Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (24 page)

           
“I get it,” Ormack said. “You also
don’t want to be transmitting that long either, right? The fighters can pick up
your radar emissions ...”

           
“I was transmitting for about three
seconds,” McLanahan explained. “I was in ‘Radiate’ on the radar long enough to
get this image, then shut down. But the bombing computer digitizes the radar
image and stores it in screen memory until I release it. I can complete the
rest of the bomb run with a radar image that’s over two minutes old, and aim on
it right up to release. When we get closer to the target I’ll start fine-aiming
on the release offsets, which are much more precise, but right now I’m trying
to find those fighters.”

           
“How does that compare with the
satellite data you received?”

           
“There is no comparison,” McLanahan
said with true enthusiasm in his voice. “The NIRTSat stuff is incredible— and I
thought, sitting here in the most incredible machine I’ve ever seen, that I’d
seen it all. I can’t wait to see the data from the
Philippines
that we’re supposed to be collecting as
well.”

           
He punched instructions into a
keyboard, and the graphic display of the terrain and symbols on the SMFD
changed— it was as if he had switched from a fuzzy tum-of-the-century snapshot
to a high-resolution color laser photo. The image was slightly different from
the main SMFD display, but it still showed the ribbon “highway” of the
pre-planned route, the timing and mileage icons, and target markers throughout
the area. “The strike computer has already redrawn the route to real-time
data—our route of flight goes farther west, and the launch point for the SLAM
missile is earlier than before.”

           
McLanahan zoomed in on the target
area and switched from a bird’s-eye view to a God’s-eye view, which showed the
target area from directly above but enhanced to show objects in three
dimensions. “There’s a whole row of simulated mobile-missile launchers out here
. . . ?” McLanahan touched the screen and zoomed in closer to rows of cylinders
on flatbed trailers. “They all look the same, but I think we can break out the
real ones on the next NIRTSat pass. We should be receiving the new data in a
few minutes.

           
“Watch this, John—with the NIRTSat
data, I’ve already seen what the bomb run and missile launch will look like.”
McLanahan changed the screen again to show a photograph-quality view of the
same cylinders. “Here’s what the computer thinks the SLAM missile will see a
few seconds before impact—the computer doesn’t know which one is the real one,
so it’s aiming for the middle one in the group.” He changed screens again, this
time to a more conventional- looking green and white high-res radar image.
“Here’s the computer’s predictions for the target-area radar-release offsets,
based on the NIRTSat data. Here’s the mountain peak and grain-storage bins I
was just using ... here are the two release offsets. I can start aiming on
these offsets and not touch anything until release.”

           
“Amazing,” Ormack said. “Friggin’
amazing. The NIRTSat system does away with shadow graphs, year-old intelligence
data, hand-drawn predictions, even charts—you have everything you need to do a
bomb run right here . . .”

           
“And I received it only thirty
minutes ago,” McLanahan added. “You can launch NIRTSat-equipped bombers on a
mission with no pre-planned targets whatsoever. You no longer need to build a
sortie package, brief crews, schedule simulator missions, or get intelligence
briefings. You just load up a bomber with gas and bombs and send it off. One
NIRTSat pass later, the crew gets all its charts, all its intelligence, all its
weapon-release aimpoints, all its terrain data, and all its threat data in one
instant—and the computer will plot out a strike route based on the new data,
build a flight plan, then fly the flight plan with the autopilot plugged into
the strike computers. The crew can replay the satellite data from the point of
view of the flight plan and can even dry- run the bomb run hours before the
real bomb run begins.”

           
McLanahan then switched the SMFD
screen back to the original tactical display, but this time with NIRTSat data
inserted into it. “Unfortunately, you can’t search for fighters with the
NIRTSat data,” he said, “and it takes a few seconds of radar time to update the
screen . . .”

