“We’ve never fired one, except in tests,” the captain remarked to no one in particular. No one answered. This was the first of many first launches for the Arsenal, and proving the operational capabilities of the Harpoon from it was almost as important as validating its land attack capabilities.
The captain watched the small camera screen mounted to the left of the large-screen display. It showed that the quad launcher was silent and passive. “Now.”
The launcher shuddered once, then a thick cylinder emerged, its pointed nose slowly emerging, followed shortly by the seventeen-foot body. As it popped out, cruciform fins unfolded from both the centerline and the booster section. It seemed to take forever for the missile to launch.
As it cleared the launcher, the missile picked up speed. It arced straight up, cleared the ship within seconds, then tipped over at a lesser angle.
“One away.” The technician’s voice was jubilant. “Successful launch; all stations report no damage. Captain.”
“Very well.” He waited for a few more seconds while the missile remained visible on the remotely controlled television camera, then shifted his gaze to the large-screen display. The potent SPY-1 radar had already picked it up as a target, and was tracking it on its northwesterly course. The SPS-64 surface search radar also held contact on its intended target, a small coastal command and control communications ship owned by the Cuban navy.
“I’ll be on the bridge.” The captain unbuckled himself from the seat and strode quickly forward and up to open air.
He was just in time. A flare of light on the horizon, followed by a pressure wave of sound, washed over the ship. Fire spiked into the sky, then quickly died out as the sea ate the remains of both missile and ship.
“It worked,” the OOD murmured. “Oh, boy, did it work.”
The captain turned a stern eye on him. “You didn’t doubt it would, did you?” From his superior’s tone of voice, the junior officer could never have guessed that his captain was just as relieved as he was.
“I’ll be in Combat.” The captain chided himself for his break from discipline in running out on the bridge to watch the first attack.
Still, it would be his only opportunity the rest of the missiles were after targets too far away to be observed by the naked eye. Any sense of achievement would come only after aircraft armed with TARPS overflew the land sites for battle damage assessment.
The Tomahawks took longer to launch, but six of them still left the ship in a rapid ripple of noise, fire, and smoke.
The ship shuddered as tube after tube shot out the lighter, land attack missiles.
Each Tomahawk was of the TLAM-C variety, configured with a conventional warhead of high explosives. It was capable of achieving speeds in excess of five hundred knots, and cruised at an altitude of fifty to one hundred feet above the sea, making it a difficult target to detect at long range.
It could be launched over two hundred and fifty nautical miles away from the target, and used a combination of digital sea mapping area correlator radar along with optical viewing of the target area for terminal flight. For these missiles, the target package took them on a slight detour to the east to insure that they cleared the inbound fighter raids.
“And now we wait.” And if that were news, the captain thought. If there’s one thing every sailor in every navy learned how to do, it was hurry up and wait.
0450 Local (+5 GMT)
Hawkeye 601
“The atmosphere’s lousy with the shit,” the E-2C radar intercept officer complained. “They’ve got more radars on that island, especially on top of that mountain range, than we’ve got on all the aircraft out here. Just try to get through that stuff.”
“Well, we’re going to have a little help this time. It’s not all up to the Prowlers,” the other RIO responded. “And here it comes.”
His radar screen lit up with a barrage of sharp green blips tracking rapidly to the east, then veering in mid-flight back to the west. They were traveling at four hundred knots at first, then quickly adding another hundred to reach Mach.75. “Good thing we’re up so high. We’d never see them otherwise.”
“And the Cubans aren’t going to see them until its too late, either,” the other RIO said. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his feet, trying to work a kink out of his neck.
“Nice to have somebody else doing the nasty work for a change.
Especially when it’s not the Air Force.”
“Especially not the Air Force,” the first RIO echoed.
Dealing with the Wild Weasel missions and anti radiation strikes by the Air Force always proved to be a complicated matter of coordinating communications and commands. Not that they were incompetent, mind you just different.
“Deep dive,” the first RIO announced. “And we should see … ah, yes.
