DESTROYER JINAN Several minutes had passed, and no hits reported by any ships since Kazfeng. If the carrier aircraft were the same speed or a bit faster than the antiradar missiles, the carrier aircraft would be very close by now. They had sailors with night-vision goggles and infrared scanners looking for the missiles, but unless they heard it or got lucky there was almost no chance of their finding a tiny loitering cruise missile up there without radar. A few of the larger patrol boats had low-light TV cameras and infrared fire-control sensors on their 57- and 37- millimeter guns, but their field of view was very small, and getting a lock on a fast-moving target was difficult. The intercom clicked on: “Bridge, CIC, request permission to activate search radar for two sweeps. There was a slight pause; then: “Acknowledged.” To the radar operator, he said, “Two sweeps. Shut down immediately if there’s a target within five miles. Call out bearings to contacts for gun control.”
“Acknowledged. Radar coming on in three, two, one. now. One sweep, twelve seconds, and they knew the awful truth: “Bridge, CIC, multiple small targets within five miles, all bearings. Additional air targets, two large targets in trail formation, bearing two-seven-eight, range to closest target ten nautical miles. Radar down.” The commander of the frigate Yingtan was on the all-stations call intercom immediately. “CIC, all thirty-seven gun stations, all thirty-seven gun stations, fire defensive pattern, multiple inbound missiles, all quadrants. Attempt visual acquisition. Release radar decoys. Shut down all radars and verify.” Almost immediately the frigate’s four twin 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns began firing, sweeping the sky with shells in predetermined patterns that would cover all but the ship’s centerline area-fortunately the patrol boats were dispersed at least six kilometers away to avoid being hit by the frigate’s barrage. “Helm, forty degrees starboard. CIC, ship turning starboard, shoot portside chaff rockets.” From the sky, the barrage of gunfire might have looked like a fireworks-show finale, with winks of muzzle flashes and tracers shooting out in all directions. The frigate meanwhile began a series of sharp turns and accelerations designed to get as far away as possible from the last spot where the radar was turned on-they knew that was where the loitering missile was headed. Yingtan also had mortars that fired radar-decoying chaff rockets into the air, launching them on the side opposite the ship’s turn-they would act as decoys if the missiles carried active radar seekers. Yingtan ‘s gunners were rewarded with several spectacular flashes as the guns found targets, and missiles could be seen splashing down in their wake-a few dangerously close, less than a dozen meters away- but none hit. Two missiles went after the tiny radar-emitting decoy buoys dropped overboard by the frigate, and the bridge crew was treated to a good-sized explosion just a hundred meters aft as the missile impacted. In just a few seconds, all of the antiradar missiles were defeated by the frigate Yingtan. But all that gunfire only saved them from the small antiradar missiles-the aircraft that launched all those missiles were getting away. “CIC, concentrate one hundred-millimeter guns at the last position of that bomber. Maybe we will get lucky. Prepare to engage with HQ-6I missiles. Comm, radio to all patrol boats and to Fleet Master, suspected heavy stealth bomber aircraft inbound to Davao Gulf, number unknown.” The sudden flurry of gunfire into the night sky was spectacular and frightening at the same time. It looked like a dome of sparklers had formed over the frigate in the distance, like some unearthly glittering spaceship half-submerged in the oceanexcept they both knew that those pretty sparklers meant death to any aircraft that strayed too close. Cobb instinctively banked farther west to avoid the area where most of the gunfire was being concentrated, even though McLanahan estimated they were at least ten miles abeam the closest ship. “Jesus Christ, ” McLanahan muttered. “Look at that. . Cobb said nothing. “And we’re only seeing about one every twelve tracer rounds . . “It’s not the guns I’m worried about, ” Cobb said. “I’m waiting for the SAMs from that frigate.”
“He hit us with a radar sweep powerful enough to paint us, ” McLanahan said. “He must know we’re out here.” McLanahan used the tracer rounds to find the frigate with his forwardlooking infrared scanner, and the imaging heat-seeking telescope locked on easily to the huge vessel. “I got a lock on the big mother ship. That must be the frigate. Laser rangefinder on . . . laser firing . . .’ Immediately the laser rangefinder computed the precise distance to the target, completed the firing solution for the B-2’s complement of weapons. McLanaz han touched the right-bomb-bay icon on the bottom of his Super Multi Function Display, and the weapons computer picked a SLAM TV-guided missile, automatically reducing the SMFD screen in half and using the right side of the big screen to display SLAM seeker video transmission. “The shit’s going to hit the fan as soon as this puppy goes, ” McLanahan reminded Cobb, then he moved the Bombing System Switch from “Manual” to “Auto.”
