Final Storm (20 page)

The huge bomb bays of the B-52 yawned open. Instantly hundreds of cylindrical projectiles came tumbling out of the big bomber’s belly and started plummeting to the ground, all the while spinning rapidly. Once clear of the B-52’s jetwash, each cylinder sprouted a small ram-air parachute to stabilize its descent.

As the heavy cylinders plunged to three thousand feet, they discharged six submunitions, each of which blossomed with their own smaller vortex-ring parachutes. The submunitions spun in a slow, collapsing circle, suspended by the specially designed chutes that rotated them eight times per second. As they descended, the sensor heads activated their own infrared and millimeter-wave detectors which scanned the terrain below, seeking the hot exhausts and solid shapes of the Soviet armor.

The sky above the large open field was black with pinwheeling parachutes, each cradling a warhead that was dangling at a 30-degree angle, sweeping in an ever-narrowing spiral to pick out a target for its lethal payload. Monolithic microwave integrated circuits fashioned from gallium arsenide sped through thousands of complex algorithms that separated their armored prey from the snowy background of the German field, homing in on the tanks.

One by one, the sensors selected their victims. Once confirmed and “entered,” each projectile fired an explosive charge at the top of a Soviet tank. Each explosion propelled a metallic liner—a copper disk about the size of a dinner plate—directly down at its target with a velocity of ten thousand feet per second.

The force of the explosion transformed the specially-shaped liners into elongated rods of white-hot molten copper, traveling at speeds faster than six thousand miles per hour. Like fiery thunderbolts flung from the heavens by angry titans, hundreds of the molten javelins flew down at the crawling green beasts with the red stars on their turrets. They found their mark with deadly accuracy, piercing the Soviet turret tops and boring through steel armor plate like hundreds of high-speed drill bits.

The Soviet tanks quickly became armored coffins for their hapless crews. The white-hot rods punched through the steel plates to release bursts of fire and shrapnel inside the turrets. Hundreds of tanks lurched to a halt as the lethal darts found their mark in the metal, as turrets, engines, and ammunition erupted in huge geysers of fire and smoke.

Dozens of T-80s were hit in their ammo compartments, detonating the shells and blowing the big turrets completely away from the tank bodies in brilliant explosions. Everywhere on the battlefield were wrecked tanks—burning, smoking hulks of torn metal whose shattered black shapes melted into the snow-covered field.

Up along the roads leading into the battle area, more wreckage and carnage littered the roadways as the tanks had been pinned in long ribbons, making it possible for one explosion to destroy two or more armored vehicles at a time.

The violent combined attack had lasted less than seven minutes, but it had broken the back of the Soviet armored assault, and allowed the surviving NATO armor to escape.

Hunter and Jones were flying parallel above the smoking scene, surveying the weapons’ devastating effects.

Hunter radioed to Jones to inquire about the nature of the air-launched missile.

“That, Captain Hunter, was the first combat test of a SADARM—Sense and Destroy Armor—anti-tank smart munitions,” Jones answered. “I think the Soviets will have to agree that it was a complete success.”

Jones was impressed with the destructive potential of the previously well-guarded top secret weapon. They had substantially accomplished their mission—to block this, probably the largest Soviet armored advance. But at the same time he knew that the secret SADARMs were at a premium—only a half dozen were thought to be in Europe at the moment. Plus, the weapon’s awesome destructive force could only be used under a very specific condition: that was, when the enemy massed his armor in a fairly wide open area. Jones was certain that once the word of the “Copperhead” strike made it back to the Red Army’s High Command, orders would be struck preventing such an open massing of Soviet armor again.

Jones was about to sweep the area once more, when his radio suddenly crackled to life.

“Bogeys at ten o’clock!” he heard Hunter’s distinctive Boston-accented voice call out.

Jones quickly checked his cockpit radar, and initially saw nothing.

But in the F-16 off to his right, Hunter wasn’t relying on electronic means to cue him of the threat. He had received the message through other channels.

The
feeling
was washing over him, setting off the multiple alarm bells in his mind that always signaled imminent danger. A split second before the radar warning went off, Hunter already felt the presence of the enemy.

Now, even before Jones’s own radar rang out the warning, Hunter had kicked in his afterburner and was climbing fast.

