courage.
He reached the center of the stage and stood without speaking for a second, aware that all eyes were on him. Finally he lifted a single hand and signaled the five armament technicians waiting just offstage. They came forward, pushing a dolly occupied by a single long, narrow wooden crate.
Borodin waited while murmurs swept through the crowded auditorium. Then he spoke. “Comrades! I present to you the weapon that will help us win this battle for command of the air. Will you do the honors, Comrade Captain Kutusov?”
The senior armament technician nodded and bent to release the base of the crate so that the other four men could lift the casing up and bring the object inside into view.
The air-to-air missile they lifted was two meters long and weighted about sixty kilograms. Its four large rear delta fins gave it maximum maneuverability — maneuverability reinforced by triangular canard controls indexed in line and by the four small rectangular fins spaced around its IR seeker head.
Borodin let his enthusiasm for the weapon show in his voice. “Comrades, this is the AA-11, arguably among the world’s most advanced infrared homing missiles! It has a maximum front aspect range of approximately eight kilometers, and a rear aspect range of nearly five kilometers. It does not limit you to a rear attack. With it mounted on your aircraft, you will have a weapon that matches the performance of the American Sidewinder!”
Borodin paused, seeing sharklike grins appear on the face of every combat pilot in the room. So far in the war, they’d been forced to sit helpless while closing with the enemy as all-aspect American IR missiles knocked their comrades out of the sky. Now all that would change. They, too, would carry a weapon with a seeker head sensitive enough to home in on the heat emitted from the front of an enemy plane. And they would no longer be sitting ducks from the front.
Borodin matched their smiles with one of his own. “The first shipment of these missiles has arrived from the Soviet Union, comrades. We will carry them on our next mission against the imperialists!”
He stepped off the stage as his North Korean counterpart moved up to brief the squadrons on the new set of tactics they’d devised to take advantage of their new missiles’ capabilities. While the North Korean spoke, Borodin fished a small notepad out of his flight suit and finished writing up a rough account of his last action. The South Korean F-5E he’d downed this morning made his score four so far — two F’5s, an American F-16, and an F-4 Phantom. One more and he would be an ace, one of only a handful since the Great Patriotic War. The thought brought another smile to the Russian pilot’s lips.
Commander Kerwin “Corky” Bouchard, USN, scanned the sky around his F-14A Tomcat, counting aircraft as they launched from either
Ninety aircraft all massing for a single, maximum-effort Alpha strike against the North Korean bridging units moving toward the Han River. There would only be time for this one, mammoth attack. U.S. weather satellites in geosynchronous orbit showed a storm front moving down out of the Siberian wastes — bringing with it high winds, hail, and snow that would put an end to normal flight operations until the skies cleared.
“Red Dog Lead and Duster Lead, this is Roundup. Proceed.” The strike commander’s voice came through Bouchard’s earphones.
He keyed his radio mike twice to acknowledge and waggled the Tomcat’s wings to signal the rest of the strike escort. Then he banked right, heading for the Korean coastline one hundred and fifty miles ahead at four hundred and fifty knots. The F-18s slid lower and out in front, while his F-14s stayed high and behind. Two Prowlers followed, ready to jam enemy radars and radar-guided missiles if MiGs appeared to contest the air.
“Corky, I’m still getting that goddamned Mainstay on my scope. Even with the jamming, it’s got us for sure.” Lieutenant Mike Esteban, his RIO, radar intercept officer, sounded pissed.
His frustration was understandable. The Soviet AWACS plane had been loitering arrogantly just outside the task force’s declared exclusion zone for hours, escorted by a pair of Su-27 Flanker fighters out of Vladivostok. Everyone aboard the two American carriers knew that the data the converted Il-76 transport was collecting was being passed straight back to the North Koreans, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it — outside of assigning a pair of Tomcats to keep a close watch on the single Prowler now busy trying to jam the Mainstay’s powerful radar. That was bad enough. But then to top it all off, the Soviets also had a Tu-16 Badger F aircraft aloft. The Badger F was an electronic intelligence aircraft capable of keeping tabs on every signal the task force emitted.
Bouchard clicked his intercom switch. “Yeah. Well, life’s rough, I guess. Keep an eye peeled. The next-door neighbors are gonna come knocking at our door anytime now.”
The four-engined Ilyushin-76TD made another gentle turn, cruising in a racetrack holding pattern at forty thousand feet. As the AWACS plane banked, the large radar dish mounted horizontally atop its fuselage reflected the sunlight, and one of the Su-27 fighter pilots escorting it turned his eyes away, half-blinded.
It was dark inside the Mainstay’s main Air Command and Control compartment.
“The American jamming is degrading our systems greatly, Comrade Colonel, but we have firm contact with an estimated ninety-plus aircraft. All heading for the coast. This is clearly what we’ve been waiting for.”
Colonel Lushev frowned at Kornilov’s impertinence, but he bit down the harsh reply that first leaped into his mind. The lieutenant was undeniably the best radar operator aboard, and his skills demanded a certain amount of tolerance for his unorthodox behavior. The colonel leaned closer to the repeater scope in front of him, trying to make something out himself of the glowing green splotches and sweeping strobes it showed. He couldn’t and shook his head. Kornilov’s abilities were remarkable.
Lushev swiveled his chair to face the plane’s radioman. “Transmit this information to Pyongyang immediately.” He hoped that the little yellow bastards could make good use of it. The Americans needed to be taught a lesson.
He swung back to face the repeater scope, fighting down an all-too-familiar craving for nicotine. The Mainstay’s electronics were too delicate to cope with an atmosphere laced with cigarette smoke. He would have to wait until they were back on the ground in Vladivostok.
Bouchard could feel the tension increasing. They were sixty miles out and closing rapidly on the South Korean coast. The strike target was only fifteen miles inland, so if the North Koreans were going to pull anything it would have to be soon. He glanced to either side. The eleven other Tomcats were perfectly positioned. Sunlight glinted off canopies ahead and below. The F-18s were still keeping pace.
“Red Dog, this is Roundup.” Bouchard tensed at the sudden transmission from the Navy strike controller. “Multiple bogies bearing three one zero, seventy miles, level forty. Out.” The E-2C’s radar had just detected enemy fighters slipping into the open from out of Korea’s rugged mountains.
Bouchard made an instant decision and keyed his mike. It was pretty clear that the North Koreans knew exactly where they were. There wasn’t any further point in trying to stay hidden. “Red Dog flights, this is Red Dog Lead. Light ’em off and let ’em have it.”
His F-14s would turn on their powerful radars and engage the enemy at maximum distance with their AIM- 54C Phoenix missiles. The F-18s would stay silent, and Bouchard hoped they might be able to slip in closer without being noticed by the oncoming North Koreans.
Behind him, Esteban flicked the switches needed to activate the Tomcat’s AWG-9 radar and bent over his scope, studying the information it showed. “Corky, I read two groups of bogies. Twenty-two in the first, and twenty following ten miles behind.”
“Rog. Get me a lock on two of the lead group.” Bouchard arched his thumb toward the firing switch on his stick. Each Tomcat in the escort group carried two Phoenix missiles for just such an occasion.
“Coming up.”
