Naval Station Oured Bay

OFS Hubert, OFS Kestrel II, OFS Fulmar, OFS Darter carrier battle group

Task Force Outcome

'Been a while since I've been to the capital.' Snow mused as Hubert was escorted down the wide river into the expansive naval base. Talon, her arm still broken, stood next to him on the flight deck.

'Not much to see. It's basically all skyscrapers and the like.' Talon commented on the topic, the cool morning breeze of the 11th of June blowing her dark green hair around despite being tied back. Hubert and Kestrel had both made it back to Oured without incident. They would repair operational damage, refit and repair electrical systems in Hubert's case, pick up new pilots and their aircraft, and then going back to the Usean continent to reengage in the conflict, this time escorted by carriers Fulmar and Darter. OFS Fulmar, a Vulture II-class carrier, had been conducting sea trials at Saint Hewlett when the war started and was damaged. Only now had she been commissioned and sent to Oured. On the other hand, Darter was an older Hubert vessel, commissioned around the same time as the first Kestrel. Like the Hubert proper, she had been decommissioned but recently pulled out of mothballs and returned to service.

'A city of concrete. Yeah, sounds about right.' Snow rolled his shoulders and started walking back to the island. Talon didn't move, staring out onto the city. Her journey was done for now. Broken bones took a long while to heal, and even longer to be permitted to fly a fighter. An ache in her ribs stopped the thought before it got anywhere saddening.


Fort Greys Island

With a few stitches visible on his neck and face, Grimm was at the front of a briefing room with his pilots in seats, all prepared for flight operations.

June 11, 2019, 0930 Hours

Operation Swift Hammer

Comberth Harbour

'With our carrier operations in the north-west halted and the Eruseans holding back any advance into the country, we're currently at a stalemate, and only wasting forces with our attacks.'

'That said, we have plans for places elsewhere. The Navy managed to punch a hole in the Erusean air defence network at Comberth Harbour. There's a substantial fleet there. We take off from here, hammer the fleet and return. This should reduce the load for our ship boys.'

Grimm and Webber walked side by side to their aircraft after the briefing, along with the other 35 pilots in the 242nd that were still alive.

'Sure you're good to fly, sir?' Webber asked as they approached their aircraft parked in the tent hangars.

'I had a vest on, I'm fine.' Grimm replied confidently. Indeed, the 9mm round he had been hit by had been stopped by the plates he wore under his vest. And the bomb had only hit him in superficial places that required minimal stitching. His plane hadn't had the same luck, as evident by the wreckage of it still sitting in the burnt-down hangar. As a replacement, Grimm had acquired one of Wolf Squad's reserve F-15s. Everyone else still had either the F-15E or the Typhoon. Grimm put his helmet on before stepping up and into the F-15C. In the other hangars, the other pilots did the same.

AIRCRAFT

Titan 1/Archer - F-15C Eagle

Titan 2-16 - Typhoon FGR.4

Wolf 1/Huntsman - F-15E Strike Eagle

Wolf 2-19 - F-15E Strike Eagle

'242nd Squadron, cleared for takeoff.' The tower permitted the massive group of fighters to take off. Grimm led the formation at the front, quickly zooming down the runway, pulling up and soaring into the skies. The others followed in a roar, bristling with anti-surface and anti-ship weapons.

'Head 2-7-5, Angels 1, 600 knots.' Grimm turned to the north-west, everyone else following along. The formation was in two notable blobs, representing the two squads within the squadron.

'Archer, do we know the composition of the enemy fleet?' One of Titan's pilots asked.

'Two carriers, a battlecruiser, half a dozen destroyers and two dozen ships frigate or smaller.' Grimm read off the kneepad he had. Each ship had a name, but he didn't bother to read them out.

'This sounds familiar.' Webber noted. He wasn't wrong. 14 years ago, the Aegir fleet of a similar size had been destroyed by ISAF. Every vessel, mostly by the ace known as Mobius 1.

'In more ways than one. Let's wipe them.' Grimm tightened his grip on the stick. The squadron proceeded over the choppy ocean beneath.


Under similar circumstances in a smaller squad, five aircraft flew over the ocean, rain coming from above. Su-30s. Eruseans. Four were charcoal black. The last, the aircraft at the front of the formation was also black but in addition its wingtips and vertical stabilizers were painted orange.

'The enemy's flying a large formation.' To the leader's left, Wit read what his radar was telling him.

'Two distinct formations. The 242nd?' The aircraft furthest to the right, Roald, recalled. So far they were the only Osean squadron to have that many numbers in this region, and use them actively in combat.

