Northern Fury- H-Hour

by Bart Gauvin

  “Five-zero miles, Viper Two-One,” replied Magic. “Count is eight bandits headed your way.” At a closing speed of over a thousand miles per hour the two groups of sleek, modern warbirds would cover that distance in less than three minutes.

  “Magic, this is Tasman,” Olsen heard over his radio. “Tasman” was the callsign of the Norwegian electronic countermeasures aircraft that was aloft to support the AWACS and the patrolling fighters. “We’re detecting multiple emissions. We have good tracks on at least five Su-27 fire control radars from the group east of Banak, four more from the group one-two-five miles to the south, over.”

  Flankers, thought Olsen, this is going to be tough. The Sukhoi was a formidable aircraft, not quite as nimble as his own smaller F-16, but capable of carrying more missiles, including the radar-homing AA-10 “Alamo” that far out-ranged his own heat-seeking Sidewinders.

  Olsen edged his stick slightly to the left, taking his aircraft just to the north of the Varangerfjӧrd, down which the approaching Soviet jets were hurtling at near-wavetop level. In moments he was over the broken, low shrublands and snowfields of the Varangerhalvøya National Park, a low string of hills masking his two Falcons from the Russians over the fjӧrd southeast to their right.

  “Magic, range!” Olsen demanded.

  “One-five miles to your south-south-west, Two-One,” was the immediate, monotone reply.

  The plan they had worked out called for the two F-16s of Viper Two-Three’s flight to remain over Banak, drawing the attention of the Russian pilots, while Olsen and Bjorn used the rough terrain of the park to swing around to the north and get onto the tail of the intruders. It was a good plan, but they hadn’t really anticipated four-to-one odds against Su-27s in this opening engagement.

  Engagement! The realization hit Olsen again as he came to grips with the incredible changes turning his world upside down. Time seemed to slow down into a long, silent pause, but he was ripped out of the moment by the reality of his situation. There won’t be time for pausing this day, he thought as he settled into the mindset he knew he’d need to survive. The Norwegian was suddenly and intensely aware of the frigid air rushing past his jet, of Bjorn to the right and slightly behind his own fighter, the brown scrub and white tundra below, and the Soviet fighters out of sight beyond the hills to his right. Just two days ago he had been preparing to take the weekend off and enjoy the national celebration that the Olympics provided. That he was about to launch missiles at Soviet fighters invading his country was surreal.

  Olsen brought himself back into action. The pilot now reacted on instinct, allowing his training to take over, speaking in rapid-fire commands. “Viper Two-Two,” Olsen called to Bjorn, “hard right and level. Now!”

  Both fighters stood on their right wingtips in unison and rocketed through a gap in the low hills to their south, flashing over the coast mere meters above the small fishing village of Vadsø, then out over the dark, choppy waters of the fjӧrd, continuing to bank until they had completely reversed their course and were flying east, in the same direction and behind the Russian fighters.

  Now Olsen began scanning the sky above and to his front. There! He could see the dark spots of…Four? There should be eight. Where are the others?

  “Eight miles, directly ahead of you, Viper Two-One,” called Magic, a note of tension starting to creep into the normally unflappable controller’s voice. “One is gaining altitude!”

  “Bjorn, afterburners. Now!” Olsen ordered. Both men pushed their throttles all the way forward, accelerating their aircraft through Mach 1 to close the range on the tails of the Soviet interceptors.

  In seconds, the Norwegians had pulled within missile range of the larger Flankers. Olsen could see the glow of the Sukhois’ powerful, widely-spaced engines as he and Bjorn edged up, below and behind the bigger jets. Then he heard it.

  “All Viper flights, this is Magic. Bandits have crossed the international border in force. Clear to engage. I repeat you are clear to engage. Good hunting and God be with you.”

  Jan Olsen took in a sharp breath of the oxygen flowing through his mask as he flipped the safety off the trigger on his joystick and completed the arming of his Sidewinder missiles. He swallowed, then called, “Bjorn, you take the right two, I’ll take the left two. Engage on my mark.”

  Two clicks in his headset signaled Bjorn’s acknowledgment.