T
HE FLIGHT OF SOVIET
fighters had appeared in the eastern sky above the battlefield.

Coming to the belated defense of their now-smoking armored columns, the Russians had sent 16 of their new MiG-29 Fulcrums to intercept the American attack planes.

The Soviets had almost caught the Americans unaware, still loitering over the battlefield to survey the effects of the SADARM strike. Only Hunter’s premonition had provided them the precious split-seconds they needed to gain speed and altitude to engage the Soviet fighters.

Two of the speedy Fulcrums peeled out of the Soviet formation and rose to chase the B-52G, whose pilot had already shrewdly assessed the situation and was pouring the coal into all eight engines to hasten his departure from the battle area. Dropping high-tech ordnance on Soviet armor was one thing—tangling with a Mach 2 enemy fighter was something else entirely, and he wanted no part of it.

Four more Fulcrums set out after the low-flying A-10s, who were already hugging the ground and hightailing it back to the southwest. The Soviets had a speed advantage, but they would have to fly between the trees to catch the hedge-hopping Thunderbolts.

The remaining Fulcrums headed straight for Hunter and Jones at better than Mach 2. But thanks to Hunter’s quick action, the F-16s had now gained enough altitude to meet the Soviets at their level.

Reacting quickly, Jones hollered into the microphone and crisply dispatched orders to the 16th.

“JT! Take Crider and save that B-52’s butt! Rico and Samuels, go cover those ’Bolts. Hawk, Ben and Christman, stay with me!”

The general’s orders were answered with a ringing chorus of “Roger!” and the F-16 formation split into three groups.

Jones looked over at Hunter through the scratched plexiglas canopy. He and his wingman were in the lead, with Ben and Christman following a half mile behind.

Keying the squadron’s frequency, Jones gave the order to hold formation right through the oncoming enemy flight.

“Falcon flight, this is Falcon leader,” he called out calmly. “Let’s hold this pattern and turn fast. Hawk and I will go at them straight on. Ben, you and Christman pick up any bandits that break formation. Cannons only. We’ll all break independent after the initial pass.”

Absorbing the engagement orders, Wa and Christman pulled back on their throttles and increased the distance between them and the Jones-Hunter flight to about a mile and a half.

At that point, Jones called to Hunter and said: “Think these guys are ready to play a little Chicken Kiev, Hawk?”

“First time for everything, sir,” Hunter replied tightly. He had a suspicion of what Jones was planning and he was more than willing to trust the experienced man’s judgment, even if it did mean flying head-on into the oncoming force of Soviet MiGs.

That was exactly what Jones had in mind.

The general had guessed (correctly as it turned out) that the Soviet flight leader had ordered his pilots to hold their eight-plane formation, waiting for the Americans speeding headlong toward them to break away first and thus give them a clean shot. Now, Jones was hoping his surprise would be enough to rattle the superior Soviet force.

As the distance closed between the two flights of speeding fighters, their combined approach velocity was greater than Mach 4. Holding their positions as ordered, the Soviets were dismayed to see the Americans fail to break off, depriving the Fulcrums of the opportunity to fire their AA-10 air-to-air missiles at the broad undersides of the F-16s. While the moments ticked off, the Soviet pilots tightened their hands on the control sticks in their cockpit, desperately wanting to flick the twin-engine planes off to avoid the oncoming pair of F-16s, but unwilling to do so without orders.

Hunter’s right hand rested lightly on the side-stick controller, since he knew from experience that the slightest pressure could dart the speeding plane off course by several hundred yards in seconds.

Moments flashed by. In little more than a split second, the two groups of airplanes would be upon each other, perhaps even colliding in mid-air.

Hunter re-armed his 20mm rapid fire cannon and looked through his Head-Up Display at the oncoming Fulcrums. They were dangerous-looking airplanes—their twin tails seemed to knife through the sky guiding their sleek bodies. But looks alone weren’t enough to impress Hunter, or any of the other F-16 pilots, for that matter. Little did the Soviets know that the two F-16s which were at that moment hurtling right at them were being flown by members of the elite Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team.