'Which means we're dealing with a Razgriz. Interesting.' Mihaly himself commented on the matter.

'A Razgriz? Wasn't the guy you were talking about operating off carriers?' Wit was a little confused.

'I saw the emblem. H. Grimm was a Wardog pilot. Hence the assumption.' Mihaly explained. Wit quickly understood. 'Razgriz 4 is the best of the group, but don't underestimate the others either.'

'Copy.' Wit.

'Copy.' Seymore.

'Copy.' Hermann.

'Copy.' Roald.

Sol Squadron was on the hunt.


'Archer to all pilots. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.' Grimm gave the order for aircraft with anti-ship missiles and cruise missiles to release weapons. A cloud of them fell off weapon pylons. A mix of AGM-84D Harpoons and AGM-154 JSOW-ERs. Around 80 of them shot forward aiming for specific places in the port. All fighters suddenly sped up to stay ahead of the missiles. They would release bombs and short-range missiles at about the same time that the missiles arrived.

'Wolf Squad, let's soften them up!' Webber and his squad climbed up above the radar horizon. His F-15s were armed with anti-radar missiles and more cruise missiles. In the cockpit of the Huntsman, the RWR was going off as he was locked by the remaining air defence networks and the radars of the ships in port.

'Launch HARMs!' From the rails of the F-15s shot out white smoke, the product from the jets of the AGM-88 HARM shooting forward tracking various radars. They were much faster than the cruise missiles, breaking the sound barrier and then some. As quickly as they had risen and fired, Wolf Squad dropped below the radar horizon before SAMs came their way. 'Those missiles will get there in a minute.'

'Time to target, one minute.' Grimm announced, arming the GBU-39s his Eagle was equipped with. Small 250lb bombs would be enough to cause significant damage to smaller warships and just about anything that could be found on the ground. Land mass started to be visible over the horizon. Then the ships in port. Finally, the base itself could be seen. The HARMs had already struck anything that was emitting radar waves, fires set on a great deal of the enemy targets. The functioning CIWS mounts on ships had started to engage the gigantic cruise missile wave, managing to down some of them in streaks of green tracers. Grimm's targeting computer lit green.

'All flights, engage!' Grimm gave the overall order to release remaining anti-ground weaponry. Bombs and short-range AGMs. Grimm went for the Kirov-class battlecruiser. Weapons dropped from pylons. In a single, swift, strike, the hammer dropped. Cruise missiles, anti-ground missiles and bombs struck at exactly the same time. Warships buckled and broke. Bunker-buster bombs entered vital spaces and magazines to cause catastrophic explosions. Anti-ship missiles pierced ships at sea level, exploded and caused flooding that outright destroyed smaller ships and caused listing on the bigger ones.

The Kitty Hawk-class carrier Merde took the brunt of the first wave and started listing to one side in the deepwater port, poorly secured aircraft sliding down the flight deck. The escorts around her, four destroyers and six frigates, were destroyed instantly as their fuel and magazine stores were compromised. Battlecruiser Proteus was the next to face the fury of the 242nd, the combined power of several GBUs and missiles culminating in breaking off the bow just slightly forward of the superstructure. The fleet oiler next to her went up in flames after being hit by a single Harpoon. Other ships that happened to get in the way of the missiles were also damaged. One such ship, the Udaloy-class destroyer Admiral Zes, caught the twenty missiles intended for Kuznetsov-class carrier Loki and disappeared in a black cloud.

Overall, one aircraft carrier, the battlecruiser, all six destroyers, ten frigates and three replenishment ships were destroyed in the first attack. 21 out of the 33 ships of the fleet. There was no counter-fire as the HARM strike had either destroyed or shut down all of the radar-directed AAA guns and SAM sites. The SEAD mission by Wolf Squad had been very effective.


Some kilometres away, Sol Squadron approached. They could hear the panicked communications from the personnel and warships at the base.

'This is the Proteus, we are sinking!'

'Zes just fucking exploded!'

'Get our air defence up and knock out those planes!'

'Shit, we're late.' Wit. He flipped down the visor on his helmet, arming an experimental type of missile that his aircraft was equipped with. Seymore had the same missiles, but Mihaly, Roald and Hermann had the normal R-73/R-77 combination for their Su-30s.

'Not too late to get rid of these squadrons. Sol, engage.' Mihaly gave permission for his escorts to engage while he zipped off to get closer to the enemy.

