PENTAGON: NUCLEAR UPGRADE NEEDED FOR DETERRENCE
A blue-ribbon Pentagon panel is urging the Clinton administration to improve the nation’s nuclear forces for decades to come in the face of Russia’s large arsenal and China’s growing strategic force. The report by the Defense Science Board task force challenges key U.S. arms-control policies, including the ban on nuclear testing, reliance on arms-reduction agreements and monitoring of nuclear-warhead reliability. A major finding is that the Pentagon lacks a long-term planning mechanism for nuclear-weapons programs.
JOINT ‘MIND WARFARE’ UNIT SET UP WITH U.S.
U.S. and South Korean officials agreed to set up a joint psychological warfare unit that will attempt to win over North Korean civilians in the event of war.
PORTRAIT OF A FAMINE: STARVING NORTH KOREANS WHO REACH CHINA DESCRIBE A SLOWLY DYING COUNTRY
As best they can, North Korean refugees drag themselves through snow and bitter cold to reach haven in China. Those who survive their personal exodus disclose horrifying tales of a slowly dying country, where famine is a continuing nightmare…. Aid supplies gathered by various agencies and sent to North Korea don’t usually get to ordinary people, despite what international aid agencies proclaim. Most food and medicine is routed to families of the Workers’ Party and the military….
PROLOGUE
Get pumped, hogs!” the B-1B Lancer’s pilot shouted excitedly on interphone. “We’re coming up on the squid low-level. I’m ready to kick some ass! Let’s show them who the top dogs are. I’m going to give us a few seconds on this way point, Long Dong. Thirty knots should do it. I want lots of room to rock and roll when they jump us. Power coming back to give us a few seconds’ pad. I want some shacks!” He pulled the throttles back until the time over target matched the required time over target on the flight plan. Then he pulled off one more notch of throttle until he had a good twenty-to-thirty-second pad.
“Go for it, Rodeo,” the B-1B’s OSO, or offensive systems officer, responded eagerly. He glanced at his flight plan for the time over target, then at the time-to-target readout on his forward instrument panel. Being a few seconds late at this point meant they could fly faster on the bomb run itself, where the threats were likely to be heaviest. They fully expected to get jumped by fighters on this run, which meant they’d be running all over the sky trying to stay alive.
As he made the airspeed adjustment, the pilot strained forward in his ejection seat to look at his wing-man, a second B-1B bomber in loose formation on his right wing. The B-1 “Bone” (few called it by its official nickname, “Lancer”) rarely fought alone. If one B-1B supersonic bomber was a devastating weapon, two were triply difficult to defeat. They would need every possible advantage to win this battle.
Sure, this was only an exercise, not a true life-or-death struggle. But everyone in the B-1B was playing it as if it were the real thing. As someone once said, “The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.” Besides, in the eyes of these U.S. Air Force heavy bombardment crewdogs, getting “shot down”—especially by the U.S. Navy — was almost as bad as a real-life kill.
Naval Air Station Fallon was the home of the Navy Strike and Air Warfare Center and the new home of the “TOP GUN” Fighter Combat School. All aircraft carrier fighter and bomber aircrews were required to report to Navy Fallon before a deployment to certify their knowledge and skills in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat tactics. The Navy Fallon Target Range comprised over ten thousand square miles of an isolated corner of northern Nevada east of Reno, with some of the airspace restricted to all other aircraft from the surface to infinity, so the crews could practice live air-to-ground bombing, gunnery, and air combat maneuvers. Powerful TV cameras located throughout the range would score each bomber crew’s attacks, and instrument packages onboard each aircraft sent electronic telemetry to range control stations, allowing great scoring accuracy in air-to-air engagements during post-mission briefings.
Because the Navy liked to mix it up with as many different “adversaries” as possible, the U.S. Air Force was frequently invited to “play” at Navy Fallon. For the USAF bomber crews, there was no greater thrill than to blow past the Navy’s defenses and bomb some targets on their home turf.
Ever since the B-1Bs arrived in Reno, there had been a heated competition between the Air Force and Navy about who were northern Nevada’s best military aviators. The competition would be even hotter today, because the B-1 unit in the box was the Nevada Air National Guard’s 111th “Aces High” Bomb Squadron from Reno-Tahoe International Airport, just a few miles west on Interstate 80 from Navy Fallon. The 111th was one of only three Air National Guard wings to fly the sleek, deadly B-1B Lancer. Some serious bragging rights were on the line here.
“Get us some range clearance, Mad Dog,” the pilot ordered.
“Rog,” the copilot responded. On the discrete “referee’s” radio frequency, unknown to the defensive players, he announced, “Fallon Range Control, Fallon Range Control, Aces Two-One flight of two, Austin One Blue inbound, requesting range clearance.”
“Aces Two-One flight, this is Navy Fallon bomb plot,” came the response. “Aces Two-One cleared hot into Navy Fallon ranges R-4804, R-4812, R-4810, Austin One MOA, Gabbs North MOA, and Ranch MOA routes and altitudes, maximum buzzer. Altimeter two-niner-niner-eight. Remain this frequency, monitor GUARD.”
“Two-One, cleared into-04,-12,-10, Austin One, Gabbs North, and Ranch, two-niner-niner-eight, coming in hot and max buzzer, check,” the copilot responded.
“Two,” the second B-1’s pilot responded. The less a wingman said on the radio, the better.
On interphone, the B-1’s copilot announced, “We’re cleared in hot, maximum buzzer.”
“Let’s go fry us up some squid, then!” the pilot shouted again. There was no response. The rest of the crew was getting ready for the action.
Two systems operators, the OSO and the DSO — the defensive systems officer — sat behind the pilots in ejection seats in a small compartment just above the entry ladder hatch. As his name implied, the OSO handled the bomber’s weapon and attack systems. The DSO’s job was to call out threats as they appeared, monitor the system to make sure it responded properly when a radar threat came up, and take over operation of the defensive gear if the computers malfunctioned.
A tone sounded over interphone, a slow, almost playful
“Copy,” the pilot said. On the interplane frequency, he radioed, “Trapper, take spacing. Keep it within eight miles.”
“Rog, Rodeo,” the wingman’s pilot responded, and began a slight turn, letting the distance between the two bombers increase. Although they would both be flying the same route and attacking the same target, they would fly slightly different paths, separated by at least thirty seconds. This would hopefully confuse and complicate the defender’s task. The two bombers also used air-to-air TACAN to monitor the distance between them, and they had
