Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (50 page)

           
“I
understand, Jas. That’s fine. Hell, even twenty minutes of SBR data is
valuable. Listen, what’s your level of damage up there? Do you have any
defense?”

           
Saint-Michael
gave a sideways glance at Marty Schultz as he exited the command module hatch.
“We’re working on that, Admiral. We might even have a surprise for anybody who
happens to drop in on us. Anyhow, we’re hanging tight here. Out.”

 
 
         
RUZLAN
ATTACK FORMATION

 
          
The attack plan had been coordinated
down to the very second.

           
The six
Soviet Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers attacking from
Iran
each carried one AS-6 Kingfish antiship cruise missile semirecessed along its
centerline weapons hardpoint, plus two AS-12 Kegler antiradar missiles on the
intake-weapons stations. At three hundred miles distance from the northernmost
escorts of the American aircraft carrier
Nimitz
,
the six Backfire bombers would launch their missiles from eleven thousand
meters. Then as the six cruise missiles climbed and accelerated to their
cruising altitude the bombers would drop low for the long overwater supersonic
dash toward the fleet. Once within ninety kilometers of any American vessel,
the Backfire bombers would launch their antiradar missiles at any acquisition
of tracking radars they met up with.

           
At the same
time as the AS-6 missile launches, the first wave of Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighters
would launch from the
Arkhangel
toward the
Nimitz
. Along with the
fighters, two waves of five supersonic swing-wing Sukhoi-24 Fencer bombers
would launch from the escort attack-carriers
Kiev
and
Novorossiysk
and begin attacks on the M-
mitz’s
escorts from the south and west. Each bomber carried two AS-12 antiradar
missiles, four AS-16 advanced long-range armorpiercing missiles and
one thirty
-millimeter Gatling-type strafing
gun with armor-piercing shells.

           
The two-pronged
attack, involving twenty-four heavily armed supersonic aircraft, was timed to
near-perfection. The copilot aboard the lead Backfire bomber, First Lieutenant
Ivan Tretyak, was responsible for force-timing for the six Backfire bombers
from the
Caspian Sea
aviation base at
Baku
.

           
“Checkpoint
coming up, copilot,” the navigator-bombardier called up to Tretyak. “Ready,
ready... now.”

           
“Seven
seconds late,” Tretyak said, checking his flight plan and chronometer. “New
groundspeed, navigator?”

           
“Stand
by.... New groundspeed to next checkpoint—one-one- nine-five kilometers per
hour.”

           
“Copy,” the
pilot, Major Andrei Budanova, replied. Carefully watching his Doppler
groundspeed readout, he nudged the throttle of his twin Kuznetsov NK-144
turbofans up until the groundspeed read the proper value, then reset the
Backfire’s wings until the proper launch angle of attack was reestablished.
“Groundspeed set.” He switched his radio to the air-to-air command frequency.
“Ruzlan
flight, new throttle setting ninety-four
percent. Wing-sweep setting forty degrees.” His five wingmen acknowledged the
call.

           
Perfect,
the attack-formation commander told himself. Dead on time, six good bombers and
not one hint of detection or threats anywhere. Perfect....

 
          
USS NIMITZ

           
“Sir, SBR
is reporting six large high-speed aircraft approaching on an intercept heading
from the northwest. Armstrong Station’s SBR is calling them Backfire bombers.”

           
“Range?”

           
“Aircraft
are still over
Iran
,
sir,” the seaman aboard the
Nimitz
said.
“Six hundred sixty nautical miles and closing at Mach one. All still at high
altitude.”

           
“Sound
general quarters,” Edgewater ordered, then looked to Clancy, waiting for a
countermand or change. Instead he got: “Launch alert flight Romeo to intercept
and get Whiskey One on the catapults. Send the cruiser
Mississippi
northwest to follow the Tomcats to assist. Broadcast messages on all
frequencies warning all aircraft within four hundred miles to identify
themselves
or we will fire without further warning.”
“Aye, sir.”

           
Clancy
slapped his hands together as his aide handed him a life jacket and helmet.

           
“
Nimitz
, this is Armstrong. We’re showing
aircraft heading your way. Do you copy?”

           
“We got
’em, Jason,” Clancy radioed back. A happy warrior now. “You guys spotted ’em a
full three hundred miles before Aegis would have even known they were there.
You may have just saved this battle group.
Well
done”

           
Saint-Michael
took a deep breath. “Thanks, Admiral. We’ll be maintaining surveillance for another
one-five minutes. Let’s hope the Russians don’t get too feisty while we’re on
the back side of our orbit.”

           
“That’s up
to us. Thanks again on this end.
Nimitz
clear.”

           
“Luck,
Admiral. Armstrong out.”

 
          
RUZLAN
ATTACK FORMATION

 
          
“I am showing ninety seconds to
launch point,” Tretyak announced.

           
“Acknowledged, copilot,” the bombardier replied, inside the dark
bombardier cubicle a few meters behind Tretyak.
Khabarovsk
glanced across the narrow aisle to the defensive-systems operator, pulled a
flask from his boot and took a long pull.

           
But he
wasn’t quick enough about it: the electronic warfare officer, First Lieutenant
Artemskiy, spotted him.
Khabarovsk
thought he’d be in big trouble. To his surprise, Artemskiy nodded toward his
own electronics countermeasure cubicle behind the pilot and opened his two
gloved hands.
Khabarovsk
expertly
tossed the flask into them.

           
Artemskiy
unscrewed the flask and sniffed the contents. Not vodka? He swirled it around,
glanced at
Khabarovsk
. The
bombardier rolled his palm over his stomach.

           
“Coming up to missile-launch point.”

