Monday
Cobra and Viper formation, over South Korea
‘Cobra Lead, November Alpha on Guard. Request you chop back to tactical.’
‘Roger. Cobras, Vipers, stud four, go.’
As soon as all four aircraft had checked in, the AEW Sea King radar operator passed a hostile contact report that was remarkably similar to his previous broadcast issued when the four Harriers had been approaching their targets on the east coast of the peninsula. He had detected multiple contacts taking off from North Korean airfields. The difference this time was that only four air bases were involved, and all the aircraft were climbing to high level.
In all, the bagman reported that he was holding twenty-one contacts on his radar screen. What he didn’t yet know was what those aircraft were intending to do.
MiG-25 Foxbat, callsign Zero Six, over North Korea
Lieutenant Gennadi Malakov levelled his Foxbat at just under thirty-two thousand feet and glanced to his right and slightly behind. His wingman was holding position about two hundred metres away, exactly where he expected him to be.
Malakov was a recruit from the Russian Air Force, lured to North Korea by the promise of financial independence, though the chance to shoot down one – or, better still, several – American aircraft had encouraged his decision to become a mercenary.
He couldn’t see the rest of the formation under his command but he knew they’d be behind and above him. The pilots had been briefed to fly as three groups of seven aircraft, separated by about one thousand feet of altitude, but until the attack order came all twenty-one MiG-25s would operate as a single entity.
When in service with the Russian National Air Defence Force, the MiG-25 functioned as a ‘manned missile’. The interceptor was fitted with Vozdookh and Lazur radio equipment, and these were integrated with the MiG-25’s Polyot inertial navigation system. The combined package allowed ground controllers to vector the aircraft to a target or patrol area automatically. Only when about to carry out the interception did the pilot switch on the massive RP-25M Saphir radar – second only to the MiG-31’s Zaslon in terms of output power, and known in the West as Fox Fire.
In North Korean service, the same philosophy was followed but, lacking the appropriate ground-based equipment, positive control had to be exercised by the radar stations using radio commands.
‘Zero Six formation, Chunghwa. Make your heading zero one zero, speed six hundred kilometres an hour.’ The voice of the controller was clipped and precise.
‘Zero Six.’
The entire formation turned onto a northerly heading and reduced speed to conserve fuel. The course they were following would take them almost as far north as the border with China before they made the turn towards the DMZ, but this was quite deliberate. Pyongyang had specially instructed that the Foxbats were to remain over North Korea, and well north of the DMZ, until after the first attack had been launched. This was simply to ensure that the MiG-25s would be well clear of the blast radius when the three nuclear devices exploded.
USS Enterprise, North Pacific Ocean
‘Captain, sir, JTIDS is showing multiple launches from four North Korean airfields. Twenty . . . no, twenty-one contacts presently all heading north. This could be a first wave of bombers forming up to head across the DMZ.’
But in seconds the speed and rate of climb now being detected made it clear that the aircraft had to be fighters.
‘Heading north makes no sense, so once they get high enough they’ll turn south. Where are the British aircraft?’
‘Here, sir, over South Korea, due east of Ch’orwon. But won’t the Brits spot them on their radar?’
‘No, mister, they won’t, because some fuck-wit decided the new Harrier would work better without a radar. That means they’re blind up there. OK, contact the Hawkeye,’ Rodgers ordered. ‘Tell him to pull the Hornets out of their holding pattern and aim them towards – wait one – aim them at Kangnung. Keep them clear of territorial waters until we know for sure the gooks are intending to cross the DMZ. Get the Prowlers moving in that direction as well. And tell the Hawkeye to call the Harriers on Guard. Somebody needs to let them know what’s going on.’
Chiha-ri missile base, North Korea
Although he’d been expecting it, the sudden clatter of the teleprinter still took the commanding officer by surprise, and he hurried across his office to read the printed characters. At last. The telephone on his desk rang and he picked up the receiver. The caller didn’t identify himself, but there was no need.
