by Tom Wilson
They had seen the rocket site. He was sure of it. His mind worked vigorously, thinking of options.
"I'm bringing on the radar," said Xuan.
"Our camouflage is good," pleaded the captain. "Let us stay hidden, comrade Colonel."
"We must do something. They have seen us." He switched the radar out of dummy load and instantly boosted the power to maximum. "Prepare to launch rockets three and four."
"They're too close," agonized the captain. "They are only seven thousand meters, well inside the ten-kilometer minimum range!"
Xuan watched the command scope, saw the two distinct radar blips, smoothly moved his tracking handle controls, and manually bracketed them. The range was 6,300 meters.
The captain rose, panic in his eyes. Xuan reached down, raised the pistol, and pointed it at the captain's eye. "Sit down!"
"We can't hit them from this range!"
"We cannot sit and do nothing either, Captain. I hope to frighten them, drive them off to ten thousand meters, and then kill them."
"But comrade Colonel," he started to plead, then his eyes went to the monitor. "Look! They are attacking!" He was shrieking.
The Tokarev's blast was loud in the enclosed van. The captain's body was thrown back toward the side of the van, legs upended.
"No more distractions!" shouted Xuan, dropping the Tokarev onto the console table.
The rocket control officer cringed nearby, eyes glued to the body of the man who had been his battery commander.
Xuan reached over to the senior lieutenant's console and checked the toggle switches to number three and four launchers. They were indeed up. Green flashing lights. The batteries were warming the systems.
"Sit back down, Lieutenant," he commanded.
The rocket control officer quickly obeyed, eyes darting to the colonel, then to the video screen.
Both lights came on solid green, showing the rocket circuits were warmed, the gyros erected. "Three and four ready," said the senior lieutenant, a catch in his voice.
Lieutenant Hanh spoke. "Control asks what we are doing, comrade Colonel. Major Gregarian is speaking with them."
"Fire three and four," Xuan said to the senior lieutenant, angry that he had allowed the Russians to equip this site with only four rocket launchers.
They heard the third and fourth rockets roaring from their launchers.
"Now," said Xuan Nha, "we shall watch the cowards run. Are launchers one and two reloaded?"
The rocket officer was cringing, staring with wide eyes at the video monitor, as the first fighter continued toward them. A light began to wink and flash near its nose.
Nicolaj Gregarian
The two trucks were just passing the launchers when the rockets erupted, one passing directly over their heads with a deafening roar.
The leytenant driver almost turned the vehicle over. Or was it the blast from the rocket booster?
They skidded to a halt.
"Keep going!" said Nicolaj. "We've got to stop the fools."
He heard shouting from the men in the rear of the truck. Something about attacking aircraft.
Suddenly very afraid, he looked out of the cab and up at the sky.
17/0644L—North of Bac Can, Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Benny Lewis
Although Benny knew he was in the ballpark, he was not positive where the site was located down there. With only the Gatling cannon to work with, it would be damned easy to miss. With each passing second the smoke drifted farther and his uncertainty rose.
Then the Bear whooped from the backseat. "He's turned on his radar!" he yelled over the hot mike, "and now the dumb shit's turned on his missile beam like he's going to launch!"
And about then Benny thought he saw movement down in the trees. The antenna moving as it tracked them?
"He's at your one o'clock," said the Bear. "When you've set up for your gun attack, I'm going into AZ-EL mode to put him on your heads-up display."
Benny was already jinking out left. He made a short arc, turned back in, then winged over into a forty-five-degree dive on the site.
"I've got the AZ-EL on. You oughta be able to see the radar on your combining glass!" yelled the Bear.
The electronic dot pinged around wildly. It was not very accurate at the best of times. "Not good enough," said Benny.
The Bear was working and muttering, breathing hard. The sounds were loud in Benny's earphones.
"Is that better?" the Bear asked.
