25 OCT 2010
Naval Station Saint Hewlett
HQ TRDFLT
For all of the damage that had been inflicted on the base at the start of the war, Naval Station Saint Hewlett had seen a sweeping wave of repairs. While it was estimated that the base wouldn't be at pre-war operational capacity for at least another month, the facilities in place were more than enough to sustain major wartime operations. Right now, Saint Hewlett was seeing a surge of activity and an influx of both land and sea traffic. Coming in by train carriage, helicopter and aircraft was every conceivable item, chemical and fluid that would be needed for extended operations abroad. Men and women were flowing in by the truckload.
Resting alongside the pier in the capital ship mooring section of the port, the deck of the OFS Kestrel was buzzing with activity. For the first time since the botched carrier operation in September, Carrier Air Wing Ten was back to its full strength of ninety aircraft. Almost a full deck and hangar worth of new aircraft and fresh pilots had been integrated into the air wing from Saint Hewlett's shore based replenishment squadrons. Once all of the Hornets, Super Hornets, Seahawks and Hawkeyes were craned aboard, OFS Kestrel would be ready to return to the frontlines.
While the OMDF was best known for its extensive use of aircraft carriers for power projection, its fleet also encompassed dozens of massive amphibious assault ships. The helicopter and VTOL carrying flattops of the Wasp-class, the troop carrying Harper-class and their replacements of the Antonio-class and the cargo carrying Whidbey-class were but only a handful of a whole fleet of ships meant to carry troops, cargo, armour and aviation assets across oceans to sustain land-based forces abroad.
Of the sixty ships alongside the various piers, ten of them were an even mix of Wasp-class landing helicopter docks and Antonio-class landing platform docks. All ten ships were in the process of loading aviation fuel, weapons, sailors and Marines. Within the collection of assault vessels alone was an offensive force totalling over ten thousand marines, twenty fixed-wing F-35Bs, a hundred utility and attack helicopters, more than a hundred artillery pieces and several hundred armoured vehicles. It was a brigade-sized force that could strike anywhere on Earth.
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / EDGE, CORVUS / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C
Blaze rested her head against the canopy as she kept the Mudhen flying in a straight line. They were in for a long day and she was already bored out of her fucking mind.
"I spy with my little eye…" Samurai said from the back seat.
"If it starts with S I'm going to throw you out of the cockpit." Blaze interrupted Samurai. They had been playing menial games while on the transit to their objective, but there was only so much one could do with that before it got old.
"I was going to say C for cutie, but I don't blame you." Samurai retorted, giggling quietly. Blaze had her mask on but she found herself blushing.
"Aw. Thanks." She said, her voice melting.
"Any time." Samurai replied with a grin.
"Target package loaded?" Blaze asked about something relevant to the mission, trying to keep her mind occupied.
"It was loaded the last four times you asked, it's loaded now." Samurai retorted.
Blaze chucked. "Just quintuple checking."
As far as missions went for Wardog Squadron, this was one of their more simple operations. As part of a broader offensive action, Wardog would be attacking a Yuktobanian vehicle depot on the Bastok Peninsula to shape things in Osea's favour for a potential future offensive. The squadron's three Mudhens were carrying a full load of five hundred pound JDAMs and a couple of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders for self-defence.
"Thunderhead, Chopper, bogey dope." Chopper requested a picture check for any sign of contact.
"Picture clean." Thunderhead reported no enemy contacts. Granted they were only halfway across the ocean to their target, but even so, Yuktobanian activity today was much lower than what it had been in the past few days.
"I feel like we're walking into a trap." Grimm said from the rear of the formation.
"Don't jinx it." Zoomer retorted. "Don't fucking jinx it."
"Comms." Blaze stated sternly. The radio fell silent. The silence didn't help Blaze's peace of mind. There was the off chance that one of the other strike packages further up the coast had much of Yuktobania's active interceptor fleet occupied, but Blaze thought it was more likely they had fighters and interceptors waiting in the background somewhere.
Nearly an hour of mindless flying later, Wardog arrived in the general vicinity of their target. According to the RWR of every fighter in the formation, there was an S-300 battery watching the skies in the AO. Fortunately, Wardog had brought an answer to that.