           
Suddenly several symbols popped onto
the right side of the big screen, resembling bat’s wings, far to the west of
the B-2’s position. Each bat-wing symbol had a small column of numerals near it,
along with a two-colored wedge-shaped symbol on the front. The wider edge of
the outer yellow- colored portion of the wedge seemed to be aimed right for the
symbol of the B-2 in the center of the SMFD, while the red inner portion of the
wedge seemed to be undulating in and out as if trying to decide whether to
touch the B-2 icon.

           
“And there they are,” McLanahan
announced. “Fighters at
two o’clock
. Two F-23s. Doppler frequency shift
processing estimates they’re twenty miles out and above us. Signal strength is
increasing—their search radar might pick us up any second. I don’t think they
got a radar lock on us yet, Henry ... their flight path is taking them behind
us, but that could be a feint.”

           
Cobb seemed not to have heard
McLanahan—he remained as motionless as ever, as if frozen in place with his
hands on the throttles and control stick and his eyes riveted forward—but he
asked, “Got jammers set up?”

           
“Not yet,” McLanahan said,
double-checking the SMFD display of the fighter’s radar signal. The colored
portions of the fighter’s radar wedges, which represented the sweep area,
detection range, and estimated kill range of the fighters, was still not
solidly covering the B-2’s icon, which meant that the stealth characteristics
of the B-2 were allowing it to continue toward the target without using active
transmitting jammers. He selected the ECM display and put it on the right side
of the SMFD, ready to activate the electronic jammers at the proper time. “PRF
is still in search range, and power level is too weak. If we buzz them too
early, they can get a bearing on us.”

           
“If you buzz them too late, they’ll
get a visual on us.”

           
“Maybe, maybe not,” McLanahan said.
“In any case, they’re too late.” He brought the communications screen forward
and activated a pre-programmed SATCOM message, then transmitted it. “Sending
range-clearance request in now,” he said. Sent by SATCOM and coded like normal
SAC message traffic, the message or its response would not alert the fighters
searching for them.

           
The reply came thirty seconds later:
“Range clearance received, all targets clear,” McLanahan reported. “Less than
fifteen minutes to first launch point.”

           
He enlarged the weapons screen and
brought it higher up on the large SMFD screen so Cobb could check it as well.
The B-2 carried one AGM-84E SLAM conventional standoff missile in the left bomb
bay and a three-thousand-pound concrete shape, which simulated a second SLAM
missile but was not intended to be released. With its turbojet engine, the
AGM-84E SLAM, the acronym for the Standoff Land Attack Missile, could carry a
one-thousand-pound warhead over sixty miles. It had an imaging infrared camera
in the nose that transmitted pictures back to its carrier aircraft, and it
could be flown and locked on target with pinpoint precision. It was designed to
give SAC’s bombers a precision, high-powered, long-range conventional bombing
capability without exposing the bomber to stiff target-area defenses. The right
bomb bay carried two AGM-130 Striker rocket-powered glide bombs, which had a
range of only fifteen miles but carried a two-thousand-pound bomb with the same
precision as the SLAM. Striker worked in conjunction with SLAM to destroy area
defenses and strike hardened targets with one bomber—and with the B-2 stealth
bomber, which could penetrate closer to heavily defended targets than any other
bomber in the world, it was a lethal combination.

           
McLanahan glanced at the weapons
arranged along the SMFD, then spoke, “Unsafe ... ready,” to ready all weapons.
Each weapon icon changed from red to green, indicating all were ready for
release. “Weapon status verified, full connectivity.”

           
Cobb turned to look, then nodded his
agreement. “Checks.”

           
McLanahan relocked all weapons, then
unlocked the SLAM rocket bomb only. “Left bay SLAM selected,” he told Cobb.

           
Another quick glance from Cobb, then
he resumed his seemingly petrified position. “Checks. Left bay weapon unlocked.
All others locked.” McLanahan thought Cobb looked a little like the Lincoln
Memorial, sitting erect and unmoving in his seat, hands on either side of him,
staring straight ahead.

