The Hunt for Red October jr-3

by Tom Clancy

  Four hours earlier the squadron of fourteen had flown out of Plattsburg, New York, at 0330, leaving behind black trails of exhaust smoke hidden in the predawn gloom. Each aircraft carried a full load of fuel and twelve missiles whose total weight was far less than the -52’s design bombload. This made for good, long range.

  Which was exactly what they needed. Knowing where the Russians were was only half the battle. Hitting them was the other. The mission profile was simple in concept, rather more difficult in execution. As had been learned in missions over Hanoi — in which the B-52 had participated and sustained SAM (surface-to-air missile) damage — the best method of attacking a heavily defended target was to converge from all points of the compass at once, “like the enveloping arms of an angry bear,” the squadron commander had put it at the briefing, indulging his poetic nature. This gave half the squadron relatively direct courses to their target; the other half had to curve around, careful to keep well beyond effective radar coverage; all had to turn exactly on cue.

  The B-52s had turned ten minutes earlier, on command from the Sentry quarterbacking the mission. The pilot had added a twist. His course to the Soviet formation took his bomber right down a commercial air route. On making his turn, he had switched his IFF transponder from its normal setting to international. He was fifty miles behind a commercial 747, thirty miles ahead of another, and on Soviet radar all three Boeing products would look exactly alike — harmless.

  It was still dark down on the surface. There was no indication that the Russians were alerted yet. Their fighters were only supposed to be VFR (visual flight rules) capable, and the pilot imagined that taking off and landing on a carrier in the dark was pretty risky business, doubly so in bad weather.

  “Skipper,” the electronic warfare officer called on the intercom, “we’re getting L-and S-band emissions. They’re right where they’re supposed to be.”

  “Roger. Enough for a return off us?”

  “That’s affirm, but they probably think we’re flying Pan Am. No fire control stuff yet, just routine air search.”

  “Range to target?”

  “One-three-zero miles.”

  It was almost time. The mission profile was such that all would hit the 125-mile circle at the same moment.

  “Everything ready?”

  “That’s a roge.”

  The pilot relaxed for another minute, waiting for the signal from the entry.

  “FLASHLIGHT, FLASHLIGHT, FLASHLIGHT.” The signal came over the digital radio channel.

  “That’s it! Let ’em know we’re here,” the aircraft commander ordered.

  “Right.” The electronic warfare officer flipped the clear plastic cover off his set of toggle switches and dials controlling the aircraft’s jamming systems. First he powered up his systems. This took a few seconds. The -52’s electronics were all old seventies-vintage equipment, else the squadron would not be part of the junior varsity. Good learning tools, though, and the lieutenant was hoping to move up to the new B-1Bs now beginning to come off the Rockwell assembly line in California. For the past ten minutes the ESM pods on the bomber’s nose and wingtips had been recording the Soviet radar signals, classifying their exact frequencies, pulse repetition rates, power, and the individual signature characteristics of the transmitters. The lieutenant was brand new to this game. He was a recent graduate of electronic warfare school, first in his class. He considered what he should do first, then selected a jamming mode, not his best, from a range of memorized options.

  The Nikolayev

  One hundred twenty-five miles away on the Kara-class cruiser Nikolayev, a radar michman was examining some blips that seemed to be in a circle around his formation. In an instant his screen was covered with twenty ghostly splotches tracing crazily in various directions. He shouted the alarm, echoed a second later by a brother operator. The officer of the watch hurried over to check the screen.

  By the time he got there the jamming mode had changed and six lines like the spokes of a wheel were rotating slowly around a central axis.

  “Plot the strobes,” the officer ordered.

  Now there were blotches, lines, and sparkles.

  “More than one aircraft, Comrade.” The michman tried flipping through his frequency settings.

  “Attack warning!” another michman shouted. His ESM receiver had just reported the signals of aircraft search-radar sets of the type used to acquire targets for air-to-surface missiles.

  The B-52

  “We got hard targets,” the weapons officer on the -52 reported. “I got a lock on the first three birds.”

  “Roger that,” the pilot acknowledged. “Hold for ten more seconds.”

