Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  Thank God for their guardian angel. He was out there somewhere, blazing a trail for them.

  The threat-warning receiver blared once again. The second MiG had already found them.

  Control, Three-three, my wingman is hit, repeat, my wingman is hit!” the lead MiG-23 pilot shouted. “Give me a vector! The second target is somewhere at my twelve o’clock! Do you see him?”

  “Vy shutitye, Three-three, nyet! Proceed with the attack. We will launch—” And then the radio was drowned out by an earsplitting whistle. The automatic frequency-hopping mode on the radio cleared the jamming for a few seconds, but then it returned again with full force.

  He was alone—no wingman, and now no ground controller. It sounded as if the controller was going to vector in some help, but at maximum speed it would take them over fifteen minutes to arrive.

  The MiG pilot activated his radar. There, right in front of him, was a radar target. Again he didn’t hesitate. He immediately got a lock-on, centered the aiming pipper on the lock box, and squeezed the trigger just as he got a IN RANGE indication on his heads-up display. He reached down to select his second radar-guided missile.

  When he looked up, his radar was a jumble of targets that filled the entire scope. The radar lock box on his heads-up display was flitting from one false target to another, whichever one it thought was the strongest return or the most serious threat. The MiG pilot hit a button on the radar panel to activate the electronic counter-countermeasures mode. That cleared up the radar screen—but only for a few sweeps, and then the enemy jamming signals locked on again to his radar’s new frequency and started false-target jamming it all over again. He had no idea where his missile was heading. For all he knew, it could be heading back toward him.

  “Control, Three-three…” he tried, but the radio was still unusable, a hopeless jumble of screeches, pops, and whistles. The MiG pilot immediately started a climb and made a slight right turn—he’d been on that one heading too long, exposing himself to attack. What in hell was it? An enemy fighter over eastern Siberia with both air-to-air weapons and jammers strong enough to take out a Sokol PrNK-23S radar?

  He had just a few minutes of fuel left before he needed to head back to base. Without a ground controller, he had only one option left: try to find his original target on his own. Kill something before he had to get out of there—or before he was killed, like his wingman. The MiG pilot’s strength was forming the mental map of the battle space in his head—visualizing where all the players were and correctly guessing what they might be doing, even many minutes since getting their last exact position. That’s what made him such an important and trusted flight lead. He had to put that skill into use right now.

  His original target was slow-moving, flying very low but not terrain-masking, and pretty much flying in a straight line. Maybe he would still be doing the same thing now.

  The MiG-23 pilot turned slightly left and aimed the nose of his jet slightly nose-low, aiming for the spot he imagined the original target had moved toward. His guess was that the first target was a large American turboprop special-ops aircraft, like an MC-130 Hercules, probably loaded with troops and fuel but having to stretch that fuel a long way—which meant he was going to continue to fly slow and low and not make a bunch of course reversals, climbs or descents, or even very many turns if he could avoid it. Maybe if he was concerned about—

  Suddenly a dot appeared on the TM-23 electro-optical sensor screen. There it was! He couldn’t believe his luck. The radio was still being jammed, so he assumed his radar would be jammed, too, so there was no use turning it on and giving away his position. No messing around this time—he slammed the throttle forward, lowered the nose, and started a rapid descent at the slow-moving target.

  He had no definite idea how far away he was from the target—he was relying strictly on his own internal “radar screen” as he selected his R-60 heat-seeking missiles and closed in. All he had to do was keep the dot centered and continue moving in—the R-60 would report to him when it had locked on to a hot enough heat source. It had to happen any second now. His situational-awareness “chart” told him he couldn’t be any farther than five or six kilome—

  A red light flashed on, and he flipped open the safety cover and squeezed the launch button—before, realizing that it wasn’t the IN RANGE indicator, but the MISSILE LAUNCH warning. The Sirena-2 radar threat detector had picked up the specific frequency of a radar-guided missile in flight. He had to get out of there! He had only a fraction of a second to react.

  But at that same moment, he heard the raspy growl of the R-60 locking on to its target, and moments later he saw the IN RA—

  The AIM-120 AMRAAM missile plowed into the center of the MiG-23’s fuselage, tearing open its fuel tank and blowing the fighter into pieces in the blink of an eye. The pilot stayed conscious long enough to grasp his ejection handles before the fireball created by his own exploding jet engulfed him, instantly vaporizing him.