‘You have received the order?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Implement it immediately.’
The CO left the office, almost running down the stairs, and crossed into the missile preparation area. There, as he shouted orders, engines were started on three small but powerful tractors, and the HY-2 cruise missile trailers were towed out of the shelter to their pre-prepared positions. Once in place, the trailers were jacked up, using the tractors’ hydraulic systems, to form rigid platforms for the impending launch. Then the towing vehicles were unhitched and driven off.
The technicians were already waiting, and they plugged the power lines into shielded sockets next to the firing positions. The target coordinates had already been entered, so all that remained was to undertake a comprehensive systems check before the launch itself. This took under five minutes per missile and, less than ten minutes after they’d been towed out of the shelter, all three HY-2s were ready to fire.
The technical crews cleared the pad and retreated to launch control – a concrete bunker some one hundred metres distant – to carry out final communication checks with the cruise missiles. And then everything was ready.
The commanding officer glanced round the bunker, nodded his approval, and then uttered the single word: ‘Launch.’
On the concrete pads, the liquid-fuelled engines ignited almost simultaneously and, with a roar that seemed to shake the bunker, the three missiles leapt into the air, their paths diverging immediately.
MiG-25 Foxbat, callsign Zero Six, over North Korea
‘Zero Six, Chunghwa. All missiles have been fired. Detonation in approximately six minutes. Stand by to turn onto south.’
‘Zero Six.’
The North Korean plan was simple enough. The three HY-2s each carried a nuclear warhead, but the weapons weren’t aimed at any strategic targets to the south of the DMZ. Instead, each cruise missile had been programmed to fly across the Demilitarized Zone at low level, thus avoiding engagement, and perhaps even detection, by the Patriot batteries. Once well inside South Korea, the missiles would climb to high level where the warheads would detonate, hopefully simultaneously.
Their separation would ensure that the electromagnetic pulse the explosions generated would blanket the entire width of the Korean Peninsula along a line running east–west directly through Seoul. That, they hoped, would destroy every computer, radio, radar, communication system, and anything else that contained a memory chip or printed circuit, throughout the northern half of South Korea. Due to the fall-out, the explosions would probably also kill a large number of people, as might the blast itself, depending upon the altitude and yield of the devices, though nobody in Pyongyang cared about that.
But the North Koreans had a problem. In fact, they had two problems. The first was that cruise missiles are designed to fly horizontally at low level and fairly fast, which was ideal for avoiding the Patriot batteries, but the optimum detonation point for an EMP weapon is as high as possible. It’s been estimated that a high-yield device detonated over central North America at an altitude of about two hundred and fifty miles could affect every electrical circuit in the continental United States. Yet the maximum height Pyongyang had calculated the HY-2 could reach with its heavy warhead was only about twenty thousand feet.
The second difficulty was the yield. The power of the EMP is proportional to the prompt gamma-ray output, and in a fission explosion this equates to under four per cent of the to
tal power of the device. This is substantially reduced by the high explosive used to initiate the detonation sequence, which can absorb as much as eighty-five per cent of the prompt gamma-rays. So for a ten-kiloton device – about the maximum power the scientists at Yongbyon had calculated their weapons would produce – the overall power of the EMP would be well below one per cent of the total yield. But that, they hoped, would still be enough.
The Foxbats were the insurance policy. They would hold north of the DMZ ready to take out any aircraft that the Americans or the South Koreans managed to launch. Then, with the American Patriot batteries blinded, their radars burnt out, and the CFC emasculated, the third stage of Pak Je-San’s plan would begin.
Cobra and Viper formation, over South Korea
‘Missile launch! Right two o’clock range about twenty miles. Two . . . no, three weapons.’ Roger Whittard’s voice was loud and excited.
‘My RAW’s not picking anything up,’ the Senior Pilot said, ‘but I see them too.’
