Fatal Terrain

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Fatal Terrain Page 59

by Dale Brown

ica's allies to cease their support. But now his plan has stalled,

  and the attacks are coming from a colonial base near China

  that is wholly occupied by the Americans-Sun's plan did not

  affect American military operations out of Guam. We must

  show the Americans that we will not tolerate their slaughter

  from the skies. We must attack and neutralize Andersen im-

  mediately."

  "How do you propose to do it, Comrade General?" Min-

  ister Chi asked.

  FATAL TERRAIN 395

  "The best way possible-a missile attack using our Dong

  Feng-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles," Chin said. "We

  have ten such missiles on alert, headquartered at Yinchuan and

  deployed throughout Ningxia Huizu and Nei Monggol prov-

  inces. I would propose launching all ten missiles at Guam-

  because of the poor accuracy of our missiles and the strong

  anti-missile defenses erected on Guam, we may need all of

  them to neutralize the American military installations on the

  island. The missiles carry different warheads, depending on

  the serviceability of the missile itself. most missiles carry a

  single sixty-kiloton warhead, although some carry a single

  two-megaton warhead, and the most advanced missiles carry

  three sixty-kiloton warheads."

  Jiang Zemin was astounded by the power at his command-

  he had never, ever considered using these weapons in all his

  years of service to China. "You must find out exactly what

  we have ready to attack," President Jiang said, his voice heavy

  and shaking with emotion. "I want to- limit the number of

  launches so it will not appear to America's long-range sensors

  that we are starting a large-scale intercontinental war. The mis-

  siles with three warheads is my first choice, followed by the

  low-yield single-warhead weapon, and finally the large-yield

  missile. What other strategic forces will we have in reserve

  that hold the United States at risk?"

  "This will leave us all twenty of our DF-5 missiles in re-

  serve," Chin replied. "Ten of these reserve missiles have

  small, multiple warheads; five of the remaining ten have single

  one-megaton warheads, and the other five have single five-

  megaton warheads. The Dong Feng-5 missiles are our largest,

  most accurate, and deadliest weapons-we can target Ameri-

  can intercontinental ballistic missile sites and ninety percent

  of the population of North America with them. Of course, we

  still have approximately one hundred H-6 bombers that could

  possibly reach Alaska or the West Coast of the United States;

  they can carry nuclear bombs or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

  We also have a number of road-mobile Dong Feng-3 missiles

  and Q-5 attack planes deployed, but these are only capable

  against targets in Asia, such as South Korea, Singapore, or

  Japan."

  Jiang nodded, understanding but not quite believing the

  awesome power that lay at his fingertips, waiting for his word

  to send them on their deadly way. "This is incredible," Jiang

  396 DALE BROWN

  said breathlessly, shaking his head. "The Party has promised

  we would never be the first to use nuclear weapons. We have

  already broken our pledge by using these horrid weapons

  against Taipei, but we reasoned that we were using these

  weapons against a rebel government within our own territory,

  not against a foreign power. But I ordered a nuclear attack

  against a Nationalist warship, then an American warship, and

  then a nuclear attack against an ally, simply to try to distract

  the Americans from attacking us. Now I must consider a full-

  scale nuclear attack against an American military base. I do

  not know if I can make this decision, Comrade General. It is

  too much."

  "You have almost the entire Politburo and Central Military

  Committee assembled here this morning, Comrade President,"

  Chin reminded him. "Call an emergency meeting with them

  right now. I will speak to them; together, without all the phil-

  osophical ramblings from Sun, we shall get their full support

  before issuing your orders."

  Jiang relented and gave a faint nod. In three minutes General

  Chin Po Zihong had called an emergency meeting to order on

  behalf of the president to present his plan to stop the Ameri-

  cans-and twenty minutes later, he had his orders.

  ABOARD THE EB-52 MEGAFORTRESS

  THAT SAME TIME

  "I've got an L-band Phazatron pulse-Doppler radar beating us

  up," David Luger called out. "It's a Sukhoi-27, all right. Clear

  me for maneuvers and all countermeasures."

  "Clear!" Brad Elliott shouted, tightening his grip on the

  side-mounted control stick. "You're clear for all maneuvers

  as long as you nail that bastard! Just keep us out of the rocks!"

  Patrick McLanahan called up a God's-eye view of the area

  surrounding their bomber. "Very high terrain northeast,"

  McLanahan said. "River valley west and northwest, almost

  sea level."

  "Then let's start with northeast and take this son of a bitch

  into the rocks," Luger said. He put his fingers on the manual

  decoy dispenser button. "Stand by for maneuvers, crew. Pilot,

  break right!"

