Alpha Strike

CHAPTER 26

“Tallyho,” Bird Dog heard Batman call out, confirming contact on the enemy aircraft. “Low and fast, probably counting on coming right out of the sun low on the horizon.”

“You got them yet, Gator?” Bird Dog asked.

“Not yet. But I’ll take those JAST avionics on our lead anytime, if he’s seeing them from this range!”

“Batman’s supposed to be as sharp as his bird. Not often we get to fly wing on a full captain. Let’s just see if he’s still got it, after pushing a desk in the Pentagon!”

The loose, orderly formation of Tomcats scattered. Bird Dog broke right, following Batman to intercept the northernmost cell of enemy fighters. The JAST bird was armed with four Sidewinders and two Sparrows, the weapons load tailored to the lead’s preference for close-in kills. Five hundred feet above and behind his lead, Bird Dog’s Tomcat carried the heavier and longer-range Phoenixes, as well as an array of shorter-range missiles.

“Bogey to the north, Bird Dog,” Gator said. “No, wait! I lost him! This little bastard pops in and out on my screen like a-hey, wait a minute! You think this has anything to do with those ghosts we’ve been seeing?”

“Do I give a shit? Get me a goddamn target! You can’t hold that one, pick another!”

“Getting contacts from the JAST bird now,” Gator muttered as the targeting pip appeared on his HUD. “Damned tough to hold, though.”

“Take a shot, Bird Dog,” Batman ordered over the circuit.

“Fox one!” Bird Dog thumbed the switch and felt the aircraft jolt up as the massive missile shot off the rails. Even if it missed, it lightened the Tomcat, extending his time on station by decreasing his fuel consumption. He held the Tomcat straight on in level flight, feeding targeting information to the missile.

“Closure rate, one thousand knots,” his RIO said. Already, Gator had ceased to exist as a separate presence, becoming instead a part of Bird Dog and his aircraft, a voice feeding him information.

Aside from situations allowing the use of long-range missiles such as the Phoenix, aerial combat was a battle for position and altitude. Aircraft danced through the air, darting around each other and maneuvering for position. Above and behind — the ultimate goal for position on an enemy.

Bird Dog nosed the F14 up, sacrificing a little airspeed for altitude. With the enemy strike force approaching, he had little time to spare. Altitude was something you could never have too much of.

“Missile inbound,” the officer in the backseat howled. “Phoenix!”

“I’ve got it,” Mein Low swore. He cut the aircraft into a sharp turn, heading nose-on to the missile to reduce their radar cross section. The F10’s avionics examined the radar signal and radiated countermeasures intended to defeat detection and targeting.

Mein Low scanned the sky, knowing the missile was too far away to see but trying anyway. Over his tactical circuit, he could hear aircraft in the strike calling out targets, dividing up the launching American fighters between themselves.

No matter. He was flight leader, and the first aircraft they saw would be his — As well as the first kill.

The long-range Phoenix missiles were not the ones that worried him most. They required guidance from the AWG-9 Tomcat radar for most of their flight, switching to individual guidance only as they neared their targets. Intelligence had told him that they often suffered fusing problems, failing to ignite, and that none had ever been used successfully in engagements. It was not enough to make him overconfident, though. Even a Phoenix that failed to detonate could do a massive amount of damage if it struck his aircraft.

The weakness in the system was the AWG-9 radar, and the need for the Tomcat to maintain a radar lock on him.

“Chaff,” he ordered, and felt the gentle thumps of the canisters of highly reflective metal strips being ejected from the aircraft. With any luck, that would confuse the radar picture, and perhaps mislead the Tomcat into keeping the missile locked on the chaff rather than his aircraft.

As the chaff was shot off, he broke into a hard turn and headed directly for the missile. At its Mach 5 speeds, it was unwieldy, and would be unable to follow drastic last-minute maneuvers. As a last resort, he could always dive for the deck, although it was an option he’d prefer to avoid in this sea state. The AWG-9 was notoriously erratic on tracking targets below fifty feet. If he broke radar lock with the Tomcat before the missile acquired him, on its own independent homing radar, the missile would not pose a threat to him.

A scream echoed over the tactical circuit, abruptly cut short in midcrescendo.

“I see it!” his RIO exclaimed.

“Got it,” he muttered, and concentrated on the missile’s course. Wait for it, wait for it, he kept repeating to himself. The tiny speck in the air grew larger at an incredible rate. At the last moment, he dove for the deck, pouring on all the speed he could muster.

The Phoenix snapped by him, barely visible at close range for a few moments before dwindling again from sight. It would lack sufficient fuel to regain a lock on him, he knew.

Even if it were no longer a threat, it had achieved its tactical purpose — forcing him onto the defensive and throwing off his own engagement plan. Not a fatal position to be in. There was plenty of airspace, and far more Chinese fighters than American ones in the air.

