The modern bomber is an infinitely more complex machine than the crude Fortresses and Lancasters of World War II. It flies more than twice as fast and twice as high. With midair refuelling its range is virtually unlimited. But as the complexity and performance of the bomber have increased, so has the ability of its enemies to track it down and destroy it.
The 52K’s were the last of their line. Their defence systems were the result of a triple alliance between the Boeing designers at Seattle, the weapons experts at Wright Field, and a specially formed electronics company in which both General Electric and Westinghouse had joined forces. Between them, they had made the 52K as nearly invulnerable to attack as any bomber could be.
The two main enemies of the bomber were guided missiles, whether launched from the ground or from another plane, and missiles fired from a supersonic fighter which were unguided but usually fired in salvoes to increase the chances of a hit.
Against the first of these enemies, the guided missile, the 52K deployed a whole battery of electronic counter-measures. As far as was known, the Russian missiles relied on radar in some form or other for their guidance systems. No doubt they were developing other forms of guidance, like the American and British infra-red missiles which homed on the radiations given off from jet engines. But it was thought that all operational missiles relied on radar.
The electronics company, on information supplied by the weapons teams at Wright Field, had designed a big electronic brain which would automatically sense the presence of a missile from its radar pulses. It would then determine the exact frequency of those pulses, assess the speed and track of the missile and beam out a series of pulses of its own. These would supply the enemy missile with false information, confuse its guidance system, and divert it from its target. In certain cases it would have the effect of causing the weapon to explode prematurely, in others of turning it back in its own track. In a whole series of tests against missiles of the same type the Russians were thought to be using, the brain had never failed to sense, and then to divert, an oncoming missile.
The Boeing people had looked at the size and weight of the electronic brain and its associated radar, shaken their heads, and declared it impossible to fit into the B-52. Then they had gone ahead and fitted it. The result was the 52K.
At the same time the electronic brain was being built into the 52, the conventional tail armament was removed. It no longer had the range for dealing with the second of the bomber’s enemies — the supersonic fighter which would approach from the rear and loose off a salvo of rockets. These rockets were of the unguided type, and therefore impossible to divert electronically. If they were aimed right, nothing would stop them once they were launched. The solution was obvious. Kill the rocket carrying fighter before it could launch them.
The Air Force asked for, and got, a weapon which would do this. It had a long and involved set of initials for its name, but among SAC crews it was known as a hornet. The name was apt. A hornet sting is about as bad as you can get. A sting from the nuclear warhead — no bigger than a large grapefruit — of this hornet, would destroy anything within five hundred yards of the burst.
The hornet missiles were controlled initially by radar from the fire control system which Goldsmith operated. They were let slip as soon as a hostile fighter came within five miles range. In the first part of their flight they rode a beam from the bomber. At a range of a mile from the target their own infra-red guidance systems took over and homed them in. They were proximity fused to explode as soon as they were within two hundred yards of their targets. A series of tests had shown that when the missiles were released against a fighter five miles away, it was destroyed before it had penetrated to within two miles of the bomber. This was true even of fighters capable of twice the speed of sound in level flight.
So there it was, Brown thought. The two threats, the two counters. Now it remained to be seen just how the theory would work out in practice.
Andersen’s voice broke in on him. "Two minutes to point A, captain. New course one seven eight. Estimating 12.05 at the primary."
"O.K. Setting it up now. What’s the mid-point of our bomb time, Stan?"
"That’s it, captain. Five after twelve. The earliest and latest times are one after and nine after."
"Right. Engineer, I’ll want a fuel check after this turn. Work out the endurance from point A at this height and speed. Also at this height and twenty less speed. Give it to me in air miles."
"Right," Federov said. He took out his fuel analysis logs and his reckoner tables, and began to make the preliminary entries.
Brown opened his folder of orders again. "Radar?"
"Captain?" Lieutenant Owens spoke up clearly and confidently.
"Switch the brain to fully automatic as soon as we turn. Report to me when it’s warmed up and functioning. I’ll check the frequency search bands with you then. Stan, will the long range search help you on this leg?"
"Well," Andersen said, "we’re a bit far away for the first fifteen minutes or so. Then we’ll start picking up the southern half of Novaya Zemlya. You should be able to pick out Moller Bay a hundred and forty miles to port, Bill. About fifteen minutes after turning. After that I’ll be interested in Kolguev Island and the Kanin Peninsula. Check with me when Moller Bay shows, huh?"
"Sure," Owens said. He turned to his main search radar, tuned it for maximum range, and selected the one hundred to two hundred mile range band. The radar would now concentrate exclusively on the area between two concentric circles, one a hundred and the other two hundred miles from their centre, which was Alabama Angel.
"Time to turn, Captain," Andersen’s voice piped up.
"O.K. Stan, turning now." Brown watched as the port wing rose slowly, held its position steadily through the turn, and then dropped again. He checked the gyro heading, and said, "On course. Time to run to target?"
"Eighty-four minutes," Andersen said crisply.
"O.K." Brown leaned forward and turned the face of a count-down clock until the figure eight-four showed in the boldly framed datum window. He pressed the start button, and the clock began to tick away the remaining seconds and minutes. He watched it until the eight-four had clicked out of view and eighty-three had replaced it.
One minute gone on the attack leg. Eighty-three to go. Eighty-three more minutes of waiting and wondering. After the attack it would be a little easier, perhaps. They could break radio silence to request instructions what base they were to head for. Those instructions might give a clue what sort of damage the States had taken. Might. Of course, the instructions would possibly be sent without any request, as general instructions to the wing. There might even be a recall. He forced the thought away from him, rejecting it as utterly impossible. They were committed now. Some of the wing — those with targets assigned to them deep inside central Russia — were over Russian territory already. There would be no recall.
He ran ever in his mind what he had done already, what remained to do. Lieutenant Owens, the radar officer, said, "Captain, she’s warmed up now, everything functioning. I’m ready to set up the frequency bands."
"O.K. Bill. You call them as you set them. I’ll check with my list." Brown turned the pages of the folder until he reached the sheet that detailed the frequency bands to be set up on the electronic brain for this target and route. He checked off the bands as Owens called them, then said finally, "Right. Let me know immediately if you suspect any malfunctioning. If I’m speaking, break in on me. You understand?"