The dancing dots had settled down a little. Their dispersion was still too wide, but the grouping was tight enough to reassure Benny that the motion he'd seen was indeed from the site. He could see square outlines of things not grown by nature and knew now that he was looking at camouflage nets.
A missile roared from its launcher, then a second one, both in the general direction of the two fighters. Unless this site was really different from the others, they were still in the six-mile dead zone, too close in for a missile to hit them.
He centered his pipper, offset a little, and lightly fingered the trigger, waiting. He finally began firing the cannon at 7,000 feet above the ground. A hundred 20mm bullets per second spewed from the six barrels. He held the trigger down, stirred the pot with the control stick, and watched the bullets impacting, then saw a missile spouting fire. He stopped shooting and pulled hard on the stick to recover.
Tiny was already diving. As Benny pulled out he rolled to watch. The missile he'd hit was still afire on the ground.
"Beautiful!" yelled the Bear. "I love it!"
Then Benny could see the site clearly as even more netting was torn aside by the wild, fire-spewing missile. Perhaps half a mile of camouflage netting, for the entire road structure between launchers was revealed, as were vans and four launchers. Two trucks moved in the site, inside the launchers and heading toward the vans. They appeared to be moving slowly, but he could tell they were speeding because of the thick plumes of dust they raised.
A smattering of automatic small-arms fire arced up at them. Was that all they had to protect the site with?
Tiny's bombs impacted, obliterating two missile launchers, several parked trucks, and a cache of equipment. A small explosion and smoke from beside a launcher.
Benny climbed.
"Where you going?" asked the Bear.
"I'm going to strafe him again. We haven't gotten him yet." The radar and vans were intact.
Tiny was recovering left, also climbing back and around for reattack.
This time Benny went in at thirty degrees and started firing 4,000 feet out. He held the hose of bullets on the antenna van, watched pieces go flying, moved the stick, then shifted, hosing the stream of tracers into the center of the control van. A very big van, twice the size of a normal one.
The gun ran out of ammunition and ceased firing. He flew directly over the vans, low and fast, and jinked off right.
"I think we were hit back there," yelled the Bear.
He checked his telelite panel. "My lights are all good. No warning or fire light."
"I couldn't see," complained the Bear. "Did you get the vans?"
"We hosed them good. Real good."
Tiny Bechler
Tiny followed Benny in on the strafe pass, watching as his leader's churning bullets tore up the antenna and vans.
Tiny picked out the trucks, now turned around and trying to escape the carnage.
He started firing at 5,000 feet, walked his bullets up, and sent a steady stream into first one, then the other truck. The first went tumbling wildly. The other spouted flames, belched a small flash of fire, and spewed smoke. He kept strafing across the site until he was too close to the ground for comfort. He stopped firing then and egressed low so they couldn't get a good shot at him. He was several miles past the site and preparing to climb when he saw something very strange.
He was flying so low he'd seen under a huge, vaulted camouflage net!
"I've got something down here, Red Dog lead. I think it's a big search
radar or something, and there's a large building next to it."
Tiny was already turning to attack.
"We're getting low on petrol, two," replied Benny. "Make one quick pass and let's get out of here."
He came around, like he was on a gunnery range, and made a classic low-angle strafe pass. He tried to rake both the radar antenna and the building with his bullets, and easily succeeded because both were barn-sized. As far as he could tell no one was even shooting at him. That was kind of nice for a change.
Tiny climbed to rejoin Red Dog lead. He was tired, mentally exhausted and his body ached from all the g's they'd pulled. Still, he felt good about the morning's work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tuesday, March 21st—0655 Local, Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Benny Lewis
The strike force was again being sent to bomb the steel mill. The defenses were still concentrated there, but they did not seem nearly as well coordinated.
He, the Bear, and Tiny had celebrated destroying the unique SAM site, and shooting up what the Bear was convinced was the command-and-control center, but they had done so privately. The targets had been located in the Chinese buffer zone. It was a transgression punishable by court-martial.