  Olsen looked through his heads-up display as the box indicating his first missile’s infrared seeker settled onto the center-left Flanker, which was growing larger in his field of view by the second. The growl in his ears told him the missile was locked on. The Norwegian took another breath, whispered a brief prayer, and squeezed the trigger on his joystick, while at the same time announcing, “Fox Two!”

  PART VI: H-HOUR

  “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

  —Sun Tzu

  CHAPTER 48

  1300 CET, Sunday 13 February 1994

  1200 Zulu

  Over Varangerfjӧrd, Norway-USSR Border

  THE SIDEWINDER LEAPT off its rail under Olsen’s right wing and shot forward like a dart, leaving only the barest trace of a smoke trail for the Norwegian to mark the missile’s course. At nearly the same instant, he heard Bjorn call “Fox Two!” as well, and another dart shot forward to his right. The Norwegians had been nearly within gun range when they launched, and Olsen fought the urge to watch his missile all the way into the Russian’s tail pipes. Instead, he started to lock the seeker head of his next missile onto the leftmost Flanker just as the first Sidewinder exploded, sending clouds of shrapnel into the Su-27’s engines. One, Olsen thought. Bjorn’s missile exploded in the next instant as a jet of yellow flame shot out the back of his target. Two.

  Olsen issued his “Splash one!” call over the radio just before Bjorn followed up with “Splash two!”

  Olsen felt time speed up. The two stricken Flankers began to break up and fall from the sky in powered dives towards the snowy hills below. Olsen saw the brief burn of a rocket engine as one of the enemy pilots ejected. The F-16 jockey then had to jerk his small side-stick right, banking his fighter sharply to avoid a piece of Russian tailfin that had separated from its airframe. The maneuver threw off the Norwegian’s aim, slowing his effort to get a good lock with his next Sidewinder. He reset his sights on the next twin-tailed Soviet jet and watched as the target box on his heads-up display wobbled, then settled around the profile of the Flanker.

  Another growl in his headset told Olsen that is was time to launch his second missile of the war, but just as his finger tightened around the side-stick’s trigger, the Su-27 in front of him pulled up and to the right in a nearly impossible 9G turn, releasing a string of brightly burning magnesium flares as it did so. Olsen pulled his stick back and to the right and worked his rudder pedals to stay on the Russian’s tail while announcing “Fox Two!” once again. Another AIM-9L rocketed off its launch rail. Olsen knew it was a bad shot almost before the missile had cleared his wing. The Russian’s turn had placed the flares into the crosshairs of the Sidewinder’s infrared seeker instead of the Flanker’s hot engine exhaust, and the weapon shot skyward, missing the Sukhoi’s up-turned left wing by dozens of meters as both aircraft made their afterburner-fueled climbing turn to the north.

  Olsen grunted as the high Gs of the maneuver pressed him into his seat. Both jets slowed as they executed their tight climbing turn, trading speed for altitude. He’s almost turning inside of me, Olsen realized, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. The more powerful thrust from the Flanker’s two big, afterburning engines was allowing it to pull away from the single-engine Norwegian F-16 in the climb, creating distance between the two aircraft. Olsen tried to bring the nose of his Falcon up a little more to give the seeker-head of his next Sidewinder a look at the Flanker.

  There! The Russian eased up on his turn ever
so slightly, bringing his aircraft into the Norwegian’s frontal arc. Both fighters had reversed their course and were now flying east. Olsen heard once again the growl in his headset and squeezed the trigger, calling another “Fox Two!” as he did so.

  The Sidewinder shot forward before curving up and to the right in an almost impossibly tight turn. Jan felt his heart thump once in his chest as he watched the weapon close with its prey, then disappear in a flash as the warhead detonated into an expanding cone of shrapnel. The Flanker shuddered visibly as its pilot nosed over and dove. Olsen tried to follow to make sure of the kill, but in that moment his ears were assaulted by the alarm of his RWR, radar warning receiver, telling him that an enemy fire control radar had locked onto his aircraft.

