the Eagles and Kfirs break away to port, accelerating toward the southeast.
At that moment Hali's radar warning system demanded his attention. Visually and aurally he picked up the emissions of Saudi radars. He knew immediately from the frequency and tone that it was SAM tracking, undoubtedly with the track-on-scan feature which allowed short electronic glimpses of aircraft without constant monitoring. The colonel experienced two seconds of confusion.
'Where did
Then he knew. Whoever was running the Saudi air defense net was a shrewd bastard. Undoubtedly they had moved portable launchers north of the Tiger Force bases on short notice-probably during the night. Hali ruefully admired the professionalism of the setup. Then he concentrated on dealing with it.
Warning calls came rapidly as pilots saw the missiles lift off, blowing large geysers of dust and sand as the first-stage boosters ignited.
Without looking, Hali knew his suppressors were in their dives, rolling in on the most threatening sites, but there were too many of them. Goddam it! How many were there? The desert before him seemed saturated with the telltale dust clouds of lift-off and the smoky white trails of missile boosters headed toward his formation at a slant range of ten to thirty miles.
The next few minutes were aerial bedlam. Even in the clear air it was difficult to spot the missiles in sustainer stage, lancing upward at twice the speed of sound. But there were so many-no Israeli flier had ever had to deal with such an intense concentration of SAMs.
The orderly, spaced formations became ragged as pilots opened out to loose deuce, flying the 'SAM box' which allowed two planes to maneuver independently without drawing a missile toward either one. But with each wrapped-up, mind-blurring turn, with each diving countermove to defeat a missile, the formations began to disperse. Sections became separated from flight leaders, wingmen from section leads. Air discipline-a hallmark of the
Aaron Hali spotted a SAM streaking toward him from almost dead ahead. From long experience, he turned twenty degrees port, to better gauge the threat's closure. At the moment his professional instincts told him it was now or never, he wrapped his Eagle into a hard barrel roll, defeating the SAM's tracking in two planes. He snapped his head to the right, watching the smoke trail flash past him and continue to its inevitable end.
The mission leader also sensed something else. The Saudi fighters would be approaching at this very moment. He knew because that is how he would time it if he were running their show. With his pilots concentrating on evading the SAMs, their mutual support degraded by violent evasive breaks and altitude loss, this would be the perfect time to commit interceptors.
Hali glanced at his radar screen. It showed the tentative traces of Arab jamming, but he could discern blips with the fifty-mile grid.
He hoped most of his other F-15s also acquired long-range targets before both sides' ECM wiped out the radar option. The radio channels were clogged with warning cries; not much chance of alerting his Sparrow shooters. But then he relaxed a bit. They were professionals; they'd take action on their own.
The Israeli strike groups passed through the ninety-mile SAM belt in less than ten minutes. There were dirty gray tendrils in the clear blue sky, and dissipating SAM trails. There also were parachutes, and smoking wrecks on the ground. With the superb visibility from his F-15 cockpit, Hali took in the situation. It would be a few minutes before his squadrons reformed, but he estimated four to six planes had gone down. It was a small loss rate considering some 135 missiles had been launched, but any loss was irreplaceable. Hali looked again to his screen, hit the auto-acquisition switch, and locked up one of the radar blips. Then he pressed the trigger, sending an AIM-7 off the number one station at ten miles.
Major Abdullah Ben Nir glanced to either side, admiring the excellent view from his F-15. He keyed his microphone, uttered a terse order, and returned his attention to his radar scope. The Israeli jamming was taking effect; his two flights would have to shoot fast. The Saudi squadron commander designated his target and pressed the trigger, firing his first Sparrow at twelve miles. He anticipated the built-in delay but the AIM-7 never appeared. Its rocket motor had failed to ignite.
Cursing to himself, Ben Nir double-checked his switchology, confirmed lock-on, and pressed the trigger again. This time his weapon functioned properly. The radar-equipped F-20s also fired their two sparrows, then prepared for the coming 'knife fight.'
Airpower historians later would describe it as the largest radar missile shootout ever. Nobody would ever know for certain, but it was reliably estimated in staff studies-in Riyadh, Tel Aviv, London, Washington, and Moscow-that over the next few minutes some eighty Sparrows were fired, slightly more by the Saudis than Israelis. Since ECM efforts already were in progress, many of the missiles were decoyed or diverted. Others were evaded by hard maneuvering which further split up leaders and wingmen. Four Israeli aircraft were knocked out of the air or too badly damaged to continue. Seven Saudi planes were lost in the exchange. Major Ben Nir knew his orders were to disengage as soon as he'd expended his AIM-7s, but he found the opportunity too much to pass up. Rocking his wings, he led his wingman and second section into the fringes of the fight he knew would be developing.
In the second flight of Black Squadron, Lieutenant Mohammad Assad caught sight of the white smoke trail headed for his F -20. Hurtling toward him with an inhuman intelligence at nearly Mach 4, the big Raytheon missile seemed to eat up the miles. With pounding heart, Assad executed the barrel roll maneuver he had been taught for such cases. He loaded six Gs on the wings of his Tigershark, completing the maneuver three seconds too early.
Timing is crucial to defeating an airborne missile. Too late a countermove allows no latitude at all. Too early, and the missile has time for a mid-course correction. Assad had a glimpse of the Sparrow compensating for his turn out of plane, and yanked the stick hard over. He knew as he initiated the maneuver that it was too late.
The AIM- 7 smashed into the Northrop just behind the port wing. A violent explosion blew the fighter inverted at 200 feet over the rocky terrain. Instinctively, Assad pushed the stick full over in an attempt to right the aircraft.
Ed Lawrence caught the orange-black fireball in his peripheral vision, then led his anvil force into the Israelis. He saw the F-l5s, having expended most of their Sparrows, close to visual range, lowering their noses and meeting his three squadrons head-on. There were bogeys all around the clock, and what remained of the formations moments before was shredded as the opposing forces swept through one another at 1,100 knots closure. They each pulled into abrupt, mind-blurring climbing turns to bring weapons to bear. But two Saudi flights kept going.
Devil flashed through the initial line of Israeli fighters, passing up the option for a head-on Sidewinder shot. The percentages were too low at that rate of closure. Instead, at high speed he raced on west. He knew the second line of Israeli jets would be about five miles behind the Sparrow shooters. From 500 feet above the terrain, his four sections pulled up to attack the second group as the first line of Israelis desperately reversed to assist. But most were too closely engaged with the pilots of Black, Orange, and Green Squadrons. Lawrence knew, having occupied the Israelis on his anvil, that Geoff Hampton's hammer would be swinging downward just about now.
Twenty-five miles southeast of the main combat, orbiting behind Orange Base, were two Tornadoes. Both were specially fitted for electronic warfare, the ECM pods on the hardpoints under their variable-sweep wings. Both also carried electronic counter-counter-measure avionics attempting to neutralize the Israeli jamming, but this met with limited success. The radar portion of the combat was limited to the early phase, and now it was eyeball to eyeball.
Geoff Hampton looked down at the 'furball' of milling fighters 4,500 feet below him. He deployed his two squadrons, sending Brad Williamson's Red around to the north to hook in behind the main Israeli force, while leading White straight into the fight.
