Cheyenne Mountain, United States of America -2100
CINC-NORAD walked into the Ops center to perform his twice daily check, once in the morning, once in the evening. He was one of the few men in the United States military to ever hold the rank of Full General, he was a four star of the United States Air Force. He had never been a fighter jock, rather he'd been a deskie, he'd concerned himself with the movements of those who'd fly above the sky. Space was where the next war would be fought, and CINC NORAD had learned that tradecraft well.
He'd earned himself a PH.D in Physics and had placed top of his class at Colorado Springs in Calculus. He'd worked his way up to the rank of General as a satellite analyst and controller even as what was considered a "fourth rate citizen" in the Air Force's business. This fourth rate citizen held more power in a twitch of his fingers than most generals had with a full swing of their attack force. He commanded all of the United State's orbitial kinetic weapons platforms, they'd never been used against live targets yet, only test missiles fired on easy intercepts.
Theoretically, the "Rods from God" could be used with the force of a nuclear strike with none of the residual radiation but that wasn't their primary role. Here under Cheyenne CINC NORAD was charged with the defense of the United States and the responsibility weighed on his shoulders each time he stepped into the center.
"Alls right with the world?" He ended every day with the usual quip.
"Nothings right with the world!" the standard response came from all in the center. It was like that a lot now, NORAD used to control everything on the globe, able to spy on other countries detect thermal blooms of rockets from overhead even use its powerful infrared imaging equipment to watch couples do it in Paris (not the best quality he had to admit). But ever since the outbreak of the war and the frantic satellite war that had taken place, the United States had withdrew its kinetic weapons platforms, thermal and GPS sats to keep them for defense.
"Carry on!" CINC NORAD and left the Ops center. It would be the same every day, no one would attack America, and no one would certainly launch anymore nuclear missiles.
The Golan Heights – 0800
The Air commander of the Israeli E-7 AWACS "Avatar" strode over to the rear of the aircraft's own OpCenter, where a technician raised her hand.
"We have hostile movement on the heights sir, looks like three full tank regiments."
"And enough artillery to flatten everything from here to Jerusalem." The commander noted as he took a check at the radar screen, Avatar flew with its look down radar active at all times during war warnings. He cleared his voice and activated the ship's intercom so he could speak with the entire sixty man crew.
"Get the word out everyone,: enemy on the heights – " he took a look as another crewman gestured to his screen, he was the air threat director.
"and incoming air raid."
"Attention all callsigns this is a stage one alert, say again this is a stage one alert, incoming air raid at three six zero, you are cleared to intercept, repeat you are cleared to intercept."
"Its about goddamn time." Bronco groused. One of the more unfashionable parts of being an airman was that the stick time was often boring, that's why Bronco had signed up for Artemis in the first place, they seemed more likely to get more action. Of course, now he was stuck on the other side of the globe fighting for a country that wasn't his but his passion was in the stick.
"Reaper flight," Avatar was on station another AWACS craft "Gemini" moving to add its big bulge radar to cover the battle front "multiple bandits are three six zero angels thirty count them thirty two plus. I make them Sierra Uniform two sevens. Continue on base heading, you are weapons free. Say again, weapons are free."
"Copy weapons free." Bronco replied and continued on his northward heading. "Reaper flight check."
"Two." "Three." "Four." It was a BARCAP flight, only four pilots were aloft for now, and against thirty two enemy fighters. It'd be hard work up here, Bronco reflected.
"We'll start the attack fox one." The F-35Cs for their Combat Air Patrol were loaded out with full air superiority packages, AIM-10 Quarrels, new SLAMRAAM missiles that had been bolted on by Israeli ground geeks and Sidewinder heat seekers. They'd have to engage at the furthest possible range and the SLAMRAAM could shoot at 80 miles, just twenty miles short of the phenomenal pheonix's theoretical range. The Artemis pilots would be quite alone up here for a bit, until the other fighters could scramble anyway. The General in charge of the Israeli Air Force had been wise enough to let the Artemis fighters stick together instead of spreading both the squadrons out like a couple of Bronco's previous employers.
The AWACS craft began their battle links as they began tracking both ground and air units on both sides and the advanced Heads Up Display showed Bronco everything on the battlefield before he could even see it. He counted what had to be at least two dozen enemy fighters at four thousand meters a hundred miles away, they were angling towards Oracle who was escorted by a pair of Israeli F-15s.
"Good lock!" the calls rang out from the only four warplanes aloft.
"Fox one: Slammer!" Bronco hit the pickle trigger and physically felt his fighter judder as the weight of the heavy missile fell from the frame and boosted off reaching Mach 1 five hundred meters away from its launch.