  FATAL TERRAIN 397

  Elliott jammed the Megafortress hard to the right, feeling

  his butt press into the seat as the EB-52 started a hard climb

  to start cresting the rapidly rising terrain of the Boping Moun-

  tains. When he reached sixty degrees of bank, Elliott pulled

  on the control stick until he heard a stall warnin tone, then

  released the back pressure but maintained the turn right at the

  edge of the stall. As Elliott started the hard turn, Luger

  punched out one small tactical decoy. The glider decoy, similar

  to the ones used in the Wolverine SEAD cruise missiles, had

  radar cross-sections dozens of times larger than the Megafor-

  tress itself. "Roll out, pilot," Luger ordered, when they

  reached ninety degrees heading change, and Elliott quickly

  rolled the big bomber left.

  The jink worked-but for only a few seconds. The Chinese

  Sukhoi-27's Phazatron N001 pulse-Doppler radar was a

  "look-down, shoot-down"-capable radar-it could stay at

  high altitude and look down to find enemy aircraft because the

  pulse-Doppler radar could reject radar clutter caused by ter-

  rain. One way to beat a pulse-Doppler radar system was to

  reduce the closure rate between aircraft, so in effect the aircraft

  looked like a piece of terrain on radar. By dropping a cloud

  of chaff and then turning ninety degrees to the Su-27's flight

  path, the closure rate between the Megafortress and the Su-27

  equaled the airspeed of the Su-27, which caused the system to

  reject the Megafortress as a possible target. And since the de-

  coy glider proved to be a much more inviting target and still

  carried a good closure rate on the Su-27, the fighter's attack

  radar programmed the decoy as the new target.

  The Chinese Su-27 fighter pilot selected a Pen Lung-2 radar-

  and infrared-guided missile, rece
ived a lock-on tone, and got

  ready to press the LAUNCH button-until he realized his target

  was rapidly slowing down. The unpowered glider decoy made

  an invi ting, easy-to-kill target, but it could not maintain the

  same airspeed as the Megafortress. The Chinese pilot canceled

  the attack when the target's airspeed began to decrease below

  300 knots-no military attack plane was going to fly that slow

  unless it was getting ready to land. He verified his decision by

  closing within five miles of the target, then attempted to lock

  onto the target with his Infrared Search and Track System. It

  would not appear on the IRSTS-the pilot knew it had to be

  a decoy, then. Any military attack plane would show clearly

  in the large supercooled eye of the IRSTS. He broke radar

  398 DALE BROWN

  lock and commanded another wide-area search.

  That delay gave Luger an opportunity: "Stand by for Scor-

  pion launch, crew!" he shouted. He hit the voice command

  button: "Launch one Scorpion missile at target number one."

  WARNING, LAUNCH COMMAND INIT`IATED, the computer re-

  sponded in a soft, calm, female voice.

  "Launch," Luger ordered.

  SCORPION MISSILE PYLON LAUNCH, the computer announced,

  and a single AIM- 120 AMRAAM collected target azimuth

  from the threat warning receiver, streaked out of the right wing

  weapon pod, climbed a few hundred feet, then arced left to-

  ward the Sukhoi-27. A few seconds after launch, the computer

  said, WARNING, ATTACK RADAR TO TRANSMIT, and the ornni-

  directional attack radar activated for four seconds, enough to

  lock onto the fighter and feed updated target range and bearing

  to the Scorpion missile. ATTACK RADAR STAND BY, the corn-

  puter said as it shut the radar down itself With a fresh target

  update, the AIM-120 missile activated its own on-board radar

  seeker, instantly locked onto one of the Su-27 fighters, made

  a slight correction as its pilot detected the brief Megafortress

  radar lock-on and tried to make a last-ditch evasive break, then

  exploded just as it detected that it had closed to well within

  lethal range of its forty-four-pound high-explosive warhead.

  The attack worked. The explosion occurred just a few feet

  behind the Su-27's right wing near the fuselage, sending shrap-

  nel through the fighter's right engine and piercing right wing

  fuel tanks.-The Chinese pilot was quick, and managed to save

  his prized jet by immediately shutting down the right engine

  before it seized or tore itself apart, but this jet was out of the

  fight-he had just enough fuel and control of his plane to keep

  himself upright and limp home. Even more important, his

  wingman, another Sukhoi-27, was ordered to lead his stricken

  comrade back to base-a Su-27 was too valuable and too ex-

  pensive a weapon to be allowed to make an emergency single-

  engine landing at night in rugged terrain without assistance.

  "Threat scope's clear, gang," Luger reported, with a sigh

  of relief. "Clear to center UP."

  "Left turn heading three-three-two to the next turnpoint,"

  McLanahan said. "High terrain twelve miles, commanding on

  it. Minimum safe altitude in this sector, six thousand one hun-

  dred feet. "

  "Good going, Major Luger," Nancy Cheshire offered.

  FATAL TERRAIN 399

  "Sounds like you've been doing your homework."

  "I've never left this thing, Nancy," Dave Luger said, wear-

  ing a broad smile under his oxygen mask. "Even after all these

  years, it's as if I've never left. I've. . . " He hesitated, studying

  the new threat signals, then reported, "Looks like bandits at

  ten to eleven o'clock, well below detection threshold, closing

  in on us but not locked on. Now I got fighters at five o'clock,

  not locked on but heading this way. We got fighters all around

  us.'

