The Cuban Liberation Handbook

by Joshua Hatuey Marti

  With the last of the major defensive systems defeated the MiGs rose into the sky to line up for their bombing runs. Dozens of stinger missiles shot into the sky after the remaining fifteen enemy planes. Bombs fell on the runways and the hardened aircraft shelters destroying them. The flimsy THEL laser trailer complex was completely flattened by a bomb hitting nearby. The HQ was squarely hit killing Joshua Marti and General Ugas, the man responsible for the defense of the Free Cuban base. The Green Pine radar was hit along with the nerve center of flight operations. Nothing but static filled the air from the once highly capable air organization. The fuel stores were burning creating a wall of flame two city blocks wide. The airbase was finished.

  Only two of the MiG’s were brought down by the stingers and one trailed smoke as the rest turned skyward to finish off the Eagles above them.

  Freedom Four exploded when at last two Archer missiles blew off its tail. The Eagles had expended their missiles and the last order Gitmo had sent to them was to withdraw from the fight on a heading of two-three-seven.

  Slammer thought he could take out just one or two more with his guns and had underestimated the sophisticated Archers the Chinese J-7’s carried. Cuco slid the throttle forward into zone five afterburner to bug out and head for Haiti. Izzy countered the radar missiles chasing him and watched Freedom Four tumbling through the sky at the same time. On the LADAR screen he kept an eye on the burning wreckage all the way to the ocean below. No chutes, they were dead.

  “They are not giving up, Kook. They’re gonna chase us till they run out of gas. I’m out of decoys.”

  The only thing left to do was to drop their external fuel tanks to gain more speed. Dropping them would effectively take the plane out of the war however. With the base destroyed and no hope getting replacement parts, this Eagle would be sitting it out in Haiti. With an exasperated growl Cuco punched off the tanks sending them tumbling end over end toward the sea.

  The MiG’s fired missile after missile at the fleeing sole surviving FCAF aircraft which stayed just barely out of the deadly archers envelope. A MiG 29 was actually gaining on the Eagle when the Communist pilot reached up to adjust his small rear view mirror.

  The pilot’s hand was cut cleanly from his arm and fell on his lap. In puzzlement the man looked at the smoldering stump at the end of his arm. There was no pain. He noticed the windscreen was marred and a small slash was neatly cut into it. Just as he comprehended its cause the cockpit exploded in a ferocious fire. Three more Communist fighters fell in rapid succession before the rest broke off the chase and turned for home. One by one the relentless unseen opponent destroyed aircraft after aircraft. Each kill was unique in its own terrible way.

  The Airborne Laserc was built to knock down ballistic missiles at over two hundred miles. Destroying a soft target like a cockpit was a piece of cake. Boring a hole through a jinking fighter’s tough hide to get to a fuel tank took time but give it about a second and it could be done. The Boeing 747-400F still used the older Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) and could mount a limited number of attacks.

  A whole bank of infrared sensors and low powered lasers on the Airborne Laser sized up the targets. On the skin of the aircraft were six infrared sensors. One on the nose, one on the tail and a couple on each side. With these sensors the ABL had tracked the MiG’s for quite some time.

  The first of four lasers fired a relatively low powered laser with a wide field of view illuminating the target giving the speed, range and altitude of the enemy aircraft. Next, the second low powered beam identified the exact location on where to focus the energy. Then, to maximize the energy that reaches the target a third beam measured the air turbulence between the ABL and the target using the same optical systems that telescopes use to see further into space. The ABL instantaneously reacted to overcome the atmospheric distortions which allowed the full force of the killer laser to reach the target focusing on its most vulnerable areas, the cockpit, fuel tanks or the volatile missile fuel in the MiG’s own weapons.

  When its laser producing chemicals were expended the giant aircraft turned north and home to U.S. soil.

  Almost immediately the MiG’s turned again to pursue the F-15 until they were illuminated by an American Aegis Cruiserci. The last heading Gitmo had given to its beleaguered fighters sent them through this gauntlet of American protection. The enemy aircraft had had enough. They had no hope of flying around the deadly envelope of the most formidable air defense system on the planet and catching the last Free Cuban fighter. For the last time they broke off the chase and headed home.