But they knew it was worth the risk. The bombing of the mill had continued, and there had been markedly fewer losses. One or two on a bad day, none at all when things went well. That was partly due to their lopping off the head of the beast, but they also knew the strike pilots who had survived Thai Nguyen were now a much cannier group. They flew with a careful balance of boldness and caution, for they knew what it was like to spit in the devil's eye. They had learned that no defenses are impenetrable, no target impossible.
Today the strike force would fly across the valley, use Thud Ridge for a shield, then soar to delivery altitude and dive-bomb the rubble of the steel mill.
Pudge Holden and Sloppy Watson were leading Lincoln flight, and Benny and the Bear were number three. As they crossed the Red River they split the flight, taking up positions five miles forward and on either side of the strike force. Two Weasel units, separate yet able to support one another or work in unison.
Benny and the Bear's teamwork had become so well honed that they often communicated without words. The Bear could suck a sharp breath, and somehow Benny knew a Fansong radar was tracking and about to fire missiles. He could mutter something unintelligible, and the Bear would spit out a status report. An intake of breath, and the Bear knew to check behind them for MiG's.
If he considered a target and the Bear was reluctant, Benny didn't even think about attacking it. If the Bear was eager, he'd do his own evaluation and the Bear would trust it. They'd become an efficient, coordinated, deadly unit. The Bear said he'd willingly fly to Moscow and drop leaflets. As long as Benny was with him and they had a good Thud, he felt invincible. Benny knew the feeling.
They were at 10,000 feet, eastbound, Thud Ridge five miles in front of them, Thai Nguyen just beyond.
"We've got SAMs at ten, one, three, and five. Ignore the launch light."
"Roger, line me up with the SAM at one."
"Come right to zero-eight-five degrees. Ignore the launch light."
Hard breathing.
"Second element's out at our ten o'clock, also turning south," noted the Bear.
"Ah roger. Smoke's drifting west at about ten knots."
"East to west at ten knots."
"Lincoln four, Lincoln three," Benny called.
"Four," replied Tiny.
"We're going up to toss a Shrike. You watch out for MiG's while I'm preoccupied."
"Four."
"SAMs at nine, eleven, twelve, and three. You're lined up. Got him on your Shrike?"
"Roger," said Benny.
"SAM launch at nine o'clock. Not for us. I think they're shooting at lead."
"We got SAMs at our two o'clock, Lincoln two," confirmed Pudge Holden on the radio. "Get ready to take it down."
"Two!"
Benny fired his Shrike, then banked and looked for the SAM launch.
"It's at eleven o'clock low," said the Bear.
"I hoped it would be low," said Benny with a touch of comedy. "Not many flying SAM sites." He switched from the Shrike station to centerline, where they carried CBU-24's.
"Launch at three o'clock. It's valid and coming for us."
"I'm looking . . . aha, got 'em. There's booster drop-off."
"Valid launch at three o'clock, Lincoln four. Let's get the energy up," Benny radioed.
"Four."
They waited, watched, and at the appropriate last moment, broke up and right. The missiles flashed by, one by one. Benny reversed the hard bank.
"Which one you think we oughta take out?" asked the Bear.
"First one, over at eleven o'clock. He's closest to the strike force and I've got a good visual on him." He was soaring again, watching the site, mentally setting up the dive-bomb problem.
"He's tracking again, Benny."
"You don't want to take him?"
"I'm game. Valid missile launch, six o'clock."
"Damn!"
"Valid launch, twelve o'clock."
The site he was preparing to attack had launched three missiles.
"Two sites firing?" Benny was turning hard right. Six missiles were in the air coming for them.
"Lincoln four, get ready to take it down!"
"Four!" called Tiny, huffing.
"Ignore the missiles from the site in front. He's no longer tracking. I think the gomer operators chickened out and ran."
The missiles Benny watched flew in a straight line, no longer being guided.
They were soaring over downtown Thai Nguyen, and the sky was illuminated with 57mm and 85mm trying to track them.
