12 OCT 2022
Even though Wardog Squadron was down a plane, that fact alone didn't stop them from being assigned to a strike mission fitting for a unit flying Strike Eagles. Inside the main briefing room sat Wardog Squadron's members, bolstered by the pilots and WSOs of the similarly Mudhen equipped Crossbow Squadron as well as the pilots and electronic warfare support officers of the Raven fitted Shark Squadron.
"The Yuktobanian Navy has been running at-sea resupply ships out of Bastok Port. These resupply ships are supporting Yuke submarine hunter killer groups. One of these groups is believed to be responsible for an attack on one of our carriers." Master Sergeant Chaeny was leading the mission brief. "You'll be flying out to conduct a cruise missile strike on the base in coordination with Navy air and surface assets. Primary targets are the refuelling stations, repair facilities and depots. Your secondary targets are command structures."
"What kind of air threat should we be expecting?" Nagase asked from the front of the room.
"Foxhound activity continues to be high. In addition, the base itself is home to an S-400 battery. That leads me to my next point." Chaeny answered, continuing and facing Shark Squadron's members. "Shark Squadron, your tasking is to provide jamming support for the strike package itself in conjunction with a group of Navy Growlers."
"Who are we flying with?" Crossbow Squadron's leader, a short statured Captain, enquired.
"Snowbird and Headhunter Squadrons from the OFS Kestrel. Big Birds and Scouts are their callsigns."
Wolf raised a familiar eye but said nothing.
"If nobody has any questions, you're due to depart in twenty minutes." Chaeny paused for a few seconds to make sure everyone understood what they were doing. "Very well. Dismissed."
Wardog's loadout spread was typical for a missile shoot. Four JASSMs, a drop tank, two AMRAAMs and two Sidewinders per Mudhen, while Grimm was acting as their top cover with a not-so-healthy spread of two drop tanks, two Sidewinders and six AMRAAMs. In a surprise reversal of roles, Samurai and Zoomer had switched places. Samurai was now running as Chopper's WSO, while Zoomer was acting as Nagase's backseater and extra flare.
WARDOG 1 / CHOPPER, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / EDGE, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / ARCHER / F-16C
SHARK 1 / BLITZ / EF-111
SHARK 2 / BURNER / EF-111
SHARK 3 / EIGHTBALL / EF-111
SHARK 4 / MOUNTAIN / EF-111
CROSSBOW 1 / NAPOLEON, BRUCEY / F-15E
CROSSBOW 2 / CRISPY, BEE / F-15E
CROSSBOW 3 / ANIMAL, EMERALD / F-15E
CROSSBOW 4 / COUGAR, MIKEY / F-15E
BIG BIRD 102 / SWORDSMAN / F/A-18E
BIG BIRD 110 / GOLDILOCKS, DEADEYE / F/A-18F
BIG BIRD 111 / HARDY / F/A-18E
SCOUT 502 / GHOUL / E/A-18G
SCOUT 505 / WOODSTOCK / E/A-18G
As they were leaving the flight line for the runway, Chopper noticed that the Mudhens of Crossbow Squadron were painted in tri-colour desert while their own Mudhens were in the classic gunship grey scheme.
"Aw, look at Crossbow, they get the cool paintjobs." Chopper pointed out his observation to his temporary WSO.
Samurai scoffed. "Still better than the Charlie Eagle scheme."
A similar brief took place onboard the OFS Kestrel at around the same time as on Sand Island. Carrier Air Wing Ten's commitment to the operation was much smaller in scale, with only five aircraft being contributed: Swordsman, Brady, Goldilocks, Ghoul and Woodstock. Freakshow would be remaining with the carrier in case his jamming support was needed, while the Templars and the Crusaders were acting as the ship's CAP. They hadn't taken any losses from yesterday's carrier on carrier battle, but with how stretched their numbers were, CVW-10 wasn't able to commit much to a strike on the mainland without leaving the Kestrel open.
The Kestrel's aircraft commitment had thirty minutes until the fighter group from Sand Island would be on station, so that time was spent ensuring that the five aircraft being sent up were squared away. The Big Birds were going up with Ghoul accompanying them for the first launch. Woodstock would be launching on his own after the others were airborne.
The Super Hornets were loaded with JASSM cruise missiles for the attack, paired with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders for self-defense in case they were intercepted. The Growlers on the other hand were armed with jammer pods, a couple of AMRAAMs and ADM-160 MALDs. The MALD externally looked like a cruise missile, but in reality it was a loitering decoy. It could replicate the radar signature of any aircraft or munition in the Osean Defense Force's arsenal, a trait that came in handy for diversions and raids.
"Big Bird, Big Boss, launch, launch, launch." The air boss, the officer in control of flight operations on the carrier directed the Snowbirds and by extension the flight deck crew to get in the air. Swordsman did his pre-flight to make sure that all of his aircraft's control surfaces worked. Steam started funneling out of the cutout in the deck where the catapult ran through. He was ready. A yellow shirt on the deck gave Swordsman the final indication that he was ready to go. Swordsman saluted the crew. Not a moment too soon, the catapult fired and the Snowbirds roared off the deck.