  “Ten seconds,” the officer replied. “Cutting switches…now.”

  “Okay, kill the jamming.”

  “ECM systems off.”

  The Nikolayev

  “Missile acquisition radars have ceased,” the combat information center officer reported to the cruiser’s captain, just now arrived from the bridge. Around them the Nikolayev’s crew was racing to battle stations. “Jamming has also ceased.”

  “What is out there?” the captain asked. Out of a clear sky his beautiful clipper-bowed cruiser had been threatened — and now all was well?

  “At least eight enemy aircraft in a circle around us.”

  The captain examined the now normal S-band air search screen. There were numerous blips, mainly civilian aircraft. The half circle of others had to be hostile, though.

  “Could they have fired missiles?”

  “No, Comrade Captain, we would have detected it. They jammed our search radars for thirty seconds and illuminated us with their own search systems for twenty. Then everything stopped.”

  “So, they provoke us and now pretend nothing has happened?” the captain growled. “When will they be within SAM range?”

  “This one and these two will be within range in four minutes if they do not change course.”

  “Illuminate them with our missile control systems. Teach the bastards a lesson.”

  The officer gave the necessary instructions, wondering who was being taught what. Two thousand feet above one of the B-52’s was an EC-135 whose computerized electronic sensors were recording all signals from the Soviet cruiser and taking them apart, the better to know how to jam them. It was the first good look at the new SA-N-8 missile system.

  Two F-14 Tomcats

  The double-zero code number on its fuselage marked the Tomcat as the squadron commander’s personal bird; the black ace of spades on the twin-rudder tail indicated his squadron, Fighting 41, “The Black Aces.” The pilot was Commander Robby Jackson, and his radio call sign was Spade 1.

  Jackson was leading a two-plane section under the direction of one of the Kennedy’s E-2C Hawkeyes, the navy’s more diminutive version of the air force’s AWACS and close brother to the COD, a twin-prop aircraft whose radome makes it look like an airplane being terrorized by a UFO. The weather was bad — depressingly normal for the North Atlantic in December — but was supposed to improve as they headed west. Jackson and his wingman, Lieutenant (j.g.) Bud Sanchez, were flying through nearly solid clouds, and they had eased their formation out somewhat. In the limited visibility both remembered that each Tomcat had a crew of two and a prise of over thirty million dollars.

  They were doing what the Tomcat does best. An all-weather interceptor, the F-14 has transoceanic range, Mach 2 speed, and a radar computer fire control system that can lock onto and attack six separate targets with long-range Phoenix air-to-air missiles. Each fighter was now carrying two of those along with a pair each of AIM-9M Sidewinder heat-seekers. Their prey was a flight of YAK-36 Forgers, the bastard V/STOL fighters that operated from the carrier Kiev. After harassing the Sentry the previous day, Ivan had decided to close with the Kennedy force, no doubt guided in with data from a reconnaissance satellite. The Soviet aircraft had come up short, their range being fifty miles less than they needed to sight the Kennedy. Washington decided that Iva
n was getting a little too obnoxious on this side of the ocean. Admiral Painter had been given permission to return the favor, in a friendly sort of way.

  Jackson figured that he and Sanchez could handle this, even outnumbered. No Soviet aircraft, least of all the Forger, was equal to the Tomcat — certainly not while I’m flying it, Jackson thought.

  “Spade 1, your target is at your twelve o’clock and level, distance now twenty miles,” reported the voice of Hummer 1, the Hawkeye a hundred miles aft. Jackson did not acknowledge.

  “Got anything, Chris?” he asked his radar intercept officer, Lieutenant Commander Christiansen.

  “An occasional flash, but nothing I can use.” They were tracking the Forgers with passive systems only, in this case an infrared sensor.

  Jackson considered illuminating their targets with his powerful fire control radar. The Forgers’ ESM pods would sense this at once, reporting to their pilots that their death warrant had been written but not yet signed. “How about Kiev?”

  “Nothing. The Kiev group is under total EMCON.”