  Olsen snapped his stick over and dove back towards the fjӧrd below, trying to break the enemy radar lock in the rugged terrain of the rocky coastline. Where is it coming from? He craned his neck around his canopy to try to catch a glimpse of his attacker, while calling to Bjorn, “Two-Two, jammers on!” He reached with his left hand to switch on his own fighter’s DECM, or defensive electronic countermeasures.

  Next, Olsen called the controlling AWACS, “Magic, Viper Two-One, I’ve got a fire control radar locked onto me. Where is he coming from?”

  Instead of Magic, the crew on the nearby electronic warfare aircraft answered, “Two-One, Tasman, we’re making noise at him, over.”

  Powerful radio waves, traveling at the speed of sound, traversed the dozens of miles from Tasman’s jammers to the two AA-10 Alamo missiles streaking towards Olsen’s F-16, degrading their ability to react to the Su-27’s control radar.

  At the same time, Magic called, “Two-One, he’s to your ten o’clock relative, angels four and closing. His targeting radar is on! Evade!” The warning was unnecessary; Jan’s on-board RWR was already screaming at him that the Soviet fighter’s radar was locked onto his aircraft.

  Olsen pulled his stick even more to the right, trying to fly at a right angle to the incoming missiles. His eyes snapped to his left to try to pick them out of the sky.

  There! Two dark dots at the head of thin contrails. He pulled the stick left, banking the aircraft to create an increasingly acute turn for the incoming missiles to navigate while keeping just above the wavetops. Pulling up slightly as he went “feet dry” over the northern coast of the fjӧrd, Olsen reached down with his left hand and triggered chaff, packets of radar-reflective foil that exploded behind his aircraft in clouds to further confuse the missiles’ seekers. Now the Norwegian could only hold his turn and watch the two contrails grow rapidly larger to his left rear. After what seemed an eternity but, in reality, was less than two heartbeats, the two missiles flashed behind his fighter’s tailfin and exploded into the chaff, missing the F-16 by several hundred meters. Olsen felt his jet buffet from the explosions as he leveled out above the familiar, stark snow and rocks of Norway’s far north.

  Relieved, the Norwegian thought, Thanks for the help, Tasman, they missed.

  A moment later, Olsen heard, “Two-One this is Magic, you’ve got two on your tail, eight o’clock, over.”

  The pilot felt his insides tighten as he craned his helmeted head, scanning through his visor for the two Flankers that were diving on him. In his maneuvers to evade the missiles, Olsen had allowed the Russians to get behind him. I’m in trouble now, he realized.

  “Bjorn!” he called, fear giving his voice an urgency that had been lacking just minutes before, “where are you?”

  “Hang on, Jan!” Bjorn called.

  Olsen spied the two approaching jets as they dropped to scrub-top level directly behind him. Now on the north side of a ridgeline and flying east, their radars were unaffected by Tasman’s powerful electronic rays. Jan looked back again just as his RWR started blaring once more, in time to see two flashes from beneath the wings of the righthand Sukhoi.

  “Missiles inbound!” called Olsen, more loudly than he intended.

  In the same instant he heard Bjorn call, “Two-One, break right!”

  Jan clicked his microphone twice as he threw his stick to the right while at the same time pulling upward to gain altitude and launching chaff with his other hand. Bjorn said something, but Jan didn’t register. He was too focused on his immediate threat, his RWR screaming at him, and the ground rushing by just a few dozen meters below. He looked back again, now out the rear-right of his canopy, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of missiles flying towards him at incredible speed. I’m not going to make it, he realized.

  In that moment Olsen saw both Russian jets violently bank to their left and upwards. The RWR alarm in his headset fell silent, and both missiles shot past his left wingtip as the guidance they had been receiving from the launching aircraft’s radar disappeared. Olsen craned to look out the rear-left of his canopy, keeping the Flankers in his sight, just in time to see a thin smoke trail intersect with one of them as an AIM-9L ploughed into its right engine nacelle, sending the graceful jet tumbling wing-over-wing into the rocks and snow below.

  “Splash four!” called Bjorn triumphantly. Four? thought Olsen.

  “Going after the other one,” Bjorn was saying as he dove to pursue the surviving Flanker, which was fleeing east.

