“Nine miles!” Kaywood announced. “Fox One again!”
“Oh, shit,” Hoffman said over the intercom. “This ain’t good.”
A bright flash, followed by a rapid succession of pulsing explosions lighted the sky as one of the MiGs disintegrated in a shower of white-orange plumes.
“Good hit!” someone radioed. “You nailed him!”
Taking evasive action, the MiGs broke left and right with one of them going straight up. Diamond Three savaged the stray MiG when the pilot pulled through the top of an egg-shaped loop and started down.
“Another hit! Good kill!”
Kaywood snapped the Tomcat into a face-sagging vertical climb, rolling ninety degrees over the top to position himself for another shot.
“Go Fox Two,” Hoffman advised in a ragged voice. “Select Fox Two.”
“Okay,” Kaywood replied, selecting heat. “Fox Two.”
While Kaywood tracked a MiG in an effort to get a missile tone, another flash and explosion lighted the night. Kay-wood’s instincts told him it was his wingman.
“Stan, you okay? You up, Stan?”
A brief moment of silence answered his questions. With the entire tail missing, Greenwich’s F-14 had yawed sideways, departed from controlled flight, then violently cartwheeled across the sky. Stunned by the direct hit, Greenwich and his RIO ejected after the first tumble.
“Diamond One-Oh-Four is in the drink!” Kaywood. radioed on Guard. “Get someone out here — do it now!”
“Screwtop copies. CSAR is eight miles and closing. We have a bogie extending away from the area — headed home.”
“Roger,” Kaywood acknowledged. “We’re going to need tankers.”
“They’ve got one up, and one ready to shoot, and we have aircraft from Roosevelt on the way.”
“Tell ’em to buster!”
“They’re supersonic, fifty-five miles.”
“Copy.”
Except for the lone defector, the Iranians continued to press the engagement as the remaining Tomcats jockeyed for position. Stationed in a reserve position, the four Hornet pilots were ready to pounce if another F-14 was shot down.
Hoffman worked a merging target while Kaywood maneuvered behind a MiG for another shot.
“Shoot him,” Hoffman encouraged. “Fox Two.”
“No tone,” Kaywood yelled in a strained voice. “Come on!”
Hoffman concentrated on his scope. A different bogie was beginning to gain a slight advantage on Diamond 107.
“Lock him up!” Hoffman said excitedly. “Shoot him!”
Kaywood heard a zasping sound in his headset, confirming that the Sidewinder had acquired the infrared signature of the bandit’s jet exhaust.
“Fox Two,” Kaywood said as the “Winder” whooshed away, then curved upward and went ballistic. “Son of a bitch,” Kaywood uttered as he racked the straining F-14 into the vertical to try to counter the bogie stalking him. A loud explosion shook the Tomcat as a missile detonated in the aft section of the starboard engine.
“Shit,” Hoffman exclaimed, feeling a twinge of panic. “Let’s go! Let’s get out of here!”
With warning lights flashing in his face, Kaywood secured the right engine and turned for the carrier.
“Diamond One-Oh-Seven is hit!” he declared as a sizable lump developed in his throat. “I’m disengaging and goin’ to home plate.”
“Roger, Diamond.” The Hawkeye controller paused to inform the carrier, then came back on the frequency. “You have a ready deck. Your bogies appear to be withdrawin’—goin’ north.”
“One-Oh-Seven,” Kaywood replied as a trace of acrid smoke drifted up toward the dome of the canopy. We gotta get to the boat.
“Thunderbolt One,” the Miniwacs controller radioed to the Marine pilot in the VMFA-251 Hornet. “I’m going to divert you. We’re tracking five bogies — low on the deck — eleven o’clock at twenty-eight miles. Looks like they’re goin’ for the carrier.”
“T-Bolt copies,” Major Buck Martin replied, and banked toward the approaching planes. “Thunderbolts, arm ’em up.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
Martin lowered his nose and shoved the throttles into burner. “I’ve got ’em tied on radar. Got ’em locked.”
“Copy. Diamond One is closing from your seven o’clock, nine miles. Marauder One and Two are off the deck and climbing.”
“T-Bolt One.”
Martin remained quiet while his flight of F/A-18s accelerated and drifted apart in a line-abreast spread. Armed with AIM-120 missiles with multispectral seekers that can sense both infrared and radar signatures of cruise missiles, the pilots were confident they could handle the bogies.
Approaching the hostiles, Martin keyed his radio. “Guido, shoot the one on the right, Phil and I will take the center three, and John you go for the left one.”
In rapid order, the pilots acknowledged the orders.
“Here we go,” Martin announced, and fired a missile at the center bogie, then waited a second and fired another. “Fox Two — Fox Two.”
In quick succession, four more missiles were streaking toward their targets. The three Mirage F-ls were easy pickings. The Iranian pilots held a steady course while they prepared to fire their Exocet cruise missiles. The left wingman was hit a nanosecond before he fired his missile. The other two pilots launched their Exocets seconds before their Mirages disappeared in huge fireballs.
The U.S.-built Iranian F-4s fired their Chinese cruise missiles, then broke hard to starboard in full afterburner. The flight leader’s jet exploded halfway through the turn. The other Phantom, manned by senior officers, escaped unharmed.
“Good hits!” Martin exclaimed. “Good kills!”
“Thunderbolt One, Screwtop, climb and maintain angels ten, heading zero-one-five. Max conserve.”
“T-Bolt copies, angles ten, zero-one-five.”
“Diamond One, Screwtop is trackin’ cruise missiles!” the frantic Hawkeye controller warned. ‘Two targets at your ten o’clock — both targets boresighted on Mother!”
“I’ve got ’em!” Ridder Cromwell gasped as he wrapped the big Tomcat into a tight left turn. He worked hard to get a tone, but the missiles were too low to the water. Finally, after a couple of frustrating tracking corrections, Cromwell heard the sweet sound he was waiting for.
“Fox Two,” he declared as the missile shot out in front of the F-14. Cromwell immediately banked toward the second target.
The AIM-120 made a series of small corrections, then undulated a couple of times before slamming into the Gulf thirty feet behind the Exocet.
“Come on,” Singleton muttered from the rear seat. “We don’t have much time… lock it up.”
Cromwell eased the nose down and heard a feeble tone at the same time as the Hawkeye controller radioed an urgent order.
“Diamond One, knock it off! Knock it off! Break right — right and reverse course!”
Snapping the fighter into a punishing turn, Cromwell labored under the G-forces. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“You’re too close to the ship. They’re goin’ with ‘R2D2’—break—Marauder One and Two, max climb to angels eight, heading three-five-zero. Expedite!”
“Marauders are outta here.”
R2D2, the nickname for the Mk-15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, is a rapid-fire cannon with six rotating barrels. The self-contained fire control radar is housed in a white dome which jerks into action seemingly without provocation. Mounted on both sides of the carrier, CIWS is the Navy’s standard defense against antiship missiles and low-flying, high-speed cruise missiles.