‘They’re not SAMs,’ Richter said. ‘They’re cruise missiles. This looks like the opening salvo of North Korea’s invasion plan. The Patriots won’t be able to stop them, but maybe we can. Vipers, you take the one tracking south-west, which looks like it’s heading towards Seoul – and we’ll handle the other pair. I’ll hit the easterly one, OK, Splot?’
‘Roger that.’
Richter hauled his Harrier round in a tight descending port turn and pointed the nose almost straight down. Although the HY-2, like most cruise missiles, is subsonic, he knew he had a very limited window of opportunity to engage it. The missile was probably faster than his aircraft, so he had to plan the intercept carefully, and bring his Harrier in right behind it so that the Sidewinder could lock on. Once he’d released the missile, the ‘winder would certainly catch it: the weapon has a maximum speed of Mach 2.5.
The altimeter was unwinding at an alarming rate, the ground rushing towards him, but Richter wasn’t looking at his instruments, or even the HUD. His whole attention was focused on the scene out of the right-hand side of his cockpit, where a tiny grey dart, trailing a plume of smoke, was heading south-east at close to the speed of sound and very low. It looked to Richter as if it was less than five hundred feet above the ground, which wasn’t going to help him any.
Intercepting it would be difficult, he knew. That was one worry. The other was the Patriot batteries that studded the southern side of the DMZ. His Harrier was wearing a squawk issued by air traffic control at Seoul, but he couldn’t remember if the PAC-3 radar incorporated SSR identification. If it didn’t, his aircraft might be interpreted as an incoming ballistic missile, and it would really piss him off if he himself got shot down by the American or South Korean forces.
‘British aircraft over South Korea, this is Hawkeye callsign Alpha Three on Guard, do you read?’
‘Alpha Three, Cobra Two, you’re loud and clear, but we’re a little busy right now.’
‘You’re likely to get a lot busier, buddy. There are twenty-one interceptors heading straight for you out of bandit country. We estimate they’ll be all over you in around ten minutes.’
‘Thanks . . . I think,’ Richter said. ‘Keep us posted, please, Alpha Three. We’re chasing three cruise missiles right now.’
He risked a quick glance at the HUD. His Harrier was passing ten thousand feet in a near-vertical dive. The Seersucker was in his two o’clock position at about three miles. It was time he stopped descent and turned to intercept. He was going to have to turn left, allowing the missile to fly underneath him, if he was to stand any chance of getting into a firing position. And the problem was that, as soon as he turned, he’d lose sight of the missile. It really was a one-shot option.
Richter checked the position and speed of the HY-2, then his altitude, trying to do the calculations in his head. Seven thousand feet. Six. Five and a half. He took one more glance at his target, another at the rocky terrain directly below him, then pushed the control column over to the left and eased it back slightly. The g-force pinned him into the seat as the Harrier turned hard to port, its rate of descent slowing rapidly.
He pulled the GR9 level at two thousand feet, heading south-east, and looked all around him. There was no sign of the cruise missile, but it had to be somewhere close by. He daren’t turn, because that would bleed off so much speed he’d never then catch it, and he couldn’t slow down for exactly the same reason. He just had to hope that his turn had been accurate enough.
Then he saw it. Around a thousand feet below, passing on his left-hand side about a mile away – and travelling much faster than Richter expected. He turned his Harrier gently to port, aiming for an intercept course, made sure the throttle was fully open, and pushed the control column slightly forward.
He selected the Sidewinder on his port wing and immediately checked that the broken circle appeared in his HUD. The HY-2 was on his left, in the eleven o’clock position, on a more or less constant bearing, so he knew his heading was good.
Without radar, he had to estimate the target’s range by eye alone, but he reckoned that he was about half a mile behind it. And already he could hear the growl of the ‘winder as its infrared seeker began picking up the cruise missile’s exhaust plume.