“Missile Counting ……. missile one away… The right bomb-bay doors slid open, and the single CSRL launcher ejected a SLAM guided missile into the slipstream. The missile fell about fifty feet as its gyroscope stabilization system steadied the fifteen-hundred-pound missile; then, when the air data probes detected the proper airflow and deceleration parameters indicating a clean release from the Black Knight bomber, the powerful turbojet engine kicked in. Following the initial heading from the B-2’s master computer, it descended to less than one hundred feet in the blink of an eye and steered immediately on course for the frigate, taking it on an “over-the-shoulder” trajectory as the B-2 sped away. Seven seconds later, the launcher had rotated and ejected a second missile. The radar operator on Yingtan had just reactivated the Sea Eagle air-search radar at that precise moment-and what he saw caused stars to shoot through his head. “Two aircraft, bearing two-eight-one, altitude two hundred meters, speed. . incoming missiles, incoming missiles, bearing two-eight-one, range fifteen miles, speed six hundred twenty knots, altitude twenty meters!” And then he made a fateful mistake-he shut down his radar a second time, thinking they were under attack by antiradar missiles again. The CIC officer in charge realized the Sea Eagle radar was down again, but hesitated a few seconds before ordering it reactivated so the antiaircraft guns could train on the supersonic targets. There were other supersonic antiradar missiles in the American arsenal, such as the HARM missile-this could be one of them. “Deploy decoys. Bridge, CIC, incoming missiles, evasive action, radar down.” He waited a few seconds for the antiradar-missile decoys to be ejected, then ordered the Sea Eagle radar reactivated and the antiaircraft guns brought on-line. But at almost Mach one, it took only sixty seconds for the first SLAM missile to reach its target. With less than thirty seconds left in the first missile’s flight, they had just enough time to acquire the missile and let the Sea Eagle search radar slave the I-band “Rice Lamp” fire-control radars on the incoming missiles. The 37-millimeter guns on the Yingtan were just as accurate as on the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, but only the two starboard mounts were committed this time. . The left half of the Super Multi Function Display was displaying video transmitted from the imaging infrared camera on the first SLAM missile, and even Henry Cobb, who normally sat with eyes caged straight ahead on his instrument panel, couldn’t help but take a few glances at the picture as the missile bore into its target. The image was incrediblethe sea, seen as shimmering green streaks along the bottom of the picture, whizzed past like some sort of early sci-fi warp drive; and, in the center, the hot dot slowly enlarged and took the shape of a huge warship. The missile was right on course. Suddenly, several flashes of light could be seen popping from the warship. “They got a lock on the SLAM, ” McLanahan said. On the right side of the SMFD, he touched the spinning circular cursor on the 3-D image of the destroyer, spoke “Change target, ” then slid his finger to the left. The SLAM missile veered left in response. Just as the video image of the destroyer was about to disappear off the screen, McLanahan slid the cursor to the right, and the missile followed. A few seconds later, McLanahan replaced the cursor on the destroyer. “Thirty seconds to impact, ” he told Cobb. “C’mon, baby, you can do it…” But his efforts were useless. As soon as the missile settled back on course to the destroyer, another large flash erupted, and the video went dark. “Dammit! Lost the first SLAM.” The words SLAM 1 NO CONTACT flashed three times on the left half of the SMFD, then the video from the second missile filled the screen. “You’re not getting this one, ” Patrick said. Using the touchscreen, he pre- programmed a zigzag course for the second SLAM. “Hit that, you peckerheads…” The ship’s defensive guns successfully hit the first SLAM seconds before it hit them, but the second missile was impossible to hit-it was all over the sky, skimming just a few meters above the water, and the guns could not keep up with it. The missile finally plowed into the starboard gunwale just below the number six 37-millimeter gun turret. The penetrating warhead cap, propelled by the missile’s powerful rocket motor, drove the missile through the numbertwelve lifeboat on its davits and barely managed to pierce the heavy armor of the number-six gun turret before detonating the five-hundred-pound high-explosive. The blast ripped a gaping hole in the side of the frigate, killing the gun turret’s ten-man crew and instantly knocking the gun out of commission. “Good hit!” Patrick McLanahan cried out. “One impact . . . only minor secondaries, good hit but no kill.” The Super Multi Function Display automatically switched back to full integrated “God’s-eye” view, and Patrick scanned the area. “Search radars ……. cancel that, search radars back up. Everybody’s transmitting… I’ve got air-search radars at five o’clock and a new one at two o’clock. India-band missile radar’s still up at five o’clock. Damn… we didn’t knock out that frigate yet. So he can still launch missiles . Just then a “Missile Warning” light began to blink on both the Super Multi Function Display and the pilot’s center CRT monitor. Patrick said, “Now I’ve got another Charlie-band missile director radar at one to two o’clock- that must be from the center destroyer.” He was about to touch the electronic countermeasures icon on the bottom of the SMFD, but the computer had already brought the ECM status panel forward on the screen-and what he saw
