Sky Masters pm-2

by Dale Brown

  “Ready in range with the first TACIT RAINBOW missile, ” Kellerman called out after checking the information on the side-looking radar display once again and updating her map of all the ships in the area. “Right turn thirty degrees to escape, next target will be off the nose at twenty miles.” Atkins rechecked the weapon indications one more timemissile engine, guidance, autopilot, data link, warhead continuity all reporting ready. “Doors coming open… missile one away. . . missile two away. . As the Megafortress banked away to the right, the AGM136A TACIT RAINBOW missiles sped off to the left and descended to less than one hundred feet above the sea, then continued their left turn until they were aiming directly at the Chinese destroyer. At the same time, Atkins programmed another missile on the next target, what ISAR reported as a Huangfeng-class guided-missile patrol boat transmitting with an India-band gun fire control radar. “Missile three reporting ready.”

  “Left turn ten degrees to escape, ” Kellerman called out. “I’ll take us within ten miles of that patrol boat unless a missile radar comes up.” In which case, Kellerman thought, Atkins better hold it together long enough to warn the crew. She knew it was a big mistake to send that scrawny little BB-stacker on this mission-Atkins might have an IQ larger than the national debt and could modify a wristwatch to jam half of Cleveland, and he seemed to do OK with Karbayjal holding his hand, but he simply wasn’t cut out for combat. “Pilots copy, ” Carter acknowledged. “Missile three counting ……. missile three away… doors closed, clear left turn.” DESTROYER JINAN “Sir, destroyer Kazfeng reports their patrol boats are engaging inbound cruise missiles. Admiral Feng is recommending frigate Yingtan move east to help cover the southeast approaches.”

  “Negative, ” Captain Jhijun shot back. “My vessels are under attack by antiradar missiles-they are right on top of us. Yingtan will remain where it is until And then he realized that if antiradar missiles were appearing out of nowhere-it had to be a stealth bomber attack. The stealth bomber itself would not show on radar right away, but the antiradar missiles would show once they were launchedthe missiles would have a smaller radar cross-section than the bombers that launched them Radio to all task force vessels, suspect stealth bomber attack, number unknown, ” Captain Jhijun cried. “CIC, directed search for carrier aircraft by visual and infrared scanners. Find that damned bomber! Find it!”

