The Super Etendards on the anti-shipping strike split after four launched a single weapon apiece. The Russian controllers watched half the attackers turn for home on burner whilst their missiles went ballistic. The senior controller ran the missiles' data against known profiles for anti-shipping missiles; he didn’t get a match, which did not surprise him because he personally knew of none that behaved that way. The remaining four launched two minutes later and turned hard, heading for the safety of the task force, their weapons did at least perform, as anti-shipping missiles should. His attention was then called back to the first missiles which had levelled out briefly at 30,000 before beginning steep descents, and then he noticed that the NATO forces had ceased radiating. With the exception of one AE-6B Prowler that was still jamming, all NATO radar and communication equipment was switched off rather than turned to standby, and no one was looking east of the North Cape.
“Dolboy'eb!” the senior controller cursed his own stupidity and stabbed the ‘all freqs’ transmission switch.
“False Dawn… False Dawn!” he was almost screaming the code words. The Soviet units in the attacks came from more countries than just Russia, not everyone spoke Russian but they had all been given code words for a variety of occurrences.
Having put out the warning he unstrapped himself and sprinted up the aircraft for the A-50’s own master shutdown switch, for a man of fifty-five he was negotiating the chicane formed by the operators’ seats quite well, but he wouldn’t make it.
The Russian destroyers and frigates began launching on the incoming missiles although they would also be too late, at 10,000 feet above sea level the four warheads detonated.
Many of the units in range of the effects of the nuclear airbursts were far too busy to initiate the shutdowns, let alone look up the code word.
Aboard the A-50 the datalink to the Tarantulas terminated, radar screens went blank as the EMP, electromagnetic pulse, tripped the built in safeties but still burnt out several circuit boards.
Fortunately for the A-50 pilots, they were on the northbound leg of their orbit at that moment, they knew that all the Russian warheads that were likely to be used today were conventional, but no one believed that NATO would use nuclear weapons off a member state's coastline.
Whilst the Russian controllers frantically replaced burnt out boards the second flight of Storm-Shadows flew on unchallenged half a mile apart, to detonate over the first wave of missile boats.
Radars and communications failed in many Russian airframes within a three hundred-mile radius, and retinas burnt out in those who were looking the wrong way at the wrong time. Airborne command and control for all Russian forces was lost over the north of Norway, and their naval surface combat units were either vaporised, or burning from stem to stern.
The ASW helicopter base and its defences at Banak lay in flames, but no airworthy aircraft had been there when the attackers arrived, they had dispersed the day before, along with essential equipment and personnel. Helicopters do not need runways; they were ready to commence operations once the Russian air attacks had been beaten off.
The Hawks and F-16s returned, although the Hawks arrived later having recovered to Bodø, to the south, to rearm with another pair of AIM-9 Sidewinders each.
One force that was largely intact was the Tu-22ME Backfire anti-shipping strike with its seven remaining S37 Golden Eagle stealth fighters. Two of their number had been intending to ruin the French fighter-bombers whole day, when five miles north of their own destroyer and frigate force they had been swatted from the skies.
The commander of the Task Force strike gave his orders to the regimental commanders; they left their holding orbits and split up into their high, low, left and right attack elements, heading west.
The AWAC and JSTARS turned back toward the east, initiating the powering up sequences for their surveillance, command and control systems. The datalink with the Task Force was re-established and the French aircraft carrier began launching the forty remaining Rafale Ms. The single AE-6B Prowler that had continued to fog the radar screens, denying the enemy an exact fix on the task force, curled down toward the icy waters streaming smoke and flame. Despite its electronic safeguards, several electric fires started by the EMP had been beyond the ability of the crew to put out; a helicopter was heading toward the imminent crash site.
Fleet defence was handed over to the Royal Navy Sea Harriers off the Jeanne d'Arc and the AV-8B Harriers from the Spanish carrier Principe de Asturias whilst the French advanced fighters attempted to break up the enemy attack long before it was in range to launch its missiles.
As the Russian A-50 began the process of re-booting its systems the strike against the NATO blockade went in unassisted, the S37s only had their own systems to work with. The S37s’ commander looked at the electronic mess that was blocking his radar emissions and made a hard decision, his aircraft curved back around to the east to take station behind the leading regiment of fighter-bombers, thirty Flogger Js.
The Russian stealth fighters had been a thorn in NATO’s side since the battle of Leipzig, and as much as the senior NATO controller would have liked to waste them all before sorting out the strike aircraft there was too much at stake here. She watched the stealth fighters’ heat signatures replaced at the forefront and ensured that none of the French pilots got carried away. Each regiment taking part, with the exception of the S37s, had two aircraft assigned to carry a pair of multi-phase jammer pods and only a couple of Aphids for self-defence, these aircraft now powered up their pods.
The Rafale Ms had an un-obscured view of the oncoming Soviet strike, right up until that point; there were a few Gallic grumbles as they switched from Mica, medium range radar guided missiles to their DEFA 791B 30-mm cannons for the first head-on pass. At their current closing speed, they risked damage to their own airframes from flying debris if they fired their Magic IIs at their maximum range of 7km.
Forty French advanced strike fighters were about to engage over one hundred enemy aircraft a mere 157 miles from the maximum launch range of the enemy’s anti-ship missiles.
The Russian S37s were not in the same restricted position as the Rafale Ms they carried the Vympel R-73E, known by its NATO code name as the AA-11 Archer. Its front and rear control fins are augmented with a thrust-vectoring system that deflects hot gases from the rocket motor, greatly enhancing turning performance and if that weren’t enough, it also outranged the AIM-9L Sidewinder and the Magic II by almost 30km.
Rafale Ms found themselves locked-up and broke lock by jinking violently into the vertical and discharging flares, the Russian pilots did not attempt to re-establish lock; they merely locked up another Frenchman.
Capitaine de Aéronavale Allaine Armand, the Charles De Gaulle’s CAG, leading Escadrille 24 immediately behind the leading squadron, Escadrille 15, barked at his pilots to hold their course and go to zone three afterburners even as his own threat receiver screeched in alarm. The increased thermal output in the Rafales' wakes, flares plus acceleration beat some of the AA-11 missiles that were loosed at them. Two of the advanced single seat carrier aircraft disintegrated in balls of fire and wreckage, a third lost its starboard engine but held its course, it failed however to beat the next Archer sent its way moments later.
The seven survivors of Escadrille 24 loosed 30mm cannon fire at the Flogger Js before breaking, Allain Armand thumbed a half second burst into the Flogger heading straight for him, its own cannon firing back at him, before kicking his left rudder and rolling inverted. A mere six feet of air separated the two aircraft as they passed and shards of shattered cockpit canopy bounced off the Rafale’s fuselage. Armand had no opportunity to watch the Flogger nose over with a dead pilot at the controls, he was pulling five Gs in a hard, diving turn to the left in an attempt to engage a regiment of Backfires, their wings fully swept back, streaking west at wave top level.