2100 – AO YANKEE
"Fuck me…" Cotugno breathed into the flight mask. His raptor had come back off of patrol in the eastern sector of Korea (as if the skinnies had anything there) and now after forty five precious minutes of refueling he was up aloft on the other side of the country, staring at what had to be the entire Chinese air force barely a hundred miles away. Automatically his HUD began tagging enemies at the edge of the radar which appeared so bunched up that it was a wall of red.
"What was that lead?" Rogue three asked. " Didn't copy last."
Cotugno ignored him for the moment and switched to the Crosscom channel that had every squadron leader and AWACs communicating with each other.
"Watchtower, Rogue is on station now."
"Good to hear you Rogue. Welcome to the wild west." The flight director chuckled grimly. "Enemy bandits are two seven zero angels ten. Count them eight hundred plus. I'll say that again, bandits number eight zero zero."
"Fuck!" Cotugno snorted. Raptor pilots had always been taught that they would be outnumbered in an aerial fight, but this was ridiculous.
"Rogue, we're going to need you at grid seven two with Dagger and Talon flight. Come about to one eight zero."
"Solid copy all." Cotugno banked his fighter left and kept his fighter flying at six hundred knots, a slow and leisurely cruise. To his right, he saw orange flashes in the night. A dozen twin engine fighters, outlined in blue for friendlies, streaked forward toward the swarm of red and held course for fifteen seconds. Cotugno thought that he had missed the weapons free order for a moment and then the blue tagged friendlies pulled out of their feint and circled back.
"Rogue, cycle down two channels. We'll be squawking with you all on that freq. Your call sign is now red group."
"Solid copy." Cotugno said and he slotted himself in the racetrack patterns that the other two twelve man squadrons were flying. His HUD told him these friendlies were both American and made up of F-35s and F-15 Silent Eagles.
"Good to see you Rogue." The crosscom identified the squadron leader of Dagger.
"You too Dagger." Cotugno said as he began the lazy turns at six hundred knots. "Why haven't the Chinese attacked yet?"
"Chicomms have tried at higher altitudes but we've put screens high and low. Spread us all out some. Them stealth fighters show up real nice on our radars once they hit forty miles." Talon leader said. "but that only works on our fighter radars."
Cotugno didn't need to understand that the tactical situation for defense wasn't good. True they could pick up the enemy J-20 stealth fighters at ranges of forty miles with a fighter based radar, but that meant that their biggest advantage of a Big Bulge radar was greatly reduced. Chancing on something like that didn't happen often this early in any war.
"Are we going to head in soon?"
"Watchtower has us waiting for something. It better hurry, a few of us are practically bingo here." Dagger groused. Cotugno could understand that. He'd arrived into this zone with full tanks, some of these had been aloft for four hours and had to be at the edge of their time.
"Look, there they go again." Rogue two said as another dozen fighters, this time from above feinted sixty miles toward the enemy and broke off abruptly-
"Trumpeter, trumpeter, trumpeter – enemy tankers have been tagged. Blue group, make your run straight down the middle. Red group you're above four thousand and behind." Lookout said suddenly. "Blue: count to twenty and break off. Red: you're going in all the way. Splash me some fuelers."
"Fuckin' A, it's about time." Dagger lead growled. Cotugno could agree with him. It was a clever idea. The Chinese air force used very similar tactics to the US and therefore would expect them to attack the AWACs craft immediately. All those defenses converged around it, attacks against it even in a stealth fighter like the F-22 Raptor was completely useless. Now Cotugno understood the business about these feints. A dozen fighters would streak forward and blast them with their forward radars, waiting to detect tracks that were too big to be fighters and too slow to be an AWACs controller. Fuel tankers for hungry fighters.
"Rogues, we're going in, take her up ten thousand feet and keep your radars off. On me."
"Two.""Three.""Four."
Twenty eight fighters climbed up into the clouds while another two dozen fighters, Japanese Mitsubishi F-2s like the smaller cousin of the F-16, and Korean F-15 Slam Eagles, raced forward from below. New figures began becoming tagged and outlined in red in Cotugno's HUD and when they flashed yellow, they became priority targets as directed by the crosscom controller in the AWACs.
Blue group broke off of their feint down below but Cotugno and red group's twenty eight stealth fighters continued on course. Cotugno wondered if the same problems the J-20 had with fighter radars would repeat on the F-22. It wouldn't be pleasant getting caught in the hornets nest here.
"Looks like a full group of tankers. Sixteen of them." Dagger said.
"Escorts?" Talon asked.
"No visual yet."
"We'll take the ones on the far right," Cotugno said. "You guys go middle and left?"
"Sounds good Rogue. Good hunting."
"Rogue, come right two eight zero and hold steady."
"Two.""Three."Four."
AS they began to close with the enemy, the tag outlines became clearer and clearer. More fighters became tagged on Cotugno's HUD so that what looked like eight hundred planes really was many many more. The enemy jamming had only been partially successful to the powerful US built radars but it was still formidable enough to blot out some of the craft behind them. Cotugno didn't even know if Watchtower would be able to hear him this close to the enemy "lines."