“Missile lock broken!” Gator snapped. “He slid off the scope like greased lightning. Sparrow armed.”

“Okay, okay — now! Fox two, Fox two!” Bird Dog said. The lighter Sparrow shot off the rails.

“Oh, shit. Got a lock on us, Bird Dog!” The warning tone of an enemy missile lock warbled in his headset.

“Get some airspace!” Batman ordered. “He can’t see me as well as he can you. I’m going to move in closer. Join back up on me as soon as you shake the missile!”

Mein Low watched the missile follow the American, grim exultation filling him. It was time for a combat kill, his first against the Western forces. The sacrifices his countrymen had made serving as operational test targets for the F-10 would be vindicated.

Suddenly, the missile lock tone wavered, then fell off into silence. Anger shot through him. Why now?

“Lock lost,” his backseater announced. “Probably from the climb. It can’t follow quickly enough, or perhaps the seeker head failed.”

“My weapons do not fail!” he snapped.

“Jamming,” the backseater added. “Probable EA-6B Prowlers. Recommend we go to heatseekers.”

Mein Low snarled his concurrence. If the American pilot wanted a knife fight, that’s what he’d get. Four Flanker pilots had died trying to evade the F-10, and Mein Low had learned how to best use his fighter up close and personal. Close-in, dirty fighting — nothing beat the F-10.

“Lost it! Bird Dog, I don’t think those Chinese missiles liked that high rate of climb maneuver.”

“Get the word out,” Bird Dog said. They’d lost some speed from the climb, but the Chinese fighter was below and in front of him now.

He watched Batman’s dance through the sky and waited for an opening to join it without spoiling Batman’s targeting. His lead had already expended two Sparrows on the other aircraft, but was still out of range for the deadly heatseeking Sidewinder. The enemy fighter was as hard to hold radar contact on as the JAST bird was.

“We’re moving in closer. Sidewinder next,” he said, thumbing the weapons selection toggle to the appropriate position. If he could get within range, the heatseeking Sidewinder wouldn’t care about radar cross sections. The ass-end of the Chinese fighter was spewing out hot exhaust that would pull the missile into it.

Bird Dog tapped his fingers on the control stick, waiting for the growl that would tell him the missile had acquired the target. If Batman would just clear the field of fire, the geometry would be perfect.

“Behind us!” his backseater screamed.

“I know, I know!” Mein Low snapped. He’d temporarily shaken the Tomcat that had been dogging him for the last five minutes. Two Flankers were diving in to deal with the first fighter.

He snapped the F-10 into a tight turn and headed back the way they’d come. It was imperative that he prevent the second Tomcat from getting a clean shot at his tailpipe. By turning, he’d put the two aircraft nose to nose and increased the closure rate to almost Mach 2. The Tomcat might be faster, but the Flanker was more maneuverable. In a close-quarters, one-on-one dogfight, he’d have the advantage.

“The wingman — where is he?” he asked, remembering the predilection for the fighters to operate in groups of two. The “Loose Deuce” formation, he thought, his mind stumbling over the uncomfortable words. American fighters normally fought as pairs, one aircraft above the other poised to maneuver into killing position while the lead aircraft fought in close.

“Two Flankers have him covered,” the backseater muttered. “He won’t be back.”

“Good.” One Tomcat alone would be easy prey. Easier, anyway. The numbers were in the Chinese’s favor, at least until the Americans could get the rest of their aircraft off the deck.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Bird Dog muttered. The radar contact was approaching at five hundred knots, slightly slower than a Tomcat’s max speed at this altitude. “You might want a nice look at my ass, you pervert, but I’m onto you!” He pulled the Tomcat into a tight bank, cutting across the path of the Flanker.

“Jesus, Bird Dog!” Gator yelled. “You want to give him a great beam shot or what?” As if in response, the high-pitched warble of the missile lock tone wailed in their headsets.

“Worked once, will work again. Chaff!” Bird Dog ordered. He put the Tomcat in a steep, circling climb, pulling in behind the Flanker again.

“It’s still got us! Chaff away again!” Gator shouted.

“Hang on! We’re going to show this fellow what a real fighter can do!”

“Go, go, go,” Mein Low chanted, watching the missile pip approach the American fighter. The Tomcat was above and behind him again, rapidly approaching perfect firing position for the Sidewinder. He banked hard to the right and nosed up into a steep climb, putting his aircraft between the sun and the American.

“Missile!” his backseater screamed.

“Sidewinder,” he grunted against the G-forces pounding him into the seat. “Flares, chaff, more flares!” The gentle thumps were barely perceptible over the screaming engines and the high-G-force vibrations.

A wash of turbulence shook the jet, and a few sharp metallic noises bit through the roar of the engines. “It went for it,” his backseater announced, relief evident in his voice.

“Now for him,” he replied, dropping the jet’s nose down. The Tomcat was now below him, afterburners screaming across the infrared spectrum. He toggled off a heatseeker, then climbed again.

