Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (70 page)

Chinese destroyer JINAN, in
the Celebes Sea, near Davao Gulf

           
“Sir, destroyer
Kaifeng
reports incoming Tomahawk cruise missiles
from the southeast and has issued an air-defense warning for all vessels. He
also reports a suspected B-52 bomber in a rapid descent heading northwest, and
heavy radar jamming on all frequencies. There was also a report about a fighter
attack, number and type unknown.” Captain Jhijun Lin of the People’s Liberation
Army Navy destroyer
Jinan
nodded resolutely. “Sound general quarters,
alert the task force, begin intermittent radar search pattern. We can expect
our own air threats any—”

           
“Sir! Frigate
Yingtan
reports radar contact, aircraft, bearing two-zero-five,
range forty-seven nautical miles, altitude . . . altitude three hundred meters,
sir, speed four hundred seventy knots. No IFF codes observed. They report
possible multiple inbounds on this bearing.”

           
“Understood,” Captain Jhijun
acknowledged. As the combat-readiness alarm sounded throughout the ship, the
manual track operator on the bridge of the EF4-class destroyer
Jinan
drew in the position of the radar contact
on a large grease board. “I want a positive identification immediately.”

           
It was finally beginning, Captain
Jhijun told himself. Although the intruder aircraft were detected very
late—sea- skimming targets should be detectable at twenty miles by the frigate
Yingtan's
Sea Eagle radar, but targets
at three hundred meters should be seen easily at fifty miles—he wished it were
starting a bit more dramatically.

           
After learning what the American Air
Battle Force had in their arsenal on the island of Guam, he would have expected
an attack by B-l or FB-111 bombers, flying supersonic at sea-skimming
altitudes. From these radar contact’s flight profiles, these appeared to be
nothing more than B-52 bombers lumbering in. And they were coming in from the
south, which was totally expected as well—the two layers of destroyers,
frigates, and patrol boats in the
Philippine Sea
east of
Mindanao
were designed to herd the American bombers
in the only “safe” flight path they could take—fly in from the south right into
the mouth of
Davao
Gulf
.

           
“Sir, missile warning.
Ying tan's
escorts report missiles
inbound, no count, all sea-skimmers. Patrol boats maneuvering to intercept.
Good radar track on all inbounds, intercept confidence is high. Identity now
confirmed by flight profile as B-52 bombers.”

           
So it was confirmed—not B-ls, only
B-52 bombers. An easy kill.

           
The B-52s were flying right into a
trap. Four frigates, one destroyer, and sixteen antiaircraft escort patrol
boats were waiting for anyone stupid enough to allow themselves to be steered
around by surface threats. Two of the frigates,
Ying- tan
stationed on the southern perimeter and
Xiamen
on the northern side, were armed
with short-range Hong Qian-61 surface-to-air missiles—deadly within their
limited range— but his destroyer
Jinan,
in the center of the two-hundred- kilometer-long gauntlet, had the HQ-91 surface-to-air
missile system, a licensed copy of the French Masurca medium-range SAM system.
The HQ-91 was deadly out to forty-five kilometers even to low-flying supersonic
aircraft— this B-52 would be an easy kill.
Jinan
had already seen action—it was that ship
that had successfully guided the fighters in on the arrogant American Navy
fighters over the
Celebes
Sea
not too long
ago. The little patrol boats were deadly as well—their guns could knock down
any antiship missile in the American inventory and throw up a cloud of lead in
front of any aircraft stupid enough to stray within a few kilometers of them.

           
But even the B-52s could carry a big
punch. “Radio to all attack-group ships and to Task Force Master, we are under
attack, request air support against incoming B-52 bombers,” Jhijun said.

           
Obviously Harpoon antiship missiles,
he thought. They were lucky—they did not start their attack until they had a
radar fix on
Yingtan.
That meant the
Americans had no other radar aircraft in the area spotting targets for the
B-52s. Jhijun checked the plot board. The B-52s will be coming within range of
Jinan
’s
radars in a few minutes—if they survived
that long—and the longer-range HQ-91 missiles would not miss. But Jhijun fully
expected the B-52s to turn tail and run after all their Harpoon missiles were
expended.

           
“Patrol boat 682 engaging antiship
missiles... patrol boat 688 engaging missiles . . .
Yingtan
now reporting six incoming aircraft, all from the south,
range to closest aircraft twenty nautical miles. Same flight profile, reported
as B-52 bombers on low-level antiship attack.” The reports began coming in as
one by one the Harpoon missiles were destroyed. “First B-52 turning west,
appears to be disengaging.”

           
“Lost contact with patrol boat 642,
sir,” the combat information center officer on
Jinan
reported. “Patrol boat 688 reports two
vessels afire, suspect the other as patrol boat 651. Frigate
Yingtan
reports minor damage from
antiship missile, but is still under way and combat capable.” With six B-52s on
the loose, each with the capacity to carry twelve Harpoon missiles, they had to
expect some attrition. “Second B-52 disengaging ...”

           
So the B-52s were going to be
content with launching a few Harpoon missiles and fleeing. The fighters would
be able to mop them up then, Jhijun thought—they still had to contend with the
Harpoon missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles, though. . . .

           
This was incredible, the Chinese
pilot of the JS-7 fighter thought—one moment he was leading an eight-ship
attack group on a routine night patrol, the next moment he was alone and under
attack by an unseen, unidentified foe.

