“Lead’s blind,” he announced in a disgusted tone over the radio, cursing himself as he spoke. He had blown it. He had just lost a year’s worth of cool points. His name would be muttered with shame at the bar.
But hopefully his wing man knew where the bomber had stolen off to. The MiG-31 pilot silently prayed that his number two had done a better job of keeping the target in sight.
He swore once again in frustration when he heard two reply, “Two is blind as well.”
Fifteen thousand feet below them, the B-1 sped to the east. It was back at treetop level, skimming once again over the fields and trees.
After pulling the bomber up into the sky, Ammon had immediately rolled inverted and pulled back into a steep dive. His evasive maneuver turned out to be nothing more than a modified yo-yo. Kind of a screwed up outside loop. But whatever he called the maneuver, it had worked. The threat tones in his helmet told him the fighters didn’t know where he was. Their radars were back in search mode. And even if they found him now, it wouldn’t matter. They could never catch him. For now at least, he was safe.
“That was close, fly-boy,” Morozov mumbled. “I think you got lucky.” His breathing was heavy and hard.
“No, Morozov,” Ammon shot back. “I’m not lucky. I’m good. There’s a difference. And don’t you forget it.”
Morozov grunted. “Ok, Carl. Whatever you say.”
They pressed on to the target.
“Time to arm the missile?” Ammon asked.
“Four minutes,” Morozov replied. “You should start to see the target environment soon after the missile is armed.”
Once again Ammon searched ahead of the aircraft. Their first target was the Buturlinovhka-Voerenky nuclear missile site located just north of Khoper River. So far, he couldn’t see anything that looked like the target, only the same dusty fields and an occasional farm house. But then they were still more than sixty miles out. He wouldn’t be able to see any of the aboveground buildings or guard towers of the facility until he was about fifteen miles away.
In the aft cockpit, Morozov rolled his target radar to the side to take a look at a fix point as they flew by. As the radar looked at the way-point, it immediately showed up on his center CRT. The point Morozov had chosen to look at was a stop sign at a small intersection near a line of tall trees. “Incredible,” Morozov thought as the navigation computer did some quick thinking. “From more than ten miles, I can look out and find something as small as a sign post.” Just then, a series of numbers flashed onto Morozov’s screen, displaying their new position. They had made a nice correction back to the bomb run course and were now only three hundred feet from their desired flight path. “Truly incredible,” Morozov muttered again. They had flown thousands of miles, been intercepted and chased by enemy fighters, and still were able to navigate back to within less than a football field of their desired position. Morozov was truly impressed.
“I’m telling you, Carl, the Americans have made this too easy,” he called out to Ammon. “This radar is absolutely incredible. Even at this distance, I can actually make out the air shaft of the facility complex. Now it’s just a matter of choosing my target.”
After checking the final coordinates, Morozov began to enter the final data into his weapons computer. The Buturlinovhka-Voerenky missile facility consisted of ten hardened silos controlled by a single underground launch facility. It would be a relatively easy target to destroy, for once the central launch facility was taken out, the ten silos would then be rendered useless. Morozov had already determined that, because the command launch facility was “shallow,” the M-95 penetration missile would easily destroy it.
One of the most powerful weapons on earth, only about three hundred M-95s had ever been built, for they were incredibly expensive and complicated to maintain in combat order. However, their great expense and high maintenance was easily justified, for they were the best weapons in the world when it came to hitting underground silos or buried bunkers.
The missile owed its great success to three things — its incredible speed, its depleted uranium core, and finally, its small nuclear warhead. As it approached its objective, the missile would pull up into a steep climb, then turn and dive, accelerating to Mach 7 as it bore down on its target. This blinding speed, in conjunction with the ultra-dense uranium core, allowed the warhead to cut through the earth like a bullet through water. Not until then did the nuclear warhead go off, then baaam!!, the bunker was gone.
So far as western intelligence could confirm, more than ninety percent of Russia’s hardened targets and bunkers could be destroyed if attacked by the M-95 missiles. The Ukrainians didn’t have anything that could come close to the destructive capability of the M-95, and in fact, to get hold of these missiles was one of the primary reasons they had devised a plan to steal the Bone. But the M-95 wasn’t the only weapon that was stuffed into the belly of the Bone. The bomber also carried other nuclear weapons. But they wouldn’t be used. At least not on this target. Morozov was holding them in reserve. For them, he had something special in mind.
After he was finished punching the final target information into his computer, Morozov keyed his microphone switch once again.
“Okay, pilot, I’ve selected and programmed an M-95 for this target. It is set for maximum penetration before explosion. If we release the weapon at two hundred feet, my systems are telling me we have to get to within… thirteen-paint-two miles of the target to guarantee the missile is within range. Confirm?”
Ammon did some quick math in his head. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he replied. At twenty miles, Morozov would put the missile in final countdown. At thirteen miles, it could be launched. The missile would then drop from the belly of the aircraft, ignite its ramjet engine in the slipstream, then scream out ahead of the bomber, allowing the B-1 to turn away from the target and proceed to its next destination.
As they closed in on the first target, Ammon searched the sky up ahead of the aircraft. Nothing was there. It appeared they were going to make this a successful bomb run.
Suddenly the aircraft began to violently shake. Two red fire lights illuminated on the panel in front of him as his headset came alive once more. This time it was a constant high pitched tone, warning him of a fire in both of his right engines.
For just a second Ammon pictured himself back in his F-16 as he spiraled down toward the Yellow Sea. The same sick feeling overcame him. He had been in this situation before. He even noted that the fire warning tones sounded the same on both aircraft.
He shook his head and reached up to punch the fire suppression buttons. “I’ve got a fire in numbers three and four,” he said to Morozov, his voice shaking from the violent vibrations.
“I think we’ve taken a missile!” Morozov shouted back, his voice barely understandable above the cry of the warning tones. “It must have been a heat seeker. I never got any warning on my radar.”
At this point, Ammon didn’t care what hit him. He only wanted to save the aircraft. He scanned his engine instruments. Engines three and four were definitely gone. They weren’t producing any thrust and their exhaust temperatures were climbing through the ceiling. Ammon immediately reached up to select the alternate fire suppression. Just as he was punching the button, a bright light flashed from outside. The aircraft shuddered again, this time with enough force to knock Ammon sideways in his seat. Again another knocking explosion. The aircraft began to settle toward the earth.
The hydraulic legs of the simulator brought the cockpit slowly back down to ground level. Over the intercom system, Ammon heard the voice of the simulator controller.