           
“Acknowledged.”
Khabarovsk
gave Artemskiy a thumbs-up and carefully rechecked his switch positions for
missile launch.
“Checklist complete.
Ready for launch
commit and ten-second alignment
countdown
.”

           
“Ruzlan
flight,
Ruzlan
flight,” Budanova, the pilot, called over the air-to-air
radio, “launch commit. Repeat, launch commit.” Bombardier
Khabarovsk
moved the LAUNCH COMMIT button to the COMMIT position.

           
Artemskiy
returned
Khabarovsk
’s salute,
then
nodded at the flask. One sip couldn’t hurt. They were
still miles away from the extreme range of the American’s radar. He tipped the
flask up to his lips—

           
A
threat-warning buzzer sounded on his panel. Startled, Aremskiy dumped a
mouthful of home-made distilled grain alcohol straight down his trachea and
into his lungs.

           
“Defense section.
Threat warning. Bearing and type
immediately.”

           
Artemskiy
upchucked onto his tiny workshelf beneath his electronics console, but it did
little good—he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. The flask clattered down his
flightsuit, drenching his pants leg and deck with alcohol.

           
“
Defense
.
Report.
Bearing and type to
threat---------- ” Still no reply.

           
“Ruzlan
flight,
evasive maneuver
Echo-five-echo.
Execute.”

           
“Negative,”
Khabarovsk
called out. “Still five
seconds to go on missile countdown....”

           
“Disregard missile countdown, bombardier.
Place your missile
in countdown hold and get ready to launch after we roll out. Defense, give me a
bearing on the threat.”

           
But it was
already too late. The lead pilot’s only evasive maneuver in a line-abreast
cruise-missile launch formation was a hard pushover to a three-“g” dive for the
safety of the sea, and because he would be on the same heading during the
maneuver the push had to occur immediately after threat detection. He did not
have time to ask for bearings or give orders. Just at the point he decided to
execute the evasive maneuver a U.S. Navy AIM-54 Phoenix missile struck the
Backfire bomber’s right-wing root and sent the one-hundred-fifty-ton bomber to
a fiery crash in the
Arabian Sea
.

           
Attacking
from one hundred miles away with long-range
Phoenix
missiles, six F-14E Tomcat Plus fighters from the USS
Nimitz
screamed toward the scattering Backfire bombers. The
Phoenix
missiles were relatively less reliable launched at their extreme range limit,
but even though only one
Phoenix
missile found its target the attack achieved its effect. The AS-6 cruise
missile required a steady launch platform within narrowly defined acceleration
limits ten seconds before launch, and all six of the Backfire bombers had
immediately exceeded those limits.

           
The
devastation continued after the Tomcats closed in. With no internal bomb bay
and the AS-12 antiradar missiles installed on the underside intake weapon
stations, the Backfire’s limiting speed was Mach 1.5, but the bombers were
already at Mach one before they began their evasive maneuvers. As soon as they
started their emergency descents for the safety of the radar clutter of the
sea, they reached and then exceeded the normal weapons limits. The fortunate
ones jettisoned the AS-12 and AS-6 missiles before reaching the emergency
carriage speed limit of Mach 1.8; the rest found their supersonic bombers shaking
themselves to pieces and their AS-12 missiles ripping free of their weakened
pylons.

           
Of the
original six-bomber attack force, three survived the initial F-14 Tomcat attack
that had seemed to come out of nowhere. Of these three, one was chased down and
destroyed by a medium-range Sidewinder heat-seeking missile. A second failed to
jettison its AS-12 missiles, one of which ripped free of its pylon and struck
the horizontal stabilizer, making the aircraft spin out of control.

           
The
remaining Backfire bomber ended its evasive maneuver immediately after
beginning it, realigned its AS-6 cruise missile and launched it seconds before
two Tomcats hit it with three air-to-air missiles. The AS-6 missile, riding a
long, bright yellow column of fire, sped skyward, leveled off at fifty thousand
feet and went southeast at Mach three. The American Tomcats had no hope of
chasing it down.

           
But the
AS-6 missile tracked directly over the guided missile cruiser USS
Mississippi,
which had been trailing the
Tomcats from the
Nimitz
and had been
tracking the AS-6 almost since launch. It brought both of its fore-and-aft Mark
26 dual-rail vertical launchers to bear and fired a salvo of four SM2-ER
Standard missiles at the speeding AS-6 cruise missile. The AS-6, in spite of
its advanced design, accuracy and awesome destructive power, was still not
capable of any evasive maneuvers; flying at high altitude and in a straight
line toward its target, it also made itself an inviting target. The
U.S.
defense missiles intercepted the Soviet cruise missile several seconds later.

 
          
USS NIMITZ

 
          
“Bridge, CIC. Aegis reporting
radar-contact aircraft bearing one-five- zero true, range three-one-five,
closing fast. Multiple inbounds.”

           
Well, the
fleet wouldn’t have
Silver
Tower
to help them out on this one, Admiral Clancy thought as he and Captain
Edgewater paced the bridge of the USS
Nimitz,
dividing their attention between flight-deck operations and the Aegis
battle-management radar-repeater scope.

           
Edgewater
studied the scope. “We’ve got Tango flight on patrol to the southeast, Admiral.
Four Tomcats.” He picked up the phone to CIC. “Combat, this is Edgewater. Got a
count on those inbounds?” “Negative, sir. So far only three targets, high
altitude, fast moving, within two hundred miles of our cruiser
South Carolina’s
position.” “Better get
another flight airborne to back up Tango against those inbounds,” Clancy told
Edgewater. “I don’t believe the
Arkhangel’
s
only sending up three planes. It’s more than likely three
formations
-two attack and one fighter escort_____ ”