Tiger's Claw

OVER THE PHILIPPINE SEA, SEVEN HUNDRED MILES WEST OF GUAM

THAT NIGHT

“Siren One-Eight flight, Spyglass, radar contact aircraft, bearing two-eight-five, range two-eighty, altitude thirty-one thousand, heading eastbound at four hundred knots,” the radar controller aboard an E-3C Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) radar aircraft radioed. The E-3C Sentry had a thirty-foot rotating radome mounted atop its fuselage that provided three-dimensional air and surface search, IFF identification interrogation, and over-the-horizon communications relay, and it could share its radar imagery with other aircraft, ships, and battle management areas through JTIDS, or the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System. “Looks like a formation of two aircraft. Squawking a civilian mode three code, negative mode Charlie.”

“Roger, copy,” Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy “Juju” Maili, the leader of the flight of two F-22A Raptor fighters on patrol west of Guam, replied. Maili was also the commander of the 199th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron of the Hawaii Air National Guard based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Honolulu, Hawaii, in charge of the four Raptors deployed to Guam. The two Raptors were flying loose formation with a KC-135 Stratotanker, making sure the fighters had plenty of fuel during their long-range patrol. “Brewski, why don’t you get topped off, then I’ll top, and we’ll go check it out.”

“Two,” replied Major Robert “Brewski” Carling, Maili’s wingman. “Break. Esso Three-Six, Siren One-Nine, clear me to precontact position, please.”

“Roger, One-Nine, you are cleared to precontact position,” replied the pilot of the KC-135. With Maili still on the tanker’s right wingtip, Carling smoothly slipped down off the tanker’s left wing and slid expertly into precontact position beneath the refueling boom. After making contact and topping off his fuel tanks, he went back up to the tanker’s left wingtip, and Maili was cleared in. A few minutes they were all topped off, and they left the tanker and headed west.

“Your bogeys are at twelve o’clock, two hundred miles, still at thirty-one thousand, still at four hundred indicated airspeed,” the AWACS radar controller reported. “Still squawking just mode three.”

“Any report from Guam Oceanic?” Maili asked. While out of direct radar contact, civil aircraft used satellite position reporting to Guam Oceanic Control to keep track of their flights and deconflict with other aircraft.

“Several airliners are transiting the area,” the controller reported, “but they’re all in the upper thirties or forties. These guys are fairly low. Their squawk code doesn’t match any assigned codes.”

“Roger,” Maili responded. Not unheard of, but not common either.

It took another thirteen minutes for the Raptors to close the distance, and Maili set up for a visual identification, putting Carling high and to his right while he turned left to close in on the formation. They used night-vision goggles to fly formation and for the visual identification. The NVGs had an effective range of about five miles for detection and two miles for identification, so he had to be patient. He spotted the formation right at five miles. “Tied on visual,” Maili reported. “You got me, Brewski?”

“Two,” his wingman responded. “Tied on visual with the bogeys too. Weird-looking aircraft so far.”

“Moving in,” Maili said, and he maneuvered in and above the formation. He wished the Raptor had a nice powerful forward-looking infrared and a searchlight for these identifications, but the NVGs did the job. “Okay, guys, who do we have here tonight?” He slid in closer and was soon able to get more detail . . .

. . . and suddenly he realized he was not looking at two planes in formation, but several! “Spyglass, Spyglass, One-Eight, this is not two aircraft, it’s . . . shit, it’s two formations of six aircraft, repeat, two formations of six in ‘V’ formations, twelve in all! They are large swept-wing jets and . . .” And the closer he got, the worse it got: “Spyglass, One-Eight, the two jets at the ends of each ‘V’ look like tankers, and they . . . they are tanking fighters! I see two . . . no, I see four fighters with each tanker! I count at least sixteen fighters up here, Control!”

“Do you have an ID on the large jets, One-Eight?”

“I don’t recognize them yet,” Maili said. “They look like old Stratojets, like big fighters, but I can’t . . . wait, I recognize them now—they’re H-6s! Control, I think they’re Chinese H-6 bombers! And the fighters they’re dragging look like J-20s!”

“Are you positive, One-Eight? Can you get a positive ID?”

“Stand by.” Maili swerved left and descended until he was below the southernmost formation. “Okay, it looks like they have two engines, one in each wing root, elevator midway up the vertical stabilizer, and . . . holy shit, Spyglass, they are carrying large missiles under the wing, repeat, three large missiles under each, they are all carrying missiles except the tankers! These guys are loaded up to their eyeballs! I cannot identify the missiles, but they are big and mean-looking! Request instructions.”

“Juju, this is Brewski,” Carling radioed. “Several of the fighters that were on the tanker are breaking off and climbing, heading northeast. I’m going to lose them in a second.”

“You still got me visual, Brewski?”

“Affirmative.”

“I’m coming up.” Maili turned away from the formation heading northeast and started a climb. “Join on me.”

“Two,” Carling acknowledged.

“Siren One-Eight flight, Control, we have contact with the aircraft that broke away,” the radar controller reported. “Four bandits, eleven o’clock, eight miles high, accelerating past six hundred knots.” A few moments later Maili’s radar warning receiver lit up. “Siren flight, Siren flight, we have music,” the controller said, using the brevity word that he was picking up enemy radar. A few moments after that: “Siren flight, eyeball, repeat eyeball!” “Eyeball” was the brevity word meaning that the controller determined that the AWACS was the enemy fighters’ target!

“Light ’em up, Brewski,” Maili said, activating his AN/APG-77 attack radar and electronic countermeasures system.

“Two.” Because they had the AWACS radar plane giving them vectors, that was the first time in the entire engagement that they had turned on their own radars . . .

. . . which meant that now for the first time the Chinese J-20 fighters realized that the Raptors were there. “Siren flight, be advised, several high-speed aircraft breaking off from the formations and turning northeast! Four . . . now six bandits, repeat six bandits, at your six o’clock, fifteen miles, accelerating!”