  Splash Atwo, Crowbar,” Matthew Whitley radioed a few moments later. He was also the “game boy” for the unmanned EB-1C Vampire “flying battleship” bomber, flying in protection mode to cover the MC-130 Combat Talon II transport as it flew through long-range radar coverage from Anadyr and Kavaznya along the Russian coastal area. “Your tail is clear.”

  “Thanks, Bobcat,” Merritt radioed back on the secure radio frequency. “We owe you big-time.”

  Merritt’s “guardian angel” was an unmanned EB-1C Vampire long-range bomber. Launched from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base twelve hours earlier, it was one of the most advanced SEAD weapon systems ever developed. A modified B-1B strategic bomber, its three bomb bays were loaded with a mix of defensive weapons: twelve long-range radar-guided AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missiles on a rotary launcher in the forward bomb bay; six AGM-88 HARMs—high-speed antiradiation missiles—on another launcher in the center bomb bay; and eight AGM-65M Longhorn Maverick TV-and imaging-infrared precision-guided missiles in the aft bomb bay. The Vampires also had advanced ultraprecise laser radar systems that could locate and identify enemy targets at long range, even spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

  “We can hang with you for another thirty minutes,” Whitley said, “and then we’ll have to reverse course and hit our tanker. But after we refuel, we’ll head back in to cover your approach into Yakutsk and your egress.”

  “Copy that, Bobcat,” Merritt said. “We’ll be waiting for you. What’s the word from Condor?”

  There was a slight, strained pause. Then: “They may be having some problems. Stand by….”

  Warning, airborne radar in target-tracking mode, eight o’clock, fifty-five miles,” the threat-warning computer announced.

  The commandos inside the little Condor heard a loud baarkk! sound coming from the rear, followed by a very substantial shudder, another animal-like cough, and then a faint whirring sound. “Engine up to thirty percent…thirty-five percent…forty…forty-five percent…Starters off, temps in the green, looks like we got a good light,” Matt Wilde reported. “Power’s coming up…generators coming online.” At that moment the rumbling and shuddering completely disappeared—it was as if they had suddenly been firmly planted on solid bedrock. “Mission-adaptive system active, guys. Power up to eighty-five percent. Looks like the engine swallowed a chunk of ice, but everything looks okay.”

  “ ‘Looks okay,’ huh? You’re not being chased by a damned Russian MiG!” Hal Briggs retorted. “Where is that sucker?”

  “Eight o’clock, less than forty miles,” Dave Luger said. “Stand by….”

  “ ‘Stand by’? Dave, what’s happening out there?”

  I think the fighter has you guys,” Luger radioed from Battle Mountain. “We’re working right now to buy you some time.”

  “He’s got one MiG lining up on Condor and another that’ll get within firing range soon,” Whitley reported.

  Luger had no choice. “Deploy the towed array on the EB-52, open target fins, and send out a beacon signal,” he ord
ered. Whitley reluctantly complied. A small, bullet-shaped device unreeled itself from a fairing on the EB-52 Megafortress’s tail. When the device was about two hundred yards behind the bomber, it opened up several fins and began sending out a tracking beacon. The device was an ALE-55 towed electronic-countermeasures array. As well as acting as a jamming antenna and decoy, the array could also act like an air target by making its radar cross-section larger and by sending out identification signals.

  “Any chance he’ll run out of gas before he catches up with the Megafortress?” Whitley asked.

  “He hasn’t caught it yet, Wildman,” Luger said.

  Control, I have a weak radar return at my two o’clock position, sixty-four K,” the MiG-29 pilot reported. “I initially saw the target heading east, but this one appears to be heading west. Can you verify my radar contact? He’s at my two o’clock, sixty K meters, descending at two hundred and forty kilometers per hour. No infrared signature yet—he is either very stealthy or unpowered.”

  “Negative, Two-one,” the ground controller reported. “We show negative radar contacts. Be advised, Tashnit Four-seven is engaging targets approximately in your vicinity. Recommend you return to—Stand by, Two-one.” The MiG pilot cursed in frustration. It took several moments for the controller to come back up. “Two-one, we now have a pop-up radar contact, unidentified aircraft, altitude base plus sixteen, range one-one-five K, bearing one-zero-five degrees, heading east at four-eight-zero K. Vector ninety-five left to intercept.”