There it is.” He toggled his ICS switch and called to the pilot.
“Lost contact on all missiles.”
“Roger.” The laconic tones from the aviator in the forward half of the aircraft indicated what he thought of the traditional pilot disdain for his passengers. “Can we go home now?”
“Not yet,” the RIO answered. “We still got the strike inbound, and the egress after that. Don’t worry, that rack will be waiting for you when we’re done.”
0451 Local (+5 GMT)
Fuentes Naval Base
The missile streaked in over land and began comparing the terrain with the memory of its flight path stored in its fire control circuits. So far, a good match. It made one, minute course correction, then descended twenty feet to continue skimming forty feet above the gently rolling terrain.
One thousand meters from the target, it switched over to optical guidance, relaying a picture of what it saw through the nose camera back to the carrier. If necessary, the technician aboard the aircraft carrier could have made another course correction but it wasn’t. This Tomahawk knew exactly where it was going, and didn’t need any help getting there.
Seconds later, it was over. The Tomahawk burrowed through the cement, pausing for two seconds after impact before it jerked the final firing circuitry. The warhead exploded into a firestorm of high explosives inside the concrete bunker, immediately blowing out all four walls and the roof. The contents were incinerated instantly.
Six hundred feet away, Pamela Drake screamed. Huerta clamped his hand hard over her mouth and threw her to the ground, landing on top of her.
Debris rained down on him, partially blocked by the overhang of the roof they were under, but still splattering the walls above their heads. All four SEALs and their civilian guest were flat on the ground, heads tucked reflexively under their arms, waiting on the edge of life and death for the firestorm and downpour of shrapnel and debris to end.
The world went silent. Huerta shook his head, and kept his hand firmly clamped over Drake’s mouth. Temporary deafening from being close to ground zero was normal stuff for him, but he could count on the civilian to panic. He could feel her lips moving beneath his hand as she tried to scream. He clamped down tighter.
Finally, he felt her body wilt. He eased his hand off gently and spun her around to face him. Her face was pale and beaded with sweat. She opened her mouth, and he raised his hand warningly. She nodded and fell silent.
Sikes flipped his hand toward the target compound. The dog had erupted in a paroxysm of motion. Probably barking its fool head off, Sikes figured. Not that anyone was within earshot to hearthey’d all be as deaf as the SEALs were.
Still, best to put an end to this quickly before the acoustic shot wore off. Garcia lifted his pistol, sighting carefully, and nailed the dog through the skull with a nine-millimeter round. The dog dropped to the ground instantly and lay motionless.
Sikes gave the “go ahead” signal and led the way toward the small compound. The fence was partially torn from the nearby explosion, providing a convenient ingress point for the team. Huerta took the second position, his hand firmly clamped around Drake’s wrist, dragging her a
long.
They were inside the compound in seconds, and Garcia put another round into the lock on the door. He burst through the door and saw a large, short-haired man in a green flight suit hunkered down under his rack.
He motioned sharply at the man. “SEALs,” he said, feeling the word leave his throat but still unable to hear it except as a vibration in his bones. He hoped the other man’s hearing was better, but doubted it.
The pilot appeared stunned. He gazed at them blankly for a moment before comprehension began to dawn. He scrambled out from under the single bed and lurched to his feet.
Good. Uninjured. Sikes nodded approvingly, then spared two seconds to shake the man’s hand. It quickly turned into a hard, quick embrace.
Getting out was just as easy. Whatever remaining Cuban forces had been in the compound were significantly distracted by the destruction raining down on them. Sikes tried to remember the mission was briefed as a six-missile strike, all impacting their targets simultaneously.
If things went according to plan, there would be no more inbound missiles to jeopardize the team’s escape. Not that the SEALs should have ever been there in the first place by now, they should already have been back in their boat and headed for the carrier. Still, the Cubans didn’t know that more missiles weren’t coming. There was a ten-minute window between the Arsenal attack and first strikes by naval aircraft.
