Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“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.”