Then the HY-2 pitched up and began climbing. Richter had expected the cruise missile to stay low until it hit its target. The climb suggested something different, and after a moment he guessed what the North Koreans might have planned.
‘Flash. All callsigns, Cobra Two. My missile’s climbing. It’s possible these could be air-burst nukes.’
‘Viper Two, this one’s doing the same.’
Richter pulled the control column back, starting the Harrier in a steep climb to follow the Seersucker.
In the nose-cone of the HY-2, the radar altimeter recorded an altitude of two thousand metres, and sent a signal to the simple computer – little more than a glorified timing device – that controlled the warhead. It immediately activated the pre-detonation circuit check. The device was designed to explode when it reached a height of six thousand metres, an altitude it would attain in just over eleven seconds.
Chiha-ri missile base, North Korea
The moment the three Seersuckers had vanished, heading for their targets in South Korea, the technicians swarmed out of the hardened shelters and towed away the cruise missile trailers. And, because Pyongyang had made it clear that time was of the essence, in less than a minute the first of the mobile Scud TELs, or Transporter-Erector-Launchers, drove out of one of the shelters and across to the launch pad.
Chiha-ri had been the obvious choice for this phase of the operation. Not only did it host a resident Scud brigade, but it was also the principal technical support headquarters for all of North Korea’s Scud missile units. And, crucially, it was a mere fifty miles north of the Demilitarized Zone, close enough to ensure that their targets south of the DMZ would get the least possible warning of the attack. If the weapons carried by the Seersuckers did their job adequately, there might be no warning at all.
Within five minutes the six Scud launchers were in position and their technicians were making last-minute checks, all of them wearing full NBCD suits and breathing equipment because of the contents of the warheads. Once the weapons were ready, they would be launched without further reference to anyone. The orders from Pyongyang had been most specific.
Cobra Two, over South Korea
The cruise missile’s unexpected manoeuvre had cost Richter ground, and he estimated he was now nearly a mile behind it. And, if his guess had been right, the warhead could detonate at any moment.
The growl in his earphones intensified and then the broken circle in the HUD solidified as the Sidewinder locked on to the target. Richter didn’t wait any longer: he fired the weapon. The solid-propellant rocket motor ignited and it streaked towards the HY-2. Just in case, he selected the starboard Sidewinder and made sure it also locked on.
The HY-2’s radar altimeter sent a further signal to the co
mputer at five thousand metres, and the three-second detonation sequence began. The North Korean technicians had based their calculations on a missile velocity of three hundred and twenty metres a second, actually a little faster than the Seersucker was travelling.
The detonation sequence had less than one second to go when the ‘winder impacted with the rear of the cruise missile. The annular blast fragmentation warhead, containing over twenty pounds of high explosive, then detonated. The blast shattered the rear section of the HY-2, instantly destroying its rocket motor, and less than a tenth of a second later the remaining liquid fuel in its tanks exploded in a massive ball of fire.
The detonation wasn’t powerful enough to destroy the warhead, but that didn’t matter. It ripped the computer to pieces, wrecked the battery and fused the connections. The final signal never reached the nuclear device. Instead, it was torn from its mountings and began tumbling to the ground nearly twenty thousand feet below.
Richter deselected his second Sidewinder, pulled his Harrier into a steep diving turn to keep out of the blast radius and pressed his transmit button.
‘Cobra Two, one Sidewinder expended. Splash one cruise missile. Break, break. Alpha Three, what’s the status of those bogies now?’
‘Still inbound, Cobra Two. No, wait. Now they’re turning back onto north. It looks like they’re in a holding pattern. I’ll keep you advised.’
‘Roger. Break. Cobra Lead – what’s your status?’
‘Standby. Right. Two Sidewinders used and the missile is down. I’m turning away. Break. Viper One, sitrep.’
‘We just—’
But whatever Charlie Forbes was going to say was lost for ever as a colossal explosion tore through the sky.
Office of the Associate Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia
Foxbat Page 32
