primary groups of bogies, designated Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.”
More long-ranged missiles lanced out from the American squadrons as the BARCAP planes shot off the last of their AIM-54-Cs and the newcomers began unloading their Sparrows.
The AIM-7 Sparrow was a design that, in various incarnations, went back to the early fifties. Naval aviators tended to distrust it, for the missile had more than once shown a nasty tendency to lock onto the water instead of the target. Just as bad, from the pilot’s point of view, Sparrow had SARH guidance, which meant that once it was fired, the aircraft could not Maneuver without breaking the radar beam that illuminated the target for the missile’s sensors.
The latest F-and M-versions had ranges of up to sixty miles. Aviators preferred to dump them early in a fight, while they still had the luxury of flying straight and level toward the enemy.
“Fox one,” someone called over the tactical frequency.
He was echoed a second later by someone else. “Fox one, fox one.
Missile away.” Then other voices joined in. It was the high-tech equivalent of volley fire, a throwback to the days when armies stood their soldiers shoulder to shoulder and fired en masse.
Batman’s radar display rapidly became a tangle of blips as the sky filled with half-ton chunks of metal, hurtling north at Mach 4.
Ramadutta’s radar display was a blotchy, static-covered mess, partly from the sheer number of targets, partly from the American jamming that was turning out to be more effective than the New Delhi planners had anticipated. His tail threat receiver detected one target, however, with terrible clarity.
An air-to-air missile was coming in from behind.
“Enemy missile at one-eight-five!” he shouted, warning the other Migs in his flight. “IR homing! Evasive!”
The formation of Mig-29s blossomed apart, breaking in four directions as the enemy Sidewinder raced in across the kilometers. Several seconds into a high-G turn, Ramadutta saw that the missile was not locked on him, but on Lieutenant Pahvi’s Mig, number 404.
“Pahvi!” he snapped. “Use flares!”
Too late. Lieutenant Pahvi’s Mig was angling straight into the sky, a dazzling trail of flares dropping away behind his ship as it rose, but the American missile was rising fast, ignoring the flares and centering on the center of the aircraft.
There was a flash. Ramadutta saw the orange ball of flame, smoke, and debris punch through the airplane squarely between the wings, rupturing the wing tanks.
Pahvi’s Mig was a mass of flame an instant later, still climbing into the sky atop a towering pillar of writhing black smoke.
On the radar, the American pilot was still coming, alone. Gritting his teeth against the G-force, Ramadutta completed his turn, bringing the nose of his Fulcrum around until it was aligned with the American, now five miles distant.
CHAPTER 23
Tombstone couldn’t see the enemy plane yet, but he saw the symbol that marked it on his HUD shifting to the side as the other pilot positioned himself for the pass.
“Shit!” Hitman called from the backseat. “He’s taking us head-to-head!”
“I’m going for Sidewinder,” Tombstone said, aligning the HUD pipper and locking in. The AIM-9L Sidewinder was an all-aspect heat-seeker, meaning Tombstone did not have to hold his fire until he could give the missile a look at the target’s white-hot exhaust. But Sidewinder head shots were still risky. When the closing speed between target and missile was in the vicinity of Mach 3 or 4, the enemy had a better chance of breaking the lock by maneuvering or launching flares.
“Take him, Stoney! Take him!”
“Fox two!”
The American was launching as Munir Ramadutta pulled his nose up, climbing almost vertically as he popped flares. At ten thousand feet he pulled an immelmann, dropping out of the climb inverted, again facing the oncoming enemy.
The range was now four miles. Still inverted, Ramadutta loosed an E-23 AAM.
The missile, called AA-7 “Apex” by the West, actually came in two flavors designated R-23R, a long-ranged SARH version, and E-23T, which used IR homing. Ramadutta carried two of the heat-seekers in his ordnance load. Apex could reach considerably farther than the four AA-8 Aphid missiles he also mounted.
As the missile slid off his wing, Ramadutta rolled his Mig, trading altitude for speed in a long plunge toward the sea.
“Missed him!” Hitman warned. “We nailed a flare! He’s launching!”
Tombstone held the F-14 steady for a torturously long four seconds. “Pop flares!”
As white-hot decoys spewed into the Tomcat’s wake, Tombstone broke left, careful not to turn his exhaust in the direction of the approaching missile.
Scanning the horizon as it rolled past his cockpit, he caught sight of the other plane for the first time, a tiny speck angling toward the sea.
In the dense, wet air close to the water, the Mig was dragging a contrail, a sharp white streak across the darker sea.
Something flashed past the cockpit, feeling close though it was at least a hundred yards away, then exploded astern. A lone fragment of shrapnel pinged off the canopy as Tombstone rolled toward the other plane.
“One Sidewinder left,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get on this bird’s tail!”
Explosions flashed and popped among the Indian aircraft. Streaks of black smoke scrawled from sky to sea as burning planes plummeted.
Despite their bad rep, the Sparrows had struck, and struck hard.
Now the aircraft formations were penetrating one another, swirling together in a colossal aerial dogfight that filled the sky with flashing planes and the long, white streaks of air-to-air missiles. The American Tomcats were heavily outnumbered, but the majority of their opponents were older, slower strike aircraft carrying bombs and missiles against the U.S. fleet: Canberras, Su-7 Fitters, and aging Hawker Hunters. Many of the more modern aircraft in the oncoming wave, Jaguars and swing-wing Mig-27 Flogger-Ds, were dedicated strike aircraft, slowed by the bombs and missiles slung from their ordnance hardpoints.
“Going for guns,” Batman called automatically, snapping the selector switch on his stick as the F-14 slid gently onto the six of a Flogger.
“You’d better,” Malibu replied. “That’s all we got left!”
Batman let the HUD reticle drift across the other plane’s fuselage, following as the Flogger began a slow break to the left. His Lead Computing Optical Sight drew a short line on his HUD, showing how much lead to give the Mig as it turned away.
His thumb came down on the firing switch, and the M-61A1 Vulcan cannon thundered. White smoke trailed behind Batman’s Tomcat in puffs as he pumped burst after burst into the fleeing Mig-27.
Chunks of metal sprayed from the Flogger’s back and left wing. The Indian pilot tried to sharpen his break in