"About sixty miles to target." Rogue three reminded them. "Time on target, one mike."
"Let's get them at twenty miles so we make sure they don't get away." Rogue four said.
"Good idea, we do one each and break off. Ignore the escorts." Cotugno said.
"WILCO." The others replied. Apparently another feint had been launched because another dozen fighters that hadn't been there before became tagged, along with another tanker. Jesus there were a lot of these fighters over such a confined air space. It was like watching swarms of bees go at it.
"Lead, I think we've got company. Looks like a full dozen coming below and behind." Rogue two said urgently.
"Go loud." Cotugno said and he flipped on his air search radar and opened his missile bay to reveal an AIM-10 Quarrel which screeched with a solid lock on his target. The tanker's bulk at a distance was cleverly jammed and now with Cotugno's radar activated at such close proximity, another eight fighters were immediately tagged. Four of them trailed behind the tanker at a leisurely pace – they were refueling –
"Good tone, Fox three!" Cotugno shouted and squeezed the trigger, then shut his missile bay door and kept his radar trained. The AIM-10, with all its advanced tracking capabilities, still needed to be directed by his own radar, it wasn't a fire and forget seeker like the Joint Strike Munition. It took until twenty miles to lock on and with eight other targets in such close proximity, Cotugno might have the missile hit the wrong target –
The missile leaped off of its railings and burst in white exhaust flame as it shot forward, searing red in Cotugno's eyelids as he closed them to protect from the flash –
The other eight fighters immediately scrambled to action, breaking off of their escort patterns and flipping on their radars as the tanker called that it had taken a radar lock and incoming missile. Two of the fighters it had been refueling immediately broke off without waiting for proper fuel shut off, and the Chinese tanker began trailing fluid from two lines. The other two were slower off the mark and were still connected to the tanker when the missile struck-
Cotugno had immediately yanked hard on the stick to climb up and away from the squadron at his six which was seeking locks on his tiny radar signature. The way his top was positioned he would give a decent radar return but that would change in the space of half a second because the thrust vectoring system tightened his turn so that he was facing directly toward the enemy and he disappeared from radar. They were coming in close, almost in gun range –
"Tallyho! Guns guns guns-"
-The Quarrel hit the tanker dead center – there was no escape for a craft that was already struggling to keep aloft. The explosion ignited the fuel lines and fire trailed onto two J-10s which were refueling. A massive fireball engulfed all three fighters and a third which could have gotten off clean was heavily damaged. The other four fighters were almost out of fuel, they couldn't pursue the raptor which had swatted their lifeline so carelessly out of the air. They immediately turned and headed for land, guided by their AWACs controller so that hopefully they could crash somewhere safe. Ten tankers suffered similar fates around the Chinese air force destroying another sixteen aircraft and preventing dozens more from refueling.
Angry for the losses, the Chicomm AWACS planes began directing fighters on retribution hunts for the PANTO stealth fighters which had so boldly attacked them-
The PANTO AWACS craft noted immediately the shift in the enemy force as their center line milled and turned to the rear to search for needles in the haystack. The AWACS began sounding off that the enemy was vulnerable and committed the entire PANTO air group to the attack. The group commanders responded eagerly –
-"…Say again all fighters: weapons free weapons free on all bandits angels twenty at two seven zero" –
"Good tone Good tone, Fox three Fox three!"
Five hundred radar guided missiles, locked in with the AWACs computer systems, rippled toward the Chicomm aerial lines. The Chinese responded with a volley of their own, but only had two hundred fighters quick enough to respond. What occurred now was a race for time. The American built Quarrels and AMRAMs flew at Mach 8 speeds and were computer linked by their AWACs controllers. The Chinese missiles were much slower and required the pilots to keep their noses pointed toward their targets.
The results on the Chinese were devastating. The Chinese, unable to turn evasively because they were pointing their radars, took the full force of the missile volley which obliterated almost three quarters of their number in an instant. The Chinese missiles which suddenly lost guidance from their own radars went into automatic tracker mode and homed in on the return signals of the remaining Chinese radars. A two dozen PANTO fighters were dismayed to discover they had a hundred missiles locked on. They all dove for the sea spewing flares behind them but there were too many missiles. Eight ejected safely, the rest were disintegrated in fireballs.
The remaining Chinese fighters – screamed at by their AWACS controllers – turned to orient at the PANTO fighters who had already fired a second volley and were readying a third. Without proper locks, many Chicomms were able to disengage and begin evasive maneuvers – coached by their AWACs craft and sea borne radars – many were successful although the occasional missile was able to break through combined decoys and jamming. But the radical evasive maneuvers had put a strain on their engines and as a group they all turned and ran to refuel. The remaining Chinese fighter compliment of 600 didn't notice 28 black shapes slip between their lines and head towards Korea. Red group had their running lights turned off and their speed very slow so as to not create an orange trail in the night. Cotugno wondered if the fighters he had killed with the tanker would count? He'd have to bring that up with the base commander to discover and then the red paint could be applied to bring his score up to Ace.