He hoped it would be enough.
0455 Local (+5 GMT)
Hawkeye 601
“Oops. Here comes trouble.” The RIO’s voice over the ICS brought everyone back to full alert. On each screen, just at the outer edge of the detection capabilities, six small blips appeared. “Where the hell did they come from?” the RIO muttered under his breath. “It would be too good to be true if we had air superiority without a fight, don’t you think?”
The second RIO reached for his mike. “I’m going to let strike leader know, if he hasn’t already seen them on his AWG-9.”
“Intercept time?” the first RIO asked.
“About six minutes.” The second RIO left unspoken the obvious conclusion there wasn’t enough time for the inbound strike to dump weapons and disengage. They’d have to take the MiGs on while still fully loaded or dump their weaponry harmlessly in the ocean. A helluva choice to make, and one the E2C RIO was glad he didn’t have to entrust to his pilot.
0455 Local (+5 GMT)
Tomcat 201
Bird Dog swore softly. Why the hell couldn’t the MiGs have waited another ten minutes? By then, he’d be wings clean and at his most maneuverable. As it was, air combat maneuvering against the nimble Soviet-built fighters would be problematic, not only for the fighters but for the smaller Hornets accompanying them. And the EA-cBs carried no antiair weaponry except the HARMs. “Why didn’t we have the Arsenal neutralize that land base and airfield?” Gator asked. “I would have thought that would be the perfect mission for them.”
“You don’t understand conflict. Gator,” Bird Dog said hotly. “This is an operational air problem. This is a limited war we don’t want it spreading into a full out-and-out conflict between the United States and Cuba. See, if we conducted an attack on the other base, we’d be sending a signal that” “Maybe they don’t read sign language. Bird Dog.
Did you ever think of that? All your fancy operational art has gotten me so far is fighters inbound.” Gator sounded tired. “Okay, let’s figure out how we’re gonna get out of this one.”
“We outnumber them,” Bird Dog observed. “You got the contacts relayed by the E-2?”
“Affirmative. We definitely outnumber them, but they’re moving like greased lightning. Tight formation, good flight discipline. They should beah, there they go. High-low formation now.”
“Let’s give them something to shake up that tight discipline a little,” Bird Dog said. He toggled over to tactical. “Red Dog Three, this is Red Dog Leader. Vector zero-four-five and take bogeys with Fox One.
Hold them off for a while, Fred, until we can get rid of this load we’re carrying.”
“Roger. Coming right now.” Two aircraft peeled off from the formation and headed toward the incoming MiGs.
“Fox One, Fox One,” Red Dog Three announced seconds later, indicating that he had fired Phoenix missiles at the intruders.
The Phoenix missile was the longrange attack weapon of choice for the United States Navy. Designated the AIM-54, it was the most sophisticated and longest-range air-to-air missile in service in any nation. Over thirteen feet in length, with a diameter of fifteen inches, it weighed almost one thousand pounds and was capable of achieving speeds of up to Mach 5. With a maximum range of 110 nautical miles, it gave the F-14 Tomcat, controlling with an AWG-9 post Doppler radar, an extended standoff engagement range.
The primary problem with the Phoenix was that it required continual guidance from the Tomcat and had a long history of unreliable fusing problems. But even with its shaky performance, the Phoenix had one big plus going for it. It made any intruder stop and think and go on the defensive. The expanding continuous rod and control fragmentation warheads did work sometimes, and when they did, the results were devastating. An adversary aircraft could not afford to count on the Phoenix’s not working. It did, just often enough.
Bird Dog listened to the chatter of tactical engagement over the circuit as Red Dog Three sighted the missile in on the two lead aircraft. At the last moment, both MiGs jigged violently, shaking the Phoenix off. Hard thrust maneuvers coupled with chaff and jamming were often enough to confuse the post-Doppler radar terminal homing.
“Well, what did you expect?” Gator said when it became obvious the two missiles had missed.
“Yeah, but check their combat spread. It threw them on the defensive.
