open…” A warning tone sounded on the radio channel. As they watched, the B-1’s forward bomb bay doors opened. “… release pulse, missile away, missile away.” The Lancelot missile dropped free, fell for a few seconds, and then ignited its first-stage solid-rocket motor.
Hayes caught a glimpse of it as it fell. It was less than twenty feet long, with a triangular-shaped fuselage no more than eighteen inches in diameter at its widest point. It had no fins — Hayes remembered that SRAM-II used thruster jets for directional control. The missile streaked ahead, then began a sharp climb and arced backward on an “over-the-shoulder” trajectory. A few seconds later they heard a high-pitched
“Good launch!” Hayes said excitedly. “Go, baby,
It was too high to see clearly, but seconds later they saw a flash of yellow-orange fire and a large puff of smoke. Range control gave them the good news moments later: “Target intercepted, T plus fifteen point seven seconds, altitude seventy-three thousand feet, twenty-nine point one miles downrange, velocity twenty-five hundred feet per second. Intercept circular error thirty-seven point four feet. Repeat, target intercepted. All participants, remain clear of Romeo-1402 for the next ten minutes to stay clear of falling debris.”
“Thirty-seven feet! Incredible!” Hayes crowed. “With a fifty-pound warhead, that’s overkill!”
“Fireman flight, range gives you clearance for secondary release,” the launch controller radioed.
“Fireman flight copies range clearance, check,” the pilot aboard the B-1 responded.
“Two,” Samson responded in turn.
“Okay, Earthmover, what’s happening now?” Hayes asked.
“The next part of Coronet Tiger one-plus,” Samson explained. “You see, we’re not satisfied with destroying the ballistic missile — we want to destroy the launch site and all the associated launch command facilities. Remember, we’re over enemy territory, and we don’t see any reason to be over enemy territory killing rockets if we can’t do some more mayhem while we’re there. The laser radar tracks the missile and at the same time computes the launch point and feeds it into the bombing computers. The B-1 has already computed the probable launch point using the launch detection signal and the radar track — all we need to do is attack.”
A few moments later the aft bomb bay doors on the B-1 bomber opened, and a small missile dropped into the slipstream. It was much smaller than the Lancelot missile, with a fat forebody tapering quickly to a thin tail section and a star-shaped fin group aft. As it dropped, a pair of long, thin wings popped out from under the fuselage. It released a small puff of smoke as an engine started up, and soon the missile turned and descended. “Was that a JASSM cruise missile?” Hayes asked.
“Yep. A D-model AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missile,” Samson replied. He reached over and hit some buttons around the edge of the large multifunction display on the right side of the instrument panel. The “God’s-eye” image of the Lancelot missile launch was replaced by an aerial camera shot, so far showing only ocean. “The new and improved version of the joint air-to-surface standoff attack missile. Turbojet-powered, max fifty-mile range when launched at low altitude. Autonomous GPS and inertial navigation, autonomous target acquisition, autonomous millimeter-wave radar terminal guidance or imaging infrared terminal sensor with manual steering, with images fed back to us by satellite. It even has its own jammers and countermeasures. It has three bomb bays that can carry a mixed payload and actually make multiple attacks on several targets, or even do its own target damage assessment and reattack. The missiles we’re using today only carry one warhead payload, however.”
“A sensor-fused weapon warhead?”
“You got it, sir.”
“Outstanding. I always enjoy watching an SFW take out a target.”
“That’s definitely the best part, sir,” Samson said, the smile behind his oxygen mask evident in his voice. “Watch. The 177 will take a picture of the target after its pass.”
The missile had descended rapidly — it was now skimming the surface of the ocean so low that Hayes thought one swell could easily reach up and snatch it out of the sky. A white box appeared on the screen, centered on a tiny black dot. “The inertial navigation system is steering the missile to the estimated coordinates of that Pershing launch barge, with coordinates dumped to it by the B-1’s launch sensors,” Samson explained. “At ten miles to go, it’ll start searching on its own.” He quickly reconfigured the large supercockpit screen so they could see both the missile’s-eye view and a God’s-eye view at the same time. The launch barge was a red triangle; the Wolverine missile was a white diamond streaking toward it.
