liang-Two reports a missile attack, sir.
He reports his wingman has been hit by a missile. Sir, the B-52 bomber aircraft
rapidly decelerating, range closing to sixty nautical miles, airspeed
six-one-zero and accelerating, altitude now seven thousand meters ... six
thousand meters . . . five thousand... sir, heavy jamming on my scope...
attempting frequency jumping . . . heavy jamming persisting on all search
frequencies. I cannot hop away to clear frequency!”