“'To meet with this array of talent, we have some guests from Strategic Air Command.” There was low growl. The tactical aviation groups in Russia resented the way SAC had got the credit for ending the war. This whole series of exercises had started life because of that ill-feeling.
“General Tibbets has brought the B-36Hs of the 100th Bomb Group while General Lucas has contributed the RB-36s of the 305th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing. There will also be detachments of KB-36 tankers and GB-36 fighter carriers participating. In additional, Kapitan Ivan Mayolev has brought a detachment of the Tu-4s from the Russian Navy's Third Long Range Naval Aviation Regiment.”
Colonel Pico looked at the room. Mention of the Tu-4s had caused confusion, everybody knew the Tupolev was only an improved version of the B-29 and everybody knew what happened when B-29s met fighters.
After getting back from the Big One, he'd lain awake for nights on end, his mind filled with the images of the mushroom clouds rising over German cities and, when sleep had finally come, dreams filled with montages of similar clouds rising over American cities. The B-36 might be slow by fighter standards but it could fly higher than any of them. That's what had made The Big One work. There had been nothing the Germans could do to stop the bombers. Now, the same applied to America. If an enemy came at them with a fleet of B-36s, there would be nothing in America to stop them.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was known to be developing a B-36-likc aircraft, Air Intelligence had code-named it “Frank” and if the Navy was developing such an aircraft, the Army could not be far behind. The B-36 had shown that such aircraft could be built and even given the more careful observers vital clues on how they could be built. And when they were built, there was nothing America could do to stop them.
“A word on the aims and organization of these exercises. We will be flying air problems during the day. These will all be quite simple, there will be assigned targets within the range area. Bombers from SAC will attempt to penetrate the defenses and strike those targets with simulated nuclear weapons. Your job, gentlemen, is to stop them. Any way you can. Once the exercise is completed and everybody is back here, we will be holding detailed debriefing sessions to assess what happened and how. By the way, General Tibbets has offered to carry any of you who wish to ride a B-36 on these exercises so you can see things from the bomber perspective. I urge you all to take advantage of that offer.
“Then, in the evenings there will be a series of presentations on new defense technologies and products. Tomorrow night will be the first, a team from Douglas, Raytheon and Bell Telephones will be here to talk about a new anti-aircraft missile system we are developing. The night after, Artem Mikoyan and a team from his design bureau will be here to tell us about their new MiG-t5 fighter. Colonel Gabreski?”
“You mentioned missiles? Any ground-based anti-aircraft units here?”
“Indeed. The targets will be surrounded by the 90mm antiaircraft guns from Camp Roberts and we've got some new 120mms direct from the manufacturers. In addition, we have some captured German 127mms and even some Wasserfall missiles to try out.
“One of the things we're evaluating here is the air defense system that will tie all these bits together. Most of you've read the reports on that German system, NAIADS. It looks like it was the tactical coordination provided by that system gave the Germans the edge needed to crucify the B-29 raids. For all that, we're not too impressed with NAIADS. It’s a very Teutonic system, its reporting paths rigidly hierarchical and very strictly defined. That spells a fragile system to us, one that can be easily disrupted.
“We want to do better. That raises a question of how. The communications net we're defining is quite different in structure from NAIADS. The German system was, is, a tree with information flowing in defined paths from the branches to the roots then orders flowing back in the opposite direction. Break those paths anywhere and the information doesn't flow. We are designing a system that's more like a network a mass of interconnections. Break it at any one place and the information flows around the break.
“That begs a question, what do we control and how. One of the purposes of our work the next few weeks is to determine how defensive fighters can best be utilized within such a network. As most of you who served in Russia are aware, the Russians use fighters very differently from us. Their interceptors work under tight ground control, being vectored to their targets by ground stations. Our Russian friends have brought their own controllers with them and we will be comparing their doctrine with our own system. Some of you will be flying under Russian controllers, some of the MiG pilots will be flying under ours. We'll see what works.”
There was a rumble of dissent at that. Pico looked at the gathering grimly. “Let me make one thing clear. This is not the World Series. This is a post-graduate course in air defense. It doesn't matter who “wins' and who 'loses'. We're not defending 'our way' against 'their way' or 'TAC’ against 'SAC’. We're trying to find what works and what does not. We ail win if we learn, we all lose if we do not.”
Pico glanced at the clock. He'd been stalling for time although nobody else was aware of it. Now, it was just about ready to go. “Our task here is to find out how to defend America against the sort of attack that we launched against Germany. If we fail, if we let our own limited rivalries defeat that greater aim..”
A brilliant light suddenly shone through the tightly-shuttered windows, strong enough to cast shadows on the walls and dazzle eyes accommodated to the low light levels previously in the briefing hall. A few seconds later the earth under the pilot's feet started to shake as the ground wave reached them, then they heard the building creaking and the roar of the explosion. The phone rang and Pico picked it up. He listened for a second then gave a curt acknowledgment. Walking across the room, he opened the shutters, exposing a view across the desert. The sun had still to rise but in its place was a glowing mushroom cloud rising over the Yucca Flats test site.
“That, gentlemen, is a test shot of our latest Mark Five nuclear device. The estimated yield is 81 kilotons, in other words, its explosive power is equal to the detonation of 81,000 tons of standard TNT. It weighs only 3,150 pounds a third of the weight of the devices we dropped on Germany but it is more than twice as powerful. I should know, I dropped twelve of our older devices on Berlin.” And may God have mercy on me for that Pico thought silently. “As I was saying, if we fail, if we lose, if we do not find a way to stop modern bombers from penetrating our defenses, one day we will see fireballs like that rising over American - and Russian - cities.”
The fighter pilots looked horrified at the evil glowing red cloud, twisting and changing as it rose in the pre-dawn gloom. It was the first time any of them had seen a nuclear explosion in its true awful reality and the sight stunned them into silence. Pictures in a magazine were one thing; film in a cinema was another. Neither could compete with the reality of the glare, the shaking, the crushing roar or the numbing sight of that evil, twisting cloud.
“Just to remind you of that fact, it has been decided that this series of air defense exercises wilt be designated 'Red Sun'“.
Aboard MV “Union Castle”, Southampton, UK.