"Big Bird 102, airborne."
At least ten minutes away from meeting up with their Navy counterparts, the dispatched OADF attacking force trekked across the ocean at twenty thousand feet above the ocean surface. Cloud cover was minimal halfway across the Ceres, but according to the weather report they'd be sitting above a large thunderstorm by the time they made it to their launch site.
In the backseat of Wardog 1, Samurai was running through the fire control computer and making sure that the targeting data for their load of cruise missiles was correct. Everything that had been listed as a target had been designated in the computer. The missiles could network between themselves to exactly which targets they would hit on the way there.
"Green across the board." Samurai informed her pilot.
"Rog." Chopper replied, keeping a steady hand on the stick. "Got anything on the datalink?"
"Picture's clean." Samurai replied. "Nothing but friendly forces."
"So much for high Foxhound activity." Chopper mused. "I mean, seriously, we're closer to Yuktobanian soil than the Yukes are to Osean soil, and there's nothing to be seen. You'd think the VKS would be contesting the ocean a bit more."
"Navy putting up work, maybe?" Samurai suggested. "I dunno."
"I don't think so. Four carriers sunk or put out of action in the past month? OMDF's been having a rough time." Chopper didn't exactly agree with Samurai's suggestion based on what he had seen and heard.
"Has the island invasion already passed your mind?" Samurai retorted. "If the Navy didn't back us up, we would have lost that fight."
Chopper pondered that fact for a moment. "On second thought, you might be right."
"I rest my case." Samurai finished the argument. Conceding that the OMDF were in fact pulling their weight, the squadron powered on. As they moved on towards the meetup point with the Kestrel, Samurai noticed a two-ship flight of aircraft slightly due south of their position.
"Huh." Samurai muttered. "Hey Chopper, two Spirits for fifty, dead south."
"Spirits? Bombers?" Chopper asked.
"Yeah." Samurai replied. "Raider 1 and Raider 2."
"Hmm." Chopper set the radio in his end of the cockpit to the OADF's open frequency. "Raider 1, Wardog 1, radio check, over."
"Wardog 1, go for Raider 1." There was a woman on the other side of the radio.
"Good hunting season, Raider?" Chopper asked his fellow servicemen. Samurai grinned in the back and rolled her eyes.
"Like hogs in the summer." Raider 1 replied with a hunting analogy. Chopper smiled.
"Love to hear it. Well, fair winds and following seas." Chopper bid the bombers farewell on their return trip.
"Likewise Wardog. Good hunting." Raider 1 returned the sentiment. Chopper returned his radio to the closed circuit radio that the strike force was running on.
"Hogs in the summer?" Samurai asked as a foreigner who had never heard that phrase before.
"Means they had plenty of targets." Chopper explained. "Pigs are everywhere in the summer months in the plains in Osea."
"Ahhhh." Samurai followed. Some twenty minutes of cruising later and they were rapidly approaching the Navy counterparts that they were meant to be working with.
"Eyes on the Kestrel's aircraft." Nagase spotted them first. "Only five aircraft?"
Chopper glanced back at Samurai. "About the Navy putting in work."
Samurai said nothing. Reasonably sure that the Navy's AWACS was on the same frequency as them, he conducted a radio check. "Owl Hunter, Wardog 1, entering your airspace from the west."
"Eyes on, Wardog. Welcome to the party." The same man with the southern accent from their past operations with the Kestrel. "All squadrons, form up and proceed heading 210."
The five fighters from the Kestrel joined on the left flank of the formation. Sitting on the left side of Wardog's arrowhead, Nagase took a look at their composition. Three Super Hornets and two Growlers. According to the datalink, there was a squadron of Legacy Hornets flying around. F/A-18Cs.
"They must have taken a beating at Sand Island…" Nagase theorised.
"That or they got fucked on station." Zoomer had his own thoughts. "Is what it is. Carry on."
"Yeah." Nagase kept the Mudhen level as the newly joined formation of sixteen aircraft moved on towards their designated firing point. Between the eleven strike aircraft, they were carrying forty-four tubes of kickass. Assuming they all got through, that was more than enough ordinance to flatten anything of importance in an area. In typical fashion, it wasn't going to be that easy. As they got closer to their launch station, the RWR picked up radar energy to the west. Nagase glanced at it. S400. Their intelligence had been correct.
"Crossbow 1, spiked." Crossbow's squadron leader reported, indicating that he had been locked on by the S-400's radar. The callout gave Nagase some pause. They were almost four hundred kilometres away, which put them well outside of the S-400's upper effective range of two hundred kilometres.
"Guess we're starting the concert early, standby." The senior of the two Growler pilots, Ghoul, proceeded with the jamming process earlier than planned.
"Crossbow 1, engaged, defending!" Crossbow 1 blurted out.
"What?!" Nagase muttered out loud. They were being engaged?
"The fuck?" Zoomer finished the vulgar part of the sentence.
