Final Storm (14 page)

When they started flashing and blinking, he knew the missiles’ radars were hot, and—the whine of the threat indicator changed to a higher-pitched warble, assaulting their ears with its relentless cries.

“
Now!
Dive and pull right!” Elvis yelled over the threat indicator’s soprano whooping.

Crunch pushed the stick down and then yanked it over, feeling the g-forces push against him as the Phantom sliced around in a hard diving break.

The SAMs couldn’t make the turn, and streaked off into the distance, finally detonated by their crews when they realized they were too far off course to correct.

Normally Crunch would have continued the roll-out, angled the plane down, and fired off a Shrike anti-radar missile at the offending SAM crews, hoping the missile would home in on the anti-aircraft battery’s radar. But he needed every missile the F-4 was carrying for the mission ahead; now was not the time for taking on the SAM crews below.

Now was the time for extra speed.

Crunch kicked in the afterburners and immediately he and Elvis were slammed back in their seats as the Phantom’s twin engines shot the plane forward at nearly twice the speed of sound. They gained some altitude to provide more maneuvering room if they needed it.

Crunch checked his time and position again. The evasive action had cost several precious minutes. Now they would have to make up for time with speed and that meant using the fuel-sucking afterburners. The more fuel they used the less they’d have to get back.

But right now, Crunch knew their survival was secondary. Because if they didn’t get to the target area at the right moment, there might not be any point in trying to get back.

Their objective for Operation Punchout was the Soviet air base at Neurippin, East Germany, headquarters of the Soviet Central Air Army. More specifically, the force of Phantoms was aiming to knock out as many enemy SAM sites around the base as possible.

That’s why timing was so important. If they arrived too soon, the crews of the SAMs ringing the airfield might not have their search radars activated and thus the radar-busting missiles the F-4s were carrying would be useless. But, if they were too late, the sky would be full of Soviet interceptors waiting to pluck the aging Phantoms out of the skies like marauding hawks.

Several tense minutes passed until Crunch checked his position and made visual contact with the target.

“OK, boys,” he called out to the others in the strike. “There’s the bull’s-eye …”

As the flight of F-4s bore down on the Soviet base, Crunch could see that they were almost too late: several groups of Soviet fighter aircraft were already on the flight line, ready to begin taxiing down the runway.

He quickly assembled his Phantoms for the attack.

“Weasel Strike, Code Bravo!” Crunch said crisply into the microphone in his oxygen mask.

In one fluid motion, four Phantoms to his left peeled out of formation and dived toward the airfield, leveling out barely forty feet from the ground. Within seconds they were screaming along parallel to the main runway.

These F-4s were rigged as “Wild Weasel” SAM-suppressors, their specially designed electronic countermeasure jamming systems emitting powerful signals to confuse the Soviet radars.

As they roared overhead, cannisters on their wings spewed huge clouds of aluminum chaff that hung suspended over the airfield, further frustrating the Soviet crews as their radar screens first went white from the jamming, and then locked on to the huge concentrations of chaff overhead.

“Commence attack! Lock and fire!” Crunch shouted into the mike as he shoved his throttle further forward.

He and the other Phantoms were exactly ten seconds behind the Weasels. In their rear seats, each weapons officer armed the six large AGM-88 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles) hanging under each Phantom’s wings.

The pilots were just the drivers now—it was all up to the men sitting behind them. In the lead Phantom, Elvis fired his salvo of missiles toward the Soviet base. The Soviet SAM crews, in an effort to “burn through” the Weasel’s jamming, had cranked their radar outputs to maximum, and, of course, that was just what Elvis had wanted them to do.

Now the HARM’S own on-board sensors identified and locked onto the pulsing SAM radar signal. The sophisticated microwave circuit boards inside the missile’s guidance system processed the incoming signals in complex flight-control algorithms—semiconductor chips made thousands of decisions in a fraction of a second as the HARMs raced off the Phantom’s wing, following the radar pulses like a homing beacon.

The other Phantoms had unleashed their missiles at nearly the same time, each warhead’s relentless electronic brain keying in on the radar sites they had pinpointed.

