“Sir, Sector Four reports multiple inbound bogeys as well!” the communications officer shouted. That sector was the one adjacent to them in the east. “Another eight bogeys, medium altitude, medium subsonic, also headed for our radar sites!”
“Sixteen reconnaissance drones, all flying into Turkey at the exact same time…and from where?” the tactical director said aloud. “Turkey attacked all of the American bases this morning. There is no way they could launch so many drones so soon. They have to be air-launched.”
“Or they could be false targets, like the last time we launched,” the TAO said.
Sixteen targets…that meant thirty-two Patriots, since Patriot always launched two missiles at every target to ensure a kill. Thirty-two Patriots represented every launcher in the regiment. If they launched every missile at drones or false targets, it would represent a massive waste of missiles, and would leave them vulnerable until they were reloaded, which would take about thirty minutes.
The tactical director picked up the phone and passed all the information to the Sector Air Defense Coordinator in Diyarbakir. “Shoot them down,” the sector coordinator said. “They’re on an attack profile. Check your systems for any sign of spoofing.”
“Acknowledged,” the tactical director said. “TAO, prepare for—”
“Sir, they are starting to orbit,” the TAO shouted. “They’re right along the border, some in Syria. It looks like they’re orbiting.”
“Reconnaissance drones,” the TD said, relieved. “Continue to monitor. What about Sector Four’s bogeys?”
“Starting to orbit as well, sir,” the TAO said.
“Very well.” The TD needed a cigarette, but he knew that would not be possible until these things were out of his area. “Keep an eye on those things and…”
“Bandits!” the TAO shouted suddenly. “Four targets inbound, high subsonic, extreme low altitude, range forty miles!”
“Engage!” the TAO said immediately. “Batteries released! All batteries…!”
“The drones are leaving their orbits, accelerating, and descending!”
Damn, the tactical director thought, they just went from on alert to under attack in the blink of an eye. “Prioritize the high-speed bandits,” he said.
“But the drones are closing in!” the TAO said. “Patriot is prioritizing the drones!”
“I’m not going to waste missiles on drones,” the TD said. “The fast movers are the real threat. Change priorities and engage!”
But that decision obviously wasn’t going to stand, because it was soon obvious that the drones were going straight for the Patriot phased-array radars. “Should I switch priorities, sir—”
“Do it! Do it!” the TD said.
The TAO furiously typed commands into his targeting computer, ordering Patriot to engage the closer, slower targets. “Patriot engaging!” he reported. “The fast movers are accelerating to supersonic…sir. Sector Four reports the drones have left their orbits, descending, accelerating, and are heading into our sector!”
“Can they engage?” But he already knew the answer: one Patriot radar couldn’t sweep into another’s because of interference, which created false targets that the engagement computer might launch against. Only one radar could handle an engagement. Their battery would have to take on all twenty-two targets…
…which meant they would run out of missiles by the time the fast movers arrived! “Reprogram the engagement computer to fire only one missile!” the tactical director ordered.
“But there’s not enough time!” the tactical action officer said. “I’d have to terminate this engagement and…”
“Don’t argue, just do it!” The TAO had never typed as fast as he did then. He managed to reprogram the engagement computer and reengage the batteries…
…but he couldn’t do it fast enough, and one radar was hit by the cruise missiles. The missiles, which were AGM-158A JASSMs, or Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles, were turbojet-powered air-launched cruise missiles with thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads and a range of over two hundred miles.
Now one radar had to handle the entire engagement. Patriot radars didn’t sweep like conventional mechanically scanning radars, and didn’t have to be steered, but they had a specific section of sky that was assigned to them to avoid interference problems. The remaining radar, located at Batman Air Base sixty miles east of Diyarbakir, had been assigned to look south, into Iraq, and not westerly toward Diyarbakir. On their current heading—actually tracking through Syria—they were on the extreme edge of the radar’s airspace.
“Order the Batman radar to turn west-southwest to cover that flight path,” the tactical director ordered. The TAO relayed the order. The AN/MPQ-53 radar array was normally trailer-mounted, and although it was fairly easy to move to cover a new section of sky, it was generally never done, especially when under attack. The Batman emplacement was different, however: even though Patriot is designed to be mobile, the Batman site was set up semipermanently, which meant its radar array could be easily moved as necessary.
“Radar reset, good track on the fast movers,” the TAO reported a few minutes later. “Patriot engaging—”
But at that moment, all radar indications went out. “What happened?” the tactical director shouted.
“The Batman radar is off the air,” the TAO reported. “Hit by a cruise missile.” A few moments later: “Ground observers reporting two fast-moving low-altitude jets flew overhead from the east.” Now it was obvious what had happened: turning the radar to look farther to the west had reduced coverage to the east. Two jets had simply slipped in through the gap in radar coverage between Batman and Van and attacked the radar.
Diyarbakir was now wide open.
“Fracture flight, this is One-Niner, your tail is clear,” Lieutenant Colonel Gia “Boxer” Cazzotto radioed to the rest of her little squadron of B-1B Lancer bombers. “Let’s go get them, what do you say?”
“Fracture One-Nine, this is Genesis,” Patrick McLanahan radioed via their secure transceiver. “Are you getting the latest downloads?”
“Buckeye?”
“Roger, I got ’em,” the offensive systems officer, or OSO, replied. “The images are great—even better than the radar.” He was looking at ultra-high-resolution radar images of Diyarbakir Air Base in Turkey, taken by NIRTSat reconnaissance satellites only moments earlier. The images downloaded from the satellites could be manipulated by the B-1’s AN/APQ-164 bombing system as if the bomber’s own radar had taken the shot. They were over forty miles to the target, well outside low-altitude radar range, but the OSO could see and compute target coordinates well before flying over the target.
The OSO got busy grabbing target coordinates and loading them into their eight remaining JASSM attack missiles, and once all the missiles had targets loaded, they coordinated launches by time and azimuth and let them fly. This time the turbojet-powered cruise missiles flew low, avoiding known obstacles using inertial navigation with Global Positioning System updates. The six B-1 bombers each released eight JASSMs, filling the sky with forty-eight of the stealthy cruise missiles.
There was no time to pick and choose different warheads for the missiles, so they all sported the same one-thousand-pound blast fragmentation warheads, but some were fuzed to explode on impact, while others were set to explode in the air after reaching their target coordinates. The air-burst missiles were sent over aircraft parking areas, where the massive explosions destroyed anything and anyone for two hundred yards in all directions, while the impact missiles were targeted against buildings, weapon storage areas, fuel depots, and hangars. The OSOs could refine the missile’s target using their real-time imaging infrared datalink, which gave the crews a picture of the target and allowed them to steer the missile precisely on target.