by Ted Halstead
Pettigrew yelled, “Hit the deck,” even as he was doing so himself. The other students followed immediately.
Their building bucked under them like a ship at sea hit by a rogue wave, but remained intact. All the lights went out, but after a few seconds returned to life.
Pettigrew slowly stood up, asking as he did so, “Is anyone hurt?”
His students stood up, obviously shaken, but all shaking their heads.
“Based on our distance from the explosion, I’m nearly certain that had to be a nuclear weapon. The power went out for a few seconds because of the weapon’s electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. We’ve only got power back because we’re on a military base where all electronics are shielded against an
EMP, and we have generators that kick in automatically when civilian power is cut.”
Pettigrew paused. “I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting that the EMP took out power to the entire Riyadh capital region. I also think that whoever launched this attack is going to do a follow up on the ground. We’ve got three control displays here. I need three volunteers to help me load and fuel three Reapers to start hunting whatever’s coming our way.”
Every student’s hand shot up.
Pettigrew nodded. “OK, but I also have to tell you I have no idea what kind of fallout is waiting for us outside that door. Size and type of weapon, wind direction- there are a ton of variables that could make the difference between fatal exposure and treatable radiation sickness. All I can promise you is that you definitely will get sick.”
Mousa, grinning, raised his other hand. When they saw this, the other students all did the same.
Shaking his head, Pettigrew said, “Very well. Mousa, Fadil, and Rahim.
The rest of you get on the communications console and try to check in with headquarters. Find out what you can. We’ll be back soon.”
Fadil looked uncomfortable, but said nothing.
Pettigrew cocked his head and asked gently, “Something on your mind, Fadil?”
Fadil slowly nodded. “Yes, sir. What should the men say if they reach headquarters, and they ask for you?”
Pettigrew nodded. “Good catch. Wait to contact HQ until I get back. Just find out what you can.”
Fadil still looked uncomfortable.
Now Pettigrew smiled. “You’re wondering why I’m not contacting HQ first. Well, I’m certain they’d tell us to wait for things like anti-radiation suits to get the Reapers airborne. I’m pretty sure we don’t have that kind of time.”
This was met with vigorous nods and murmurs of agreement from Fadil and all the other students.
“Good,” Pettigrew nodded. “Let’s move out.”
75 Kilometers Northeast of Riyadh
Captain Victor Chernin probably had more combat air time than any other Russian pilot, which explained why he had been assigned to one of the few S-
57 stealth fighters in service. He had flown combat missions in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine (though he knew never to admit those last missions) and now Syria. But none of that experience did him one bit of good today.
Because today he was trying to identify, track and destroy enemy air targets. Every mission he’d flown so far had been ground attack, and he had never even seen an enemy fighter.
That wasn’t because Chernin didn’t want an air-to-air mission. Far from it.
But circumstances had not allowed him to use his extensive — and, he was repeatedly reminded, expensive — combat air training. Chechen rebels had no air force. Georgia and Ukraine did, but had with few exceptions decided to keep them on the ground in the face of overwhelming Russian air superiority.
Syria had seen a few dogfights with Turkish aircraft chasing Russian planes that had strayed into their airspace, but those had ended long before Chernin’s arrival in Syria. And just like the Chechens, the Syrian rebels didn’t have an air force either.
Chernin was expected to pit this total lack of air-to-air combat experience against not one but two J-20 aircraft. He had no wingman, because keeping even semi-continuous coverage of the airspace between the Gulf and Riyadh meant switching off with the only other S-57 stationed in Syria.
The bad news didn’t stop there. The Saudis had excellent American-made radars, and were also trained by the Americans both in the US and in-country, where Chernin learned the Americans had been training the Saudis for decades. He had to not only patrol and avoid detection, but periodically turn on his plane’s search radar to try to find two J-20s, which were supposed to be the best stealth fighters the Chinese had produced.
