by Walt Gragg
The Americans’ greatest fear had been of an all-out Russian air assault to break through and shoot down the unarmed AWACS. But with seventeen AWACS aircraft waiting in England to take the defeated one’s place, General Yovanovich had spotted a far simpler solution. All the Russians had to do was demolish the two locations on the ground where the plane’s data entered the American strategic communication system. With the ground stations destroyed, a fully coordinated AirLand Battle plan couldn’t be implemented.
Schoenfeld and Mildenhall had to be eliminated.
Without the ground stations, the AWACS team would still see the MiGs the moment they left their runways. But the AWACS computers would be greatly hampered in providing the detailed data and maps of the battlefield to anyone on the ground.
Without a completely operational AWACS, a tremendous blow to American command and control would be struck.
• • •
At Mildenhall, it was almost too easy. Well inside the protective fences of the air base, the communication facility had no fences of its own. It sat on a peaceful side street near the center of the base. There was no guard.
With satchel charges and machine pistols in hand, the killing team ran through the gray morning toward their target. Two stood guard while the third placed the plastic explosives onto the AWACS ground-station equipment. When that task was completed, they moved on to the base’s communication tower and building.
With the explosives in place, the team leader checked his watch. Their mission was on a precise schedule. They couldn’t destroy their target too soon and alert the ground station in Germany that the AWACS was the next sabotage target. He set the timers. The commandos ran back across the road. They crawled under the abandoned building to wait. Their machine pistols were at the ready.
The trio lay hidden, watching from beneath the old building’s decomposing floor. In three minutes, the electronic timers would set off the powerful detonations. At that moment, the airmen at Schoenfeld cried out about the commando attack. The Mildenhall shift supervisor decided that prudence called for a quick check of the area around his site. Through the fog, the Spetsnaz team saw the facility’s door open. The shift leader took two steps down the rain slick steps and tumbled to the ground. Thinking their supervisor had fallen, the pair of airmen following him out the door burst into laughter. In an instant, they lay dead next to him. A single bullet to the head had taken each life.
A short time later, a tremendous explosion demolished Mildenhall’s AWACS ground-station equipment. A second blast soon followed. The tower toppled sideways. Its twisted wreckage crashed into the exploding communication control building. With the loss of the communication center, the ability to coordinate their air base’s efforts with the outside world disappeared.
Beneath the abandoned barracks, at shortly before seven on a dismal English morning, the leader tapped out the message in Morse code . . . “m-i-s-s-i-o-n-a-c-c-o-m-p-l-i-s-h-e-d.”
The commandos crawled from beneath the rotting building and joined the growing group of curious airmen who’d gathered at the site of the explosions. As the air police dispersed the crowd, the saboteurs disappeared into the mist.
• • •
It hadn’t been as simple at Schoenfeld. Yet the task was nearly completed. The explosives were all in place. The commandos disappeared into the woods. Their leader remained behind. He set the timers to go off in thirty seconds. If the fuses were any longer, he ran the risk, however slight, of the Americans inside figuring out what was happening and rushing out to disconnect the charges. No matter how remote the possibility, he couldn’t afford to take such a chance.
The final timer set, the leader ran for the gate as fast as his strong legs would carry him. In the difficult conditions, however, the distance was far too great to cover in such a brief time. He never had a chance. The force of the blasts caught him just as he reached the gate. His crushed body was tossed thirty feet into the air. The mountaintop was leveled. While he lay dying, a wide smile spread across his broken face. The mission had been a complete success. Schoenfeld was no more.
A second victory signal was sent to General Yovanovich.
Five minutes away from reaching the hilltop, the Black Hawks saw the massive explosions in the darkness ahead. They knew they were too late to save the communication facility.
But the Americans would soon exact their revenge for the slaughter at Schoenfeld. During the next three hours, the helicopters would mercilessly hunt down every member of the deadly commando team. By ten o’clock on a beautiful winter morning, the last black figure had been identified and killed.
• • •
Within minutes of receipt of the second message, the MiGs rose from their bases. From all over Eastern Europe, they took to the skies and roared west. In the first quarter hour, over one thousand Warsaw Pact fighters soared into the heavens. Thirty minutes later, from deep within the Ukraine, seventeen hundred transports and three hundred fighter escorts left the ground. Inside the transports were five divisions of Russian airborne soldiers.
The AWACS battle team saw every plane as it left the runway, but was nearly helpless to do anything about it. They could still guide the Allied pilots once they were airborne. There was little way, however, for the AWACS computers to precisely communicate with the widespread ground forces and air defenses to provide the detailed coordination so necessary to an integrated, highly complex AirLand Battle plan.
• • •
Forty-five minutes later, the C-17 carrying George O’Neill touched down at Upper Heyford, England. As O’Neill plodded down the ramp, his outlook was as dreary as the cold, damp, English morning that greeted him.
The outmanned Americans, their command and control crippled, were in deep trouble.
CHAPTER 26
January 29—7:15 a.m.