           
McLanahan selected a special symbol
in the upper-right comer of the SMFD with his head-pointing system. He spoke
“Active” and it began to blink, indicating that it was active and preparing to
send data. “I’m calling up satellitetargeting data from the latest NIRTSat
surveillance scan,” he told Ormack. “In a few minutes I should have an updated
radar image of the target area, and with the composite infrared and visual
data, I should be able to program the SLAM missile for a direct hit. We got
this bomb run wired.”

Aboard the F-23 Wildcat
fighters

           
The F-23 pilots, Lieutenant Colonel
Mirisch and Captain Ed Milo, felt as if they were chasing a ghost ship—there
was an attacker out there, but he barely registered on any of their sensors. If
they didn’t find him within the next five minutes or less, they would lose max
points for any intercepts done outside the MOA.

           
Well, Mirisch thought, this mystery
plane couldn’t escape the Mark One attack sensor system—their eyeballs.
Jarrel’s

           
Air Force
Battle
had B-l and B-2 bombers in it now, so just
maybe this attacker was one of those stealthy beasts. Mirisch noted the
direction of the shadows on the ground and began to search not for the
airplanes themselves, but for big, dark shadows—a bomber’s shadow was always
many times larger than the plane itself, and there was no camouflaging a shadow
. . .

           
Got it!

           
“Tally ho!” Mirisch shouted. He was
so excited that he forgot his radio discipline: “Jesus Christ, I got a B-2
bomber,
one o’clock
low! It’s a fucking B-2 bomber!” That’s why their attack radars wouldn’t lock
on or the infrared scanners wouldn’t work—the B-2 was supposed to have the
radar cross-section of a bird, and birds don’t paint too well on radar. Mirisch
was expecting a black aircraft, but this batwinged monstrosity was painted tan
and green camouflage, blending in perfectly with the surrounding terrain. It
was flying very low, but the late afternoon’s shadows were long and it was a
dead giveaway. At night, Mirisch thought, it would be next to impossible to
find this bastard. “Raider flight, this is Raider Two-Zero flight, we got a
Bravo Two bomber, repeat, Bravo Two, at low altitude. Closing to . . .”

           
Suddenly there was the worst
squealing and chirping on the UHF radio frequency that Mirisch had ever heard.
It completely blotted out not only the UHF channel, but the scrambled FM HAVE
QUICK channel as well. Except for the Godawful screeching, the jamming was no
big deal— they had a visual on the bomber, and no B-2 was going to outrun,
outmaneuver, or outgun an F-23. This guy is toast. The newcomer, whoever he
was, was too far out to matter now. He would deal with the B-2, then go back
and take care of the newcomer with the big jammer.

           
Mirisch had a solid visual on the
B-2, so he took the lead back from
Milo
and
began his run. The B-2 had begun a series of S-turas, flying lower and lower
until his shadow really
did
seem to
disappear, trying to break Mirisch’s visual contact. In fact it did take a lot
of concentration to stay focused on the bomber as it slid around low hills and
gullys, but the closer the F-23 got, the easier it was to stay on him. Now,
with the B-2 noticeably closer, the attack radar finally locked on at four
miles. The heavy jamming from the bomber occasionally managed to break the
range gate lock and spoil his firing solution, but the F-23’s attack radar was
frequency-agile enough to escape the jamming long enough for the lead-computing
sight to operate. No sweat. . .

Aboard Whisper One-Seven

           
The throttles were at full military
thrust, and Cobb had the three-hundred-thousand-pound bomber right at three
hundred feet above the ground, and occasionally he cheated and nudged it even
lower. He knew the wild S-tums ate up speed and allowed the fighters to move
closer, but one advantage of the water-based custom camouflage job on the B-2
that had been applied specifically for this mission was that it degraded the
one attack option that no B-2 bomber could defend against—a visual gun attack.