by Dale Brown
pilots could not attack unless hey were attacked first or unless a
hostile aircraft was within ne hundred miles of Ranger. The ROE then
allowed them to se their weapons only to break up an engagement and
allow Il friendly fighters to disengagealthough few commanders expected
their naval aviators to deliberately miss or back away from a fight.
"Five minutes to bingo, " Povik's RIO said. "Time to get out f here."
Povik was continuing to maneuver on a more or less esterly heading,
still trying to put as much distance between he two Chinese fighters and
the RC-135 as he could until the wo extra Bullet fighters arrived. "Few
more turns and then we'll bug out, " Povik said. "I eed to make sure
those bozos on us can't go after that recon lane." The Chinese fighters
were laying off for now-they were still out nine miles somewhere behind
them, closing only when ovik tried a large turn but backing off again
when he rerned to straight and level. Povik's ALR-45 threat-warning
ceiver was showing the Chinese fighter's position as an "S" with a
diamond around it on his rear hemisphere-that was e fighter's search
radar, reported to be a Type 225 Skyranger nge-only radar. That meant
the Chinese probably didn't have radar-guided missiles, which in turn
meant they wouldn't attack unless they were within about five to six
miles. According to Intelligence, these were supposed to be J-7
fighters, copies of the Soviet Union's MiG-21 fighter. The Chinese had
another fighter, called the J-8 "Finback, " with an L-band multi-mode
radar, but that would show on the threat warning receiver as an inverted
V "bat-wing" symbol, not an "S." The Finback was supposed to be
deployed only to protect cities and, the spooks said, would probably not
be encountered way out here. "Bullet, Bullet Two flight of two is
engaging the other two bandits, " the AWACS controller reported. "I
show you two minutes to bingo. You've got two, possibly four more
bandits northwest of your position at Blue plus forty, closing at six
hundred knots." That was all Povik was waiting for. "Copy, Basket. I'm
not getting any radar warning signals from these guys-they just might be
sitting on us." Povik's older, less capable ALR-45 threat warning
receiver was little more than a glorified fuzzbuster that could tell him
that there was a threat out there but not reliably tell where or what.
"We're bugging out of here. Bullet Five, I'm coming left first. I'll
take anybody who tries to get behind you. "Two, " came the usual
wingman's reply. Povik had just started his hard left turn when he
heard his wingman scream, "Missile launch! Hitman, missile on you!"
"Shit, " Povik cursed at himself, not one squawk from his threat-warning
receivers-sometimes they were useless pieces of garbage. "Gimme chaff
and flares, Bear. Find the missile!"
"I can't see it!" Blevin shouted. His oxygen mask was flattened against
the right side of the canopy as Povik tightened up his left turn and the
G-forces increased. "I can't see it!" He continued to hit the
chaff-and-flare buttons; he could see each flare cartridge flying into
the darkness, burning as bright as a welder's torch, but not the enemy
missile. His F-14 was equipped with one ALE-29 pod loaded with thirty
infrared missile-decoy flares and one ALE-39 box loaded with sixty chaff
cartridges to decoy radar-guided missiles. The pods were supposed to be
slaved to the AAR-47 IR warning sensor and the ALR-45 radar
threat-warning receiver so cartridges would eject automatically, but the
system had so many false alarms that the decoy dispensers were left on
manual all the time. "Hitman!" his wingman shouted. "On your left!
Missile turning inside you! Hit your burners!" Blevin fought the
G-forces and stared out the left side. He saw the missile immediately-a
tiny yellow phosphorescent dot, growing larger as it spiraled in on
them. Povik didn't hesitate-he jammed both throttles to max afterburner
and felt the satisfying kick as eight gallons of raw fuel a second were
dumped into the burner cans, creating a flame a hundred feet long behind
the Tomcat. It was a lastditch move to defeat a heat-seeking missile
that was locked onto your aircraft instead of on a decoy flare-light the
afterburners and hope the long flame steered the missile away in time.
Blevin cried out, "Jesus, oh Jesus.. ." But just as he expected the
missile to hit, he could see it veer to the right and pass behind them.
"It's turning away! Burners off, increase left break!" Blevin was
thrown against his shoulder straps as Povik yanked the throttles out of
afterburner and into 80-percent power, and he continued to hit the flare
eject button until the Chinese missile was lost from sight. Thankfully,
the missile did not explode after sensing it had missed-it had passed
close enough that its warhead would have done considerable damage. God
damn! It's past us . . . I can't see any more." He searched both
sides of his Tomcat to make sure it wasn't circling to re-attack. "That
damn thing was locked onto us, not just our tailpipe, " Povik said. When
he spoke, he noticed his chest heaving as strongly as though he'd
finished a wind sprint. So this is what real combat felt like. ... He
remembered their intel briefings, which told them that the Chinese did
not yet have infrared guided missiles with a sensitive enough seeker to
lock onto an aircraft fuselage. The Tomcat's AIM-9R Sidewinder missiles
were advanced enough to seek a fighter's hot wing leading edges, but the
Chinese PL-2 and PL-7 Pen Lung missiles were supposed to be only capable
of locking onto a hot exhaust dot. Bullshit. "We got some bad intel, I
think.. "Bullet Four, bandits turning right away from you, range eleven
miles, " the AWACS controller reported. "Bullet Five, bandit moving
across your nose at six miles . . . Four is well clear at your five
o'clock position low."
