caused his throat to go instantly dry. “Charlie-band missile director . . . computer’s calling it a DRBC-51 radar directing an HQ-91 SAM system… “A -91?” Cobb asked. “Shit, we’re well inside that mother’s range!”
“I know, I know, ” McLanahan moaned. He had spent too long screwing with the SLAM missiles and lost track of all the other warships around them. “All trackbreakers active, missile warning system and HAVE GLANCE jammers ready, chaff and flares ready, HARM missile programming against that radar… shit, shit! Charlie-band tracker changing to Charliethree command.. The “Missile Warning” indication changed to a “Missile Lock” warning. “Missile radar locked on!” McLanahan shouted. “Trackbreakers on… descend and accelerate if possible They were already as low as they could safely go at nightthe huge B-2 was less than one hundred feet above the Celebes Sea, with Cobb hand-flying the Black Knight, since the terrainfollowing computer would not fly the bomber overwater below two hundred feet. “C’mon, you guys, where the hell are you…. McLanahan was rewarded a second later with precise range and bearing information from his B-2 to the destroyer displayed on his SMFD. He knew he was not using radars or lasers to get that data-that meant that his wingman, the second B-2 stealth bomber in his attack formation, was ranging on the destroyer and data-sharing the information with him. The question was, who was going to get there first? CHINESE DESTROYER JINAN “Locked onto first air target, ” the operator of Jinan ‘s aft HQ91 missile fire control radar reported. “Slight jamming on lower bands, switching to frequency-agile mode… Temporarily clear of jamming, ready with missile detector, sir.”
“Understood, ” the chief of the Jinan ‘s Combat Information Center replied. “Aft launcher, report.” In the large aft missile magazine, a large eighteen-missile rotating drum dropped an HQ-9 1 onto a rail and fed it forward to an open station, where four missileers snapped large triangular fins on the nose and tail sections of the missile body. Two other technicians made a fast check of the finning process, and the missile was sent forward, erected, and rammed upwards onto the launcher rails. A second magazine crew had done the same with a second missile for the twin-rail launcher. As the missiles clicked into place on the launcher, a continuity check was automatically performed and an electronic report received from each missile-if the “report” was missing or erroneous, the launcher would immediately swivel over and down and spit the bad missile down an armored safety chute for examination or disposal. Thirty seconds after the alert was sounded, the aft launcher was loaded and ready, with two more missiles belowdecks finned and ready. “Aft launcher reports ready, sir, ” the aft launch operator reported. “Deck clear, stand by to launch on three, two, one, launch… “The HQ-91 missiles operator checked his readouts, gripped the launch handle, squeezed the safety grip, pulled the trigger, and hit the launch button with his thumb. “Missile one away . . . missile two . . . !”
“Incoming missiles!” one of the Sea Eagle radar operators suddenly shouted. “High-speed, bearing two-four- one degrees…” Two AGM-84E SLAM missiles from the second B-2 Black Knight in McLanahan’s attack formation had detected the HQ-9I missile fire-control radar and horned in on it just after missile launch. But like the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, the SLAMS were big, subsonic targets, and easy for the destroyer to lock on radar. The vessel’s guns began firing, and with full radar tracking and fire control, they could not miss-both SLAMS were destroyed well before they reached Jinan. But that left them vulnerable to two HARM missiles fired from McLanahan’s B-2. Like TACIT RAINBOW, the HighSpeed Anti-Radar Missiles horned in on enemy radar transmission, but instead of cruising to their targets over long distances and being very inviting targets for enemy gunfire, HARM flew at speeds over Mach three and were often untouched or even undetectable. The longer Jinan kept radars on to track the incoming SLAM missiles, the easier it was for the HARMS to find their targets. The missiles horned in precisely on the fore and aft radar dishes of the “Fog Lamp” fire-control radars, hit, and exploded. Although the HARMs only hit the emitters on the tall foreand-aft antenna masts on the destroyer Jinan, and the two HARMs’ warheads were a scant fifty pounds, the results in the Combat Information Center belowdecks were as disruptive as a nuclear bomb blast. All the cabin and console lights in CIC flicked off immediately, replaced by emergency lights for the cabin only-most of the weapons control systems were dead or in rest. “Hold your positions!” the CIC officer shouted to his console and weapons technicians. “Put your sets in reset and stand by!” The CIC officer picked up the emergency batterypowered telephone. “Bridge, CIC, weapons systems and sensors in full reset. I say again, weapon systems in full reset. Over.”