However, there was some good news. At the moment the Saudis’ radar coverage was overwhelmingly directed towards intercepting incoming ballistic missiles from Yemen, so as long as he remained in his current search pattern east of Riyadh, he was more or less safe from discovery.
Also, while his air-to-air combat experience might be nil, Chernin doubted that the Iranians who were flying the Chinese-made J-20s had much combat experience, period. There was no way that any veterans of the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties were still flying. He’d heard that Iran might have done some bombing runs against ISIS in Iraq, but even that was unsure. Aside from that, Chernin was hoping these J-20 pilots would be completely green.
Chernin was also very happy with the Saturn izdeliye 117 (AL-41F1) engine that had finally been installed in the S-57, replacing the Saturn AL-31.
Lighter yet delivering more power, installed in the S-57 it was like trading in a sedan for a sports car.
Finally, Chernin had to grudgingly admit that this time the GRU, Russian military intelligence, appeared to have delivered. He and the other SU-57 pilot had been given a narrow radar frequency range to search that they had been assured would be most likely to reveal the J-20s. Of course, that presumed the Chinese had not subsequently found and fixed whatever flaw the GRU had discovered.
Still, it helped even the odds. And considering that the odds started at two to one, Chernin would take any help he could get.
100 Kilometers East of Riyadh
Colonel Astan Izad was far too senior to be flying a J-20, both in terms of age and rank. High-speed maneuvering in a modern fighter made demands on the human body that were much easier for younger men to meet. Instead, he should have spent his time on planning and monitoring this important mission, including preparation for contingencies in case the mission went wrong.
Astan didn’t care. He had joined the Iranian Air Force as soon as he was old enough, but the fighting in the Iran-Iraq War had ended the previous year.
Since then, routine patrols and no wars had left Izad with few opportunities to shine. He had no family connections in the Air Force or government, and no sponsor in the clergy.
With forcible retirement staring him in the face, Astan had called in every favor he had left to get assigned to this mission. He had also made sure that his wingman was a first lieutenant who, while an outstanding natural pilot, was far too junior to receive any of the credit from the success of this mission.
So far the mission was totally on track. The two J-20s had crossed into Saudi airspace without detection, and had no trouble locating and shadowing the Chinook helicopter they were assigned to protect. The only real challenge had been following a flight pattern that let them stay in range to protect the Chinook without stalling. It really was remarkable how slow an old cargo helicopter could be, but Astan and his wingman had practiced the necessary flight pattern over the past few days, and had kept up coverage without incident.
Stealth or no, Astan would have been much less confident in their chances if the Saudis’ radar coverage hadn’t been so firmly focused westward. Well, he thought with satisfaction, it appears the ballistic missiles we gave the Houthis have the Saudis’ attention.
Right now Astan’s attention was on two F-15s flying combat air patrol over Riyadh. They gave no sign that they had spotted the J-20s, and could be expected to ignore the Chinook since it had an approved flight plan.
The radios on both J-20s were
set to monitor 121.5 MHz, the frequency for International Air Distress. As expected, an urgent message was now being transmitted. Astan just wished it could have been about ten minutes later.
Well, he’d been warned that with experimental nuclear devices perfect coordination would be impossible. It could have been worse — at least they were within striking distance.
“All aircraft, all aircraft, land immediately at the nearest available airfield.
Any aircraft failing to follow this instruction will be fired upon.”
As the broadcast repeated Astan switched it off. No mention of why all aircraft were to land, but Astan was willing to bet that one or both of the nuclear weapons that he’d been told were due to detonate on the Gulf coast had destroyed their target. Good.
Now it was Riyadh’s turn.
There had only been a few other aircraft on Astan’s scope, and they very quickly disappeared from view as each landed. Only the Chinook and the F-15s were now visible, as well as the fact that the Chinook was no longer on its authorized flight path.
Instead, it had turned towards Riyadh.