  THE WHITE HOUSE OVAL OFFICE,

  WASHINGTON, D.

  TUESDAY, 24 JUNE 1997, 1419 ET

  "One of our subs is caught in a fishing net in the Strait of

  Hormuz?" Senate Majority Leader Barbara Finegold asked in-

  credulously, the surprise and exasperation etched in her elegant

  features. "How in the world did that happen?"

  As Senator Finegold spoke, the President of the United

  States moved from the high wingbacked chair near the fire-

  place, where he and leaders from both the House and the Sen-

  ate-which the media were calling the "President's crisis

  team--had had their most recent "crisis team photo

  opportunity," and back onto his more comfortable leather

  chair at the head of the coffee table in the formal meeting area

  of the Oval Office. He made a show of loosening his tie and

  taking a sip of orange juice, as if he were ready to settle down

  and get comfortable while talking to the Senate Majority

  Leader.

  Seated beside him was Vice President Ellen Whiting; and

  seated around them were members of the President's national

  security team-Secretary of Defense Chastain, Secretary of

  State Hartman, and National Security Advisor Freeman, along

  with chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Balboa and

  Chief of Staff Jerrod Hale. Seated next to Senator Finegold

  was the Senate's chief political counsel, Edward Pankow, then

  House Majority Leader Nicholas Gant, and House Minority

  Leader,Joseph Crane.

  "It was obviously not a normal fishing net-the crew char-

  400 DALE BROWN

  acterized it as a large drift net made of Kevlar, a synthetic

  material used in protective armor, as light as nylon but stronger

  than steel," Philip Freeman replied. "It was obviously a trap."

  "Where was the sub trapped, General Freeman?" Finegold

  asked.

  Freeman hesitated, but the President nodded, and he re-

  sponded, "About three miles south of Bandar-Abbass, in the

  Strait of Hormuz. It's a busy channel, used by hundreds of

  deepwater ships a day. The Miami was shadowing the Kilo-

  class attack missile submarine Taregh when it was-"

  "Was it in international waters?" Finegold asked warily, as

  if afraid of the answer.

  "That is in some dispute," Philip Freeman said. "The Ira-

  nians claim all waters up to the center of the Strait of Hormuz,

  plus three miles around its islands. The International Maritime

  Court gives Iran three miles from the mean high-water line."

  "Then I'll rephrase the question, General Freeman-was

  the Miami in Iranian waters at all? Did we provoke the Iranians

  in any way?" Finegold asked.

  "Senator, we seem to provoke the Iranians simply by our

  very existence," Freeman responded. "Yes, our submarine

  was on patrol in Iranian waters, but I don't think it's fair to

  say we provoked any kind of action against our submarine or

  its crew."

  Finegold shook her head and gasped in amazement. "We

  had a nuclear attack submarine that actually sailed up to an

  Iranian naval base, in Iranian waters? That's like an Iranian

  attack sub sailing up into the Mississippi River all the way to

  New Orlea
ns, isn't it?"

  "Senator Finegold, we've briefed the Senate on our intel-

  ligence procedures before," Secretary of Defense Chastain

  said. "Our mission is to monitor the whereabouts of the Ira-

  nian missile submarines. Normally, that can be done by sat-

  ellite or patrol planes flying out of Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.

  The current emergency situation between China and Taiwan,

  and the recent events between us and Iran, prevent us from

  flying patrol planes in the area, so we need attack subs to

  shadow the Iranian subs. To prevent the Taregh from sneaking

  past us, as well as to monitor the Iranian fleet at Bandar-

  Abbass and in the Persian Gulf, we made the decision to send

  our patrol subs right near the Iranian naval bases. Normally,

  FATAL T E R RAI N 401

  the mission is relatively safe. The channel is deep and wide,

  and the subs can roam around fairly freely."

  "But they're inside Iranian waters, Mr. Chastain!" Fine-

  gold said incredulously. "We've committed an act of war!"

  "We do missions like this all the time, Senator," the Pres-

  ident interjected. "You're reacting as if you've never heard of

  such a thing before. It's a cat-and-mouse game. Once in a

  while, one side gets caught. The information we gather about

  Iranian naval forces is valuable enough to take the risk."

  "What if the Iranians decided to sink the Miami, Mr. Pres-

  ident?" Representative Joseph Crane interjected. "Would the

  deaths of one hundred and thirty more sailors still be worth

  it?" The President seemed to wince at that remark. The loss

  of the aircraft carrier Independence to a nuclear blast was still

  obviously very painful to him. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Presi-

  dent," Crane added, without any real conviction, as he saw

  the ashen expression on the Chief Executive's face.

  "But they didn't sink it," Chastain said. "The crew was

  under attack and, unable to maneuver, the captain made the

  correct decision and surfaced. The captain is guilty of nothing

  more than trespassing, and we expect our crew and our sub to

  be returned to us in short order."

  "But not before the entire world gets a look at our nuclear

  attack sub on CNN, caught in a fish net well within Iranian

 

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