Final Storm (16 page)

Ordering the rest of the fighter wing to turn east and try to bail out over their own lines, he pointed his plane at the disappearing Americans and kicked both engines to full afterburner, rocketing through the skies toward the F-16s, his left wing trailing a steady vaporous wisp of raw fuel.

Within a minute he had caught up with the Americans. Sighting one of the F-16s trailing the main formation, Gorshkov tightened his grip on the stick and edged his finger around to the fire control button of his cannon. Another half mile, and he’d tear the American right out of the sky. His radar acquisition signal started chirping, flashing the information he needed to complete the attack.

Just a few more seconds …

It was his special intuition that had kept Hunter from rejoining the F-16 flight right away.

And now he knew why.

He had sensed the danger seconds before his radar beeped out the warning of one of the Flanker’s relentless pursuit. Now, he was already pulling up and around to get a clean shot at the Soviet before he had a chance to fire at the trailing F-16.

Hunter watched the big Soviet jet close the distance until the F-16 pilot—Hunter thought it was Samuels—finally snap-rolled his airplane out of harm’s way and back under his attacker.

As the Flanker tried to make the turn with the Falcon, Hunter saw the radar target-finder light up through his HUD. It flashed twice and glowed steadily. Quickly he armed a Sidewinder. This was his one and only shot—if he waited too long, the dogfighting planes in front of him would be too close and the ’Winder’s infrared seeker might select either one of the speeding planes’ hot exhausts.

Hunter took a gulp of oxygen and squeezed the missile release. Instantly, the AIM-9 roared off his wingtip toward the Flanker’s tail, covering the distance in less than five seconds.

The Soviet pilot had just opened fire when Hunter’s missile disappeared up into his left engine exhaust and exploded. The left side of the plane erupted in a blinding flash and poured out black smoke as flame devoured the entire left wing, spreading fire from the leaking fuel back along the length of the Flanker’s fuselage.

The stricken Soviet shuddered, pushed through the sky by the billowing clouds of black smoke and flame behind it. Then it fell off on its left wing, spinning downward in a near-vertical dive.

Gorshkov had hit his eject button just in time. Propelled by small explosive bolts under his seat, the Soviet pilot was literally blown out of the Ranker’s shattered cockpit. Spinning violently through the air, he was surprised his chute deployed at all.

Just barely conscious, the next sound Gorshkov heard as he floated to earth was the thunderclap of the impact as his plane buried itself in a German soybean field and burst into flames.

With his luck, the Soviet pilot thought, he would land right in the middle of the raging fire his downed aircraft had created.

Far below and circling around the black column of smoke that rose up from the burning Flanker, Hunter heard Jones report to the mission coordinator back in Belgium.

“Ringside, Ringside, this is Falcon leader,” Jones intoned. “Left Jab is concluded. Repeat … Left Jab concluded. Confirm three—no, four kills. One friendly down. Bandits heading east, but we believe they are past their bingos.”

“Roger, Falcon flight,” came the clipped reply.

“Please advise appropriate elements to commence Roundhouse,” Jones continued. “Repeat, cue Roundhouse! Advise results on completion. Falcon Flight leader returning to base. Over and out.”

Hunter had joined the F-16 formation just as Jones had finished his report. Taking up his usual position on the general’s wing, they led the victorious Falcons back toward Rota.

T
HE US AIR FORCE
FB-111s were already circling over friendly airspace in West Germany when the order from Ringside came through on the designated channel.

Cranking their tapered wings in toward their narrow fuselages, the big tactical bombers dashed across the East German border, their powerful turbofan engines pouring out more than 50,000 pounds of thrust and moving plane, pilots, and pay-loads at Mach 2.5 toward their destination.

A truly schizophrenic aircraft, the F-111 was either a very big combat fighter or a very small heavy bomber, designed to do both jobs for the Air Force in the late ’60’s. The first of several swing-wing supersonic planes, some pilots swore by it while others swore
at
it. The complex variable-sweep wings gave it enormous flexibility in its combat mission capabilities: With wings spread out it had the lift necessary for take-offs, landings, and low-level bombing runs. With the wings swept back, it could penetrate enemy airspace at high levels doing more than twice the speed of sound to deliver a nuclear payload.