  “Sir, Kaijeng reports B-52 bomber is launching subsonic missiles . . . no successful hit on any Tomahawk missiles because of heavy radar jamming. B-52 bomber closing to within thirty miles of Kafeng. “Sir, destroyer Kafeng reports one hit by a Tomahawk cruise missile.” No one spoke on the combat bridge. They couldn’t believe it. What was going on? ‘Kazjeng radioing for assistance. Task force group commander dispatching frigate Yingtan to assist. . . Kazfeng reports additional hits by antiradar missiles from the B-52, sir! Destroyer Zunyi now reports under attack by sea-skimming antiship missiles… patrol boat 6114 hit by Harpoon antiship missile, extensive damage . . . lost contact with patrol boat… Zunyi reports contact with B-52 bombers east of their position, number unknown Damn them! With Yingtan moving out of position and Kaifeng damaged, Jinan was now the southernmost warship guarding Davao Gulf. Ships as large as destroyers needed a frigate for heavy close-in air support, and Jhijun was losing his! Well, he was not going to suffer the same fate as Kafeng. “Emitters in standby!” the commander of the destroyer Jinan shouted. “Turn the radars off! Use all available personnel with infrared and electro-optical spotters, but find those bombers!” The nightmare was back. Only two days since first stirring up the hornet’s nest with their reconnaissance overflight, McLanahan and Cobb were back at it again in their B-2 Black Knight stealth bomber-only this time they not only had to examine and count the hornets coming out of the hive, they had to swat at them. To make things worse, there appeared to be more hornets than ever out here, and they seemed mad as hell and ready to inflict some serious stings. “Radar down on that destroyer… fire-control radars going down on all area vessels, ” Patrick McLanahan reported to Henry Cobb. “Fourteen miles before impact-they figured it out pretty fast. Most operators won’t figure out their radars are under attack until the first few hit.” He expanded the God’seye view on the Super Multi Function Display before him, inundating his screen with NIRTSat satellite data received only a few minutes earlier. “I’ve got a few fire-control radars still up from those patrol boats, but most don’t have anything but surface-search radars.” Cobb clicked his mike in reply, still seated in his usual frozen position-hands on stick and throttles, eyes straight ahead, unmoving. How the hell could Cobb stay so calm? McLanahan wondered to himself. He sees everything that goes on, he studies the Super Multi Function Display, he sees the threat warnings, yet he sits as calmly as ever, staring straight ahead. He looks the same on training flights as he does in combat. “TACIT RAINBOW missiles are entering their holding pattern until the radar comes up, ” McLanahan added. “Go to five-twenty on the airspeed and let’s get out of here before the radars come back up.” Cobb clicked again and pushed power up to full military thrust-the faster the B-2 could get past these ships, the better. McLanahan’s B-2 Black Knight had a few stings itself this time around-no more reconnaissance pods, now that the NIRTSats appeared to be working again. The B-2 carried four AGM-I36A TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles and four AGM-88C HARM antiradar missiles in clip-in racks in its left bomb bay, plus a Common Strategic Rotary Launcher with six AGM-84E SLAM TV-guided missiles in the right bomb bay. The TACIT RAINBOW antiradar missiles horned in on radar transmissions, and they had turbojet engines, wings, and autopilots that allowed them to stay aloft and, if an enemy radar was turned off, orbit a suspected target area to wait for the radar to be reactivated. The four TACIT RAINBOW missiles that McLanahan had launched from thirty miles away would remain in their orbits for another ten minutes within a few miles of the last-known position of the radars-this would give all the strike aircraft the chance to get past the Chinese warships and move into the target area. FRIGATE YJNGTAN, FORTY MILES SOUTH OF DESTROYER JINAN Several minutes had passed, and no hits reported by any ships since Kazfeng. If the carrier aircraft were the