Too late, the SAM crews saw the brilliant flashes under the attacking planes’ wings. Now the lightning-quick HARMs were burning toward them at more than 3,000 miles per hour. Some of the crews abandoned the launch vehicles, frantically diving for cover as the missiles bore down upon them.

Others tried to desperately launch their own missiles before the HARMs struck.

Both tactics proved to be futile …

The HARMs found their mark with deadly accuracy. The foremost SAM site was struck simultaneously by three of the big missiles, and it was vaporized instantly. The same fate fell upon the sites on either side of it.

Then, within seconds, all around the perimeter of the airfield, missiles were boring into the big SAM launchers, destroying crews and machinery in deafening, earth-shaking explosions.

One HARM, impacting on a SA-2 site close to the flight line, ignited spare missiles stacked next to a launcher. They erupted like huge sticks of dynamite, sending their deadly debris in a flaming circle that engulfed one of the Soviet fighters taxiing down the runway.

In the confusion of the lightning raid, the Soviets had only been able to launch a handful of SAMs, most of which were decoyed by the chaff clouds or evaded by the swooping Phantoms. Their vaunted air defense batteries were now scattered piles of smoking junk that marked the SAM sites that had formed the base’s defensive perimeter.

Crunch looked back over his shoulder at the pillars of smoke rising up from the Soviet base, then he checked the time again. The attack had lasted only fifty-seven seconds, and almost all the Soviet anti-aircraft missiles had been wiped out.

Crunch clicked on his radio switch to the predetermined channel and made his report.

“Ringside, this is Phantom leader. Right Cross delivered. Maximum effect. Over.”

The radio crackled with static as he listened for the reply from the mission coordinator in faraway Belgium.

Crunch knew that his part of the Operation Punchout, “Right Cross,” had gone well. But he also knew that it was only the first part of a major operation.

“Phantom Leader, this is Ringside,” his radio crackled back. “Roger your report on Right Cross. It’s your call on continuation; Left Jab still en route. Over …”

The coordinator’s voice was tense but formal as he relayed the information to the F-4 squadron leader.

They were giving Crunch the option of additional strafing attacks on the Soviet fighters still lining the runway. The burning wreckage of the airplane that had been touched off when the SAMs had exploded had pinned the remaining jets on the ground, but the flight crews were already trying to clear the burning wreck and at the same time turn some of the fighters around to take off in another direction.

Crunch weighed the options. None of the Phantoms had taken hits, but their fuel was near the minimum safe limit for the return flight. Still, if they could nail a few of the fighters, it might give the next phase of the operation a better chance.

He was on the verge of ordering the F-4s to form up for a strafing run with their cannons, when he heard Elvis and the radar threat indicator scream at the same time, both in high-pitched insistent tones.

“Atolls launched! Six o’clock! Climb and break left!” the weapons officer hollered over the now-wailing threat warning. Two Atoll AA-2 air-to-air missiles had been launched at very close range behind them, but from where?

The Soviets hadn’t been able to launch any fighters yet. There was no time for analysis now; first they’d have to shake the missiles.

Crunch yanked the stick back and hauled it over to bring the Phantom up in a sharp, climbing turn, once again pumping the chaff dispenser and launching a pair of small but intense flare decoys, whose brightly burning infrared signatures he hoped would lure the missiles off his tail.

Only one of the Atolls took the live bait, swerving away to meet the flare in a fiery explosion. The other detonated in one of Crunch’s chaff clouds, close enough to pepper the side of the Phantom with shrapnel.

“Damage report!” Crunch snapped into the intercom microphone, as he, too, scanned his instruments for signs of engine or control failure.

“All systems normal. Cannon armed. Read three bogies at our four, low altitude, stationary.” Elvis had identified the Soviet aircraft that fired the missiles—three of their HAVOC attack helicopters had managed to lift off and unload their air-to-airs at close range!

Two ugly, billowing clouds of black smoke marked spots in the sky that had just been occupied by F-4s, and the HAVOCs were maneuvering for a second volley.

Crunch made his decision. There was no point in waiting around for the whole Soviet fighter wing to get airborne, even though the Phantoms could have certainly made short work of the helicopters.