Now Red Dog can close in with Sparrows and Sidewinders. Maybe take out a couple of them hell, two Tomcats can take on six MiGs any day.” Bird Dog tried to sound confident.
It was a bold statement, and one that had little basis in fact. The MiG was a smaller, more maneuverable aircraft.
At best, the Tomcats could possibly take out two MiGs each, and that was only if everything went well. The possibility that the MiGs would down a Tomcat was not even mentioned.
“Fox Two, Fox Two.” The second call indicated that Red Dog Two had launched a Sparrow, a radar-guided, medium-range air-to-air missile.
The Sparrow was not the dogfighting missile of choice, and was much more effective in a nonmaneuvering intercept. Though more reliable than the Phoenix, there were still problems with the solid-state electronics and the missile motors.
“Fox Three, Fox Three.” And now the Sidewinders.
Bird Dog nodded in approval. It was every pilot’s choice of weapon for a close-in dogfight. The annular brass fragmentation was wrapped in a sheath of preformed rods and used infrared homing to provide all-aspect tracking for the missile. It was a fire-and-forget weapon, one that could be off the rails and on target without distracting the firing pilot from critical evasive maneuvers.
“Got one!” Red Dog Three’s voice was jubilant. “And there’s another oneoh, shit, Fred, he’s on my ass! Get him, get him!”
“I can’t” The transmission ended abruptly but without the noise blast and squeal that would have indicated a deadly shot on the Tomcat.
“Damn it, why aren’t we in that?” Bird Dog swore.
“We’ve got more combat experience than all of these other pilots put together.”
“Don’t even consider it, asshole,” Gator snapped. “You’re flight leader your job is to get them in, all of them, and put ordnance on target. Not pick off fighters on your own.
Get used to it, buddy.”
“But I could’ve” “You don’t know what he did until the debrief,” Gator cut him off. “Get your head back in the ball game.”
Gator was right. Bird Dog tamped down his temper and concentrated on the tactical mission around him. “Red Dog Four, roll off and assist Red Dog Two.” An odd feeling of heaviness settled into t
he pit of his stomach. He hadn’t expected this, being left out of the actual fight, ordering other crews off on an intercept. He knew he shouldn’t feel so bad so guilty. Still, sending men and women off to die in dogfights while he bore in on the grand target? It shouldn’t be like that.
“They’re down to three MiGs,” Gator reported. “One Sparrow, two Sidewinders. Red Dog Four just took a Phoenix shot at the trail aircraft.”
“Where are we?” Bird Dog demanded. In concentrating on the air battle going on to the east, he’d temporarily lost the big picture.
“Feet dry in ninety seconds,” Gator answered.
Hearing the familiar voice of his RIO provided an unexpected amount of comfort. After all the missions they’d flown together, the MiGs they’d shot down over China and the hair-raising assault on the Aleutian Islands, it meant something to have the right man in the backseat. Or woman, he amended, one part of his mind worrying over that as another fought to regain the tactical picture. “I’m descending now,” he said.
Gator clicked his mike twice in acknowledgment.
From five hundred feet above the ground, the terrain was suddenly familiar. God knows he’d studied the topography maps often enough, and it was starting to pay off now. It was like making a run on Chocolate Mountain in southern California, a familiar, predictable terrain.
The early morning sky suddenly lit up with fireflies. No, not fireflies, they were “Tracers,” Bird Dog yelped. “Shit, Gator, we’re taking antiaircraft fire!”
“Damn it. Bird Dog, don’t lose it now. That was briefed you knew about it. Just get us in on target.”
Bird Dog fought the almost visceral urge to grab altitude and climb to safety. At five hundred feet, he had little room for error, and less for maneuverability. They were so close to the target point now that any twitch off course would put ordnance on the wrong targets with his luck, probably a hospital or orphanage, more grist for the news media to castigate the American military establishment. He gritted his teeth, focused in on the terrain, and pressed on. Another seventy seconds until he could climb to safety.
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