"This is Scout 502, music is live." Ghoul and his wingman Woodstock had jammed the offending S-400 battery's radar, which would force the missile to go terminal and most likely lose its lock, but the implications of the fact that they had been fired upon from such a distance was not lost on the AWACS looking over the operation.
"All forces, retreat south! Get some distance away from that missile." Owl Hunter advised. Wardog were the first to comply with the order, banking south and putting double digits worth of distance between them and the position they had been in when Crossbow 1 had been fired upon. From an arbitrary distance, they pivoted back in towards Bastok Port. The S-400 however was just the first of their problems.
"Radar contact, four bandits, 300 for 300, Angels 30, hot." Owl Hunter called out four contacts to their north-west coming straight for them. Four RWR beeps followed the callout. Four Foxhounds. A fifth followed a minute later, an A-50 AWACS.
"Uh oh." Zoomer heard the call and saw the interceptors.
"Ghoul, can you lob some MALDs their way?" Chopper came up with a plan on the fly.
"The fuck is a-" Ghoul cut himself off. "Oh, you smart- Yeah, can do!"
"Launch four with a Mudhen profile, keep them high. Everyone else, follow Wardog, light burners and move!" Chopper instructed the attack formation. The Scouts handed off the jamming of the S-400 to Shark Squadron before detaching and launching MALD decoys in the direction of the incoming Foxhounds. Nagase pushed the throttle lever forward, lighting the aircraft's twin afterburners. Wardog and Crossbow's Mudhens and Shark's Ravens were much faster than the Snowbird's Rhinos.
"Hold up, we're leaving the Hornets behind!" Crossbow 1 was quick to notice that the Super Hornets were trailing.
"Don't wait for us!" Swordsman encouraged. "We'll be there in a minute!"
"You heard the man, keep going." Chopper was firmly in control of the situation. Burners roaring, Nagase was rapidly approaching their launch position.
"We good to go?" Nagase asked her WSO, referring to their missile carriage.
"Targets marked, diagnostics good. We're green." Zoomer replied, one hand sorting through menus, the other grasping the handle above his instruments.
Nagase looked around for the Foxhounds that had been vectored onto their position. It appeared that they had fallen for Chopper's gambit. All four Foxhounds were bearing on the MALDs registering themselves as strike fighters. The two Growlers were flying with the MALDs and pushing the Yuke interceptors.
"Entering launch site!" Chopper was the first to enter firing distance of Bastok Port. "Wardog 1, greyhound, greyhound!"
"Edge, greyhound four." Nagase rattled off, feeling the Mudhen shed a ton of weight each time she pressed the trigger. She pulled away as the JASSMs extended their wings, ignited their engines and acquired their targets.
"Crossbow 1, greyhound!"
As Wardog turned around to head away from the enemy's airspace, they passed through the Snowbird's formation.
"Hey Grimm, give the squid some cover, will ya?" Chopper detached Grimm from Wardog to provide top cover for the Rhinos.
"Can do, captain." Grimm complied with the order, splitting from Wardog and moving to cover the three Rhinos.
"Scout 505, fox 3." One of the Growler pilots had gotten close enough to the Foxhounds to fire a missile. Figuring that the electronic warfare aircraft were using their jamming capability to effectively blind the giant Zaslan radar complexes, Nagase thought little of the engagement.
"Big Bird 102, greyhound, greyhound, greyhound!" Swordsman called. The Super Hornets had gotten their JASSMs off.
"Hey Ghoul, do you guys want a hand?" Crossbow 1 asked the lead Growler pilot.
"Nah, we got this." Ghoul replied. "Splash two!"
"Splash two!" Woodstock rattled off not even a second later. The Foxhound threat had been cleared.
"Picture is clean." Owl Hunter reported in a southern drawl. "Well, minus an AWACS."
"Want us to go hunt it, Owl Hunter?" Grimm asked in an innocent sounding but vaguely bloodthirsty tone.
"Negative Archer, it's not worth the effort or the risk." Owl Hunter denied the request. "Get back to the carrier. We'll evaluate from there."
"Welp, you heard the man, to the carrier." Chopper reaffirmed the order from the Hawkeye watching over their operation. The radar and datalink pictures remained clear for the time it took Wardog, Crossbow, Shark, Snowbird and Headhunter Squadrons to get back to the protective bubble that the escorts of the Kestrel provided. People watched their datalink displays closely, looking out for any sign of a response from Yuktobanian aircraft or warships.
"Air Force squadrons, Owl Hunter." Owl Hunter broke the silence on the air. "Cruise missiles have made impact. Mission complete. Get outta here and RTB before the entire damn Yuke Air Force is on your ass."
"Wardog acknowledges, we are RTB." Chopper acknowledged the order as the overall OADF formation commander. Wardog, Shark and Crossbow withdrew from the field and made haste for Sand Island. Their first major operation since the attempted invasion had gone off mostly without a hitch, but as they settled in for the flight home, it was a nagging thought in the back of Nagase's head that they had encountered a previously unknown anti-air threat. At the very least, that discovery would give the various national and military intelligence agencies something to work on.