“It went for the flare, Bird Dog,” Gator said. “One Sidewinder left. Missile lock!”

“You’d figure. Let’s see if their missiles are any smarter than ours. Flares!”

Gator popped two flares. Bird Dog wrapped the Tomcat into a ball, turning more sharply than he’d ever tried before, standing the jet on its tail.

“Guess not,” he said a few moments later as the Chinese heatseeker exploded into the middle of the flare grouping. “Let’s make this last one count!”

Bird Dog popped the speed brakes, losing fifty knots of airspeed almost immediately. The Chinese fighter quickly overshot them. “Fox three!” Another Sidewinder darted forward off the wing.

“You’re inside minimum range!” Gator said.

“By the book, I am. Wanna bet that the firing doctrine has a safety factor built into it?”

“You can’t count on-” The explosion two miles in front of him cut him off. “-that every time,” Gator finished. “Damn it, Bird Dog, those safety factors are there for a reason. See?”

Bird Dog stared at the fireball in front of him. The missile had detonated beyond the enemy fighter. The aircraft turned to meet him, putting him within gun range.

“All we got is one Phoenix and one Sparrow. No more knife fights, Bird Dog.”

“And guns. Don’t forget the guns.”

Bird Dog slewed the Tomcat to the left, turning head-on to the other fighter, and pointed the Tomcat’s nose slightly ahead of the other aircraft’s course. He carefully led the enemy fighter’s maneuver and squeezed off his gun. Six thousand rounds per minute streamed out of the six-barrel Vulcan 20-mm gatling-gun, stitching a ragged line down the side of the other aircraft. Bird Dog came close enough to see the windscreen shatter and chunks of the hardened Plexiglas spray out away from the airframe.

Smoke streamed from the right side of the aircraft, which was rapidly losing altitude. A punctured fuel tank, probably, he thought. At any rate, he was hurt badly enough to be out of the air battle raging above him.

Bird Dog turned the Tomcat back toward the aerial fur ball behind him. “Where’s Batman?” he demanded.

“Nine o’clock, six miles. He took out one Flanker, but he can’t shake the one on their tail.”

“Think they’d like a little help?”

“Might come in handy. Course, Tomboy’ll swear later that she could handle it alone.” The RIO grinned. “It’d be nice to pull her tail out of the fire for a change.”

“Tallyho!” Bird Dog said a few minutes later. “Looks like she’s in trouble to me!”

Batman’s Tomcat was heading for the deck, just finishing off a high altitude maneuver designed to give him tactical height and position on his opponent. It hadn’t worked. The smaller, more maneuverable Flanker had cut inside his turn. The JAST Tomcat was jinking like crazy, trying to screw up the shot. The maneuvers bled off airspeed and reduced the speed advantage the JAST Tomcat had over the Flanker.

“Batman, pull up and break right!” Bird Dog ordered. Without waiting for a reply, he screamed in on the pursuing Flanker and toggled the stick back to select a Sidewinder. As soon as the Sidewinder growled its acquisition signal and Batman had cleared the field of fire, Bird Dog shouted, “Fox three!” and shot his last close-range missile.

Seconds later, the Chinese Flanker exploded into a fireball. Shards of metal pinged sharply off the skin of the Tomcat.

Bird Dog got a quick acknowledgment of no damage from Tomboy and then grabbed for altitude, heading for the next engagement.

“You only got the Phoenix, Bird Dog,” Gator reminded him. “Too close quarters for another shot.”

“Still got the guns.”

“But not much ammo. Face it, Bird Dog, it’s time for us to be out of here. Let’s get up high, look down, and see if there’s anything we can do from there.”

Bird Dog reluctantly acknowledged the wisdom of Gator’s advice. Two minutes later, Batman and Tomboy joined them, the wings of their Tomcat clean and vulnerable. At fifteen thousand feet, they circled for the next ten minutes, listening to the tactical chatter, calls for assistance, and victory screams gradually subside. Finally, the last of the adversary air had either fled or fallen into the ocean.

The rest of the Tomcat squadron joined them at altitude. Most still had Phoenixes hanging under their wings. The Tomcats turned back toward the carrier while the Hornets lined up behind the two KA-6 refueling birds, eager to replenish their tanks before attempting a landing.

Less than half an hour after they’d met the American fighters, the remaining Chinese fighters turned west to head back to their base in Vietnam. Only twenty-five of the fifty Chinese aircraft survived the brief but furious ACM after being deserted by their supposed Vietnamese allies.

The aircraft straggled into a loose formation and watched in stunned silence as the Americans broke off the attack. Had the Chinese had the Americans’ tactical advantages, they would have pursued the retreating enemy. Burning airframes out of the sky was a good method of ensuring there would be no counterattack.

Ten miles from the coast, the Chinese flight leader — the senior pilot left alive — began to understand why the Americans had not come after them.