He readied his second SLAMRAAM and fired that as well. At the edge of its range, SLAMRAAM missiles burned all their fuel and continued on kinetic energy alone (and that was quite a bit because the missiles could obtain speeds of Mach 5 at sixty miles of continuous flight). It had been an original design flaw that had proven so useful the United States and now the Israelis had purchased thousands of them for air superiority roles. The flaw of burning through fuel too quickly meant that there was no smoke trail to alert a pilot that there was an incoming threat and they therefore would not evade.
If there was anything that could be called a "Stealth missile" it probably would have been this one. The HUD lock was a program built into both the HUD and the missile that was merely a projection of where the missile would hit. The missile itself was radar guided and at a projected range, in this case, twenty miles from its target, it activated its miniscule air search radar and homed in on the return radiation signals.
The result was calmness in the enemy ranks, they were Lebanese SU-37 Superflankers, which became panic when four fighters were suddenly blotted out of the sky followed by another quartet. The enemy fighters separated furiously searching for targets but finding none.
"Flight, Lead, take it up another 2K meters and we'll hit their brains."
"Two." "Three." "Four."
Bronco punched the ejector racks to separate the SLAMRAAMs from his fighter to make it stealthy again and hauled the stick in a sharp climb. They cruised for another ten minutes, the enemy search radars wouldn't be able to detect him and his flight certainly.
"Tallyho," Jackass said "Make it an India Lima Niner Zero." It was an export Russian model, with not much in the way of defending itself even in countermeasures. It was properller driven like the Artemis E-2 Hawkeye but probably lacked the sophistication the Artemis crews had upgraded the craft with.
"Take it out two, we'll run cover."
"Roge." A moment later. "That's a kill."
"Reaper flight, Oracle, we've got Rodeo coming in one eight seven from your position, take them in, they've got tanks to kill." Bronco turned around to let the fighters below him mill in confusion. Reaper had done its work.
Sopot really loved the Air Force, even if they were arrogant stuck up and generally richer than everyone else. His trip to Hansburg was anything but uneventful. Russian Su-47S Slamhounds were stealth fighters almost as good (they had a radar cross section of a flock of geese at high altitude) than the American F-22 Raptor, and were very easily penetrating European air space. Worse, they were ground attack craft like the American A-20 Razorback (for some reason Europe had never built a completely dedicated ground attack fighter) and continued to use the fire attacks against the retreating Enforcer groups with devastating effect.
The marksman howitzers were always the first targeted and the hardest hit by Russian fighters, whoever had thought the days of when fighters would strafe ground units with cannon was over clearly was wrong. A 20mm cannon round from Messchersmitt 109s in WWII could devastate tanks, and so could the Fuel Air Bombs dropped by Russian fighters along with their 30mm cannon.
But it all would have been worse without the air force, Ka-65 gunships and Mi-56 armed troop transports had been hunting them, trying to swat down a lagging Badger or Panther and many times they would succeed. But when the Hailstorms appeared every single damn helicopter squadron would flash instantly and explode.
Most of the troops, usually Federal reservists, liked the comfort of the insides of the Badger IFV but now almost all of them preferred to ride on top of the hulls, the better to leap off the sides of one and off the road if a Slamhound decided to make its pass along the column. Sopot had already seen that happen once.
WILKOMMEN the sign to Hansburg displayed in German, even though Sopot technically thought of it as a Polish town. The town didn't look very welcoming, there were too many people around, they had fled the oncoming Russians and this town as a hub in a giant wheel was a place of refuge they all gravitated toward. It would be hard living here for awhile, the Colonel had let it be known that they would have one day to rest while the local Federal troops would prepare the defenses, the Russians would be on them the next day.
Sopot, however couldn't just sit there and rest, not with the threat of Russians just looming over him every waking moment, otherwise the fire might consume him again. He came down to the front where the captain in charge was directing the digging of trenches.
"no that won't do." Sopot shook his head and spoke very angrily in his best German. "It simply doesn't work."
"Trenches are the best infantry fortification." The captain countered "There is no substitute for a good trench."
"the trenches are the reason why there are so few of us here you shit!" Sopot snarled and wondered why he was so angry, then understood why and spoke his mind. "Have you ever seen trench full of men ignite because there is no room for them to climb out of one? It is a stupid and primitive fortification!"
"What would you have me do?" The reservist captain gestured angrily at his troops. "Sandbag fortifications are far too flimsy to halt an armored charge and you are quite terrified of a ditch!"
Sopot didn't have an answer to that and stomped off, maybe he'd find a pub in this town and drown himself in it. The flames followed him.