           
“Fayling, Fayling,” the pilot
radioed to the destroyer
Kaifeng
,
which was controlling the intercept in this
sector, “where is the target? I need a vector.”

           
“Liang flight, target is in a rapid
descent at your
eight o’clock
position, thirty kilometers, altitude four thousand meters,” the radar
controller reported—apparently he was too excited to remember that the other
J-7 fighter had been destroyed. “Turn left heading two-niner-five and descend
to three thousand meters to intercept.”

           
Four
thousand
meters? Less than sixty seconds ago he was at ten thousand meters!
The JS-7 pilot threw his fighter into a steep left turn and pushed the nose
down, using his airbrakes judiciously to avoid ripping his PL-7 and PL-2
missiles from their pylons.

           
“Liang, your target is at your
eleven to twelve
o’clock
,
twenty-seven kilometers.”

           
He was getting heavy jamming, but
his French-made radar was sophisticated enough to frequency-hop and avoid most
of it. “Intermittent contact,” the JS-7 pilot reported. The lock-on was good
enough for a radar range and firing solution, so he quickly selected a PL-7
radar-guided missile. “Liang shooting radar one . . .” He waited a few seconds,
then fired his second one. “Shooting radar two . . .”

           
Atkins was so sure the fighter back
there was going to take a shot that he found himself staring at the
threat-indicator light. As soon as it illuminated, he shouted, “Missile launch!
Level off!” He found himself crushed into his seat by G-forces as Carter pulled
the B-52 out of its high-banked dive, the fuselage and wings creaking so loudly
from the stress that it seemed they would shatter like a crystal champagne
glass. “Break left!” Atkins shouted on interphone as he ejected chaff out the
right ejector racks. Carter heeled the EB-52 Megafortress hard left, so hard
that Atkins’ helmet banged against his left instrument panel—but he kept his
finger on the chaff button long enough to create a good-sized cloud. Carter
shoved the Megafortress’s nose down below the horizon to regain his airspeed,
and the negative-Gs he

           
created caused dirt, loose
checklists and papers, and all sorts of unrecognizable garbage to float around
the cabin as if they were suddenly weightless in orbit. Atkins felt his stomach
go up with the floating junk, and he ripped off his oxygen mask to keep from
filling it up with vomit.

           
“You OK, E-dub?” Karbayjal said.
Atkins turned and saw his gunner with a worried expression on his face and one
hand on his shoulder. The plane was in a gut-wrenching turn, they were under
attack by a Chinese fighter—but Karbayjal was worried about
him.

           
“Sure . . . sure ...” Atkins moaned.

           
“Good,” Karbayjal said. He settled
himself back into his seat as calmly and as easily as could be, as if being
tossed around and squished by four times Earth’s gravity were a normal
occurrence for him. “You’re doing good, E-dub,” Karbayjal added. “Keep it up
and let’s get that sucker. Set up your jammers and take care of the uplink.”

           
Atkins struggled to refocus his eyes
on his threat display. His automatic jamming system picked out the best
frequency range and applied it to the correct antennae for the threat—in this
case, an X3-band uplink signal driven to the tail antennae—and it would pump
out chaff as well, but it would not tell the pilot when or in what direction to
turn to avoid the missile. Tracked on the tail radar, the Chinese missile
appeared to be wavering from the chaff to the EB-52, not entirely fooled. This
close-in, the missile might lock onto the Megafortress if they made another
turn. “Pilot, roll out!” Atkins called out. “Guns, stand by with Stingers!”
Karbayjal smiled at Atkins—he was finally taking charge of this intercept.
“Roger, E-dub.” Karbayjal already had a good lock on the incoming Chinese
missiles and was waiting for them to close in. It was a risky move—hoping that
the Megafortress’s low radar cross-section would defeat the missiles more than
maneuvering would. They needed to build up a new speed reserve as well, since
even the Megafortress bled off a lot of airspeed in tight turns.

           
But the jammers weren’t completely
shutting down the Chinese fighter’s uplink—the missiles were still tracking.
“Missiles still coming!” Atkins shouted on the interphone.

           
“I’m ready with Stingers,” Karbayjal
told him, “but you gotta do it. My Stingers are strictly last resort . . .”

           
Atkins took another calculated
risk—as he began pumping out chaff once more from the left ejectors, he
overrode the automatic jammers and reduced the transmitter power in half,
letting a strong fighter fire control lock on the bleed- through, then shouted,
“Pilot, break right!”

           
The missiles continued to bore in. .
. .

           
Now there were
three
radar targets out there, the Chinese JS-7 pilot cursed. The
first was obviously a chaff cloud—it had begun to dissipate very quickly, and
his PL-7 missiles weren’t fooled. His radar seemed to get a firm lock-on just
then on the real target, but it turned out it was a firm lock on another chaff
cloud. The target was scooting right at nearly a thousand kilometers an hour,
while the big, bright, original target was dead ahead—at zero kilometers per
hour. Obviously a chaff cloud—and his missiles were both going for it. A clean
miss.

           
“Fayling, Liang, where is Sichuan-Ten
flight? I have no radar missiles left.”

           
“
Liang
,
Sichuan
-Ten flight has been separated into two flights of two, high patrol
diverting north to intercept air targets under control by destroyer
Zunyi.
Your helpers will be designated
Sichuan-31 flight of two, now at ten thousand meters, range two-one-five
bullseye.”

           
“What about the rest of my Liang-Two
flight?”

           
“Liang-Two homebound are still at
twelve thousand meters, northwest-bound.”