Dale Brown - Shadows of steel

“Good idea to get away from the coast these days.”

About 180 miles north of Chah Bahar, they picked up the first threat indications from radar sites out in the Gulf of Oman. They saw a bat-wing symbol with a small circle on the apex—the symbol for an airborne early-warning radar. “There’s the Iranian A-10 radar plane,” McLanahan said. “About two hundred fifty miles away—seventy miles offshore. The radar guys say that if they’re going to pick us up, we’ll be within one hundred twenty miles of the second site. That means we might be visible to them for seventy to one hundred miles—ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

Just then, another bat-wing symbol appeared on the scope—not an A-10 radar plane, but an Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter. “F-14 off the nose, about one hundred miles,” McLanahan said. “Not locked on yet, but he’s headed right for us …”

“It’s that loose screw or rivet or joint on the left wing,” Jamieson said. “It’s screwing up our stealthy stuff. And the F-14’s designed to look for low-flying targets as small as a cruise missile.”

“So let’s start giving them something to shoot at,” McLanahan said. “It’s a little earlier than we wanted, but we’re definitely an item of interest. I’m setting five hundred feet—stand by for missile launch.” McLanahan switched the terrain-avoidance system to 500 feet, then commanded the first launch of an AGM-86C cruise missile. The subsonic AGM-86C cruise missile had a turbojet engine that flew the missile at six miles per minute for 500 miles; this one had no warhead, only radio transmitters that gave it the radar cross-section and electronic profile of a large bomber. The cruise missile made an immediate right turn and headed west toward Bandar Abbas—and the F-14 Tomcat turned west to pursue. “He took the bait,” McLanahan said. “Let’s make a jog east, put Iranshahr off our right wing.” McLanahan reselected COLA on the terrain-avoidance computer, and they recrossed the Chah Bahar-Mashhad Highway again, heading east along the ridgelines.

“One hundred twenty miles to go,” McLanahan said. “Threat scope’s clear … got an SA-10 site at Chah Bahar searching, but so far we’re …” And just then, the F-14 Tomcat appeared on the threat scope again.

“Shit, the F-14’s back—he must’ve downed the cruise missile and is searching for wingmen.”

“Let’s give him one—this time, bugging out,” McLanahan said. He commanded 500 feet on the terrain-avoidance system again and launched the second AGM-86C, this one programmed to head north, toward Beghin Airport. “Missile away, resetting COLA …”

Just then, they heard the computer-synthesized voice in their headphones shouting. “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH, WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!” The SA-10 Grumble surface-to-air missile site had opened fire on them—and with their bomb doors open, the B-2A bomber was a very inviting target, even at very long range. “MAWS activated!” McLanahan shouted. “Track-breakers active!” But it was the wrong decision—McLanahan recognized it seconds later.

“No, the SA-10 launched against the cruise missile!” But it was too late—when he activated the missile defense system and jammers, it briefly deactivated the BEADS cloaking device, and the F-14 Tomcat, which had not yet detected the decoy cruise missile, locked on to the B-2A.

“MAWS down, track breakers in standby,” McLanahan reported—but they could see the F-14 barreling down on them now, coming “down the ramp” from its high-altitude combat air patrol straight at the B-2A bomber. “He’s still headed for us. Stand by to …”

Suddenly they received another “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!” as the F-14 fired.

McLanahan reactivated the MAWS missile defense system, and the system immediately dumped chaff from the left ejectors as Jamieson broke hard right. “Track breakers active, MAWS tracking!” They could actually see the first missile, probably a Phoenix or air-launched Hawk missile, depicted on the threat scope, getting closer every second … then another “WARNING, MISSILE LAUNCH!”

as a second missile was fired from long range.

The’HAVE GLANCE defense system started firing its high-power laser “blinding” system only three seconds before the first missile hit—but it was enough. The Phoenix missile’s active terminal radar overheated, causing a safety self-destruct. The Phoenix missile exploded less than 500 feet from the B-2A bomber. “Break left, second missile coming in!” McLanahan shouted, and Jamieson executed a hard left turn, pulling on the control stick to tighten the turn even more. The MAWS system pumped out chaff from the right ejectors in response.

The second Phoenix missile was momentarily decoyed by the chaff and by the loss of radar lock when the damaged left wing dipped from view, but reacquired a lock when the chaff cloud dissipated—however, it locked on to Kuhiri Mountain, south of Iran-shahr, not on the B-2A. Again, the second missile missed by less than 300 feet—one-tenth of a second of missile flight time!—and exploded on the barren desert highlands below.

But now the F-14 itself was moving in. “Fighter at one o’clock high, range less than three miles, closing at seven hundred knots … HAVE GLANCE active!”

The HAVE GLANCE system, the high-powered laser emitter married to a missile-tracking radar, had a deadly effect on delicate, sensitive combat sensors such as those found on heat-seeking missiles, passive and active radar-homing missiles—and the human eyeball. The F-14 pilot had just zoomed down the ramp through 15,000 feet and was arming up his 20-millimeter cannon when the HAVE GLANCE laser blinder locked on to his aircraft and fired.

The helium-argon laser, only the size of a large videotape camera but just as powerful as an industrial-strength diamond-cutting laser, didn’t cause any pain when the orange-blue beam hit the pilot’s eyes. He saw a quick flash of dirty blue light that temporarily obscured his vision, like a waft of smoke or sand. He blinked—the spot was still there. He blinked again—ah, the spot was beginning to clear, still fuzzy but getting better. The Iranian pilot could see the radar range click down on his heads-up display … 3,000 meters to fire … 2,000 meters to fire … ready to fire … now!

But he wasn’t locked on to the target anymore—like the Phoenix missile, his fire-control radar had first locked on to a cloud of chaff, then on a piece of terrain when the bomber jinked away.

The radar wasn’t counting down to his shoot point … it was counting down to when his fighter would hit the ground. A light from a passing car near the town of Chanf was the first indication to the pilot of how close he was to the ground—a split second before he impacted, traveling at almost the speed of sound straight down.

“Scope’s clear,” McLanahan said. “Chah Bahar’s off the nose, forty miles. We’re well inside radar range of that A-10 radar plane now.”

ABOARD THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI THAT SAME TIME “Combined radar reports a low-flying aircraft now two hundred fifty kilometers north of our position, heading south at very low altitude—less than two hundred meters, speed seven hundred kilometers per hour,” Brigadier General Muhammad Badi, Major Admiral Akbar Tufayli’s chief of staff aboard the carrier Khomeini, reported. “Chah Bahar air defense forces have engaged numerous unidentified air targets south of Iranshahr, destroying one believed to be a decoy.”

“Good,” Tufayli said confidently. “This new radar system seems to be working perfectly.”

“Shall we commit any of our fighters to the pursuit?”

“No, Badi, not yet,” the Pasdaran naval commander replied. “We shall wait until the aircraft is over water before committing our forces.” He paused to think for a moment. “The bomber is over eastern Iran now? That means it must have flown westward across Afghanistan … and across India and China, too, perhaps? This means that the Americans may have violated Chinese airspace to attack from the Asian side, rather than attempt another attack from over-water! I think our Chinese friends would be very interested to learn about this new development, wouldn’t you say, Badi? Get me the Chinese group commander at Chah Babar immediately.”