  “Freedom One, this is Panhandle.” The AWACS was finally back online. “You will see four fast fliers. They are not hostile, I repeat, they are not hostiles. Southwest thirty-five-thousand.”

  “I copy that Panhandle. What just happened?” Cuco saw plainly what had happened on the LADAR display. He felt foolish the moment the question left his lips.

  There was silence, then, “That was pretty good shootin’ Freedom One!”

  That told Cuco and Izzy everything they needed to know. The use of the laser would remain a secret. In the end they would be credited with fifteen kills in one sortie. Fifteen kills with only six missiles. Yeah, right. People would be scratching their heads for a long time over this one, Izzy thought.

  “Freedom One, the four incoming are friendlies. You should read positive IFF. They are FreeCav (FCAF) Tomcatscii.”

  Over the intercom Izzy chimed “Brothers to the Rescue. Ha Ha! Back with a vengeance Baby! Look at those beauties,” he said, bringing their image up on his LADAR “Wonder where we got the Tomcats?”

  Cuco answered, “Well the navy mothballed all those beautiful monsters. It’s a shame to put them in the bone yard when there’s still lots of fight’n to do.”

  They turned for Gitmo and home to a bumpy landing on an alternate runway of undamaged roadway.

  The F-14 Tomcats chased after the fleeing MiG’s. Each of the swept wing behemoths carried six long range Phoenix missiles and two AMMRAMS.

  Only six MiG’s made it back to Santa Clara where they were promptly carted away to be hidden in the city proper. The surviving pilots, all Chinese, were disbanded and ordered to somehow get to the Chinese embassy in Havana where diplomatic immunity awaited them.

  Central Cuba

  October 9, 2018 “L” Day + 8

  With Havana and the west mollified the amphibious Free Cuban Forces turned east toward Santa Clara, the center of the interminably long island.

  From the east and from the west newly inducted Free Cuban militia forces drove as fast as their vehicles could carry them into the last remaining communist province. Cubans who stood on the sidelines until the war was nearly won were in a panic to join the resistance before it was too late to share in the vast spoils. The incentives the Free Cubans offered for this final victory were generous to a fault in an attempt to rid the country of the final vestiges of the Communist apparatus. Endless streams of trucks and cars with armed men pushed forward until they hit opposition. Then like a mounting tide Communist resistance was swamped, flanked, surrounded and finally drowned by the relentless push of armed and motivated men. There were a number of drawbacks to this unorganized mob warfare however. When the Free Cuban armored units came near to any fighting the roads were so clogged by friendly militia vehicles that their progress slowed to a crawl. FCAF F-14 Tomcats and the sole surviving Eagle carefully picked away at the AA defenses with newly acquired HARM anti-radiation missiles until resistance finally folded.

  General Figueroa’s forces fought with determination and skill in these final few days. His ever shrinking pocket of resistance produced the effect of an ever growing concentration of FCAF firepower down upon them in a non stop crescendo of bullets, bombs, artillery and an endless stream of ferocious, newly inducted Militia pushing ever forward.

  Unfortunately the battle for Santa Clara was the only battle to be marred by the ugly aspect of the abuses of war. Some non-regular Free Cuban units proved to
be too aggressive in dealing with surrendering prisoners. That news spread quickly among the Communist forces and resistance stiffened. Fighting was prolonged unnecessarily when Communists demanded to surrender only to regular FCAF units. In the months to come sixty-three Free Cuban militia men would stand trial for murder for their part in the Santa Clara abuses.