same speed or a bit faster than the antiradar missiles, the carrier aircraft would be very close by now. They had sailors with night-vision goggles and infrared scanners looking for the missiles, but unless they heard it or got lucky there was almost no chance of their finding a tiny loitering cruise missile up there without radar. A few of the larger patrol boats had low-light TV cameras and infrared fire-control sensors on their 57- and 37-millimeter guns, but their field of view was very small, and getting a lock on a fast-moving target was difficult. The intercom clicked on: “Bridge, CIC, request permission to activate search radar for two sweeps. There was a slight pause; then: “Acknowledged.” To the radar operator, he said, “Two sweeps. Shut down immediately if there’s a target within five miles. Call out bearings to contacts for gun control.”

  “Acknowledged. Radar coming on in three, two, one. now. One sweep, twelve seconds, and they knew the awful truth: “Bridge, CIC, multiple small targets within five miles, all bearings. Additional air targets, two large targets in trail formation, bearing two-seven-eight, range to closest target ten nautical miles. Radar down.” The commander of the frigate Yingtan was on the all-stations call intercom immediately. “CIC, all thirty-seven gun stations, all thirty-seven gun stations, fire defensive pattern, multiple inbound missiles, all quadrants. Attempt visual acquisition. Release radar decoys. Shut down all radars and verify.” Almost immediately the frigate’s four twin 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns began firing, sweeping the sky with shells in predetermined patterns that would cover all but the ship’s centerline area-fortunately the patrol boats were dispersed at least six kilometers away to avoid being hit by the frigate’s barrage. “Helm, forty degrees starboard. CIC, ship turning starboard, shoot portside chaff rockets.” From the sky, the barrage of gunfire might have looked like a fireworks-show finale, with winks of muzzle flashes and tracers shooting out in
all directions. The frigate meanwhile began a series of sharp turns and accelerations designed to get as far away as possible from the last spot where the radar was turned on-they knew that was where the loitering missile was headed. Yingtan also had mortars that fired radar-decoying chaff rockets into the air, launching them on the side opposite the ship’s turn-they would act as decoys if the missiles carried active radar seekers. Yingtan ‘s gunners were rewarded with several spectacular flashes as the guns found targets, and missiles could be seen splashing down in their wake-a few dangerously close, less than a dozen meters away-but none hit. Two missiles went after the tiny radar-emitting decoy buoys dropped overboard by the frigate, and the bridge crew was treated to a good-sized explosion just a hundred meters aft as the missile impacted. In just a few seconds, all of the antiradar missiles were defeated by the frigate Yingtan. But all that gunfire only saved them from the small antiradar missiles-the aircraft that launched all those missiles were getting away. “CIC, concentrate one hundred-millimeter guns at the last position of that bomber. Maybe we will get lucky. Prepare to engage with HQ-6I missiles. Comm, radio to all patrol boats and to Fleet Master, suspected heavy stealth bomber aircraft inbound to Davao Gulf, number unknown.” The sudden flurry of gunfire into the night sky was spectacular and frightening at the same time. It looked like a dome of sparklers had formed over the frigate in the distance, like some unearthly glittering spaceship half-submerged in the oceanexcept they both knew that those pretty sparklers meant death to any aircraft that strayed too close. Cobb instinctively banked farther west to avoid the area where most of the gunfire was being concentrated, even though McLanahan estimated they were at least ten miles abeam the closest ship. “Jesus Christ, ” McLanahan muttered. “Look at that. . Cobb said nothing. “And we’re only seeing about one every twelve tracer rounds . . “It’s not the guns I’m worried about, ” Cobb said. “I’m waiting for the SAMs from that frigate.”

