“Can we expect more artillery support?” he asked his commander.
“I’ll let you know. Keep giving us target information.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel.”
For the fighter planes, the war began when the first PLAAF crossed over the Amur. There were four Russian fighter-interceptors up, and these, just like the invaders, were Sukhoi-27. Those on both sides had been made in the same factories, but the Chinese pilots had triple the recent flight time of the defending Russians, who were outnumbered eight to one.
Countering that, however was the fact that the Russian aircraft had support from the USAF E-3B Sentry AWACS aircraft, which was guiding them to the intercept. Both sets of fighters were flying with their target-acquisition radars in standby mode. The Chinese didn’t know what was out there. The Russians did. That was a difference.
“Black Falcon Ten, this is Eagle Seven. Recommend you come right to new course two-seven-zero. I’m going to try an’ bring you up on the Chinese from their seven o’clock.” It would also keep them out of Chinese radar coverage.
“Understood, Eagle. Coming right to two-seven-zero.” The Russian flight leader spread his formation out and settled down as much as he could, with his eyes tending to look off to his left.
“Okay, Black Falcon Ten, that’s good. Your targets are now at your nine o’clock, distance thirty kilometers. Come left now to one-eight-zero.”
“Coming left,” the Russian major acknowledged. “We will try to start the attack Fox-Two,” he advised. He knew American terminology. That meant launching infrared seekers, which did not require the use of radar, and so did not warn anyone that he was in harm’s way. The Marquis of Queensberry had never been a fighter pilot.
“Roger that, Falcon. This boy’s smart,” the controller commented to his supervisor.
“That’s how you stay alive in this business,” the lieutenant colonel told the young lieutenant at the Nintendo screen.
“Okay, Falcon Ten, recommend you come left again. Targets are now fifteen kilometers … make that seventeen kilometers to your north. You should have tone shortly.”
“Da. I have tone,” the Russian pilot reported, when he heard the warble in his headset. “Flight, prepare to fire … Fox-Two!” Three of the four aircraft loosed a single missile each. The fourth pilot was having trouble with his IR scanner. In all cases, the blazing rocket motors wrecked their night vision, but none of the pilots looked away, as they’d been trained to do, and instead watched their missiles streak after fellow airmen who did not yet know they were under attack. It took twenty seconds, and as it turned out, two missiles were targeted on the same Chinese aircraft. That one took two hits and exploded. The second died from its single impact, and then things really got confusing. The Chinese fighters scattered on command from their commander, doing so in a preplanned and well-rehearsed maneuver, first into two groups, then into four, each of which had a piece of sky to defend. Everyone’s radar came on, and in another twenty seconds, a total of forty missiles were flying, and with this began a deadly game of chicken. The radar-homing missiles needed a radar signal to guide them, and that meant that the firing fighter could not switch off or turn away, only hope that his bird would kill its target and switch off his radar before his missile got close.
“Damn,” the lieutenant observed, in his comfortable controller’s seat in the E-3B. Two more Chinese fighters blinked into larger bogies on his screen and then started to fade, then another, but there were just too many of the Chinese air-to-air missiles, and not all of the Chinese illumination radars went down. One Russian fighter took three impacts and disintegrated. Another one limped away with severe damage, and as quickly as it had begun, this air encounter ended. Statistically, it was a Russian win, four kills for one loss, but the Chinese would claim more.
“Any chutes?” the senior controller asked over the intercom. The E-3 radar could track those, too.
“Three, maybe four ejected. Not sure who, though, not till we play the tape back. Damn, that was a quick one.”
The Russians didn’t have enough planes up to do a proper battle. Maybe next time, the colonel thought. The full capabilities of a fighter/AWACS team had never been properly demonstrated in combat, but this war held the promise to change that, and when it happened, some eyes would be opened.
CHAPTER 51 Falling Back
Senior Lieutenant Valeriy Mikhailovich Komanov learned something he’d never suspected. The worst part of battle-at least to a man in a fixed emplacement-was knowing that the enemy was out there, but being unable to shoot at him. The reverse slopes of the ridge to his immediate south had to be swarming with Chinese infantry, and his supporting artillery had been taken out in the first minutes of the battle. Whoever had set up the artillery positions had made the mistake of assuming that the guns were too far back and too shielded by terrain for the enemy to strike at them. Fire-finder radar/computer systems had changed that, and the absence of overhead cover had doomed the guncrews to rapid death, unless some of them had found shelter in the concrete-lined trenches built into their positions. He had a powerful gun at his fingertips, but it was one that could not reach over the hills to his south because of its flat trajectory. As envisioned, this defense line would have included leg infantry who’d depend on and also support the bunker strongpoints-and be armed with mortars which could reach over the close-in hills and punish those who were there but unseen behind the terrain feature. Komanov could only engage those he could see, and they-
“There, Comrade Lieutenant,” the gunner said. “A little right of twelve o’clock, some infantry just crested the ridge. Range one thousand five hundred meters.”
“I see them.” There was just a hint of light on the eastern horizon now. Soon there would be enough light to see by. That would make shooting easier, but for both sides. In an hour, his bunker would be targeted, and they’d get to see just how thick their armor protection really was.
“Five Six Alfa, this is Five Zero. We have infantry eleven hundred meters to our south. Company strength and moving north toward us.”
“Very well. Do not engage until they are within two hundred meters.” Komanov automatically doubled the shooting range at which he’d been trained to open fire. What the hell, he thought, his crews would do that in their own minds anyway. A man thinks differently when real bullets are flying.
As if to emphasize that, shells started landing on the crest immediately behind his position, close enough to make him duck down.
“So they see us?” his loader asked.
“No, they’re just barraging the next set of hills to support their infantrymen.”
“Look, look there, they’re on top of false bunker One Six,” the gunner said. Komanov shifted his glasses-
Yes, they were there, examining the old KV-2 gun turret with its vertical sides and old 155-mm gun. As he watched, a soldier hung a satchel charge on the side and backed away. Then the charge went off, destroying something that had never worked anyway. That would make some Chinese lieutenant feel good, Komanov thought. Well, Five Six Alfa would change his outlook somewhat, in another twenty or thirty minutes.
The bad part was that now he had perfect targets for his supporting artillery, and those old six-inch guns would have cut through them like a harvester’s scythe. Except the Chinese were still hitting those positions, even though the Russian fire had stopped. He called Regiment again to relay his information.
“Lieutenant,” his colonel answered, “the supporting battery has been badly hit. You are on your own. Keep me posted.”