But the “Aardvark,” as it was called with varying degrees of affection, was also a tough plane to handle in spite of the tons of sophisticated flight control computers that assisted the pilot.

A complex terrain-avoidance radar system would keep the plane down on the deck—usually at an altitude of 200 feet or lower—automatically maintaining a constant height over mountains, trees, hedgerows and buildings. A pilot could kick in the terrain-avoidance gear and be treated to a dizzying roller coaster ride through the treetops—very effective for coming in under an enemy’s radar defenses. Not so diligent in settling one’s stomach.

The FB-111s streaking toward Soviet Air Wing headquarters at Neurippin were the tactical bomber variants, carrying a massive dual payload of special runway-cratering blockbusters and incendiary cluster bombs on their wing points.

Crossing the East German border, the Aardvarks switched over to their terrain-following radar flight control and dropped to the terrifyingly low altitude of 200 feet, still doing Mach 2. Their high speed and tree-top level would bring them in low and fast enough to avoid Soviet fighters.

But there was another threat to be wary of: there was a possibility that the Soviets might have already rushed in mobile anti-aircraft radar units to replace the SAM launchers destroyed by the Wild Weasels. To counter this threat, a specially configured EF-111A “Raven” flew slightly ahead of the main flight of F-111s. Bulging at the seams with radar detection and suppression equipment, should the Soviets light up their active search radars, the Raven’s powerful jammers would fill the enemy’s screens with a blizzard of electronic “snow,” thus giving the bomber flight a clear shot at the target.

Meanwhile, the Soviet base commander at Neurippen was facing a tough decision.

He had long ago lost all contact with the flight of Flankers that had been launched to stop what had been thought of at the time to be a massive force of cruise-missile-toting B-52s. The last of the surviving Flankers had gone down 150 miles short of the base, empty of fuel, its pilot reporting the Americans’ masking deception before ejecting. The base commander cursed that there were no Soviet in-flight refueling aircraft available to him to save the Flankers, although he knew that these airplanes were a rare commodity even in the best of times.

Now, the commander had two critical points to consider. Another flight of Flankers—these belonging to the Polish Air Force—were coming in from a rear base near Warsaw and were due to land at his base within minutes. Meanwhile, he had sixteen aircraft of his own lined up on the runway, ready to take off for an aggressive patrol just west of the demarcation line between the Germanys. This flight, originally scheduled for earlier in the morning, had been delayed by the American F-4 attack.

But now the Soviet commander was about to disobey one of the tenets of warfare; that was, exposing the majority of his forces at one time. In peacetime, it would be routine for them to launch the 16-airplane patrol flight and recover the Polish Flankers all at once.

But in wartime, it was a gigantic risk.

By allowing the fighters—both those taking off and those landing—to cluster on the open runways, he would leave himself wide open for disaster should the enemy strike.

Standing in the huge base’s control tower, he glanced out at the crews struggling to mount a temporary radar antenna for the base’s single mobile SAM launcher. This was another point of contention with him. How could he be expected to defend such a critical base with only a single, back-up SAM?

He blew his nose and yearned for a glass of vodka. The lack of reserve SAMs was more evidence that Moscow had been ill-advised if not downright insane to start this campaign—this entire war—when it did. Although he was certain that NATO wasn’t quite aware of it yet, the massive chemical strike on Western Europe two days before had been as much a surprise to the Soviet forward commanders as it must have been to the NATO commanders themselves. None of the advance Soviet military units in Europe had had any indication that their government was about to launch World War III. And as such, none of them was prepared for the struggle.

Why did they do it? the commander had asked himself over and over again. More importantly, how could they possibly win a war that had started such as this one?

He shook away the disturbing thoughts and looked back at the SAM crew. The anti-aircraft battery would be operational in moments—when it was, he could take the chance and land the incoming Polish fighters, while at the same time launching the long-delayed 16-airplane patrol.

It would turn out to be the most disastrous decision of his long military career.

The FB-111s descended on the Soviet airfield just moments after the last of the Polish Flankers had landed.

