Of the 16 Patriot Missiles that had been aimed at the cruise missiles, 12 met their marks. Each time one of the cruise missiles came into range of one of the Patriot missiles, a scattered shotgun-like blast erupted from the Patriot, throwing chunks of metal into the path of the cruise missile. The cruise missiles were ripped apart, creating explosions that were almost beautiful, reminiscent of fireworks.
Twenty-eight cruise missiles continued unhindered towards the Kiev International Airport. As each one impacted, the sound wave from each blast created a mini-earthquake. Clouds of dust and debris began rising quickly into the air, like the tumultuous edge of a thunderstorm. There wasn’t an aircraft hangar left after that attack.
Following the two waves of cruise missiles, pairs of Su-34s began to drop the Russian version of 1,000 lbs. JDAMs on the fuel farms, and the dozens of NATO fighters that had been getting ready to fly. NATO engineers had erected dozens of blast walls separating the aircraft, which prevented a single bomb from causing damage to other nearby aircraft. However, the Russians knew this, so they used their guided smart bombs to destroy the remaining NATO aircraft.
The Fullbacks also targeted the US/NATO Command Center and communications equipment. They hit the temporary lodging facilities, and other military vehicles and positions as they found them. In the span of fifteen minutes, the Kiev International Airport was completely wrecked. Nearly every NATO aircraft and helicopter had been destroyed or severely damaged. Major General Mueller and his deputy, a German Brigadier General, had both been killed along with most of their staff during the attack. Nine hundred US and NATO soldiers had been killed, and nearly three times that number had been wounded.
In addition to the military loss of life, nearly a thousand civilians had been killed at the airport. Although the Russians had focused on the military side of the airport, several large commercial aircraft were destroyed during the cruise missile attack, causing further death and destruction.
While the attack on the international airport was taking place, a small group of MiGs headed towards the Polish border to protect the flight of twenty Backfires as they moved to get in range of two other Polish airbases being used by NATO. Their goal was to damage the Polish airfields where additional NATO aircraft were stationed. This would further inhibit the US/NATO ability to respond to the Russian invasion, and if they were lucky, would disable or destroy additional fighter aircraft. The Su-34s would not be following the Backfire attack like they had in Kiev and Pryluky, so the cruise missiles had to accomplish the job on their own.
Staff Sergeant Noah Troy was on watch in the radar vehicle of the Patriot battery at Pryluky when the Russian air attack started. He watched nervously as his radar began to track dozens of MiGs and other attack aircraft while they took off from their bases in Russia and started to head towards Ukrainian airspace. “Holy cow, this must be the attack they warned us about,” he thought to himself.
Noah had a sick feeling in his stomach. He turned to one of the soldiers next to him and ordered, “Go get the lieutenant. She needs to see this now.”
1st Lieutenant Nichole Mattie was standing not far from the radar vehicle, talking with one of her soldiers who was having a problem with his girlfriend back home. “One of the many duties of being an officer — listening to your soldiers’ life drama,” she thought.
While Nichole was in the middle of telling this young kid that there were plenty of fish in the sea, she looked up and saw one of her soldiers exit the radar truck, frantically waving to get her attention.
“LT! Sergeant Troy needs you in the truck ASAP!” the soldier yelled with a distraught look on his face.
“Ugh, what the heck is wrong now?” she wondered.
“I’m on my way,” she responded, and she ended her conversation with the other soldier and began to walk swiftly back to the radar truck.
“What do you have, Sergeant Troy?” Lieutenant Mattie asked as she closed the door behind her.
Troy looked up nervously as the lieutenant walked in. “Ma’am. I think the Russians are about to attack. If you look here, see? We are tracking over forty aircraft heading in our direction and a lot more heading towards Kiev. I think we should sound the base alarm,” he said, hoping someone else would agree with his assessment.
Lieutenant Mattie saw the radar display and the color drained from her face. This was the most Russian aircraft she had ever seen at one time, and she knew it meant only one thing. “Yes, I agree with you. Hit the base alarm, and get the missile pods spun up to engage those aircraft once they cross into Ukrainian airspace. I’ll be back shortly; I’m going to run over to the operations center and let them know what’s going on,” she said as she left Troy to get the battery ready to respond to the threat.
Sergeant Troy sighed in relief, then reached over and hit the red button that would sound an air raid alarm across the base. Once the siren began to wail, he immediately activated the missile pods and turned them in the direction of the incoming enemy aircraft. “Man, we’ve only been here four days — and now the Russians decide they want to attack?” he thought to himself.
The Specialist who had been sitting next to him interjected, “Sergeant, the Russian aircraft are about to cross into Ukrainian airspace — are we cleared to engage?”
Sergeant Troy paused for a second and looked at Specialist Matthews, who appeared to be moments away from completely freaking out. “Listen up, when those Russians cross the border, we are going to start engaging them with our missiles. If they launch any cruise missiles, then we are going to switch targets and go after those instead. Remember your training, and just do what we have practiced a million times. There are alert fighters being scrambled right now and other fighters above us. We do our part, and let them do their part OK?” he said, trying to calm his fellow soldier’s nerves down and keep him focused.
A minute later, the Russian aircraft began to cross into Ukrainian airspace, heading right for them. Trevor nodded towards Specialist Matthews, who lifted the cover off the firing button and began to discharge the first pod’s worth of missiles. In seconds, the pod fired off its volley of Surface-to-Air Missiles at the incoming Russian aircraft. They switched to the second pod of missiles and began to lock on to additional aircraft; then they fired off that pod’s worth of missiles as well.
All of a sudden, they spotted a volley of cruise missiles being fired from the Russian bombers.
“Oh crap — that’s a lot of cruise missiles,” Sergeant Troy thought. “We don’t have enough missiles to stop them all.”
Noah immediately blurted out, “We’re changing targets. Let’s go after those incoming cruise missiles. Hopefully we can thin them out a bit.” He was not feeling at all confident in their chances. Even under the best training circumstances, they could not get the spent missile pods reloaded in enough time to reengage the incoming missiles and aircraft.
Just as they began to switch targets and go after the incoming cruise missiles, they felt the concussion of a massive explosion rock their vehicle. Overwhelming noise from the blast soon followed. Then, the roof of their vehicle imploded, and their worlds went black as a mortar round scored a direct hit on their radar truck.