"Chopper, Archer, break north-west, engage that radar." Blaze ordered.
"Wilco." Grimm replied, banking away from the body of the formation. Anti-radiation missiles hung off the wings of his Viper like teeth waiting to sink into prey. Chopper accompanied Grimm as the two broke away to go blind the S-300 battery. Blaze and Nagase continued towards the target.
"Wardog, Thunderhead, relay from a neighbouring AWACS. Single group of six bandits inbound, 320 at Angels 10 for 550. Estimate they'll be on top of you in ten minutes." Thunderhead relayed the position of enemy fighters that had been detected by an AWACS in a different area of responsibility.
"Do we have any friendly air to intercept?" Blaze asked.
"Closest interceptors are at least twenty mikes out." Thunderhead answered. Blaze bit her lip. Ten minutes didn't give them a lot of playtime to hit the target and bug out.
"Thunderhead, we're moving ahead of schedule." Blaze decided on a plan of action. "Edge, increase speed to seven hundred knots, on me."
"Copy." Nagase confirmed she understood the order.
"Archer, Magnum, Magnum!" Grimm called out as the HARMs he was packing shot off into the distance. "S-300's looking this way, might have interceptors in the air soon!"
"Dive." Blaze ordered. She pushed forward on the stick, sending the Mudhen into a thirty degree decline towards the floor. "Level out at a thousand feet."
"On you." Nagase levelled out alongside Blaze. The peninsula was rapidly approaching in the distance.
"Kid, what's our game plan with those fighters?" Chopper asked. They wouldn't have much time to get out of dodge once they hit their target.
"Hard and fast. We should be out of here before they get here." Blaze replied. "Chopper, Archer, merge on me."
"Ack." Grimm answered.
"Moving." Chopper replied. The detached Mudhen and Viper approached from Blaze and Nagase's rear and slotted back in to form a wedge formation just as they crossed the coast.
"Feet wet." Blaze called out.
"S-300 radars just went dark. Long range anti-air is blind." Grimm reported. Without its radars online, the S-300 battery couldn't do anything about the Osean fighters flying over Yuktobanian territory.
"Good shit." Blaze looked down at one of her MFDs set to display their attack heading. "Time on target, two minutes."
"JDAM tracking is set, warheads are hot." Samurai verified one final time that the proper target package was loaded into the Mudhen's targeting computer.
"Edge, Chopper, form a column behind me, one klick spacing. Drop them all." Blaze gave her squadron their final attack heading as they approached the target. "Archer, you're top cover."
Wardog spread out their formation accordingly. Nagase and Chopper dropped back to keep the aforementioned spacing, while Grimm broke high to set up top cover against any potential air threats.
"Edge, set."
"Chopper, set."
"Archer, ready."
Blaze lowered her visor and grit her teeth. "Blaze, passing final attack heading, in."
Blaze came thundering over a hill, the target facility resting maybe twenty seconds on the other side of the terrain feature. She popped up at a ten degree angle and approached the facility. Blaze switched one of her MFDs to display their targeting pod's view as Samurai slewed the camera to view the depot.
"Tally depot. I see a lot of armoured vehicles." Samurai reported what she observed.
"Copy." Blaze cued her JDAM package to the trigger, lifted the bomb predictor marker over the depot and spam clicked the trigger. Her aircraft got significantly lighter as a dozen JDAMs fell off their pylons and proceeded towards their predesignated targets.
"Blaze, pickle!" Blaze called out, banking left, away from the depot, turning in a circle and coming out the way they came. As she turned, Blaze saw Nagase and Chopper come in for their attack runs. Large flashes of fire, smoke and dust kicked up from the sequential explosions of Blaze's JDAMs.
"Nagase, pickle, pickle, pickle."
"Chopper, pickle twelve!"
As all three strike aircraft got their bombs away, the depot went up in a series of booms and flashes. Ugly black smoke billowed up into the sky, pushed out towards the ocean by the wind.
"Wardog, egress 090! Dead east, push it!" Blaze ordered, throwing the throttle all the way forward into burner and dropping her singular external fuel tank. Nagase, Chopper and Grimm followed suit, flying as fast as their aircraft could physically go at low level.
"Thunderhead, Wardog, target destroyed, we are outbound due east, RTB!"
