With the tankers and antishipping planes gone, Mann felt like a ball and chain had been removed. Under Rancher’s direction, the Counterweight raid accelerated from attack aircraft cruising speeds to fighter intercept speeds. Blips representing hostile aircraft covered his radar now, although enemy jamming still cluttered parts of the scope with fuzzy white blotches.
He could only spare a short glance at the radar screen itself. Much of the data on it was automatically fed to his Hornet’s HUD anyway, and a pilot who spends too much time heads-down is sure to get surprised one day. And surprises in air-to-air combat are usually fatal. He scanned the sky and double-checked his weapons settings. It would be several more minutes before they were in Sparrow range.
But the F-14s would be in range a lot sooner than that. He looked down at them now, wings swept back and still spreading out from a close formation used by attack planes to one more suitable for high-altitude missile combat.
“Cactus, Lasso, Longhorn, you are clear to engage assigned targets. Out.” Rancher’s voice ordered the three Tomcat squadrons under his command to attack. Each of the thirty F-14s carried four long-range Phoenix air-to-air missiles, two shorter-range Sparrows, and two Sidewinders for dogfighting. Like Mann’s Hornet, they also carried two drop tanks. The tanks were slowing them down, but the Tomcats would hang onto them — until the fuel they carried was gone, or until the fighters were going into a close-in fight where maneuverability counted for more than endurance.
Now, almost before Rancher finished his transmission, each F-14 fired once. White lines, tipped with fire, appeared in front of the Tomcats. They shot straight out ahead of the big, twin-tailed planes for a fraction of a second, then suddenly pitched up and climbed almost out of sight.
The smoke trails flashed past the formation, but Mann’s eyes followed the missile tracks as long as possible. Just as the first group of missiles disappeared, the three F-14 squadrons fired again.
Following the first wave, the second wave of Phoenix missiles climbed until they were out of the troposphere entirely. Following preset flight commands, they leveled off at over 100,000 feet. The near vacuum twenty miles up allowed each missile to reach Mach 5 and hold it, even after its rocket motor burned out. Their targets were seventy miles down-range — well within the missiles’ range. They would reach the EurCon formation in a minute and a half.
Stunned and panicked shouts echoed in his ears. The crowded situation room filled with questions and accusations as Gibierge tried desperately to concentrate on the voice at the other end of the command circuit.
Desaix, rising out of his chair, shook the admiral’s shoulder, demanding that he explain, that he act.
Gibierge, shouting into the handset to make himself heard, yelled, “Attack now! Push them in at full speed! Remember, we only need one hit!”
He hung up, and realized that the man demanding his attention was not some aide but the Foreign Minister of France, the controlling mind of the European Confederation.
“Explain this,” ordered Desaix in a barely controlled voice.
“It’s an offensive fighter sweep, sir. Based on the information there” — Gibierge waved an arm at the display — ”we are facing the combined fighter strength of both aircraft carriers.”
He shook his head in astonishment. “The Americans are not conducting an attack on Wilhelmshaven or any other land target. They flew the same profile as attack aircraft, and mixed enough attack planes into their formation to fool us.” Gibierge pushed down a sneaking admiration for his American counterpart. This Admiral Ward was wilier than he had thought.
Desaix still looked lost.
The admiral hastily sketched out his deductions with one eye locked on the display. “If we had not been launching our own strike, we would have thrown every fighter we had at them. The Americans would have met our planes with their own and outnumbered us. Then, with our air defense forces crippled, their real strikes would suffer fewer losses.”
Desaix scowled. “So now instead of our air defenses, they are going to decimate ‘the cream of our air forces.’ We must abort the strike now, before they get in range.”
“At this stage that would be almost impossible, Foreign Minister. It would also be unnecessary.” Gibierge half argued, half pleaded with the politician. “Our own fighters almost match theirs in numbers. While they occupy the Americans, our Mirage attack jets can accelerate to maximum speed and slip past. And they will be in launch range in just a few minutes.”
Desaix started to object, but Gibierge stopped him. “It’s too late, Foreign Minister. Events move too quickly in an air battle. The orders have already been given.”
A display operator’s voice cut through the confusion. “Strike leader reports they are under missile attack.”
The Phoenix missiles, linked back to their launching aircraft, nosed over, plunging almost straight down at the enemy planes a dozen miles below them.
Both waves of American missiles flashed through the enemy formation in an eyeblink. Every EurCon plane immediately pulled up into a weaving climb, trying to force each attacking missile to waste energy turning and climbing itself.
The Mirage 2000 and Tornado crews could have jettisoned their loads and lived. With a few exceptions, they chose to keep their own missiles and trust to luck. Without those weapons, their mission would be a failure. Most managed to evade the attacking Phoenixes by jinking and dropping chaff.
The jammer aircraft suffered the worst. Six elderly Mirage F1 fighters each carried a centerline jammer pod. Weighing half a ton, the pod sent out signals that could hide a whole squadron of aircraft from radar, as long as they stayed within a few miles.
Their electronic noise served as a perfect beacon for the Phoenix’s “home-on-jam” feature. Each F1 was swarmed by several missiles. Roughly half the pilots realized what was happening and switched them off, but it was a futile gesture.
Only one Mirage F1 survived.
The long-range American attack had stripped the EurCon strike of its jamming support. Dodging the missiles had also wasted precious time and fuel and disrupted their formation.
But their orders were clear. Nosing into a shallow dive, the EurCon planes went to full military power.
As their radar scopes cleared, new commands vectored the U.S. Navy squadrons toward the accelerating EurCon raiding force. The opposing groups of aircraft were forty miles apart at thirty thousand feet, heading straight for each other at a combined speed of twelve hundred knots.
The EurCon side fielded about sixty fighters of three types, all equipped with long-range air-to-air missiles. A squadron of Rafales were the newest and deadliest of the three, accompanied by delta-winged Mirage 2000s, old but still effective. The German contribution was limited to the elderly F-4F Phantom II. They were still escorting more than forty French and German Tornado and Mirage attack jets.
The Americans had just over eighty planes and they launched first. Two Hornet squadrons carried the AMRAAM, a “smart” air-to-air missile. It outranged all French and German weapons. Twenty-four white smoke trails drew arcs from one group to the other.
Diving down into the enemy’s scrambled formation, the advanced AMRAAM seekers ignored the lone EurCon jammer.