'Let's try out these stealth missiles.' Wit mused to himself while pulling the trigger to fire the six that he had.


In a sharp dive, Grimm focused his fire on the surviving carrier. He dropped more GBUs onto the flight deck and pulled up before slamming into it. It's only functioning CIWS mount tried in vain to destroy the glider bombs, failing as they zipped into the flight deck and exploded, knocking a large crater through the middle of it that pierced all the way to the hangar. No way she would be launching aircraft now. Titan Squad was getting rid of the surviving warships and replenishment ships, while Wolf Squad dealt with the ground-based air defence systems.

Mythic intercepted an escaping frigate, diving under the wave of CIWS fire it was unleashing as a barrier and dropped two 2000lb Mark 84 bombs into its midsection at close range, splitting the vessel in half. As she climbed up again to go for another bombing run, a tiny metallic object at range caught her attention. Mythic tracked the object and very quickly realised what it was.

'Titan, evade!' She called out to everyone in general as she turned sharply and dived to avoid the missile coming at her. It passed overhead without exploding. Instead the missile went for someone in its flight path, in this case one of the Wolf F-15Es. It hit bang on the target and exploded in a bright flash. The pilot who had been hit must have died quickly as a result because there was no screaming, no requests for help. Another of the missiles shot over, then two more, then a pair. They kept coming in pairs until a total of 11 Osean aircraft vaporized in air, hit by something that hadn't triggered any radar warning receivers. Grimm had narrowly managed to evade the missile targeted for him after Mythic called out to evade. He had seen the effect they had on his squad.

'What the fuck was that?!' The attack had stirred Webber from his otherwise complacent mood.

'RWR didn't sound off. Titan, Wolf, watch your tail and evade, those missiles don't trigger warnings!' Grimm shot towards the ocean floor and flew out towards the sea.

'That's the least of our problems sir, single Su-30 approaching from the south.' Mythic reported.

'Make that three- no, five. Five ingressing Su-30 Flankers!' Taipan, Wolf 7, had survived the initial barrage and saw the new radar contacts.

'Shit.' Grimm cursed to himself, pondering on a plan. 'We have the numbers. Titan, Wolf, head on.'

The battle was one-sided. 23 Osean aircraft against 5 Eruseans.


'Major, in your own words, describe how the battle went.'

'It was a fucking slaughter.'

'Your AAR notes that one ace in particular managed to down most of the squad.'

'Yes. Their leader caused most of the losses on our end.'

'You did manage to shoot one down?'

'Captain Webber bagged one of the wingmen and damaged the leader. I managed to tag one of the escorts before they retreated.'

'There were four survivors including yourself?'

'Myself and Second Lieutenant Hunter from Titan. Captain Webber and First Lieutenant Campbell from Wolf.'

'Did this enemy squadron happen to consist of five Su-30s with black paintjobs and orange trimming?'

'Yes.'

'Very well. You may leave now, Major.'

A mentally exhausted Grimm stood up and left the room that a group of general officers were questioning him in. His fists were clenched all the way out. Webber was waiting by the door for him.

'That was quick.' Webber was toying around with something in his hand. A bracelet.

'There wasn't much to say.' Grimm was quiet but composed.

'You did what you could. Whoever those guys were, they're good.' Webber tried to be reassuring.

'Where's Mythic and Taipan?'

'Hanging around with the Fort Grey guys.'

'They okay?'

'Mythic's fine, Taipan's a little shaken.'

'Let's go.' The two officers left the doorway they were talking at and headed for the rec room where they would most likely be. A few buildings, a lot of hallways and a stairwell later, the two entered the room. Grimm's guess had been correct, everyone was there. He took a deep breath and blinked before walking in. Mythic was reading a book while sitting next to Golem pilot Brownie. Taipan was talking heartily to the other Golem pilots. Webber followed closely behind Grimm and shut the door. Knocker, Golem's squad leader and overall wing commander, waved him over at the back table.

'Check on them.' Grimm said to Webber before coming over to Knocker.

'I heard about the Comberth mess. You alright?' Knocker was concerned about Grimm's wellbeing.

'Physically, yes. Mentally, well.' Grimm sighed and pulled out a chair to sit on. 'I should have seen it coming.'

'They were experienced pilots. The situation was out of your hands.'

'That's the thing. I could have taken them any day of the week. It was me getting everyone else to fight pilots well out of their league that condemned the lives of 31 men and women.' Grimm grimaced at the thought and inhaled. His eyes were cold and hard-set.

Knocker didn't have a reply to that.