  “Cute,” Jackson commented. He guessed that the SAC raid on the Kirov-Nikolayev group had taught them to be more careful. It was not generally known that warships often made no use whatever of their radar systems, a protective measure called EMCON, for emission control. The reason was that a radar beam could be detected at several times the distance at which it generated a return signal to its transmitter and could thus tell an enemy more than it told its operators. “You suppose these guys can find their way home without help?”

  “If they don’t, you know who’s gonna get blamed.” Christiansen chuckled.

  “That’s a roge,” Jackson agreed.

  “Okay, I got infrared acquisition. Clouds must be thinning out some.” Christiansen was concentrating on his instruments, oblivious of the view out of the canopy.

  “Spade 1, this is Hummer 1, your target is twelve o’clock, at your level, range now ten miles.” The report came over the secure radio circuit.

  Not bad, picking up the Forgers’ heat signature through this slop, Jackson thought, especially since they had small, inefficient engines.

  “Radar coming on, Skipper,” Christiansen advised. “Kiev has an S-band air search just come on. They have us for sure.”

  “Right.” Jackson thumbed his mike switch. “Spade 2, illuminate targets — now.”

  “Roger, lead,” Sanchez acknowledged. No point hiding now.

  Both fighters activated their powerful AN/AWG-9 radars. It was now two minutes to intercept.

  The radar signals, received by the ESM threat-receivers on the Forgers’ tail fins, set off a musical tone in the pilot headsets which had to be turned off manually, and lit up a red warning light on each control panel.

  The Kingfisher Flight

  “Kingfisher flight, this is Kiev,” called the carrier’s air operations officer. “We show two American fighters closing you at high speed from the rear.”

  “Acknowledged.” The Russian flight leader checked his mirror. He’d hoped to avoid this, though he hadn’t expected to. His orders were to take no action unless fired upon. They had just broken into the clear. Too bad, he’d have felt safer in the clouds.

  The pilot of Kingfisher 3, Lieutenant Shavrov, reached down to arm his four Atolls. Not this time, Yankee, he thought.

  The Tomcats

  “One minute, Spade 1, you ought to have visual any time,” Hummer 1 called in.

  “Roger…Tallyho!” Jackson and Sanchez broke into the clear. The Forgers were a few miles ahead, and the Tomcats’ 250-knot speed advantage was eating that distance up rapidly. The Russian pilots are keeping a nice, tight formation, Jackson thought, but anybody can drive a bus.

  “Spade 2, let’s go to burners on my mark. Three, two, one — mark!”

  Both pilots advanced their engine controls and engaged their afterburners, which dumped raw fuel into the tail pipes of their new F-110 engines. The fighters lept forward with a sudden double thrust and went quickly through Mach 1.

  The Kingfisher Flight

  “Kingfisher, warning, warning, the Amerikantsi have increased speed,” Kiev cautioned.

  Kingfisher 4 turned in his seat. He saw the Tomcats a mile aft, twin dart-like shapes racing before trails of black smoke. Sunlight glinted off one canopy, and it almost looked like the flashes of a—

  “They’re attacking!”

  “What?” The flight leader checked his mirror again. “Negative, negative — hold formation!”

  The Tomcats screeched fifty feet overhead, the sonic booms they trailed sounding just like explosions. Shavrov acted entirely on his combat-trained instincts. He jerked back on his stick and triggered his four missiles at the departing American fighters.

  “Three, what did you do?” the Russian flight leader demanded.

  “They were attacking us, didn’t you hear?” Shavrov protested.

  The Tomcats

  “Oh shit! Spade Flight, you have four Atolls after you,” the voice of the Hawkeye’s controller said.

  “Two, break right,” Jackson ordered. “Chris, activate countermeasures.” Jackson threw his fighter into a violent evasive turn to the left. Sanchez broke the other way.

  In the seat behind Jackson’s, the radar intercept officer flipped switches to activate the aircraft’s defense systems. As the Tomcat twisted in midair, a series of flares and balloons was ejected from the tail section, each an infrared or radar lure for the pursuing missiles. All four were targeted on Jackson’s fighter.

  “Spade 2 is clear, Spade 2 is clear. Spade 1, you still have four birds in pursuit,” the voice from the Hawkeye said.

