This made no difference to the Tornado pilots; they were bombing on instruments anyway. They streaked in and simultaneously unleashed their loads on the other cruiser. Five of the eight bombs were direct hits. Two were near misses, and one skipped across the water to slam into one of the frigates. The cruiser, its structure unable to withstand the five massive explosions, cracked in two places. One break came near its stern, the other right below on its bow. More explosions followed as water reached its engine room. Its sister cruiser, already mortally wounded, tried to spin away from the devastated ship. But it was too late. The doomed cruiser’s main ammo magazine erupted, exploding with the force of a hundred bombs, sending out a wall of fiery shrapnel that hit the sister ship head on. Its steering facilities destroyed, the crippled cruiser rammed its sister ship, and together they were sucked down in a whirlpool of fire and water.
The remaining frigates knew now was the time to escape. But two more Tornados were waiting for them. Three screeching bombing runs later, one frigate lay destroyed and two were beached and burning.
Their work done, the Tornados turned northward and headed back to the carrier.
Hunter had watched the destruction of the enemy ships from a height of 10,000 feet. Now it was his turn. He linked up with the two Harriers and proceeded even further down the waterway.
His target-identification device indicated two large ships approximately fourteen miles away. Judging by their electronic signatures, Hunter determined one was probably a helicopter assault ship, the other possibly a battleship.
He armed his payload and, with the Harriers in tow, dropped down to 1000 feet. He kicked in his target-acquisition system and armed his Sidewinders just in case. Sure enough, ahead of him was the distinct outline of a flattop.
“It’s a Moskva helicopter carrier,” he radioed the two Harrier pilots. “We can expect it to be jammed with antiaircraft weapons, maybe missiles. The other ship looks like an old pocket battleship. It also is probably well-covered with AA.”
“What do you have in mind, major?” one of the Harrier pilots, a man named Chester, asked.
Hunter thought a moment, then said, “Well, we could give them the old ‘one-two, out-of-the-blue trick.’”
There was a burst of static, then Chester replied, “We’re game, if you are … ”
“Okay,” Hunter radioed back as he dropped to 500 feet, “Just watch out for those choppers … ”
He turned to see the two Harriers go into steep climbs. Meanwhile, he dropped down even lower. His radar-lock indicator was humming — the chopper carrier’s air-defense radar unit had him on their screens. But it didn’t matter — this would not be a surprise attack.
The sailors on the Soviet helicopter carrier saw the F-16 coming. It was low, just twenty-five feet above the water, and traveling at an incredible rate of speed. They turned their antiaircraft batteries toward it and opened up immediately. But as their tracer bullets flew out at the fighter, they saw its pilot do a strange thing. He started to spin, rolling the jet over and over like a corkscrew.
“Keep firing!” the gun crew commander yelled into his microphone. But the crazily gyrating jet streaked by them, raking the carrier’s deck with cannon fire while passing cleanly through the AA barrage. It then turned east and disappeared over the horizon.
No sooner had it vanished when it appeared again. This time it was heading for them broadside, still very low, still spinning at an incredible rate. Again the ship’s AA team opened up. Several antiaircraft missiles flew towards the jet. But it was useless. The gun crews could not get a fix on the wildly revolving jet and the missiles’ target-homing systems were at a loss to pick up anything they could lock in on.
The jet spun right towards the ship’s center, firing its cannons and knocking off both the primary and secondary radar dishes. Now the radar operators on the Russian ship were effectively blinded.
The F-16 did a quick loop and came back over the carrier superstructure. At the same time, one of the Hind helicopters on board started to take off. In a blinding flash, the F-16 fired a Sidewinder missile that traveled only twenty feet or so before slamming into the Russian chopper, destroying it.
Shocked at the split-second destruction of one of the Hinds, the gun crews still pumped AA fire at the fighter as it streaked towards the east again. But now pandemonium broke out on the ship.
Two more helicopters were ready to lift off as the jet came around a third time. The chopper pilots hoped only to get airborne and possibly launch their own air-to-air missiles at the jet.
But they weren’t that fast. The F-16 was on them in a second, still spinning, still firing its cannons. One chopper got it full in the cockpit, splattering its pilot and copilot and causing the helicopter to slam against the ship’s superstructure. The other Hind found its rear rotor blade had been neatly sheared off from the rest of its airframe. Now unbalanced, its main rotor still going, the Hind flipped up and over the side of the ship, smashing into the water below.
In all the confusion, and with its radar effectively knocked out, no one on the ship noticed the two Harrier jets that had descended slowly from a great height and were hovering directly over the ship …
It was just a matter of flipping two switches, which the Harrier pilots did. Their entire bomb loads dropped right into the center of the flattop’s deck, causing explosions which rocked the large ship back and forth. Instantly, two huge fires broke out, followed by many secondary explosions. As the two Harrier pilots shifted their thrust nozzles to forward and streaked off, the Soviet ship went into a series of fiery convulsions as fuel, weapons, and ammunition were touched off below its decks.
The ship, most of its crew killed in the “out-of-the-blue” bombing, would burn for all day and into the night before finally sinking.
In all the action, Hunter still noticed that the nearby battleship had reversed its engines and was quickly backing out of the battle area. He reluctantly let it go, knowing that the Harriers were out of ordnance and he was only armed with Sidewinders. He knew it was more important for him and the Harriers to get back to the Saratoga and rearm.
One by one the jets returned to the Saratoga, their bomb racks depleted, their fuel tanks near empty. They found the carrier had moved further south while they were carrying out the air strike. Now it was anchored in the middle of the Canal off a deserted Egyptian city called Ismailia.
The Canal was a little wider at this point and the ground on either side of the waterway was relatively defensible. Already, the Moroccan troopship had landed most of its 7500 troops on the eastern, Sinai side of the Canal. In the meantime the contingent of Australian Special Forces took up positions in an abandoned power plant on the western side.
The returning pilots gathered in the situation room and discussed the air strike with Heath.
“The S-3A is up now and taking pictures of the damage,” Heath told them. “But, from your reports, it sounds like we’ve accomplished our first objectives — that is, hitting them hard on the first try and blocking the canal.”
“That we did,” Hunter said, speaking up. “By my count, we sank or disabled more than two dozen ships. And we bottlenecked the canal at two points.
“But we still have two problems: one, they’ve got more than three hundred more ships; and two, they can clear the Canal in very little time.”
“That’s correct, Hunter,” a voice boomed from the back of the room. The pilots turned to see Sir Neil, sitting in a wheelchair being pushed by Clara. “That’s why we must hit them again, hard!”
“My God, Sir Neil!” Heath about shouted. “Are you well enough to be moving about?”