Hayes could see three Navy ships surrounding the launch barge. Suddenly, blinking red boxes appeared from one of them, and a circle drew itself around the red box, enveloping the cruise missile. “Standard missile radar,” Samson explained. “The circle is lethal range, based on type of radar and signal strength.” Just then another red box and lethal range circle appeared around a second Navy ship. The red box began to blink. “The second Navy ship has launched on the 177,” Samson said.
“Fireman flight, stand by for launch,” the B-1 bomber crew radioed. Moments after Samson acknowledged the warning, a second Wolverine missile dropped free from the B-1’s aft bomb bay.
“Two JASSMs!” Hayes exclaimed. “Now we really got a show going!”
“This is how we envision employing Coronet Tiger one-plus — in a hunter-killer role,” Samson explained. “Obviously, the B-1 becomes an item of interest after it first launches an antiballistic missile missile and then attacks the launch site. Any area defenses will light up like crazy. That’s when the bomber shifts from a rocket killer to SEAD — suppression of enemy air defenses — role.
“The B-1 can carry up to twenty-four Wolverine or Lancelot missiles internally, plus four more externally. A typical weapons load would be eight Lancelots and eight Wolverines on internal rotary launchers, and one internal fuel tank or eight more JASSMs. Externally, it can carry eight HARM antiradar missiles or twelve Scorpion air-to-air missiles, depending on support, range to the target, and the threat. The B-1 can carry up to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of ordnance — as much as five F-15E Strike Eagles, with much greater range and equal speed.”
“Scorpion? HARM?” Hayes asked. “The B-1 can carry antiradar or air-to-air missiles?”
“It always could, sir,” Samson replied. “The B-1 has four external hardpoints with a standard data bus — it can carry any missile, bomb, or sensor package in the inventory. It also has two external fuel tank hardpoints. But when the B-1 was disqualified from carrying cruise missiles because of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties, everyone seemed to forget about the hardpoints. Everyone except HAWC, of course. External stores destroy the Bone’s stealth capabilities, but once the external stores and racks are used or jettisoned, it has full stealth capability again.”
Hayes watched in utter fascination as the attack continued. Both Navy ships were launching Standard antiair missiles now. The Wolverines were skimming the ocean so low it looked as if they would crash into it any second.
The second Wolverine missile passed within one mile of the easternmost Navy warship. “That’s a kill,” Samson said.
“But it missed.”
“It was programmed not to fly closer than one mile,” Samson explained. “Range safety rules. It’ll try to go after the second Navy ship now.” But the missile’s luck ran out. Because the first Navy ship was still “alive,” it and the second warship bracketed the second Wolverine missile with a flight of four Standard missiles and shot it down long before it could approach the second ship.
“Not fair,” Samson protested. “That first ship was ‘dead.’”
“All’s fair in love and ship defense,” Hayes said.
“It’s still unfair,” Samson said. “But the first Wolverine missile has a live warhead. You’ll see — it’s going all the way to the target.”
It did. Samson and Hayes watched as it streaked over the launch barge, the imaging infrared view of the barge flipping upside down as the IIR sensor stayed locked on the target. Three small cylindrical canisters appeared on the image, spinning under a small stabilizing parachute. Suddenly, all three canisters separated from the parachute, and moments later there were several bright flashes of light that completely obscured the barge. When the image cleared, the barge was on fire and half submerged.
“Man, I love watching those things,” Hayes admitted. The BLU-108 “Shredder” sensor-fused weapon, or SFW, was the Air Force’s new air-delivered antivehicle weapon. Each Shredder canister contained four copper skeets, aimed by an infrared sensor. As the canisters spin, they find a target, and at the proper instant they detonate. The