Now
that
was impressive …

Hunter’s HUD showed target acquisition for the cannon. He pressed lightly on the fire button, not enough to engage the cannon, but just enough to make his reaction a fraction of a second quicker when the time came to shoot.

The gap between the two adversaries was almost gone now, and Hunter could only imagine what was going through the minds of the enemy pilots. Head-on maneuvers were commonplace for the Thunderbirds team.

He couldn’t believe the Soviets were as skilled.

His radio came to life with Jones’s voice. “OK, Hawk, initiate Big Squeeze formation.”

Hunter knew immediately that Jones was telling him to rotate his wings to almost vertical in order to squeeze between the closely spaced Soviet fighters. As one, the two F-16s flipped up on their wings, at last convincing the eight Soviet pilots that the F-16s were in fact committed to flying straight into them.

It was too much for the Red pilots to take. Two of them in front suddenly started to break formation.

But it was too late. Hunter flicked his control stick once and depressed his fire button in one fluid motion, rocking the airplane over on its wing and pouring a stream of cannon fire into one of the leading MiGs.

The Soviet airplane seemed to stagger in midair as the heavy cannon shells exploded on its nose, wingroot and, finally, its cockpit. Three shells in all pierced the canopy glass, shattering it, and puncturing the Soviet pilot’s chest, killing him instantly. The fighter immediately spun out of control, lost altitude and began a rapid spiral down. Hunter watched as it quickly slammed into the ground and exploded on impact.

Jones had taken out the Fulcrum flight leader in similar fashion, pumping a stream of cannon shells in the intake of his right engine, exploding it in a cloud of debris that the F-16s had to fly through as they passed the startled Soviets.

In a flash, Jones and Hunter were through the Soviet formation, still speeding away at full AB. At the same time, Wa and Christman dove to pursue two of the Fulcrums that had broken rank just seconds before.

Twirling around in his seat to get a visual fix on the enemy, Jones signaled to Hunter for a two-plane formation Immelmann turn—one of the countless moves from their old Thunderbird repertoire.

The maneuver was one of the oldest in fighting aviation history, originally developed by World War I German ace Max Immelmann. A half-loop brought the planes around, and a half-roll brought them upright again; it allowed a pilot to gain altitude and reverse direction to face an enemy on his tail. Now Hunter and Jones would use the same move to fire missiles at the still-speeding Fulcrums.

As if they were images in a mirror, the two F-16s gracefully executed the move as one, bringing their fighter planes up and around to face the tails of the Soviet MiGs. Hunter and Jones each released a Sidewinder, and the two missiles roared off their wingtips and zeroed in on separate Fulcrums. The deadly darts raced through the sky, vapor trails corkscrewing behind them. Each found its mark in the exhaust nozzle of one of the Russian MiGs, and two powerful explosions shook the air as the enemy fighters were enveloped in violent fireballs.

Warned too late for reaction by their radar threat indicators, the remaining Fulcrums broke off to engage the F-16s in a wide-ranging dogfight. Hunter was struck by the surprising maneuverability of the Russian MiGs—a turn radius and climb rate comparable to the F-16’s, although the Fulcrum required two engines to equal the performance of the big GE turbofan that the Falcon boasted.

Making their turns, the MiGs sent a volley of AA-10 air-to-air missiles at the two American planes. The F-16’s threat warning alerts began sounding as the big Soviet airborne daggers sped for their targets. Hunter rolled his plane over and over in a dizzying sideways spiral, not allowing the missile’s guidance systems to lock on to the wildly revolving jet. Missing Hunter’s plane, the missile spent its remaining fuel and plunged harmlessly to the ground.

Jones had also evaded the two missiles fired at his plane, as did Ben Wa, who with Christman, had pulled up closer to Hunter and Jones by this time.

The battle raged for another full minute. Then suddenly, Christman ran out of luck.

Flying behind Hunter, he had attempted to imitate a corkscrew roll that would protect him from the Soviet missiles. But he had pulled out too soon, completing only three complete spins before he dove, upside down, out of his orbit and directly into the path of one of the big enemy arrows.

The deadly missile struck his F-16 near the tail section and sent the fighter staggering downward, losing altitude in a death spiral. Unable to control the plane, Christman knew the control links must have been severed. His only hope now was to eject himself out of the stricken plane.