“Watch.” Jamieson watched the big supercockpit screen—and was amazed at what he saw. Overlaid on the chart of Hormozgan Province was a radar picture filled with tiny blips.
“Here’s all the small cultural returns we picked up,” McLanahan explained. “Since an SA-10 or Hawk on its transporter-erector-launcher might be stationary or moving, we’ve got to check both, so all are displayed. I simply instruct the computer to search for returns that match the size of a Grumble or Hawk TEL, either in road-march configuration or in launch position … now.” In a matter of seconds, all but a handful of the dots disappeared. There were about two dozen blips remaining.
“We’ve got a few, but not as many as before. From here, we can just pick one, and we check it out. The SAR will not pick up decoys unless they’re close to the same mass as a real missile, so inflatable decoys or decoys made out of wood won’t show. But before we search, I’ll be looking for a few other items.
According to our intel guys, a pre-surveyed launch point will have a fence surrounding it. I’ll tell the computer to pick out any returns that look like that.”
“This radar will pick up something as small as a fence?”
“With ease,” McLanahan said. Sure enough, several such objects were selected. McLanahan rolled a cursor over one blip that was sitting a few hundred yards off a small secondary highway, then entered in some voice commands. The blip began to grow in size until it filled the supercockpit screen—and to Jamieson’s amazement, he could easily identify the return. “Holy shit, it looks like a cattle car!”
“I’d say that’s what it is, too,” McLanahan agreed. It was easy to do—the image was as sharp and clear as a black-and-white photo in daytime. He entered a command and the image disappeared and switched to the next blip. After automatically enlarging again, they finally found their quarry. “We got one.”
Jamieson was astounded. There it was, a nearly photographic radar picture of an SA-10 Grumble surface-to-air missile on its transporter-erector-launcher, similar in size and appearance to a Patriot missile system. They could clearly see every detail—its fins, the shape of its nose cone, even that the driver’s side door of the tractor truck pulling the TEL had been left open. “This is unbelievable!” he exclaimed.
“We goddamn found a mobile SA-10 missile deployed in the field!”
McLanahan was typing commands into his supercockpit terminal.
“And now NSA and the Intelligence Support Agency know where it is, too,” he said. “We’re flightplanned to be in the orbit for the next fifteen minutes—let’s see if we can find some more.”
For the next fifteen minutes, McLanahan systematically checked the blips on the supercockpit display, changing the search parameters after every search—blips on the road, blips on the rail lines, blips inside fences, blips out in the open, blips moving, blips not moving—then went back, rechecked the original size parameters, expanded them out slightly to get more returns, then searched again. In fifteen minutes, they had charted six new air defense missile sites near Bandar Abbas—including several decoys set up close to the real missile sites. The Iranians had set up a piece of steel sewer pipe on a flatbed tractor-trailer, very close to the size and appearance of the real SA-10 Grumble.
“Threat scope’s clear,” McLanahan said. “Search radars only.
Ready to stir up some dirt?”
“Go for it,” Jamieson said.
“Stand by for bomb doors,” McLanahan said. “Doors coming open …
now …” Jamieson and McLanahan felt a rumble in the B-2A bomber’s normally rock-solid fuselage as the four massive “barn door” bomb doors opened. Just as the doors opened, a “IO” symbol with a diamond symbol around it appeared, and they heard a low, slow “Deedle … deedle … deedle …” sound in their headphones.
“SA-100 searching …”
“C’mon dammit,” Jamieson muttered, “launch, son of a bitch, launch!” The B-2A bomber was now at its most vulnerable position: with its bomb-bay doors open, its radar cross-section was just as large as any major aircraft. And as it launched missiles, the missile’s track through the sky would point directly back at the retreating B-2A, showing the way for enemy gunners to take a shot and bag a billion-dollar bomber.
“Launcher rotation completed, stand by for missile launch …
missile one away … two away …” Jamieson expected to feel a lurch or a bump or something as the 4,000-pound missiles left the plane, but there was nothing, except for the graphic depictions of shapes leaving the little bomb-bay drawing on his MDU.
The diamond around the “IO” symbol on the threat scope began to blink, and they heard a higher-pitched, faster deedledeedledeedle warning sound. “Height-finder active!” McLanahan shouted. He put his fingers on the supercockpit screen on the buttons marked MAWS and ECM. “Launchers rotating … stand by … three away …
four … five … six missiles away … bomb doors moving … bomb doors closed Just then, both the diamond and the “10” symbol began blinking, and a computer-synthesized voice announced, MISSILE LAUNCH … MISSILE LAUNCH … McLanahan immediately hit the MAWS and Ecm buttons. The Missile Approach and Warning System was an active missile defense system on the B-2A bomber designed to actually protect the bomber, not just jam a missile’s tracking systems. As soon as the SA-10 missile launch was detected, a small radar dome extended from a compartment near the B-2A bomber’s tail, the radar slaved itself to the azimuth of the SA-10 missile site, and the radar began scanning the sky for the missile itself.
The MAWS’s ALQ-199 HAVE GLANCE radar tracked it, displayed its position to the crew on the pilot’s main screen, and a computer suggested which way to turn to evade it by making corrections to the terrain-following autopilot. The computer also ejected bundles of chaff—thin slivers of metal that would create huge radar-reflective clouds in the sky and hopefully decoy the Hawk radar—and also sequenced the ECM (electronic countermeasures) track breakers’ jamming signals to allow computer-controlled jammer-free “corridors” that would “point the way” for the Grumble’s radar to lock on to the cloud of chaff.
As the SA-10 missile rose through the sky toward the B-2A bomber, the next and most high-tech aspect of the MAWS system activated—MAWS shot high-powered laser beams at the approaching missile, blinding its seeker head and overheating the missile’s guidance electronics. In less than three seconds, the Grumble was deaf and blind, flew harmlessly behind the B-2A, and then self-destructed as it began its death plunge toward the Persian Gulf.
“Good connectivity on all missiles,” McLanahan reported. “Good signal … I’ve got flight-control surface deployment on all missiles, good guidance. They’re on their way.”
In thirty seconds, the first attack was over—and Jamieson realized he hadn’t done a thing, hadn’t even touched the throttles, and his right hand was resting only lightly on the control stick. They’d needed no evasive maneuvers, no threading their way around terrain trying to hug the ground to hide from enemy radar, no coordinated defensive maneuvers.
It was so sterile, so robotic—almost inhuman. Shadows of steel, death from nowhere, from everywhere …
But it didn’t stay quiet for long. Seconds later, the searchradar signal had changed, and Jamieson saw a bright yellow arc on the threat scope, aimed very close to the B-2A, slowly becoming narrower and narrower until it was a line. Fortunately, the line also began to offset behind the center of the scope, meaning that it was not locked onto the B-2A. “Height finder active again,” McLanahan said. “Looks like they’re locked on to one of the JSOWS. JSOWs have responded … looks like missile number two is tracking.”