The F-15s had not only noticed, it was also obvious they had been cleared to engage. Astan murmured to himself “They must be on afterburner,” as the range shrank between the F-15s and the lumbering Chinook.
Time to see if these PL-15 missiles with their active electronically-scanned array radar are as great as the Chinese say, Astan thought to himself. Part of maintaining stealth was avoiding radio contact with his wingman, but launching the PL-15s would make it clear to the Saudis that they had visitors anyway.
“Fire one and two, Target One,” Astan said over the encrypted frequency he shared with his wingman, as he launched two PL-15s.
“Fire one and two, Target Two,” his wingman promptly replied, as he launched two PL-15s at his target.
The range the PL-15s had to cross at Mach 4 was nowhere near its maximum of one hundred fifty kilometers, but it was still far greater than the range of the AIM-120Cs the F-15s were armed with, according to Iranian military intelligence. If that was true, it meant the F-15s would have no chance to fire back, assuming they could even get a lock on the J-20s.
Yes, Astan thought with a smile, this is my kind of dogfight.
55 Kilometers Northeast of Riyadh
Captain Victor Chernin had received extensive briefings on the SU-57’s new capabilities, but had until now never used one of them. That was the active electronically scanned array (AESA) X-band side-facing radars mounted below the cockpit on the aircraft's 'cheeks.' These were to supplement the primarily nose-mounted X-band N036 Byelka (Squirrel) AESA radar.
Chernin was about to use these supplemental radars to strike the J-20s using a technique called “beaming,” when a fighter turns ninety degrees away from an enemy’s pulse doppler radar array. Because such radars use doppler shift to gauge a target’s relative velocity, and filter out low relative velocity objects like ground clutter, the beaming fighter can enter the enemy radar’s
'doppler notch.'
This blind spot is where the radar’s velocity filter sees a target at low enough relative motion from its perspective that it discounts it. So even though the enemy fighter may be moving at high speed, the right angle to the radar means it sees only small amounts of closure, and doesn’t display it as a threat.
This tactic was especially helpful when a fighter pilot was trying to lock up his target in a look-down-shoot-down scenario. Ever since he had detected the J-20s several minutes earlier, Chernin had been slowly increasing altitude to reach an optimal firing position, and was nearly there.
Every other fighter Chernin knew of, including the most advanced American ones, would lose the radar picture of the enemy while “beaming.”
Even worse is that his radar-guided missiles wouldn’t have received mid-course updates. With his side-facing radars, though, none of that was true.
The Americans overcame the disadvantage of lacking side-facing radars with AWACS radar feeds sent to all fighters deployed to a combat zone.
Chernin smiled grimly as he estimated the likelihood that the Iranians had any such capability deployed for this mission.
Zero.
Just before Chernin was ready to fire, he heard the order over the International Air Distress channel for all aircraft to land, and saw the Saudi F-15s turn towards the sole helicopter that had ignored the order. Then he saw the J-20s moving to attack the Saudis.
Chernin had only seconds to decide which target to attack. His preference would have been to hit his primary objective, the helicopter now flying straight to Riyadh which Chernin was certain contained a nuclear weapon.
But, it was still out of range.
He could have fired a hasty shot at each of the J-20s, which would be likely to miss but would probably distract them enough to save the Saudi F-15s. Chernin never even considered this option.
There were several reasons, first because saving Saudi pilots was nowhere on his orders. Next was that while the J-20s were focused on the F-15s, they were far less likely to notice his SU-57. Then there was the fact that if he saved the F-15s from the J-20s, rather than thank him they would immediately try to shoot him down as an unauthorized intruder.
Most important though was that unofficial Saudi money was one of the main forces fueling the Syrian rebellion, which had cost the lives of several good friends. Chernin would not lose a minute’s sleep over the death of two Saudi pilots.
So, wait for the J-20s to launch on the F-15s. Then, fire on the J-20s. By then, I should be able to take out the helicopter, which was using extreme low altitude and terrain masking to make a lock impossible at his current range.
