Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“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.”