Martin’s voice came over the Have Quick radio. “Matt, nail that SA-Three. I hold him at your two o’clock, twelve miles.” He should have used Matt’s call sign, Viper 03, but the use of his name over the secure radio prevented confusion. In the heat of battle, it was easy to miss the numbers after a name.
“Roger, boss. Will do.” By calling Martin “boss” instead of using his call sign of Viper 01, there was no doubt whom he was talking to. Now another threat popped up on the TEWS. Two SA-6 sites directly ahead of them had become active.
“Sean,” Martin ordered his wingman, Leary, “get the one on the left. I’ll get the right.” As planned, the lead aircraft would engage whatever threat came up to open up a corridor for the ingressing F-15s. By taking out the surface-to-air missile sites, the following aircraft could concentrate on hitting the target and have a safe escape route. The operations plan named Trinity called for the Eagles to open up a corridor twenty miles wide and, for a very brief period, establish air superiority.
Matt pointed the nose of his jet directly at the SA-3 site, double-checked to be sure he had selected a GBU-24 and that the Master Arm switch was up, and looked through the HUD. The Navigation FLIR had penetrated the dark and was showing him a three-dimensional view of the world in eleven shades of gray. He saw the flare of a rocket plume directly in front of him — a SAM missile launch. The bright plume of the SA-3 captured Matt’s attention as it corkscrewed off to the right. “Foxed ‘em,” Furry chuckled from the pit. The TEWS had done its magic and decoyed the missile’s guidance system. “Designating,” came from the rear. Furry had slued the Target FLIR onto the SAM site and locked it up. Matt mashed the pickle button and held it, waiting for the weapons delivery computer to reach a solution. The F-15 gave a slight shudder as the two-thousand-pound bomb under their left wing separated.
Now Furry concentrated on the Target FLIR and refined the placement of the cross hairs, laying them directly over the Low Blow fire control radar that was the heart of the SA-3. “Lasing,” he said. Matt watched the second missile flashby well behind them. Then the target disappeared in a bright explosion. “That’s wasting a perfectly good GBU,” Furry allowed.
“Honor the threat,” Matt grunted.
“I’ll make it a rule,” Furry answered. Two more explosions flared in front of them as Martin and his wingman worked over the SA-6 sites.
The voice of the tactical controller on the AWACS came over the Have Quick radio. “Viper Zero-One. Eight bandits zero-nine-zero degrees at forty nautical miles. Heading two-three-zero degrees, angels ten, cospeed.” The tactical controller had told Martin that Mana’s formation was forty nautical miles to the east of him at ten thousand feet and was on a heading that would intercept them. Matt ran the geometry through his head and calculated they would merge twenty-five miles downtrack.
But Martin had other ideas. “Aldo, have you identified the threat?” Aldo was the call sign of the AWACS.
“Checking with Duster now,” the AWACS controller answered. Duster was the call sign for the RC-135 Bill Carroll was on. Carroll’s job was to monitor the Iraqis’ radio nets and try to learn if Mana was airborne. The Americans were going after him, the threat they thought was Joe. “Viper Zero-One,” the AWACS controller was back within seconds. “Duster says the lead bandit is your target. KILL. Repeat KILL.”
“Roger, Zero-One copies,” Martin answered, confirming he was going after Mana. “Sean, go spread.” He told his wingman to move into a line-abreast, combat spread position. The lieutenant was going to have his hands full just keeping his lead in sight, so Martin turned his formation and position lights to bright. Martin turned forty degrees to the left, onto a collision course with Mana. “Lead’s engaged,” he transmitted, telling Matt that he was now leading the attack onto Kirkuk, as planned.
“This is Aldo,” the radio spat. “Multiple bandits now launching from Kirkuk.” The tactical controller on board the AWACS had detected a second group of fighters launching. The warning had increased Matt’s situational awareness and he knew he would have to fight his way into and off the target.
Now Martin and Leary were bearing down onto Mana, approaching from the Iraqi’s front right quarter. On theground, Martin had decided to open the engagement with head-on missile shots and then split to bracket their opponent, if he was still alive. The idea was to get Mana to commit on one of them, who would then become the engaged fighter. The other man would become the free fighter and protect the engaged fighter’s back or, depending on circumstances, move in for a sequential attack. Like most things that sound simple, it was hard enough to do in daylight; at night it was almost impossible. But Martin never suffered from a lack of confidence.
Both attacking F-15s were down in the weeds, still four hundred feet off the deck, less than a thousand feet apart, with their radars in standby. They did not want the bandits’ radar warning gear to detect them. Martin’s wizzo concentrated on the picture he was getting from the Navigation FLIR. When he caught a glimmer of movement, he slued the Target FLIR onto that portion of the sky in front of him. The powerful sensing device broke out the heat signature and the image of a Flanker appeared on his screen. Since the FLIR was totally passive and die bandit would have no indication he was being tracked, the wizzo locked on. “Bandit on the Target FLIR,” he told Martin.
Martin punched up the Target FLIR and was now looking at the world through a greenish soda straw. While he had a very narrow field of view, he could clearly make out the oncoming Flanker. His first thought was how much it resembled an F-15. Then he saw a second Flanker behind the first. He recognized a bearing of aircraft when he saw one and his combative instincts drooled with hunger. It was going to be a turkey shoot.
The colonel thumbed the weapons select switch aft; the radar came alive and locked on the nearest target, which was Mana. Martin shoved the switch full forward, which called up an AIM-120 AMRAAM, and hit the pickle button. A missile dropped out of its well underneath the fuselage and streaked toward Mana. Martin fully expected the target to reach and take evasive maneuvers when the pilot saw die missile’s plume fighting the night. No reaction. Now Martin had closed to inside nine miles. He moved the weapons select switch to its middle detent and the reassuring growl of a Sidewinder filled his headset. He mashed the pickle buttonagain and a Sidewinder leaped off the left inboard missile rail and homed on the Flanker.
Now Mana had two missiles coming at him and still no reaction. Martin’s wingman, Sean Leary, wanted a piece of the action and when he saw Martin launch a Sidewinder, he locked up the second aircraft in line with his radar and repeated the performance, sending first an AMRAAM and then a Sidewinder at the second Su-27. But the lieutenant was overeager and had launched the Sidewinder too early. Unlike Mana, the pilot in the second Flanker had his head out of the cockpit and wasn’t listening to the directions from the ground controller. He saw the two missiles coming at him and turned hard left just as Martin’s AMRAAM flew under Mana’s right wing. It would have been a near miss except that the proximity sensor worked perfectly and the warhead exploded, sending a hail of expanding metal core into the underside of the Flanker.