  The MiG pilot hated giving up the chase on a sure contact, but he had no choice except to comply. He plugged in min afterburner as he turned to the new vector heading. At min afterburner, flying just below the speed of sound, it would take him nearly ten minutes to catch up with the unidentified plane. “I’m going to need a relief chaser here in a few minutes, control,” he advised.

  “Tashnit Four-nine flight of two will be airborne in a few minutes,” the controller reported. “They’ll join on you after they prosecute the westbound target. You are clear to engage your target, Two-one.”

  “Two-one understands, cleared to engage,” the pilot acknowledged.

  Since the ground-radar controller had radar contact now, he didn’t need to activate his own radar. Moments later his infrared search-and-track sensor picked up the unidentified aircraft. With the IRSTS locked on, he could close to infrared-missile range and shoot him down without ever being detected. The target was still flying along, fat, dumb, and happy—no evasive maneuvers, just straight, slow, high-altitude flight, exactly like a training target.

  “Range twenty K, Two-one.”

  “Acknowledged,” the MiG pilot replied. The IRSTS gave him azimuth and elevation, not range, so he didn’t know exactly when the R-73 heat-seeking missile would lock on, but all he had to do was—

  There! He heard a loud beepbeepbeep! and saw a REYS indication on his heads-up display. He flipped open the safety cover on his fire button and—

  At that moment the target dropped quickly in altitude—slowly at first, then faster and faster. In less than three seconds, it had completely disappeared! That didn’t make sense! He searched in the darkness to see if he could spot it…nothing! “Control, Two-one, I have lost the target! It appears to have dropped straight down. Vector!”

  “Two-one, target last seen at your twelve o’clock position, eighteen K. Negative contact at this time.”

  “Khuy na!” the MiG-29 pilot swore. How in hell could he be right there one second, as big as a fucking house, and then completely gone the next? He had no choice: He had to activate his pulse-Doppler radar to reacquire.

  As soon as he flicked it on, there it was, right at the very right edge of his radarscope and lower, as big as day. But just as he flicked the switch on his control stick to switch from heat-seeking missiles to radar-guided missiles and take a shot, he received heavy jamming so persistent and agile that his counter-countermeasures equipment still couldn’t burn through it. “Detskaya, this is Tashnit Two-one, be advised, as soon as I was able to lock on with my radar, I encountered very heavy jamming, all frequencies and modes.”

  But as soon as he let up on the mike button, he heard an unbelievably loud squealing noise. Comm jamming! This bastard had jammed his radio frequencies as well! He was hostile, no doubt about it now. But once the pilot turned toward the fleeing aircraft, his IRSTS sensor picked him up once again. Without the radar and without vectors, his only chance now was to close in to heat-seeking-missile range again. And he had better hurry—the bastard was flying farther and farther away from base, and his own bingo fuel level was fast approaching.

  The enemy aircraft had sped up now, but it was still about half of the fighter’s speed. Keeping the power up but being careful not to select a higher afterburner power setting, he zoomed in for the kill.

  Here he comes,” Whitley said. He had cut loose the towed decoy array just as the MiG closed within twelve miles, the max range of the AA-11 “Archer” missile, and as soon as he did, he turned the EB-52 bomber hard right, started a rapid descent, and jammed the throttles to full military power. If the MiG had locked on to the towed decoy, once it was cut loose, he would disappear from sight—but not for long. Even a stealthy bird like the Megafortress couldn’t hide its four huge, hot turbofans for long. “Sir?”

  “Take him down,” Dave Luger said simply.

  “Roger that.” Whitley entered instructions to his remote aircraft-control section, who designated the MiG-29 as an active target. The EB-52 aircraft that launched the Condor aircraft and StealthHawk unmanned attack aircraft couldn’t carry its normal complement of weapons, but it did carry some defensive weapons: two AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air radar-guided missiles on each wing pylon.