"Bullet Five, fox two, " Povik's wingman cried out. He looked up just
as an eerie streak of light flashed out above them. A second streak
lashed out-Povik's wingman was going for the jugular, not just to scare
anyone off. The heat-seeking A1M-9R Sidewinder missiles curled to the
right and dipped lower, chasing the fighters. Seconds later there were
two explosions; the second explosion was much larger and more sustained
as the damaged Chinese fighter began to cartwheel to the ocean. They
caught the Chinese fighter in a perfect pincer maneuver, with the bandit
so intent on killing the guy in front of him that he forgot about the
second Tomcat slashing in from above. Luckily, the second Chinese
bandit didn't try his own pincer move-it might have worked, because
Povik's wingman was definitely tunnel-visioned in on his own quarry, and
Povik's Tomcat was on the wrong side of the energy curve and 1 probably
didn't have the speed to defend. "Bullet Five, splash one, " the AWACS
controller reported. 1 "Second bandit at your two o'clock position,
high, looks like he might be extending. Heading zero-two-five to
intercept. Additional bandits now at your eleven o'clock position,
hi
gh, Blue plus thirty miles. Be advised, bandit number two heading
northwest now, decelerating and descending rapidly, looks like he might
be CAPing for his buddy." The second Chinese fighter was apparently
going to set up an orbit over his damaged wingman to help out in a
search and rescue effort-he was out of the fight for now. Will advise
if he tries to reengage. Bullet flight, say bingo." That reminded Povik
to check his own fuel state, and it was worse than he figured-even those
few seconds in afterburner sucked up a lot of precious fuel. He was two
thousand pounds below his bingo fuel level-he would be in emergency fuel
levels in just a few minutes. They were in big trouble even without
four more bad guys on their tail. "Bullet Four is bingo, give me a
vector to home plate."
"Bullet Five is three minutes to bingo, " Povik's wingman added. "I can
take a vector to Bullet Two flight if they need help."
"Don't think that'll be necessary, Bullet Five, " the AWACS controller
said. "Bullet Two flight is engaging, Bullet Six flight is airborne,
and Bullet Eight flight is reporting ready. Home plate wants you to
RTB. Heading one-three-two, stand by for your approach controller."
"Copy, Basket, " Povik replied. That was perfectly fine with him, Povik
thought. There was a time to fight and a time to run, and there was
nothing ignoble about running now. ABOARD BULLET TWO "Take the shot,
Banger!" Lieutenant Commander Carl Roberts shouted. "Take the damned
shot!" Chasing down the four Chinese fighters-they still did not know
what kind of fighters they were dealing with-was getting deadly serious.
While continuing warning messages on the Guard channel, the four Chinese
fighters continued barreling straight for the RC- 135, not bothering to
perform any diversionary jinks or heading changes. Although the four
aircraft had split into two groups, with one group going high and the
others a few thousand feet lower, they were just barreling in on the
four Tomcats, not trying to maneuver or jink around at all. They were
simply going balls to the wall-the higher group nearly at five hundred
and fifty knots, the lower jets about five hundred knots. The threat to
the Air Force plane was obvious to Carl Roberts, the radar intercept
officer on Bullet Two. He had locked up the bandits on radar
immediately, hoping that the squeal of the AWG-9 radar on the Chinese
fighter's threat warning receivers might make them turn away. No such
luck. The Chinese fighters kept coming. "You got no choice, Banger, "
Roberts shoutedagain to his pilot, Lieutenant James Douglas. "These guys
will blow past us unless we slow 'em down, and a missile launch is the
only way. Douglas was only on his second cruise as an F-14 aviator
after spending several years in "mud pounders" like A-7s and A-6
bombers. Air-to-mud guys, Roberts thought, were much different than
fighter pilots. Bomb runs took discipline, timing, strict adherence to
the planqualities that were probably big minuses in fighter pilots. Real
fighter jocks used the ROE as a guideline, but relied on their wits to
defeat an enemy-you never went into a fight with the whole thing worked
out in your mind ahead of time. Unfortunately, Douglas always did. "The
ROE says... "Screw the ROE, Banger, " Roberts said. "You gotta attack.
Ranger's declared an air-defense emergency, and the bubble's out to two
hundred miles now. These guys are too close already. Take the shot..."