Charlie Battery, 1st “Cobra Strike” Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment
A Deserted Parking Lot on the Eastern Edge of Stuttgart
The majority of the Patriot convoy had arrived at a few minutes after six. It had taken five interminable hours for the battery to complete the treacherous journey south. Fowler’s arms ached from the strain of their icy autobahn adventure.
Eventually, they were all present. And they were more or less in one piece as the soldiers worked in the darkness to prepare the deadly Patriot battery for combat. The mangled fenders on a number of the huge tractors showed the results of their constant battle with the storm. The battery’s drivers had experienced far too many frightening entanglements with unforgiving guardrails. The wrecker had been so busy pulling vehicles out of snowbanks that the convoy had stopped waiting for those who needed such help. As it was, the last of the eight launchers, being pulled by the wrecker, hadn’t arrived until fifteen minutes before seven.
“All set back there?” Fowler asked.
He turned in his chair to look down the narrow aisle. A few feet behind him, between the rows of electronic equipment on both his left and right, Jeffery Paul stood with his head pressed against the low ceiling in the Engagement Control Station.
Paul spoke into his headset. He looked up at Fowler a few seconds later.
“The communication van says everything’s ready. The final launcher’s been hooked up and is set to go. All thirty-two missiles are online. The last regiment report said no enemy aircraft have been sighted, but we need to stay alert because there’s some kind of trouble with the AWACS.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“They didn’t know for sure. All they said was that for some reason they’d stopped receiving data from it a few minutes ago.”
Fowler turned to look at the pretty lieutenant sitting next to him in the front of the cramped compartment. In the confined space, the pair was so close that he could feel the warmth of her body next to his.
“Okay, Lieutenant Morgan, we’re ready to engage the en
emy anytime you are.”
Even though his hands were quivering at the thought of the challenges that might lie ahead, Fowler smiled a reassuring smile. She smiled a nervous smile in return.
“Let’s do it, then,” Morgan said.
Nineteen months ago she’d walked across the stage at Ohio State University to receive her bachelor’s degree. The last thing that would have entered Barbara Morgan’s mind on her graduation day was the possibility she’d be involved in a fight to the death in Germany less than two years later.
But life isn’t always kind.
Shortly after the commencement ceremony, on what was to be her wedding day, her husband-to-be had failed to appear. Twenty-one days later, her offer of a well-paying Wall Street entry-level position had been unexpectedly withdrawn. In three weeks’ time, she’d suffered two crushing blows. Staggered by her misfortunes, she’d desperately needed to get away. She went out to find herself. Within a month, the Army found her.
The lieutenant and sergeant reached out and started flipping switches and pushing buttons from the countless selections on the electronic panels positioned above and around their side-by-side radar screens. The Engagement Control Station sprang to life. In front of Fowler and Morgan, the identical screens started feeding them information.
Unlike older radars, where the target would only appear on the screen when the radar swept by it, the advanced Patriot radar didn’t sweep at all. Anything in the sky would remain constant on the screens at all times.
Thirty small triangles, each representing an aircraft, appeared at various locations on their screens. Most of the triangles were well to the east, near the German-Czech border. The movement of the triangles indicated that the aircraft were circling in no discernible pattern. Fowler and Morgan watched the activity in the predawn sky. Six of the thirty triangles were racing east.
The six appeared to have just taken off from one of the American air bases in central Germany. Another six, having left their positions at the border, were headed west.
“They aren’t in our sector, and I’m certain they’re friendlies,” Morgan said. “Even so, just to make sure everything’s working okay, I’m going to interrogate the flight headed west.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me, Lieutenant.”
Barbara Morgan activated the IFF—the interrogator, friend or foe. She directed it to interrogate the formation’s lead aircraft. The Patriot’s computer transmitted a coded signal to the unidentified fighter. The signal asked the plane to identify itself by sending back the proper response. In the nose of the leading F-16, the signal was received. The correct answer to the interrogation was transmitted back to the Engagement Control Station by the fighter’s computer.
Upon receiving the appropriate reply, the Patriot’s computer placed a friendly symbol next to the aircraft’s triangle on both screens. The system was working fine. For no other reason than to calm her nerves, the lieutenant continued to interrogate the fighters in the formation. In seconds, friendly symbols appeared next to all six triangles.
Sitting in the right-hand chair, Morgan’s job for the next four hours consisted of identifying any approaching aircraft. There were only three possible identification symbols. An aircraft was friendly, hostile, or unknown. Dealing with the friendlies and hostiles was easy. The friendlies would be passed through the protective air-defense net. The hostiles would be turned over to Fowler to be shot down by a screaming Patriot missile.
The unknowns would be Morgan’s most critical task. Deep within their windowless world many miles from the soaring aircraft, it would be difficult for the Patriot crew to determine whether or not to fire on an unknown. There was always the possibility that a friendly aircraft’s transponder had malfunctioned, or combat had damaged the fighter and it could no longer answer. The air-defense system couldn’t allow enemy MiGs to get through. Yet it was considered bad form to shoot down one of your own planes.