  On Whitley’s command, one missile was launched from the left pylon. The missile shot forward ahead of the bomber, then looped overhead in an “over the shoulder” missile-attack profile. The EB-52’s laser-radar arrays datalinked steering information to the missile, aiming the missile to a point in space where the MiG would be on its projected flight path. When the targeting computer determined that the MiG would be in range, the Scorpion missile activated its own radar and locked on to the MiG.

  That was the first indication the MiG-29 pilot had that he was under attack—and by then it was too late. The Russian activated his electronic countermeasures and ejected chaff and flares to try to decoy the oncoming missile, but he stubbornly stayed on the same flight path, hoping to catch up to his quarry in the next few seconds. Undeterred by the decoys, the Scorpion missile scored a direct hit on the MiG’s left wing, sending the fighter into an uncontrollable spin into the Bering Sea.

  “Splash one MiG-29, guys,” Whitley announced.

  “Roger that, Wildman,” Luger said. “Let’s bring that Megafortress around so it can refuel the StealthHawks coming back from the Kamchatka Peninsula, and then we’ll bring it back to Shemya for refueling and rearming.”

  “Should we fly it back to help the guys in the Condor?” Whitley asked. “We still have three Scorpions on board, plenty of gas, and three towed arrays left.”

  “We’ll need the Megafortress for the follow-on attacks,” Luger said. “Everything is proceeding as the general planned so far. Besides, it looks like the StealthHawks are lining up a target of their own.”

  At’ yibis at min’ a! Get the hell away from me!” the Russian MiG-29 pilot screamed in his oxygen mask. One second he was pursuing an unidentified pop-up target below him, heading south down the middle of the Kamchtka Peninsula just a hundred kilometers north of his home base, and the next he was surrounded by airborne threats. “Control, Four-seven, I’m being engaged! I’ve got a bandit on my tail! I need help!”

  “Four-seven, Control, we are not picking up any more targets on radar,” the ground radar controller at Petropavlovsk replied. “Four-nine flight of two will be airborne in three minutes. ETE five minutes.” Silence. “Four-seven, do you copy? Acknowledge.” Still no response. Suddenly the radar-data block repr
esenting the lone MiG-29 on patrol started to blink. The altitude readout from the fighter’s encoding transponder showed it in a rapid descent…then it disappeared. “Tashnit Four-seven, do you copy?” Something was wrong. “Tashnit Four-nine, we’ve lost radar contact with Four-seven. Your initial vector is three-three-zero, base plus twelve. Radar is clear, but use extreme caution.”

  “Four-nine flight of two, acknowledged. We’ll be airborne in two minutes.” The two MiG-29 fighters taxied rapidly down the taxiway, their pilots quickly running alert-takeoff checklists as they made their way to the active runway. At the end of the runway, they lined up side by side, received a “cleared for takeoff” light-gun signal from the control tower, locked brakes, pushed the throttles to max afterburner, and screamed down the runway together. Both were off the runway in less than fifteen hundred meters. The pilots raised gear and flaps, accelerated to five hundred kilometers per hour, pulled the throttles back to full military power, and started a left-echelon formation turn to the northwest.

  Almost at the same instant, both fighters exploded in midair. There was no time for either pilot to eject—the burning aircraft hit the ground almost immediately, still in formation.

  Splash two more,” Matt Whitley reported. “StealthHawk One took out the MiG on the Condor’s tail, and StealthHawk Two took care of the two MiGs launching from Petropavlovsk. Both are returning to Bobcat Two-three for refueling, and they’ll all recover to Shemya for rearming. StealthHawks Three and Four are proceeding across the Sea of Okhotsk to the feet-dry point.”

  “Roger that, Wildman,” Hal Briggs said. He felt naked now without the vaunted StealthHawks, a commando’s best friend. The RAQ-15 StealthHawk was the improved version of Dreamland’s FlightHawk remotely piloted attack vehicle. Small, stealthy, fast, and powerful, the StealthHawk could fly through the most heavily defended areas in the world at up to ten miles per minute and attack targets with pinpoint precision. The StealthHawks carried a mix of weapons in their ten-foot-long bomb bays; these birds were configured for both air defense and defense suppression, with AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles and AGM-211 mini-Maverick guided missiles configured to home in on and destroy enemy radars. The best part: The StealthHawks could be retrieved by their unmanned EB-1C Vampire motherships, brought up inside the bomb bay, refueled and rearmed, and flown back into battle.