“Good hit!” Patrick McLanahan cried out. “One impact… only minor secondaries, good hit but no kill.” The Super Multi Function Display automatically switched back to full integrated “God’s-eye” view, and Patrick scanned the area. “Search radars down… cancel that, search radars back up. Everybody’s transmitting… I’ve got air-search radars at five o’clock and a new one at two o’clock. India-band missile radar’s still up at five o’clock. Damn… we didn’t knock out that frigate yet. So he can still launch missiles…”
Just then a “Missile Warning” light began to blink on both the Super Multi Function Display and the pilot’s center CRT monitor.
Patrick said, “Now I’ve got another Charlie-band missile director radar at one to two o’clock — that must be from the center destroyer.” He was about to touch the electronic countermeasures icon on the bottom of the SMFD, but the computer had already brought the ECM status panel forward on the screen — and what he saw caused his throat to go instantly dry. “Charlie-band missile director… computer’s calling it a DRBC-51 radar directing an HQ-91 SAM system…”
“A -91?” Cobb asked. “Shit, we’re well inside that mother’s range!”
“I know, I know,” McLanahan moaned. He had spent too long screwing with the SLAM missiles and lost track of all the other warships around them. “All trackbreakers active, missile warning system and HAVE GLANCE jammers ready, chaff and flares ready, HARM missile programming against that radar… shit, shit! Charlie-band tracker changing to Charlie-three command…
The “Missile Warning” indication changed to a “Missile Lock” warning. “Missile radar locked on!” McLanahan shouted. “Trackbreakers on… descend and accelerate if possible…”
They were already as low as they could safely go at night — the huge B-2 was less than one hundred feet above the Celebes Sea, with Cobb hand-flying the Black Knight, since the terrain-following computer would not fly the bomber overwater below two hundred feet. “C’mon, you guys, where the hell are you…?”
McLanahan was rewarded a second later with precise range and bearing information from his B-2 to the destroyer displayed on his SMFD. He knew he was not using radars or lasers to get that data — that meant that his wingman, the second B-2 stealth bomber in his attack formation, was ranging on the destroyer and data-sharing the information with him. The question was, who was going to get there first?
“Locked onto first air target,” the operator of Jinan's aft HQ-91 missile fire control radar reported. “Slight jamming on lower bands, switching to frequency-agile mode… Temporarily clear of jamming, ready with missile detector, sir.”
“Understood,” the chief of the Jinan's Combat Information Center replied. “Aft launcher, report.”
In the large aft missile magazine, a large eighteen-missile rotating drum dropped an HQ-91 onto a rail and fed it forward to an open station, where four missileers snapped large triangular fins on the nose and tail sections of the missile body. Two other technicians made a fast check of the finning process, and the missile was sent forward, erected, and rammed upwards onto the launcher rails. A second magazine crew had done the same with a second missile for the twin-rail launcher. As the missiles clicked into place on the launcher, a continuity check was automatically performed and an electronic report received from each missile — if the “report” was missing or erroneous, the launcher would immediately swivel over and down and spit the bad missile down an armored safety chute for examination or disposal.
Thirty seconds after the alert was sounded, the aft launcher was loaded and ready, with two more missiles belowdecks finned and ready. “Aft launcher reports ready, sir,” the aft launch operator reported.
“Deck clear, stand by to launch on three, two, one, launch …” The HQ-91 missiles operator checked his readouts, gripped the launch handle, squeezed the safety grip, pulled the trigger, and hit the launch button with his thumb. “Missile one away… missile two…!”
“Incoming missiles/” one of the Sea Eagle radar operators suddenly shouted. “High-speed, bearing two-four-one degrees…” Two AGM-84E SLAM missiles from the second, B-2 Black Knight in McLanahan’s attack formation had detected the HQ-91 missile fire-control radar and homed in on it just after missile launch.
But like the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, the SLAMS were big, subsonic targets, and easy for the destroyer to lock on radar. The vessel’s guns began firing, and with full radar tracking and fire control, they could not miss — both SLAMS were destroyed well before they reached Jinan.
But that left them vulnerable to two HARM missiles fired from McLanahan’s B-2. Like TACIT RAINBOW, the High-Speed Anti-Radar Missiles homed in on enemy radar transmission, but instead of cruising to their targets over long distances and being very inviting targets for enemy gunfire, HARM flew at speeds over Mach three and were often untouched or even undetectable. The longer Jinan kept radars on to track the incoming SLAM missiles, the easier it was for the HARMS to find their targets. The missiles homed in precisely on the fore and aft radar dishes of the “Fog Lamp” fire-control radars, hit, and exploded.
Although the HARMs only hit the emitters on the tall fore-and-aft antenna masts on the destroyer Jinan, and the two HARMs’ warheads were a scant fifty pounds, the results in the Combat Information Center belowdecks were as disruptive as a nuclear bomb blast. All the cabin and console lights in CIC flicked off immediately, replaced by emergency lights for the cabin only — most of the weapons control systems were dead or in rest. “Hold your positions!” the CIC officer shouted to his console and weapons technicians. “Put your sets in reset and stand by!” The CIC officer picked up the emergency battery-powered telephone. “Bridge, CIC, weapons systems and sensors in full reset. I say again, weapon systems in full reset. Over.”
“Bridge copies,” a reply came. “Missile impact on both main and aft mast.”
The CIC officer felt his jaw drop. Both masts — that meant both HQ-91 missile directors were down. The Sea Eagle search radar, which was still operational, could be used for fire control, but it was highly inaccurate. They could still direct attacks by the other patrol boats, however, but in just a split second a four-thousand-ton warship was rendered virtually impotent…
… But not entirely impotent. When the lights came back on a few moments later, most of the CIC’s equipment was still in working order. “There’s a second bomber out there somewhere, and I want it,” he shouted at his Combat Information Center crew. “Get a report from up on deck, make sure all our weapons are clear to fire — the forward 100 and the aft HQ-91 launcher should both be clear. I want infrared and low-light sensor manned, and I want Sea Eagle slaved to the one-hundred-millimeter cannon and HQ-91. Bridge, CIC, I show the aft HQ-91 system still operational. Clear me to engage the second stealth bomber.”
“C-3 band uplink shut down… search radar only,” McLanahan reported. “I think I got the missile director. Damn, I wish I could say thank you to those guys in the other B-2. I think they saved our bacon with those SLAM launches.” His eyes were glued to the SMFD, checking the rear hemisphere tail warning radar for any sign of tracking Masurca missiles. But after two minutes, nothing appeared. Patrick took a deep breath, as if it were the first time all day he’d been able to breathe, and Cobb rustled uneasily in his seat as the threat from the destroyer passed — for Cobb, that was akin to a wild shout of relief.