“Gentlemen, welcome to the first debriefing session of the 1959 Red Sun National Air Warfare Evaluation Exercises. After the events of this morning I am sure you will all agree that we all have much to learn. I would like to start by welcoming the crews of Marisol and Tiger Lily from the 305th Strategic Reconnaissance Group following their - explosive - entry to Red Sun. To recap, this morning's exercise was a small-scale operation that was intended as a warming up and systems check mission prior to the start of the main sessions tomorrow. However, as you all well know, that wasn't how it ended.
Earlier That Day, Range Administration Hut, United States Air Force Air Warfare Center, Nellis AFB, Nevada
It wasn't a hut of course, the description of the buildings as “huts” stemmed from the early days of Red Sun when the range had been thrown together using whatever could be found. Now, the “Hut” was the center of an elaborate network of visual, radar and other sensors that provided the range administration officers with complete coverage of everything that was going on. Not only that, it recorded them so that the track charts, conversations and events could be played back and examined to determine exactly what had happened and when. Sometimes, when aircraft had crashed, that had been of more than operational importance. The purpose of the morning exercise was primarily to test that network.
The basic plan was simple, there was a target on the ground, representing an enemy force that had allegedly invaded the United States and it was to be attacked by a cell of SACs heavy bombers. The target was defended by three Ajax missile batteries, 12 F-101B Voodoo interceptors from the 60th Interceptor Squadron at Otis AFB in Massachusetts and four F-104A Starfighters from the 83rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Hamilton AFB in California.
From the range data, Martin could see they'd set up a fairly standard defense. The Ajax batteries were positioned to provide an initial salvo at the attacking formations, the B-52s would probably be able to evade them but their formation would be broken up by the effort and that would degrade their bombing and leave them open to the fighters. The long-range F-101s were already up, orbiting behind and to either side of the target area. Once the bomber formation started to break up they would close in and pick off the bombers. Finally, the four F-104s were waiting on the ground, as soon as the bomber formation they'd take off, climb to altitude and pick off any bombers that had leaked through.
It was the US defense system in miniature. Missiles providing long-range defense and breaking up the attacking formations, long-range fighters to destroy the bulk of the attackers and short-range point defense interceptors to finish off the survivors. It was beginning to work now; the bombers were finding it harder and harder to get to their targets and were taking increasing losses in the process.
This year, the defending fighters had a few wrinkles added, including the MB-1 rocket. Martin was wondering how the SAC bombers would cope with that. He'd find out soon. The leading edge of the SAC formation was appearing on the radar scope now. A main formation of four B-52Ds, and way out in front a pair of RB-52Bs. That was standard; the RB-52s would use their electronic suites to find the SAM batteries and jam them then try to snarl up the fighter operations by jamming and deception. That would open the way for the bombers. Fundamentally, it was the same way SAC had breached German defenses in The Big One and it was getting old. The attack pattern here seemed almost the same as in the comparable operation the year before, the only difference was that the RB-52 element was a bit further out in front- perhaps that was because of the MB-1s.
The defensive forces were already beginning to react to the approaching attack force. The search radars on the Ajax batteries were lighting up and the F-101s were adjusting their position, at this time they were hanging back to clear the field for the Ajax missiles. The F-104s on hot-pad alert were spooling up ready for take-off. The F-104 was a controversial aircraft, Martin had heard that the Thai Air Force had taken delivery of a batch and wondered if they'd found all the things that were wrong with it yet.
“Ye Gods what is THAT”. The monitor terminals in the Range Instrumentation section had two sections. The big one was from the range instrumentation sets, the small overhead ones were the repeater sets from the defense air search radars. The latter could be - and usually were -jammed as part of the exercises. The range instrumentation radars operated on rigidly defined frequencies that were prohibited to everybody else and could not be. There were seven defensive radars in use, the three volume search and three target tracking radars for the Ajax missiles and the fighter control radar. They'd all exploded into jagged pinwheels and masses of drifting electronic fuss. However, the range instrumentation was still clear. The two “RB-52” aircraft had accelerated and were now doing over 1,600 mph - and had started to climb. This, thought Captain Martin, had every promise of turning into an interesting day. He mentally wrestled with the picture of a B-52 doing 1,600 miles per hour, then asked himself the critical question. Just what was going on up there?
Defense Systems Operator's Position, RB-58C “Marisol”
“Time to go guys. Get ready for defended area penetration”
“Air-to-air and Air to ground modes engaged.” “Defensive Systems up running and ready.” “Andale, let's dance.”
Xavier Dravar checked the defense systems in front of him. The ALR-12 display was showing seven threat radars operating. There'd be more but the Red Sun range instrumentation radars were filtered out. For the last hour he'd had the ALQ-6 blip enhancer working, modifying the radar image of the RB-58C so that it resembled the larger and slower RB-52B. That bluff wasn't going to hold any longer. As Marisol had said, it was time to dance. He flipped the ALQ-16 from “stand-by” to “barrage transmit”.
Now, the system was picking up the radar frequency energy from the threat radars and using it to generate a mass of contradictory and deceptive signals, giving the receiving radars the electronic equivalent of a hissy fit. And the same time he felt the punch in his back as The Boss up front firewalled the throttles and the afterburners cut in. Out of the tiny window in the side of his position he saw the other RB-58, Tiger Lily fall back a fraction and then accelerate with Marisol. Her pilot, Captain Joel Mitchell, had worked with them before. That cut down on communications, at these speeds there was no time for all that. His rudimentary flight instrumentation gave him speed and altitude only, all he needed for his job. 1,620 miles per hour, 66,500 feet up.
On the ALR-12 display, he could see the icons for the Ajax missile batteries flickering. The operators would have seen the jamming, they couldn't help but see it, their screens must be glowing white-hot with all the energy he was pumping out. They were flipping frequencies, trying to get through the jamming. They were also rippling their transmissions from one to the next, hoping to hide their positions. Too late, he thought, far, far too late. We had you before the dance even began. Now all that was left was to finish them, he flipped another switch and transferred the information from his emitter location system to the navigator/bombardier station in front of him.