  “Roger.” Jackson was surprised at how calmly he took it. The Tomcat was doing over eight hundred miles per hour and accelerating. He wondered how much range the Atoll had. His rearward-looking-radar warning light flicked on.

  “Two, get after them!” Jackson ordered.

  “Roger, lead.” Sanchez swept into a climbing turn, fell off into a hammerhead, and dove at the retreating Soviet fighters.

  When Jackson turned, two of the missiles lost lock and kept going straight into open air. A third, decoyed into hitting a flare, exploded harmlessly. The fourth kept its infrared seeker head on Spade 1’s glowing tail pipes and bored right in. The missile struck the Spade 1 at the base of its starboard rudder fin.

  The impact tossed the fighter completely out of control. Most of the explosive force was spent as the missile blasted through the boron surface into open air. The fin was blown completely off, along with the right-side stabilizer. The left fin was badly holed by fragments, which smashed through the back of the fighter’s canopy, hitting Christiansen’s helmet. The right engine’s fire warning lights came on at once.

  Jackson heard the oomph over his intercom. He killed every engine switch on the right side and activated the in-frame fire extinguisher. Next he chopped power to his port engine, still on afterburner. By this time the Tomcat was in an inverted spin. The variable-geometry wings angled out to low-speed configuration. This gave Jackson aileron control, and he worked quickly to get back to normal attitude. His altitude was four thousand feet. There wasn’t much time.

  “Okay, baby,” he coaxed. A quick burst of power gave him back aerodynamic control, and the former test pilot snapped his fighter over — too hard. It went through two complete rolls before he could catch it in level flight. “Gotcha! You with me, Chris?”

  Nothing. There was no way he could look around, and there were still four hostile fighters behind him.

  “Spade 2, this is lead.”

  “Roger, lead.” Sanchez had the four Fighters bore-sighted. They had just fired at his commander.

  Hummer 1

  On Hummer 1, the controller was thinking fast. The Forgers were holding formation, and there was a lot of Russian chatter on the radio circuit.

  “Spade 2, this is Hummer 1, break off, I say again, break off, do not, repeat do not fire. Acknowledge. Spade 2, Spade 1 is at your nine o
’clock, two thousand feet below you.” The officer swore and looked at one of the enlisted men he worked with.

  “That was too fast, sir, just too fuckin’ fast. We got tapes of the Russkies. I can’t understand it, but it sounds like Kiev is right pissed.”

  “They’re not the only ones,” the controller said, wondering if he had done the right thing calling Spade 2 off. It sure as hell didn’t feel that way.

  The Tomcats

  Sanchez’ head jerked in surprise. “Roger, breaking off.” His thumb came off the switch. “Goddammit!” He pulled his stick back, throwing the Tomcat into a savage loop. “Where are you, lead?”

  Sanchez brought his fighter under Jackson’s and did a slow circle to survey the visible damage.

  “Fire’s out, Skipper. Right side rudder and stabilizer are gone. Left side fin — shit, I can see through it, but it looks like it oughta hold together. Wait a minute. Chris is slumped over, Skipper. Can you talk to him?”

  “Negative, I’ve tried. Let’s go back home.”

  Nothing would have pleased Sanchez more than to blast the Forgers right out of the sky, and with his four missiles he could have done this easily. But like most pilots, he was highly disciplined.

  “Roger, lead.”

  “Spade 1, this is Hummer 1, advise your condition, over.”

  “Hummer 1, we’ll make it unless something else falls off. Tell them to have docs standing by. Chris is hurt. I don’t know how bad.”

  It took an hour to get to the Kennedy. Jackson’s fighter flew badly, would not hold course in any specific attitude. He had to adjust trim constantly. Sanchez reported some movement in the aft cockpit. Maybe it was just the intercom shot out, Jackson thought hopefully.

  Sanchez was ordered to land first so that the deck would be cleared for Commander Jackson. On the final approach the Tomcat started to handle badly. The pilot struggled with his fighter, planting it hard on the deck and catching the number one wire. The right-side landing gear collapsed at once, and the thirty-million-dollar fighter slid sideways into the barrier that had been erected. A hundred men with fire-fighting gear raced toward it from all directions.