At that instant he saw the J-20s fire on the F-15s.
Excellent, Chernin thought to himself, as he locked in both J-20s and fired his Kh-47M3 Kinzhal missiles. Slightly smaller than the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile carried by the MiG-31 fighter to let it fit in the SU-57’s internal bay, it sacrificed some range but none of its sibling’s Mach 10 speed.
Chernin had an immediate mental image of a big fish eating a small fish, only to be immediately devoured by an even bigger fish.
It made him smile.
70 Kilometers East of Riyadh
Colonel Astan Izad jerked upright as every warning light and alarm in the J-20’s cockpit went off at once, informing him simultaneously of the detection of an enemy fighter, and that it had launched missiles at both him and his wingman.
Astan went from gloating over the two F-15s’ imminent destruction to attempting to survive in an instant. He saw to his horror that the enemy missile was closing on him impossibly fast — according to the J-20’s instruments, nearly Mach 10! How could he escape?
Ejecting before impact passed briefly through Astan’s thoughts, but was instantly rejected. Astan knew that even if he survived ejection and landing, he would certainly be captured. Then, the only question would be whether the Saudis would take the trouble to torture him prior to execution.
As the distance between Astan and the two missiles remorselessly closed, he could think of only one chance.
His wingman was doing what his training told him to — separate from Astan, make radical changes in course and altitude to confuse the missiles’ instruments, and deploy flares and chaff when the missiles neared.
Astan flew directly to his wingman. Very quickly Astan heard over his headset, “What the hell are you doing?”
Once his wingman’s plane had begun to fill his windscreen, Astan pulled up and released a string of flares and chaff that lit a path to the other J-20, and then veered off as sharply as he could.
Astan heard a snarled, “You son of a” which was cut off by the thunderous explosion of his wingman’s plane as it was hit by both Kinzhal missiles.
Astan’s J-20 had automatically tracked the source of the two missiles that had just killed his wingman, and he now had a lock. Izad quickly punched out his last two PL-15s. Let’s see you escape two of the best missiles the Chinese
make, he thought savagely.
With that, he turned his J-20 back east to home base in Iran, and started to increase speed. The two Saudi F-15s had disappeared from his scope, and had almost certainly been destroyed. With no missiles left, he could do nothing more to help the helicopter carry out its mission.
Except, Astan thought grimly, to serve as a distraction for whoever had killed his wingman.
20 Kilometers South of Riyadh
Captain Victor Chernin had watched the drama unfold on his scope as he closed the distance to the helicopter, and shook his head in disgust as one of the Iranian pilots deliberately sacrificed the other to escape his second missile. The two Saudi F-15s had dropped off his scope, presumably destroyed.
Chernin was starting to ready another Kinzhal missile for the surviving J-20, when all of his threat warnings sounded. The J-20 had fired two missiles at him, which according to his instruments were the very capable P-15s. And then immediately turned east towards Iran, and home.
This left Chernin with a choice. Spend the seconds necessary to launch on the J-20, which was probably no longer a threat, and more than likely was leaving the battle because he was out of missiles. Or, conserve the missile for use against his primary target in case his other remaining missile missed.
One argument for attacking the J-20 was that it could carry up to six P-15s, if it used its external hard points in addition to its internal bay, and so might turn back to attack him. If it had those extra missiles, though, it would probably have been easier for Chernin to detect.
None of this made Chernin decide to send another Kinzhal missile after the J-20. He simply couldn’t abide the thought of a pilot continuing to draw breath who had so brutally betrayed his wingman.
That done, Chernin had to put his faith in the SU-57’s digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) jammers to blind the PL-15’s radar seeker heads.
He had been told they were the most advanced DFRM version available. He could only hope they would be good enough.
Chernin now turned his attention to the helicopter, which he was annoyed to see had made more progress towards Riyadh than he had expected. He then saw the Reaper drone on his scope, and its launch of an AIM-9X missile at the helicopter.