  “He hit us with a radar sweep powerful enough to paint us, ” McLanahan said. “He must know we’re out here.” McLanahan used the tracer rounds to find the frigate with his forwardlooking infrared scanner, and the imaging heat-seeking telescope locked on easily to the huge vessel. “I got a lock on the big mother ship. That must be the frigate. Laser rangefinder on . . . laser firing . . .’ Immediately the laser rangefinder computed the precise distance to the target, completed the firing solution for the B-2’s complement of weapons. McLanaz han touched the right-bomb-bay icon on the bottom of his Super Multi Function Display, and the weapons computer picked a SLAM TV-guided missile, automatically reducing the SMFD screen in half and using the right side of the big screen to display SLAM seeker video transmission. “The shit’s going to hit the fan as soon as this puppy goes, ” McLanahan reminded Cobb, then he moved the Bombing System Switch from “Manual” to “Auto.”

  “Missile Counting ……. missile one away… The right bomb-bay doors slid open, and the single CSRL launcher ejected a SLAM guided missile into the slipstream. The missile fell about fifty feet as its gyroscope stabilization system steadied the fifteen-hundred-pound missile; then, when the air data probes detected the proper airflow and deceleration parameters indicating a clean release from the Black Knight bomber, the powerful turbojet engine kicked in. Following the initial heading from the B-2’s master computer, it descended to less than one hundred feet in the blink of an eye and steered immediately on course for the frigate, taking it on an “over-the-shoulder” trajectory as the B-2 sped away. Seven seconds later, the launcher had rotated and ejected a second missile. The radar operator on Yingtan had just reactivated the Sea Eagle air-search radar at that precise moment-and what he saw caused stars to shoot through his head. “Two aircraft, bearing two-eight-one, altitude two hundred meters, speed. . incoming missiles, incoming missiles, bearing two-eight-one, range fifteen miles, speed six hundred twenty knots, altitude twenty meters!” And then he made a fateful mistake-he shut down his radar a second time, thinking they were under attack by antiradar missiles again. The CIC officer in charge realized the Sea Eagle radar was down again, but hesitated a few seconds before ordering it reactivated so the antiaircraft guns could train on the supersonic targets. There were other supersonic antiradar missiles in the American arsenal, such as the HARM missile-this could be one of them. “Deploy decoys. Bridge, CIC, incoming missiles, evasive action, radar down.” He waited a few seconds for the antiradar-missile decoys to be ejected, then ordered the Sea Eagle radar reactivated and the antiaircraft guns brought on-line. But at almost Mach one, it took only sixty seconds for the first SLAM missile to reach its target. With less than thirty seconds left in the first missile’s flight, they had just enough time to acquire the missile and let the Sea Eagle search radar slave the I-band “Rice Lamp” fire-control radars on the incoming missiles. The 37-millimeter guns on the Yingtan were just as accurate as on the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, but only the two starboard mounts were committed this time. . The left half of the Super Multi Function Display was displaying video transmitted from the imaging infrared camera on the first SLAM missile, and even Henry Cobb, who normally sat with eyes caged straight ahead on his instrument panel, couldn’t help but take a few glances at the picture as the missile bore into its target. The image was incrediblethe sea, seen as shimmering green streaks along the bottom of the picture, whizzed past like some sort of early sci-fi warp drive; and, in the center, the hot dot slowly enlarged and took the shape of a huge warship. The missile was right on course. Suddenly, several flashes of light could be seen popping from the warship. “They got a lock on the SLAM, ” McLanahan said. On the right side of the SMFD, he touched the spinning circular cursor on the 3-D image of the destroyer, spoke “Change target, ” then slid his finger to the left. The SLAM missile veered left in response. Just as the video image of the destroyer was about to disappear off the screen, McLanahan slid the cursor to the right, and the missile followed. A few seconds later, McLanahan replaced the cursor on the destroyer. “Thirty seconds to impact, ” he told Cobb. “C’mon, baby, you can do it…” But his efforts were useless. As soon as the missile settled back on course to the destroyer, another large flash erupted, and the video went dark. “Dammit! Lost the first SLAM.” The words SLAM 1 NO CONTACT flashed three times on the left half of the SMFD, then the video from the second missile filled the screen. “You’re not getting this one, ” Patrick said. Using the touchscreen, he pre-programmed a zigzag course for the second SLAM. “Hit that, you peckerheads…” The ship’s defensive guns successfully hit the first SLAM seconds before it hit them, but the second missile was impossible to hit-it was all over the sky, skimming just a few meters above the water, and the guns could not keep up with it. The missile finally plowed into the starboard gunwale just below the number six 37-millimeter gun turret. The penetrating warhead cap, propelled by the missile’s powerful rocket motor, drove the missile through the numbertwelve lifeboat on its davits and barely managed to pierce the heavy armor of the number-six gun turret before detonating the five-hundred-pound high-explosive. The blast ripped a gaping hole in the side of the frigate, killing the gun turret’s ten-man crew and instantly knocking the gun out of commission. “Good hit!” Patrick McLanahan cried out. “One impact . . . only minor secondaries, good hit but no kill.” The Super Multi Function Display automatically switched back to full integrated “God’s-eye” view, and Patrick scanned the area. “Search radars ……. cancel that, search radars back up. Everybody’s transmitting… I’ve got air-search radars at five o’clock and a new one at two o’clock. India-band missile radar’s still up at five o’clock. Damn… we didn’t knock out that frigate yet. So he can still launch missiles . Just then a “Missile Warning” light began to blink on both the Super Multi Function Display and the pilot’s center CRT monitor. Patrick said, “Now I’ve got another Charlie-band missile director radar at one to two o’clock-that must be from the center destroyer.” He was about to touch the electronic countermeasures icon on the bottom of the SMFD, but the computer
had already brought the ECM status panel forward on the screen-and what he saw caused his throat to go instantly dry. “Charlie-band missile director . . . computer’s calling it a DRBC-51 radar directing an HQ-91 SAM system… “A -91?” Cobb asked. “Shit, we’re well inside that mother’s range!”

  “I know, I know, ” McLanahan moaned. He had spent too long screwing with the SLAM missiles and lost track of all the other warships around them. “All trackbreakers active, missile warning system and HAVE GLANCE jammers ready, chaff and flares ready, HARM missile programming against that radar… shit, shit! Charlie-band tracker changing to Charliethree command.. The “Missile Warning” indication changed to a “Missile Lock” warning. “Missile radar locked on!” McLanahan shouted. “Trackbreakers on… descend and accelerate if possible They were already as low as they could safely go at nightthe huge B-2 was less than one hundred feet above the Celebes Sea, with Cobb hand-flying the Black Knight, since the terrainfollowing computer would not fly the bomber overwater below two hundred feet. “C’mon, you guys, where the hell are you…. McLanahan was rewarded a second later with precise range and bearing information from his B-2 to the destroyer displayed on his SMFD. He knew he was not using radars or lasers to get that data-that meant that his wingman, the second B-2 stealth bomber in his attack formation, was ranging on the destroyer and data-sharing the information with him. The question was, who was going to get there first? CHINESE DESTROYER JINAN “Locked onto first air target, ” the operator of Jinan ‘s aft HQ91 missile fire control radar reported. “Slight jamming on lower bands, switching to frequency-agile mode… Temporarily clear of jamming, ready with missile detector, sir.”