Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (60 page)

 
          
Suddenly,
the line opened up again:
“Paisan,
you’re on the line right now with another fellow bomber puke. Joe Roma, say
hello to Colonel Tony Jamieson, pilot type and ops group commander at Whiteman.
Tiger Jamieson, meet Phone Colonel Joe Roma, navigator type, Stan-Eval chief at
Ellsworth.” The two aviators exchanged confused “hellos.”

 
          
“You
are not going to believe this, guys, but you both called me out of the clear
blue sky, with no invitation or prompting from me or anyone, within five
minutes of one another—and you both suggested the exact same damn thing,”
Samson said, with obvious pride in his voice. “We’re busy loading nukes on both
the Bones and Beaks, and two of the best heavy drivers in the business call to
tell me I’m making a big mistake. Maybe I am.

 
          
“You
asked about the attacks on
Iran
, Joe—Tony Jamieson was the AC on all of
them, including the five-thousand-mile trek across Chinese, Indian, and
Pakistani airspace.”

 
          
“You
flew those missions, Colonel?” Roma
asked incredulously. “I want to hear about all of the missions, sir. It’s
exactly the kind of thing we’ve been preaching for years—the power of the
long-range bombers, especially the B-2.”

 
          
“The
Bone would have no problem doing exactly what I did, Roma,” Jamieson said. “We
can cruise through Chinese airspace in anything we want—they don’t have the
gear to detect us, let alone shoot us down. We damn well proved we can hit any
target anywhere in the world, son— only problem is, the mission was classified,
and when some little snippet of information leaks out, the President gets
hammered for it. But yes, we sure as shit did it.”

 
          
“Who
was your mission commander, sir?” Roma asked. “I’d like to talk with him, too.”

 
          
“You
better ask the general about
him,”
Jamieson said, with a definite edge of sarcastic humor in his voice. “I don’t
think I’m at liberty to discuss him. He was a good stick, knew his shit cold,
but he scared the bejeezus out of me every time I stepped into the Beak with
him.”

           
“Jamieson’s MC was a guy named
McLanahan, Joe.”

           
“I knew a guy named McLanahan who
won all those Fairchild Trophies in Bomb Comp a few years ago,” Roma said.
“Kinda hard to forget that name. He won two Bomb Comps while flying B-52s, back
when B-ls were the hot new jets to beat.”

 
          
“He’s
the one,” Samson said. “He’s been working with me on another project, since the
White House started getting all the heat about the B-2 raids over
Iran
. He flies a modified B-52 bomber that is
unlike anything you have ever seen. When they grounded the B-2s, I talked the
White House into sending a few of these modified B-52s over the
Formosa Strait
to keep an eye on the Chinese. The plan
blew up in my face, although McLanahan’s BUFFs did okay.”

 
          
“Sounds
to me like the brass effectively grounded all the heavy bombers, sir,” Jamieson
observed. “Loading the fleet up with nukes means they won’t be flying if war
breaks out with the PRC.”

 
          
“Looks
that way, Tiger,” Samson said.

 
          
“So
now the brass doesn’t believe anything you say, and so if you went back to them
and tried to convince them to quit using nukes and plan some long-range strikes
with conventional munitions, they probably won’t listen to you,” Jamieson added
bluntly. “So where does that leave us?”

 
          
“I
don’t know if my opinion means squat in the Pentagon or the White House
anymore,” Samson said resolutely, “but I’m going to try to put a halt to this
nuclear nonsense and get back to the business we’ve been in for forty years
now—carrying big-time heavy iron to the enemy. I want you two to put together
some attack sorties for us so I can go back to the Pentagon and give them some
alternatives.”

 
          
“Now
you’re talking, General,” Jamieson said happily. “We can get on the network and
have some Bone and Beak sorties drawn up right away. ”

 
          
“Absolutely,”
Roma said excitedly “Til pull some preplanned packages off the shelf and update
them with the current intel—and I know, if the plans are approved, that we can
generate some non-nuclear planes a hell of a lot faster than the nuclear ones.”

 
          
“That’s
for damned sure,” Jamieson agreed.

 
          
“Then
get to it, boys,” Samson said. “Make us proud!”

OVER THE
FORMOSA
STRAIT
. NEAR JUIDONGSHAN.
FUJIAN
PROVINCE
,
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF
CHINA

SUNDAY, 22 JUNE 1997
.
0245 HOURS LOCAL (
SATURDAY,
21 JUNE, 1345
HOURS ET)

 
          
The
Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force radar controllers aboard the
Ilyushin-76 Candid, an ex-Russian airborne radar plane, spotted the first rebel
attack formation just minutes after the aircraft launched from bases at
Taichung
and
Tainan
on the
island
of
Formosa
. “Attention, attention,” the controller
called out excitedly, “enemy aircraft attack formation detected, one hundred
twenty miles east of Juidongshan.”

 
          
The
operations officer stepped back to the radar controller’s console and studied
the display. Unfortunately, it was not a sophisticated display like what the
American E-2 or E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System plane had—the targets
appeared as raw radar data blips with simple numeric electronic identification
tags attached, with no altitude readouts; speed, bearing, and distance were
computed by centering a cursor over the target using mechanical X- and Y-axis
cranks and reading the information off the meters. As the formation got closer
to the mainland, however, the blips started to break into pieces—now there were
at least four blips, which meant anywhere from four to sixteen attackers.

