After the order was received from Beijing, Admiral Sun ordered the bombers to start moving eastward out of their staging orbits and begin their attack runs, and he radioed for the first phase of the attack to begin. More than three hundred fighters, mostly J-6 fighters led by radar- equipped J-7 or J-8 fighters, lifted off from Shantou and Fuzhou Air Bases and streamed eastward — launching two or three planes at a time, it took nearly twenty minutes for each base to launch its full complement of planes. In that time, the H-6 bombers accelerated to attack speed of 360 miles per hour, streaming over the Wuyi Mountains in three different tracks. One hundred Chinese fighters therefore became the “spearhead” for each ten-plane bomber formation, with the three spears headed right for the heart of Taiwan. With the fighters three to five minutes ahead of the bombers, the six large formations rendezvoused over the coastline and move en masse toward Taiwan.
The first target was the Pescadores Islands, about three-fourths of the way across the Formosa Strait. The first Chinese attack formation, directed by a Ilyushin-76 Candid radar plane, occupied the high- and mid-CAPs, or Combat Air Patrols, and were met by five formations of four F-5E Tiger fighters at their same altitude. Although the Taiwanese F-5s were outnumbered five to one, the Chinese 11–76 radar planes could give only an accurate range and bearing to the Taiwanese fighters, not altitude, so an accurate fix on the Taiwanese fighters’ position was hard to establish. Also, because the formations of Chinese fighters was so large and they were inexperienced in night intercepts, it was difficult for the Chinese fighters to maneuver in position to attack. The Taiwanese fighters were able to use their speed and maneuverability to get in an ideal counterattack position, and the fight was on.
The massive formations of Chinese fighter planes fired their Pen- Lung-2 air-to-air missiles at extreme range, whether they had a radar or heat-seeking lock-on or not. The sky was soon filled with Chinese air-to- air missiles screaming toward the Taiwanese defenders, but most were simply unguided projectiles, more distractions than threats. One by one, the Chinese attackers fired, closed range, fired more missiles, then turned and headed back to the mainland just before reaching optimum AIM-9 Sidewinder missile range. When the Taiwanese fighters pursued the retreating Chinese fighters, the Chinese fighters occupying the mid-CAP started a climb, hoping to get behind the Taiwanese fighters and into the PL-2’s lethal cone, but this attack was broken up by Taiwanese fighters coming in lower and chasing the newcomers away.
There were some brief “dogfights,” with Chinese and Taiwanese fighters turning and dodging one another trying to get into attack position, but the Taiwanese pilots and their superior air defense radar system had the upper hand. Seventeen Chinese fighters were shot down, versus one Taiwanese F-5E. The Taiwanese defenders easily pursued the Chinese fighters across the Formosa Strait nearly all the way back to the Asian coastline, picking off J-6 and J-7 fighters one by one, then darting away before getting in range of Chinese long-range air defense sites that dotted the coast.
But while the Chinese fighters engaged and diverted the bulk of the Taiwanese fighter force, the first formation of ten Xian H-6 bombers was able to stream in just a few dozen feet above the dark waters of the Formosa Strait in toward the Pescadores Islands. The air defense radar controllers were concentrating on the huge numbers of fighters and gave all their attention to them, and so they didn’t see the bombers until it was too late. Taiwanese Tien Kung II surface-to-air missile sites at Makung and Paisha in the Pescadores attacked the incoming bombers at over forty miles, but the H-6 bombers attacked first.
The lead bomber in each ten-plane formation carried two Hai-Yang- 3 cruise missiles on external fuselage hardpoints. The HY-3 was a massive 6,600-pound missile powered by a rocket engine. Once programmed with the target coordinates and navigation and flight information dumped into the missile s onboard computers, the missiles were released. Seconds after launch, a solid-fuel rocket engine propelled the missile past the speed of sound; then a ramjet engine deployed from the missile and automatically ignited. The HY-3 missile climbed to 40,000 feet and accelerated to almost four times the speed of sound in just a few seconds. At over 2,000 miles per hour, the missile covered sixty miles in less than twelve seconds…
… and each HY-3 missile carried a small low-yield nuclear warhead.
The first missile worked perfectly, exploding five miles over Penghu Island, the main island in the Pescadores Island archipelago, and creating a bright nuclear flash that blinded dozens of unwary, unprotected Taiwanese pilots and flattened most aboveground structures on Penghu Island. The nuclear burst also released an electromagnetic wave that disrupted communications and damaged unprotected electronic circuits for almost a hundred miles in all directions. The second HY-3 missile had been programmed the same as the first to be used as a backup, so it was merely destroyed by the blast of its brother.
Three of the follow-on Chinese H-6 bombers were damaged by the nuclear blast and had to turn back for home, but seven of its wingmen survived the shock wave, intense flash, and electromagnetic pulse and raced in to their target. The lead bomber that had carried the HY-3 missiles carried 12,000 pounds of gravity weapons in its bomb bay; the others who had not been carrying cruise missiles held 19,000 pounds of bombs. The fires on Penghu and Yuweng Islands, the two main fortified islands in the Pescadores, made initial target location easy, and the H-6’s bombardiers picked out the crucial military targets with ease. The lead bomber began the attack with four 2,000-pound high-explosive bombs, cratering the naval yard, headquarters buildings, radar sites, and fixed coastal air and ship defense sites. Two of the follow-on bombers also used large high-explosive bombs, while the rest followed with eighteen 1,000- pound cluster bombs, which scattered thousands of antipersonnel bomblets and anti-vehicle mines throughout the islands.
With the outer air defense structure collapsed, the attack on the Taiwanese home island of Formosa itself could begin. The northern attack group launched nuclear-armed Hai-Ying-3 missiles at the Republic of Chinas air force base at Hsinchu, just forty miles southwest of the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, and at the air force base at Taichung; the southern strike package launched nuclear HY-3 missiles at the air force base at Tainan and another missile at the Taiwanese naval facility at Tsoying, just a few miles north of the large industrial city of Kaohsiung. All of the attacks were devastating. Even after suffering heavy losses when the bombers flew close to surviving air defense sites, more than two-thirds of the Chinese H-6 bombers survived and successfully attacked their targets with bombs and cluster munitions.