"Bullet, bandit at twelve o'clock, twenty miles, " the AWACS controller
reported. "Range to Flashlight, forty miles. Range to home plate, Blue
plus seventy.. ." The controller kept on rattling off an endless stream
of numbers at Douglas; the young pilot turned the litany out of his
mind. They had the intercept, that's all that mattered now . "A head-on
shot will miss. It's low percentage . "So what? If he jinks away from
the Sparrow, we mix it up with him. Take the shot. "Gimme a few seconds
to get an angle on 'em. "We don't have time for that, Banger-those
bozos might 1 even hit each other. Either way, we keep them from
driving right into the recon plane. Take the damned shot. "A
nose-to-nose Sparrow shot won't do shit, " Douglas saidRoberts knew he
was really confused when his young pilot used first names instead of his
call sign. "We gotta try something else." On interplane frequency,
Douglas said, "Lead's going vertical. Take spacing and watch my tail."
"Two." "Hang on, " he said to Roberts. "I'll try a vertical jink; maybe
these guys will break off and go for me." Roberts was going to protest,
but Douglas wasn't ready to listen: he pulled his F-14 Tomcat up into a
45-degree climb, a radical move but well within the 65-degree
maximum-depression angle for the AWG-9 radar-losing a lock-on with the
Chinese fighters would be disastrous right now-waited a few seconds for
about a hundred knots of airspeed to bleed off, then began to level off.
The radar remained locked on with the range now closing to fifteen
miles. "Shit. Nothing's happening..."
"You gotta take a shot, Banger. These guys won't stop." "Lead, this is
Two. No dice. The Chinks aren't moving. I'm well clear." Douglas'
wingman was prompting him to take a missile shot as well. Just then they
heard on their AWACS controller's frequency, "Bullet flight, home plate
sends code Zulu-Red-Seven, repeat, Zulu-Red-Seven, proceed immediately.
Acknowledge."
"Jesus, Banger, get the sonofabitch.. ." Roberts knew they had screwed
up. While Douglas was trying to decide whether or not to shoot, the
Chinese fighters were about to blast within the one-hundred-mile
"bubble" surrounding Ranger and her escorts, which were demarcated by
the Indonesian island of Talaud. Now the fighters were a clear threat
not only to the Air Force reconnaissance planes but to the carrier
itself, and the role of the Tomcats changed as well; now their job was
to protect the five thousand men on Ranger and the other ships in its
battle group. Ranger was ordering the Tomcats to engage and defend the
carrier at all costs. The RC-135 and the EC might have to be
sacrificed. ... "Bullet Six has a judy, " the third flight of Tomcats
reported. "Clear Poppa." The third and probably the fourth flights of
Tomcats were armed with AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, which were designed to
kill enemy aircraft from ranges of over eighty nautical miles-as soon as
the RIO locked onto a target, a Phoenix missile could probably hit it.
But a Phoenix usually shot into a "basket, " a section of airspace near
the enemy fighter, and then the missile horned in on illumination
signals from the launch aircraft-that made it very dangerous for any
nearby fighters who might be in or near the missile's basket. Bullet
Six could not engage as long as Bullet Two was in the area. "Bullet Two
is engaging, " Douglas cried out on the interplane frequency. He
snapped his Tomcat into a steep left roll ing dive, pulling on the stick
to keep the fast-moving Chinese attackers on his radarscope. "Bullet
Three, release, clear, and cover to the right." "Bullet Three's clearing
; right." Douglas' wingman made a hard climbing right turn, quickly
moving up and away from the kill zone and accelerating back toward the
fleet. If Douglas missed and the Phoenix missiles from Bullet Six and
Seven missed, Bullet Three could make one last shot at the fighters with
his Sparrow radar-guided missiles, it was up to Ranger escorts to get
the bandits. Roberts coached his frontseater in as they completed the
turn above and behind the Chinese attackers: "Range twenty miles . . .
seventeen miles . . . holding at seventeen miles . . . good tone,
clear to shoot . "Fox one, fox one, ' Douglas called out as he pressed
the button to launch a Sparrow missile. He was preparing to arm a second
one for immediate launch when he saw a dim flash of light ahead of them,
then another, then several more brilliant long tongues of flame slash
across the darkness. Even at their extreme range, there was no
mistaking iteight huge missiles, with exhaust plumes the size of
spaceshuttle boosters, were being launched by the Chinese fighters!
"Missile launch! Bandits launching missiles . six . . . seven . . .
eight of 'em, big ones!" The plumes reared back and down as the missiles
climbed skyward. Douglas thought he could hear the rumble and even feel
the power of those huge missiles as they climbed nearly out of sight.
"Can you pick 'em up on radar, Zippo?" Douglas screamed. "Can you see
those fuckin' missiles?"
"I'm tryin'! Shit! Get your nose up! I'll try for a lock-on!" Roberts
cried out. Douglas hauled back on the stick and hit the afterburners as
Roberts put the AWG-9 radar into range-whilesearch mode for maxinium
range capability against the big, fast-moving missiles. "Contact! Got
'em! Got one at thirty miles! Locked on!"
"Fox one, fox one, Bullet Two, " Douglas called out on the interplane
frequency. The big Sparrow missile slid off the rails and immediately
went straight up, using its powerful firststage motor to gain maximum
altitude. "It's not gonna make it, " Roberts said. He could feel an
uncontrollable shiver coursing up and down his back. The Sparrow was
launched near its extreme maximum range and it climbed too high, too