  In the last hour of General Figueroa’s resistance the Free Cubans finally employed the Mother of All Bombs, the MOABciii. Actually, this was an acronym for the Massive Ordinance Airburst Bomb. The mushroom cloud of the twenty-one thousand pound bomb rose ten thousand feet in the air and was visible for over fifty miles. The bomb was dropped on the ever shrinking Communist line of defense. It annihilated a full kilometer of the vaunted Sherry Castle line and opened the highway into Santa Clara. The Free Cuban Militia poured through the line and deep into the enemy rear in a never-ending torrent. They breached the inner defenses before they could be properly manned by its communist defenders. In an ugly melee the Militia raged through the poorly defended roads and byways of the soft enemy center. It was the last straw for the beleaguered Communists. In as much pomp and ceremony as he could muster, On October 16th at 4:34 in the afternoon, General Figueroa assembled one hundred and twenty three of his men, mostly his immediate staff, and to signify his surrender ceremoniously handed over a bayonet to a smiling, disheveled and dirty faced lieutenant of the Free Cuban Militia.

  Twelve days from the opening of hostilities, with fighting still raging in Santa Clara, the body of Joshua Marti traveled in state through the streets of Havana to his final resting place. It was the wooded spot in the shadow of the Presidential Palace. His heart however, had been removed to be buried in Arlington, Virginia.

  The End

  Endnotes

  ii Gen. Douglas MacArthur

  iii Makarov holster

  iv SA-2 SA-3

  v multifunction displays in F-15 cockpit

  vi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-9_Gaskin SA-9 Gaskin

  vii http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sfu.ca/casr/ng3-52.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sfu.ca/casr/id-ng3-5.htm&h=149&w=202&sz=14&tbnid=ZhzvbkEhneIJ:&tbnh=73&tbnw=99&hl=en&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAMRAAM%2Bmissile%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

  viii F-4 Wild Weasel (Double click on footnote number to return to document)

  ix http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-7.htm

  Aim-7 Sparrow missile (Double click on footnote number to return to document)

  x AWACS Radar Plane (Double click on footnote number to return to document)

  xi unmanned RQ-4A Global Hawk

  xii U-2 spy plane

  xiii RC-135 RIVET JOINT electronic reconnaissance plane

  xiv E-8 Joint STARS (surveillance and Targeting Radar System) ground-reconnaissance aircraft.

  xv MLRS rocket

  xvi MLRS rockets TACMS missile

  xvii Armando Valladares, Against all Hope pg 225 Encounter Books Publisher

  xviii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-2 SA-2 Missile

  xix Cuban Air Bases

  xx From Ann Coulter

  xxi youtube phalanx CIWS video

  http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/osint@yahoogroups.com/1536408.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151712,00.html

  xxii Phalanx close-in-weapons system (Double click on footnote number to return to document)

  xxiii http://ipmslondon.tripod.com/t54t55special/id14.html

  xxiv Littoral Sea Mine

  Littoral Sea Mine

  xxv FCN Martinez

  xxvi OSA Patrol Boat

  xxvii STYX SURFACE TO SURFACE ANTI-SHIP MISSILE

  xxviii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-29

  xxix Wings of Fire, Dale Brown pg 168

  xxx Phantom F-4 firing Sparrow missile http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-7.htm

  xxxi http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-7.htm

  xxxii GBU-38 Satellite guided 500 lb. bomb

  xxxiii http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/zsu-23-4-specs.htm

  xxxiv ZSU-23 “Shilka” four barreled anti-aircaft gun

  For video of ZSU-23 Shilka see youtube ZSU-23 Shilka

  xxxv Tom Clancy, Fighter Wing pg 88. Berkley Books NY

  xxxvi Ilyushin-76 transport plane

  xxxvii For Future combat systems see http://www.army.mil/fcs/

  xxxviii http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69416,00.html

  http://www.radiancetech.com/products/weaponwatch.htm WeaponWatch System

  xxxix The term "coaxial" is also used by the military. In discussions of armored fighting vehicles, it denotes a machine gun or similar weapon mounted in a fixed orientation in the turret, immediately adjacent to and parallel with another weapon, typically the main gun of a tank, so that the machine gun is aimed by rotating the turret and elevating or depressing the main gun.

  xl Dale Brown, Wings of Fire pg. 180 Putnam Publisher

  xli Proud Legions, pg 21

  xlii

  xliii (Proud Legions page 46)

  xliv Mark 48 Torpedo destroying ship.