 
          
“Comm,
report enemy aircraft contact to Eastern Fleet headquarters,” the ops officer
ordered.

 
          
“Yes,
sir,” the communications officer responded. They had no satellite
communications link; all long-range communications had to be done by shortwave,
so it took a lot of time. Finally: “Eastern Fleet headquarters acknowledges
contact and replies, ‘continue patrol as ordered.’ End of message.”

 
          
“Very
well,” the operations officer said.

           
There was a slight pause, during
which the ops officer could see several heads turn in his direction in some
confusion. Finally, the senior controller asked, “Sir, would you like us to
vector in air defense units on the attackers? We have units of the 112th Air
Army, two flights of J-8 fighters, four planes per flight, within intercept
range.” There was a very long, uncomfortable pause. The senior controller
repeated, “Sir, the rebel attackers will be over our airspace in less than five
minutes. What are your orders?”

 
          
“Have
one flight of J-8s stay behind to guard this aircraft,” the ops officer finally
responded. “You may send any available J-6 fighter units to intercept.”

 
          
“But
the J-6s are not certified for night intercepts.”

 
          
“That
is why they haveyoz/ to guide them,” the ops officer responded. “The J-8s stay
with us. Send any J-6s you feel have the nerve to fight the Nationalists.”

 
          
“Yes,
sir,” the controller replied. He assigned the task of guarding the 11-76 to one
of his best intercept officers, then ordered another controller to call up two
flights of J-6 fighters from
Fuzhou
to intercept the attackers. “Sir, we count
at least four flights of attackers,” the senior controller reported. “If the
rebels follow their standard attack plan, that means at least sixteen hostiles.
Shall we call for more defenders?”

 
          
“Negative,”
the ops officer replied. “You will protect this radar plane with all air assets
available to you. Do not let any rebel fighters near this plane.”

 
          
“But,
sir, if this is a complete attack formation—uh, sir, sixteen bombers would
cripple Juidongshan.”

 
          
“You
have your orders, senior controller,” the operations officer said. “Not one
enemy fighter gets within fifty miles of this plane, or I will have your stars.
See to it.” The senior controller had no choice but to comply.

 
          
Without
a threat from Chinese air defense fighters, the Taiwanese attack went off
without a hitch. It was a full strike package, with all sixteen Republic of
China Air Force F-16s equipped with Falcon Eye imaging infrared targeting and
attack sensors and loaded with attack munitions. First to go in were four F-16s
carrying four CBU-87 cluster bombs each, targeting the Chinese CSS-N-2 Silkworm
coastal anti-ship missile installations and air defense missile and artillery
sites—these were easy prey for the cluster bombs. The Mk 7 cluster bomb
dispensers carried a variety of anti-personnel, anti-armor, and anti-vehicle
bomblets, scattering destruction over a very wide area of the naval base with
good precision and devastating results.

 
          
While
the first wave of F-16s pulled off to assume a combat air patrol over the
target area, using their wingtip-mounted Sidewinder missiles and internal
20-millimeter cannon, the second wave of eight F-16s moved in with four Mk 84
high-drag general-purpose bombs, targeting the submarine maintenance pens,
headquarters buildings, fuel storage, and communications facilities. Coming in
at low altitude—some pilots shoved their prized F-16 Fighting Falcons right
down to two hundred feet, almost grazing the tops of antennas and trees—the
attacks were very effective. Some pilots even spotted several ES3B-class
diesel-electric attack subs at the piers and secured beside sub tenders and
attacked them with great success, using their 20-millimeter cannons in strafing
mode. With freedom to roam the skies and the base’s air defenses all but
neutralized, any F-16 that missed a target could circle around and come in
again, so every assigned target was hit, along with a few important targets of
opportunity.

 
          
The
third wave of F-16 fighters never crossed the shoreline, but their attacks were
just as successful. These attackers carried four Mk
55
bottom mines per plane, scattering them in precise patterns near
the submarine pens and in nearby
Dongshan
Harbor
, covering most of the sea approaches to the
naval base. The Mk
55
mine moored
itself to the bottom of the harbor and waited. When it detected a large
magnetic presence, such as a ship or submarine, it would detach itself from the
bottom and start for the surface, then explode when it sensed itself near its
target.

 
          
As
the Nationalist fighters started their withdrawal, twelve J-6 fighters from
Fuzhou Army Air Base to the north moved into attack formation and tried to jump
them. The fight was over in a matter of seconds. Without even dropping their
external fuel tanks, the Taiwanese F-16 fighter-bombers were able to maneuver
clear of the Chinese fighters’ lethal cone of fire, and in an instant the
hunted would become the hunters. The
Chinese PL
-2 air-to-air missiles could only lock onto
a target from the rear, where it had a clear look at the “hot dot” of a
fighter’s jet exhaust, which meant every move a Chinese pilot was going to make
was already known by every Taiwanese pilot. It was a simple exercise to wait
for a Chinese pilot to commit to a rear attack, then jump him from above or
from the side, where the American-made Sidewinder missiles were still
effective. In less than two minutes, nine Chinese J-6 fighters had been shot
down; the other three merely launched missiles at the slightest detection
indication—they didn’t even know if it was friend or foe— then did a fast one-eighty
and bugged out.