“Bridge copies, ” a reply came. “Missile impact on both main and aft mast.” The CIC officer felt his jaw drop. Both masts-that meant both HQ-9I missile directors were down. The Sea Eagle search radar, which was still operational, could be used for fire control, but it was highly inaccurate. They could still direct attacks by the other patrol boats, however, but in just a split second a four-thousand-ton warship was rendered virtually impotent… … But not entirely impotent. When the lights came back on a few moments later, most of the C1C’s equipment was still in working order. “There’s a second bomber out there somewhere, and I want it, ” he shouted at his Combat Information Center crew. Get a report from up on deck, make sure all our weapons are clear to fire-the forward 100 and the aft HQ-91 launcher should both be clear. I want infrared and low-light sensor manned, and I want Sea Eagle slaved to the one-hundred-millimeter cannon and HQ-9 1. Bridge, CIC, I show the aft HQ-9 1 system still operational. Clear me to engage the second stealth bomber.”
“C-3 band uplink shut ……. search radar only, ” McLanahan reported. “I think I got the missile director. Damn, I wish I could say thank you to those guys in the other B-2. I think they saved our bacon with those SLAM launches.” His eyes were glued to the SMFD, checking the rear hemisphere tail warning radar for any sign of tracking Masurca missiles. But after two minutes, nothing appeared. Patrick took a deep breath, as if it were the first time all day he’d been able to breathe, and Cobb rustled uneasily in his seat as the threat from the destroyer passed-for Cobb, that was akin to a wild shout of relief. McLanahan said, “Still got two India-band control radars at two o’clock. Give me thirty degrees left, let’s give these guys a wide berth.” He opened the left bomb bay and readied two more HARM missiles of his own to engage the patrol boats. “Search radar only, six o’clock… that destroyer must still have its air-search radar on.. .” Patrick considered turning back to get within range of one more HARM missile launch at the destroyer’s big search radar, or perhaps even a SLAM missile launch at the destroyer itself, but the patrol boat’s gun-control radars ahead were a bigger threat now. With the destroyer’s big threat, the HQ-9 1 surface-to-air missile, gone, the B-52s could take care of the destroyer now. . . 1 “Tracking air target at bearing three-four-two, range eleven miles and increasing, altitude less than eighty meters.. .” The radar operator quickly checked the track history of that target; it had none. It had literally appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the Chinese fleet, and it was about to disappear once again… So this is what a stealth bomber looked like on radar! “Commit aft HQ-91 missiles, ” the CIC officer aboard Jinan ordered. “Yes, sir… aft HQ-9I missiles showing faulted, track error.” “Bypass it. Slave to the Sea Eagle system for command guidance. “Copy… fault log cleared, HQ-9I slaved to air-search radar only, no target illuminations, beam-riding mode only . launcher crew reports ready.”
“Four-missile salvo . . . shoot.” It was the definition of a long shot all the way-a faint radar return from the suspected stealth bomber, no solid lock-on, heavy jamming, no target illumination for the HQ-91 to follow, no lead- computing mathematics or sophisticated intercept trigonometry, no proximity detonation-the missiles were going to either miss or hit the target square-on. The second B-2 had the unfortunate luck to make a slight turn to line up on a Chinese patrol boat that had locked onto it with a fire-control radar. The first HQ-9I streaked by just to the left of the bomber, but the second of the four-missile salvo hit the Black Knight on the left wing, exploding and turning the entire left side of the high-tech bomber into a huge yellow fireball in seconds. The bomber hit the warm waters of the Celebes Sea with the force of a car crusher, killing the crew instantly. The boomerang-shaped aircraft cartwheeled edge-on across the water for several thousand yards before plunging into the waters and disappearing from sight forever. “Target hit! Good hit on number-two aircraft!” A cheer went up in Jinan ‘s Combat Information Center… … but it was very short-lived. “Warning! Incoming missiles, multiple contacts, bearing . . . opposite side, one-four-three, range thirty miles, altitude. . . altitude less than fifty metet speed six hundred knots!” It had to be the Tomahawk missiles, the ones that had vived Kafeng ‘s counterattack. “Radio to all vessels, missile warning, direct defensive fire on. “B-52 bombers launching missiles, bearing two-zero-LIFE, range fifty-one nautical miles… encountering heavy jamrnlr now, all frequencies . Missiles coming from two sides now. . . one, maybe n B-2s roaming around. . . a B-52 that everyone has lost track of… things were not going well all of a sudden. At less than thirty miles’ range, the Tomahawk missiles were his first priority. Captain Jhijun screamed so loud into the intercom that it probably didn’t need an amplifier: “CIC, bridge, I need an intercept estimate. Can you get the Iomahawk missiles?”
“Jamming is heavy, but I think we can manually maintain a lock. Intercept confidence is good. But the number of inbounds is unknown… “Engage as many as you can, ‘ Jhijun said. “Our close-in weapons should get the rest.” Along with its 130-millimeter, and 25-millimeter antiaircraft guns, the destroyer Jinan carried two American- made Mk IS Phalanx cannons, one on each side, which were automatic radar-guided Gatling guns designed to