With no way for the aircraft to identify itself as a friendly, the onus was on the pilot to show that he belonged to the good guys. On the radar screens, the Patriot identified a prearranged corridor. If the pilot entered the narrow corridor and made the proper turns within its boundaries, Morgan would allow it to pass unharmed. All the pilot had to do was remain inside this invisible, crooked crosswalk in the sky, and he or she would be home free.
Hopefully, the sleepy pilot had been paying close attention during the early-morning mission briefing. If not, they would pay for their carelessness with the loss of their life.
They watched the friendly triangles disappear from their screens as the F-16s landed at Spangdahlem Air Base, 160 miles northwest of the battery’s position.
“Looks like we’re in business, ma’am,” Fowler said.
Morgan opened her mouth to respond. As she did, the eastern edges of the radar screens started to fill with wave after wave of never-ending triangles. By the untold hundreds, the triangles suddenly appeared. All were headed west at a high rate of speed.
The long-anticipated Russian air attack had begun.
• • •
With the AWACS’ guidance, huge numbers of Allied fighters should have risen up to meet the enemy near the Czech border. That was what the American battle plan said would occur. But with the AWACS crippled by a lack of communications, the air bases were slow to respond.
Instead of meeting the Russians with an equal number of fighters, the Americans met them with two dozen F-16s out of Spangdahlem. The F-16s had been circling the border waiting for a Warsaw Pact attack. Twenty-four found themselves pitted against one thousand.
The idea was simple: have the twenty-four delay the enemy to buy enough time for the American, British, and German fighters to scramble into the sky. Using the AWACS, the NATO air forces would be coordinated with pinpoint accuracy to stop the enemy in its tracks. The AWACS would then further coordinate the American and German air defenses to strike down any intruder lucky enough to get through the deadly curtain of fighters.
With the AWACS ground stations destroyed, however, such a response didn’t occur. The AWACS was designed to instantly feed the Russian attack data through Schoenfeld or Mildenhall to every wing at the nine Allied fighter bases in Germany and six in England. At the fifteen bases, the defenders would rush to their planes. Within minutes, the skies would fill with lethal Allied defenders. Without the attack data, however, it never happened. Instead, all the AWACS commander could do was speak into her headset to the operations center at Ramstein.
“Ramstein, this is Colonel Howard, technical director of Sentry One. For some reason that both of my communication specialists are at a loss to explain, all of our ground communication links have gone dead. The Soviets have launched a massive air strike. Enemy strike force of approximately one thousand aircraft launched at zero-seven-twenty. All headed west. Every available fighter from all bases must take to the air to meet the enemy threat. AWACS will control the fighters once they’re airborne. Say again. Launch all Allied fighters at once. Did you get that, Ramstein?”
“Roger, Sentry One,” the major in charge of base operations said. “We copy. Will have my team notify Ramstein’s wings and the remainder of the Allied bases immediately.”
The AWACS commander had done what she could to alert the defenders. While waiting for the American, British, and German fighter aircraft, she returned to coordinating the force she had available at the moment—twenty-four F-16s.
At Ramstein, the major turned to the three sergeants who comprised his staff.
“You heard Sentry One, we’ve got to get every possible plane into the air. I’ll begin notifying Ramstein’s fighter wings. Sergeant Brennan, contact Spangdahlem base operations and relay the information. Once you’ve finished that task, get in touch with the American air bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath and order their fighters to cross the English Channel to engage the enemy as soon as they can. Let me know when you’ve com
pleted that assignment. There will no doubt be a great deal more to do.”
“I’m on it, Major Coleman.” The sergeant picked up the phone to call Spangdahlem and initiate the first of his actions.
“Sergeant Rodgers, you’ve got the German air bases. Contact each one immediately,” Coleman said.
“Will do, sir,” she said. Like her predecessor, she was quickly on the telephone.
“Sergeant Mitchell, you take the English air base in Germany first, then begin contacting the ones in England.”
“Got it, sir.”
Satisfied by his team’s efforts, one by one the major called each of Ramstein’s wings and relayed Sentry One’s order. It would take him nearly seven minutes to alert and scramble all of Ramstein’s fighter aircraft.
Score after score of pilots and their support crews began racing to the aircraft waiting in the darkness of the hangers or on the icy tarmac.
Sergeant Brennan needed four tries to get through to Spangdahlem. But in scarcely more than a minute, a second base operations center was beginning to pass on the call to arms to its pilots.
The MiGs roared through the heavens at over one thousand miles per hour.
Brennan attempted to contact the two American fighter bases in England. He first tried Mildenhall. Unaware of the Spetsnaz team’s destruction of Mildenhall’s communications, he made eight fruitless attempts before finally giving up. Lakenheath was next. But he had no better luck getting through to the other American base. With the shortage of available circuits between Germany and England, no matter what he tried, all the frustrated airman heard was a busy signal.
The Russian fighters were almost twenty miles closer than they’d been sixty seconds earlier.
Even before the commandos’ successes, American attempts to communicate with their NATO allies had been a joke. There were far too few interconnect points between the separate American and NATO systems. The most important of those interconnections had occurred through a microwave link between the NATO facility at Bad Kreuznach and the American facility at Schoenfeld.