"Jesus! Look at that flak!" yelled Benny, jinking crazily and eyeing the SAMs fired from the site they were attacking.
"The missiles from in back of us have dropped their boosters and are coming fast. You ready?"
"You call it. I don't have 'em in sight." Their energy level was high and they rolled upside down, ready to maneuver.
"Lincoln four, break," radioed the Bear.
Benny reefed the stick in, maneuvering hard left and down. They rode in a wide S-maneuver toward the ground, flak everywhere around them.
The Bear said the missiles were clear.
Benny bunted the aircraft up and then over, pulling negative g's. He eyed the site, which was where he'd planned it to be at the finish of his maneuver. Forty-five-degree dive. He brought his wings level for CBU delivery.
"Lincoln three's in hot."
"Four's on your starboard, also in hot."
"Remember the wind," muttered the Bear. "From the east at ten knots."
The aircraft bumped around a couple of times, rocked by exploding artillery rounds. Benny pickled off the CBUs, waited for a single second longer, then turned hard right.
They stayed low and fast, grew the fuzzy bubble, then went supersonic.
"We got him, Bear," he said confidently, eyes glued to the rooftops and obstructions ahead. They made a sweeping tour of Thai Nguyen, staying down at a hundred feet, popping over telephone lines and circumventing a tall radio antenna mast, climbing only when they grew closer to the safety offered by Thud Ridge.
"Lincoln four is bingo fuel," called Tiny. The wild maneuvering had used a lot of jet petroleum.
"Roger, four, let's take 'em home," replied Benny. He was also showing just enough fuel to make it safely to the tanker.
They passed over the ridge and started across the valley, flying directly to the west, climbing slowly and nursing the throttles to conserve fuel.
"You see if we really got the SAM site?" asked the Bear.
"Couldn't have missed." He'd released the CBUs dead on target.
"By the way, we got a tracking SAM at six and another at eight. Also a Firecan dead ahead. If I were you I might consider going around it, unless you like being shot."
Benny turned right
and flew northwest for a few seconds, then corrected back to the west.
"You lost, Lincoln three?" asked Tiny.
"Just follow us, Lincoln four."
"I did that a bit ago and look where you took me. You musta been lost to go there," bantered Tiny. "SAMs, guns, there was even an old guy threw his cane at us."
They were jinking lazily, climbing through 5,000 feet, when Benny saw muzzle-flashes up ahead from a mound in the middle of a flat expanse of rice paddies.
"Watch out for flak, four," radioed Benny, "they're shooting."
Four bursts appeared a few hundred yards directly in front of Tiny, and he began to climb.
More bursts. The nose of Tiny's bird rotated up more.
Benny heard the Bear start to laugh. "It's like a damned circus," he cackled.
More flak bursts appeared off Tiny's left wing. He jinked right, still climbing.
When they were clear of the guns, Tiny stayed out wide and high, silent.
"I think he's sulking," said the Bear.
Benny chuckled. They crossed back over the Red River south of Yen Bai, closer to safety.
"It's damn near easy," said the Bear, and Benny knew what he meant.
Benny reflected on that for a moment, then swung his vision around the sky to look for MiG's.
As they neared the Laotian border they listened to poststrike reports. No losses, and they'd been effective. The strike force confirmed that all walls of the steel mill were down, and that there was nothing left in the complex to bomb. Pudge had knocked out a site north of the target. Benny reported destroying the SAM site just south of Thai Nguyen.
They traveled toward the air refueling tanker, quiet in their individual thoughts. The Bear spoke up then. "You still writing Liz?"
"Not since we started bombing the steel mill. Maybe I will now that we've got more time."
A long pause before the Bear spoke again. "You're not getting serious, are you?"
Benny thought about that for a moment. "She's done some favors for me. Stayed in touch with my folks, things like that. She's not as bad as I thought."
"Don't get serious, okay? I think she's a fake, just likes you because she's checked out your pedigree."