“Phantom flight, this is Phantom leader,” Crunch called to the others in the flight. “Head for the lockers. Repeat, head for the lockers. Rendezvous plus-sixteen at Point Blue …”

They’d already lost three of the F-4’s, and they’d completed their part of Operation Punchout. Crunch wanted no part of the angry Soviet pilots behind the throttles of the Su-27 Flankers that had just begun their takeoffs on the now-cleared runways below. That was a job for the second wave.

He punched the afterburner for a quick burst of speed out of the target area, and the F-4s of Right Cross disappeared over the western horizon.

S
OVIET WING COMMANDER PAVEL
Osipovich Gorshkov angrily gunned his throttles forward as the big Su-27 interceptor sped down the runway, past the wreckage of his unfortunate wingman’s aircraft that smoldered in a charred heap near the SAM site whose explosion had engulfed it.

Damn the Americans and their electronics!
he cursed.

The F-4’s missiles had annihilated nearly every defensive battery around the big air base. And not a single SAM had claimed a victim….

He wanted desperately to lift his plane off and give chase to the speeding attackers. His planes could easily overtake the older F-4 attack planes with Mach 2.3 speed supplied by the newest jet engines in the Soviet air force. And their look-down/shoot-down radar would make short work of the Phantom intruders.

But he had his orders: They were to let the F-4s escape.

He knew the Americans would not have launched such a strike—one targeted against their anti-aircraft defenses only—if they had not planned to follow it up with heavier bombers. And that was surely a higher priority—to intercept those bombers before they could finish the destruction of his air base.

That would be the best revenge.

The Soviet fighters had all lifted off the ground now, assembling on Gorshkov’s order into a tight formation. They’d received a preliminary fix from one of their forward radar operators on what had to be the flight of American bombers, heading toward them at high altitude, and just now crossing the French border.

The Americans are either desperate or foolish, Oorshkov thought. The radar blips indicated that they were flying the ancient, hulking B-52 strategic bombers—hardly a match for the Soviet “Flanker” interceptor he was piloting.

Even if the bombers carried the new sophisticated cruise missiles, Oorshkov knew his interceptors would reach them long before they were in a position to fire.

Radioing instructions to his squadron to follow, Gorshkov punched in his afterburners to close in on the approaching American bombers.

At 47,000 feet, high over the French border city of Strasbourg, Hunter had just switched on his specially installed radar transponder, and watched the yellow indicator blink on.

One hundred and eighty feet on either side of him, Toomey and Wa had done the same, as had General Jones and the rest of the F-16 pilots of the 16th TFW.

They were flying high in loose formations of threes, their spacing duplicating that of the mammoth B-52 bombers whose radar signatures the special emitters were mimicking. Whereas most NATO aircraft carried electronic gear to mask their presence or interfere with the Soviet radars, the devices on the small fighters were designed to broadcast to the Russians the exact location and type of aircraft they wanted them to believe were on the way to bomb them.

The F-16 pilots already knew that Right Cross had been a success—SAM sites surrounding several Soviet bases had already been attacked. So far, Jones’s plans for Operation Punchout had worked. Now if only their part of it, Left Jab, could go according to schedule …

But that depended on the Soviets’ taking the bait.

Hunter knew the principle of the radar emitter/decoy was sound enough. But the key in this gambit was convincing the Soviets that NATO would
really
send the creaking B-52s on a tactical strike. Even with stand-off cruise missiles and electronic countermeasures, the big bombers would still be sitting ducks for almost anything the Russians threw up to intercept them.

Still, Hunter knew that his side was holding some pretty high cards. One ace in the hole was the fact that the night before, NATO had virtually erased the Soviet airborne radar capability. From all reports, Operation Warm-up had gone like a dream. A squadron of shadowy near-radar-proof F-119 Stealth fighters—airplanes still so secret, Hunter had never even seen one yet—had claimed as many as ten of the Soviet’s AWACS-like Mainstay converted transports, both in the air and on the ground. Deprived of their eyes in the sky, now the Soviet fighters would have to be right on top of Hunter and the others to realize the phony B-52 deception.