How did I thank him? I sat back like an idiot while those Chinese fuckers blew him right out of the sky. Now he’s gone, and I’ll never be able to tell him how much he meant to me.
I’m sorry. I know I keep droning on and on about this, but it’s killing me. Everybody keeps treating me like some kind of badass because I shot down two J-15s, and blasted the shit out of another one. But if I’m such a badass, where the hell was I when Poker needed me?
I’m back in the patrol rotation, but I’m not sure I should be. What kind of a wingman lets his lead go down in flames? What if it happens again? What if I’m some kind of jinx, and anybody who flies with me gets iced?
I don’t know, Beth. I don’t know anything anymore. I wish I could talk to you right now. I wish I could hear your voice, and talk this through with you until it starts to make some kind of sense.
I wish…
Hang on. The GQ alarm is going off. Got to get to my battle station.
Love you!
More later,
Rob
LT(jg) Robert J. Monkman
VFA-228 Marauders
USS Midway (CVN-82)
-------------------------
CHAPTER 43
The Tactical Action Officer pointed to the Aegis display screens. “Raid warning, Captain. Twenty Bogies coming in high from the southwest. No modes, no codes, no IFF. Threat axis is about two-one-four. Looks like they’re lining up for an air strike against the Midway.”
Bowie nodded. “What does Hawkeye say?”
“Hawkeye concurs that this is a probable strike against the carrier, sir. They’re vectoring in three flights of Combat Air Patrol for mop up work, in case any leakers get past us.”
Bowie looked at the cluster of hostile air symbols. Twenty red inverted v-shapes were moving toward the Towers, and toward the aircraft carrier on the other side of the destroyer’s protective missile envelope.
It took him a couple of seconds to realize that something didn’t look quite right about the geometry of target motion playing out on the big display screen. The hostile air symbols were approaching steadily, but the rate of closure didn’t seem high enough.
“How fast are those Bogies moving?” he asked.
The TAO checked a digital readout on his console. “Airspeed around four hundred knots.”
Bowie frowned. “Four hundred knots? That’s a little slow for a strike approach, isn’t it?”
“It’s definitely not typical,” the TAO said. “But we’ve never actually seen the Chinese navy carry out a strike mission against a carrier. Nobody knows exactly what their tactical doctrine looks like for this kind of thing.”
“You’re right about that,” Commander Silva said quietly, “but four hundred knots is still awfully damned slow for a strike approach.”
Before the TAO could respond, a report came over the tactical net from the Electronics Warfare module. “TAO — EW. The Bogies just lit up! I am tracking twenty — that is two-zero — active X-band emitters. Pulse-doppler signature indicates KLJ-10 fire control radars. First cut looks like Chinese J-10 strike fighters.”
The TAO keyed his microphone. “EW — TAO. Copy all. Stand by on jamming and chaff.”
He released the mike button and turned to his commanding officer. “Captain, request batteries released on inbound Bogies.”
Bowie hesitated. Something wasn’t quite right about the way the Bogies were acting. The EW emissions and angle of approach added up to a large raid of strike fighters from the Chinese aircraft carrier, but the relatively low airspeed of the raid was puzzling.
Two-thirds the speed of sound wasn’t exactly poking along, but the J-10 was capable of better than Mach 2. Why weren’t they taking advantage of the aircraft’s speed? It didn’t make sense.
Or rather, it didn’t make sense to Bowie. It obviously made sense to whoever had planned the raid. There was definitely a reason for the departure from accepted aerial tactics. Of course, there was little or no chance that Bowie was going to spontaneously guess what that reason might be within the next few seconds. Low airspeed or not, the hostile planes were heading toward the American aircraft carrier. It was up to the Towers to ensure that they never got close enough to launch their missiles at the Midway.
That made the decision a no-brainer. Bowie made eye contact with his TAO. “Do it,” he said. “You have batteries released.”
The Tactical Action Officer keyed the net again immediately. “Weapons Control — TAO. Engage air tracks Zero Zero One through Zero Two Zero with missiles.”
“TAO — Weapons Control. Engage air tracks Zero Zero One through Zero Two Zero with missiles, aye. Stand by…”
A series of rapid shudders propagated down the length of the warship’s hull, accompanied by a sequence of muffled roars as nearly two dozen SM-3 missiles streaked into the sky.
The Weapons Officer’s voice came over the net. “TAO — Weapons Control. Twenty birds away. No apparent casualties.”
They appeared on the Aegis display within a couple of seconds: the blue shapes of twenty friendly missile symbols, closing rapidly on the hostile air symbols.
Bowie watched the converging symbology for several heartbeats before he reached for a communications headset and punched into the ship’s 1-MC system. When he spoke, his voice came from every speaker within the skin of the ship.
“All hands, this is the Captain. We’re currently launching missiles against a large raid of hostile aircraft. This is the real thing, people. This is what you’ve been training for, and I know you’re ready. Stay sharp. Stay tough. And be prepared for anything.”
He released the mike button and spoke under his breath. “Good luck. To all of us.”
With its top-mounted jet engine and v-configured tail wings, the Xianglong Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was similar in appearance to the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk that had drawn so much media attention during U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But despite its physical resemblance to the American UAV, the capabilities of the Xianglong were still largely a mystery to the analysts and engineers of the United States.
Its name could be translated loosely into English as ‘flying lizard,’ but the UAV’s builders preferred the more auspicious translation of ‘soaring dragon.’
Western analysts were correct in believing that the Xianglong’s primary purpose was long-range, high-altitude strategic reconnaissance. But the mission modules currently attached to the UAV’s wings had a quite different purpose.
The module under the port wing was an electronic blip enhancer, designed to amplify and retransmit incoming radar signals, to make the 7.5 ton UAV seem much larger to enemy sensors. For this mission the drone’s apparent radar cross-section had been effectively doubled, giving the slender Xianglong a radar profile that closely mimicked the 16 ton airframe of a Chinese J-10 fighter.
The module under the starboard wing was a microwave transmitter, and it was busily broadcasting X-band signals that were virtually indistinguishable from the pulse-doppler emissions of the Chengdu KLJ-10 fire control radar carried by J-10 aircraft.
The decoy modules and electronic emulators of the deceptive mission package did an extraordinary job of simulating a J-10 fighter jet. The primary flaw in the deception was the drone’s lack of speed.