  xlv Sermons and Sayings of Joshua Marti Book 1 Page 37

  xlvi P.J. O’Rourke- Eat the Rich

  xlvii Future Force Warrior see video at http://www.futurefirepower.com/future-force-warrior-future-combat-systems-soldier

  US Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) ‘Vanguard’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kv8qlEVKU0&mode=related&search=

  US Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) ‘Ready To Go ‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyD5BYuMFaA&mode=related&search=

  US Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) ‘Safehouse'- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iTUMQKrD8&mode=related&search=

  xlviii Javelin anti-armor missile

  xlix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM307

  l http://www.hkpro.com/oicw.htm

  li initial point”

  Glossary

  from Department of Defense

  Definition: (DOD) 1. The first point at which a moving target is located on a plotting board. 2. A well-defined point, easily distinguishable visually and/or electronically, used as a starting point for the bomb run to the target. 3. airborne--A point close to the landing area where serials (troop carrier air formations) make final alterations in course to pass over individual drop or landing zones. 4. helicopter--An air control point in the vicinity of the landing zone from which individual flights of helicopters are directed to their prescribed landing sites. 5. Any designated place at which a column or element thereof is formed by the successive arrival of its various subdivisions, and comes under the control of the commander ordering the move.

  See also target approach point.

  http://usmilitary.about.com/od/glossarytermsi/g/i3120.htm

  lii http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-6.htm

  liii The ability of an RWR to accurately locate a modern SAM system is critical to the survival of the aircraft. A pulse-Doppler (PD) radar operator detects an aircraft by noting a difference in the frequency of the transmitted and reflected energy. That frequency (Doppler) shift is caused by the component of the aircraft’s velocity that is directed toward or away from the radar. Pilots in a detected aircraft may try to break the enemy radar’s tracking by turning and placing the radar at 90 degrees to their own vector. That change in direction reduces the velocity component toward or away from the radar site to near zero which results in a near-zero-Doppler shift. A reduced Doppler shift also enhances the effectiveness of chaff and decoys, which should allow the aircraft to break lock and hide in ground clutter. Most Doppler radar systems use a filter to reduce clutter by eliminating all returns below a certain velocity. To make the aircraft appear to have a velocity less than the filter velocity, or stay “in the notch,” the pilot of a strike aircraft flying at 540 knots must hold a heading (plus or minus three degrees) that is perpendicular to the direction from the aircraft to the radar (fig. 3).8 To do that, pilots must know the location of the threat radar precisely if they are to sur
vive and attack the target.

  Figure 3. Doppler-Notch Diagram. The target aircraft must fly a curved line to maintain a constant distance from the radar and remain in the zero-Doppler region.

  liv SA-6 Gainful

  lv ZSU-23 “Shilka” four barreled anti-aircraft gun

  lvi Shoulder fired SA-18 missile

  lvii Dale Brown, Plan of Attack pg. 152

  lviii MiG-21 Fishbed

  lix RC-135 RIVET JOINT electronic reconnaissance plane

  http://www.af.mil/photos/index.asp?galleryID=51

  http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=121

  lx E-8 Joint STARS (surveillance and Targeting Radar System) ground-reconnaissance aircraft.

  lxi

  Various TRAP models: A modular, remotely operated weapons system for dismounted or LAV operations (photo from Precision Remotes, Inc.).

  http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_TRAP,,00.html

  lxii IMS- Intelligent Munitions System For further information on IMS see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr-EH8cDdd0

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QO_RG_LZuY

  lxiii Javelin anti-tank missile

  lxiv Tank Turret

  lxv October 2000 version of the Hopper. This DARPA project went dark shortly thereafter and no pictures are currently available. See press release dated October 2000 at: http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2000/hoppers.htm

  Another article dated 2001: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_6_159/ai_72058401/pg_2

  Article dated 2000: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000245F2-E91E-1C67-B882809EC588ED9F

  lxvi http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/interceptor.htm