With no SAMs operational, the Soviets were trapped, horrendously exposed on the runways. The first wave of Aardvarks thundered over the cluttered base, dumping thousands of incendiary bomblets in wide patterns among the grounded planes. Explosions erupted across the entire width of the main runway as the firebombs did their deadly work, touching off hundreds of separate fires that quickly joined forces, engulfing planes, fuel storage, hangars, and dozens of ground personnel with yellow-orange sheets of flame.

The mobile SAM launcher that the Soviets had counted on to defend their base was one of the first victims of the raid. Even while its screens were being jammed by the EF-111 Raven, a Rockeye cannister, dropped by one of the lead Aardvarks, impacted squarely on it, killing the radar crew and destroying the battery.

The FB-111s swept around for another pass at higher altitude, this time loosing their special runway-cratering bombs on the base’s now-flaming airstrips. The weapons tumbled off the wing points of the FB-111s and began a swift free-fall as their pointed steel noses aimed straight down at the burning mess below.

As they accelerated toward the ground, a spinning airspeed sensor tripped a small charge in the tail of each bomb, which fired a rocket to propel the explosive lances downward at more than 2,000 miles per hour.

The speeding darts struck the burning runways and burrowed almost ten feet into the hard concrete before then-warheads detonated, sending huge chunks of concrete flying through the air. Flaming planes reared up as the heaving runways snapped and buckled beneath them, leaving giant craters jagged with rusted ends of snapped reinforcing rods to mark the bombs’ devastating handiwork.

The final blow was delivered with Mk 80 500-pound conventional bombs, laser-sighted in directly on the base’s two control towers, repair hangars, and barracks complex. Multiple explosions shook the ground as the bombs were detonated shortly after impacting their targets.

Survivors raced to escape the flames and destruction that tore through the shattered air base, once the proud headquarters of an entire Soviet Air Wing.

Scampering back over the horizon from which they had come, the FB-111s cranked in their wings and floored their powerful engines to race for the border and the comparative safety of their base in Belgium.

Hunter heard Jones receive the terse preliminary report from Ringside, the mission coordinator.

It was almost noon now and they were well on their way back to Rota. The three-pronged raid on Neurippin had been a smashing success. Similar, though lower-scale, missions carried out by combined US and other allied air forces, had also gone off well. In a little more than six hours, hundreds of NATO aircraft had been carefully choreographed to inflict a heavy toll on the Warsaw Pact’s forward airfields and strike planes.

But they would have to wait until they were back at Rota to get the full results—and casualty reports—over secure communications channels.

Casualties. Hunter thought about DuPont again. What bothered him most was the guy never had a chance to shoot back. The big Soviet air-to-air missile, with enough explosive power to smash a strategic bomber, had obliterated the F-16 in a split-second.

And worst of all, it wasn’t supposed to happen—they were just decoys …

Why DuPont? Why today? How many other pilots had cashed in their tickets in this first full engagement of the war? How many more before it was over? Indeed, Hunter knew that DuPont was just a small part of the war’s horrifying toll.

On the return trip, the pilot they called the Wingman surveyed the devastated West German countryside, ravaged by the ghastly Soviet chemical munitions that rained down on it two days before. Looking down from his aerial vantage point, Hunter could just imagine the attack that had laid waste to this once-fertile land. The poisonous Valkyries, riding down on their winged SCUD missile steeds, had brought death everlasting in a cruel mockery of the promised land.

Now here there was only death, pitiful and agonizing, for warriors and innocents alike.

Dead livestock dotted the snow-covered hills, dark spots that stained the quiet white blanket. Likewise, the autobahns were crammed with cars, some twisted into huge, still smoking pile-ups caused as their drivers, fleeing the poisonous gas, died in agony at the wheel. Here and there bodies were strewn outside the smashed cars, victims flung out by the force of the collisions or propelled by their last dying gasps, trying to escape the very air that carried death.

Safe but not secure in the artificial bubble world of his F-16 cockpit, Hunter saw masses of bodies littered around the city of Frankfurt. The streets were clogged with carnage, spilling out beyond the city limits in straggling dry rivers of corpses that marked the futile attempts of the denizens to escape the gas attack.