The EB-52 carried eight MSOW missiles for the attack on a rotary launcher in the forward part of their sixty-foot-long bomb bay; it also carried eight AGM-88 HARMs (High Speed Anti-Radar Missiles) missiles in a rotary launcher in the aft part of the bomb bay. All but two of those missiles had already been launched when the EB-52 penetrated the radar-dense combat environment of occupied Lithuania, destroying surface-to-air missile-site-tracking and guidance radars.
The Megafortress had also carried eight radar-guided AIM-120 Scorpion AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles) and four AIM-9R Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles on wing pylons; two Side-winders and four Scorpions had already been launched by the crew “gunner,” Dr. Angelina Pereira, a veteran of the original Old Dog mission. Pereira designed the Megafortress’s unique guided-missile tail defense system that replaced the B-52’s tail guns with accurate, destructive guided flak rockets.
“Ready for launch,” Scott reported. The MSOW missile’s maximum range was about thirty nautical miles; at twenty-eight miles, he hit the LAUNCH button. The four missiles went into five-second countdown cycles as aircraft position and velocity data was transferred to them. The missiles’ batteries were activated and their gyros spun up, and their stabilization system was aligned and leveled. Then the bomb doors were opened and the missiles were ejected from the rotary launcher. The launcher rotated until the next missile was in position and then it too was ejected. In twenty seconds all four missiles were on their way, and the fibersteel radar-transparent bomb doors were closed.
“Missiles away,” Scott reported. “Good track on all missiles.” His large, four-color attack display activated, showing images transmitted from all four missiles. He immediately passed control of two missiles to Alicia Kellerman — Scott had, as radar navigator and bombardier, the final say on which targets were struck, but Kellerman was equally qualified to employ the missiles. “I’ve got good data from one and two.”
“Good data from three and four.”
“Message on the tactical channel,” Dr. Wendy Tork, the fourth woman on board the Megafortress and the crew electronic-warfare officer, suddenly interjected. Tork, an electronic-warfare-systems designer, was another veteran of the Old Dog mission. “Button three, Kel.”
Carter activated the channel-selector switch on his interphone panel. He heard: “Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, flares away.”
He keyed his microphone: “Tiger, say target. Over.”
“Tiger, thank God … Tiger, your target is three mobile missile-launchers. SS-21 missile launchers. We cannot designate them. Repeat, we cannot designate them. Hostile enemy forces in the vicinity. We have fired flares in the vicinity but we cannot pinpoint the unit’s location. Are your missiles in the air? Can you identify them? Over.”
“Tiger, I understand, SS-21 missile launchers,” Carter repeated. “Stand by.” On interphone, Carter said, “We’re looking for three SS-21 launchers, Paul. They’re wheeled mobile missile units. No designation for us, but he says he’s fired flares in the area.”
“Still looking,” radar-navigator bombardier Paul Scott replied. “Still fifteen seconds of missile flight time.” The scene on his attack monitor showed nothing but trees, farmland, and the airfield itself, all very plain-looking. Nothing of target value showed at all.
“I got something — it’s a vehicle — no, a trailer,” Kellerman announced. When MSOW spotted the target, it immediately zoomed into it so it would get a close-up picture, then zoomed back out to continue searching. The close-up picture was stored as a still image in one corner of Kellerman’s attack monitor; Scott could transfer the image to his monitor to study it as well. “Designating missile three on the trailer. Pilot, try to get a bearing from—”
“I see gunfire!” Scott shouted. Only ten seconds to impact, several targets were popping up on the screen now. Suddenly one flare was fired across a section of a runway, and MSOW zoomed in on an SS-21 launcher unit highlighted by the glare. “I got one! Designating it on missile one.”
“I got one also!” Kellerman said. Scott immediately cross-checked the two targets to be sure they weren’t the same ones, but the artificial-intelligence computers that controlled MSOW knew precisely what each missile was looking at and had immediately concluded that.they were different targets. “Designating missile four.”
Scott’s last MSOW missile didn’t lock on until seven seconds before impact. “Tiger, Tiger, we got three SS-21 launchers and a command trailer!” Carter radioed back. “Stand by and—”
Suddenly the third SS-21 missile disappeared from the attack monitor in a bright flash of yellow fire. “Shit!” Scott cried out. “The third SS-2 1 blew up before missile impact!”
“No!” Cheshire shouted. “It launched! There it is!”
Directly ahead, about nineteen miles away, a streak of light, pulled away from the dark horizon. It appeared to be flying directly overhead, heading west.
“Impact on missile one,” Scott reported. “Where’s that other one?”
Cheshire tried to watch it, but the SS-2 1 accelerated rapidly and quickly disappeared into the clouds. “Looks like we’re too late.”
“Tiger, Tiger, you gotta stop that missile!” Lobato radioed on the tactical channel. “It has a nuclear warhead on it and it’s heading for Vilnius. You gotta stop that missile!”
Carter reacted instantly. He pushed the electronically controlled throttles to full military power, waited a few seconds to build up airspeed, then threw the Megafortress into a hard climbing left turn. “Wendy! Angelica! Lock on to that thing and nail it!”
Pereira immediately activated the Megafortress’s APG-165 attack radar. The APG-165 was a derivative of the Hughes APG-65 dual-purpose fire-control radar aboard the F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bomber that could provide information for both air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks, with the addition of terrain-following navigation, computer position updates, and automatic landing modes. It interfaced with the Megafortress’s AIM-120 missiles to provide initial target position. It took Pereira just a few seconds to find the SS-2 1 and lock on to it.
“I got it!” she announced. “Range is twenty-eight miles — that’s near the Scorpion’s maximum range.” She didn’t hesitate to fire off two of their remaining AIM-120 missiles at the SS-21.
The worst-engagement profile for an air-to-air missile chasing a target is a tail chase — the advantage is with the hunted and not the hunter. Both missiles were accelerating as they climbed, but the SS-2 l’s larger booster motor gave it an advantage even though the AIM-120’s top speed of Mach-4, or four times the speed of sound, was much faster than the SS-2 1.
“First missile’s off course,” Pereira reported. Carter had leveled off the EB-52—they had climbed to nearly ten thousand feet in the twenty seconds it took to launch the missile — and was now in a shallow descent back to low altitude. “Lost track … second missile tracking … active radar engaged …”
Unlike most air-to-air missiles, the AIM-120 used its own on-board radar to guide it into its target, and it used a boost-sustain rocket motor that powered the missile throughout its entire flight. It needed every erg of energy to catch up with the SS-21 and hit, just a fraction of a second before the motor was exhausted.
Suddenly, in the wink of an eye, it became daytime.