  Magic interjected, “Negative, Viper Two-Two. Come to heading two-seven-zero, angels fifteen, and withdraw. We are picking up multiple bandits, approximate count two-zero and climbing, approaching from the east. Two bandits to your west headed our way at high speed. Viper Two-Three is vectoring to intercept. You come back and help, over.”

  Twenty more bogeys headed our way, thought Olsen as he brought his fighter back around to a westerly heading and began to climb. Bjorn joined him in formation on his wing. How are we supposed to fight against numbers like that? He took quick stock of the situation: three missiles left on his craft, two on Bjorn’s. Two Flankers ahead, two dozen bad guys behind. He’d escaped two attacks by the Soviets’ premier fighter and, together with his wingman, had downed Four? Five? Three minutes into the war and I’m already losing track of what’s going on.

  Major Mitroshenko swore into his oxygen mask. Four aircraft lost in the first minutes of war. Proklyatye! The Soviet pilot swore again. Crane Six had just called to report that he was pulling back across the border. Crane Eight was limping home on one engine and a shredded wing. That left only Mitroshenko, Crane Lead, and his wingman to face the NATO fighters aloft and complete their mission against the AWACS.

  The VVS major clenched his jaw to put his rage aside, forcing himself to stop replaying the mistakes that had made a hash of his squadron over the past few minutes. He shoved the throttles forward to their stops, accelerating towards the lumbering radar plane now just sixty-five kilometers to his front.

  “Lead, this is Two,” the Soviet pilot heard his wingman call, “I see two contacts approaching from the northwest on my radar, ten-thousand meters altitude.”

  “You take them, Two,” ordered Mitroshenko. “I’m going on to the radar control plane.”

  Crane Two’s aircraft veered off the major’s wing, vectoring northwest. After several moments, the other pilot volleyed off two of his Vympel R-27 missiles, called AA-10 by their western enemies, at the nearer of the two approaching F-16s. Mitroshenko continued his climb towards the AWACS, which was now turning west and diving in an attempt to escape.

  The oncoming Falcons broke left and right to avoid the R-27s, but the geometry of the Norwegians’ approach vector conspired to ensure that Tasman’s powerful jammers couldn’t intervene to degrade the Soviet missiles’ performance. The weapons streaked toward the lead F-16, which was desperately turning to evade. One of the missiles detonated just meters from the Falcon’s cockpit, sending jagged shrapnel through aircraft and pilot. The Norwegian jet dropped from the sky, spinning towards the scattered clouds below.

  The second Norwegian pilot, however, managed to evade and would soon be on Mitroshenko’s tail. Cra
ne Two, who had needed to keep his radar pointed at the lead F-16 for the entire length of his missiles’ flight, was only now turning to intervene in favor of his leader.

  Damn, thought the Soviet major, judging the range to the NATO AWACS, not as close as I would like. Still, I’m in range…

  “Lead, he’s closing on you!” called Mitroshenko’s wingman.

  That did it. Mitroshenko reached down and activated the two special weapons he had carried into battle for just this target. The R-27P missiles possessed a passive, as opposed to active, radar-homing seeker, designed to zero in on the radar emissions of another aircraft, rather than be guided to its target by the launching aircraft’s own radar beams. Its improved seventy-five kilometer range made it a perfect weapon for engaging distant targets emitting powerful radar signals, targets like the E-3 Sentry AWACS ahead of him.

  Mitroshenko craned his neck to look behind, trying to close the range by every kilometer possible before launching the R-27Ps and turning to deal with the fighter chasing him. He could see the smaller enemy jet, about four miles distant and turning into his six. Crane Two was maneuvering behind him for a shot, but Mitroshenko’s wingman would not be able to engage in time. No bother, the Mitroshenko thought grimly, I’ve got something for you, Norge.

  Crane Lead twisted back around so he was looking forward and allowed his two special missiles’ seekers to lock onto the diving AWACS. When both gave the same positive signal, he squeezed his joystick trigger twice. The two big missiles leapt off their rails, arcing upwards into the stratosphere on a ballistic course for the NATO control plane, fifty kilometers to Mitroshenko’s front.

  Aboard Magic, a controller watching his scope suddenly called “Shit! Sir, I have separation on two small objects coming from that Flanker, closing with us!”