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A LOMAC Mission Report: Turn Their HAWKs
Into Scrap!
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The weather is glorious. Our meteo
officer pours glasses of tea and as usual I munch cucumber
slices as he briefs us. “Sacha, the cloud base is
at 1,700 meters, visibility with haze, about 50 kilometers.
Broken clouds. Wind, 5 meters/second at ground, seven at 2000
meters, nine at 8000 meters.”
“There will be turbulence
with those wind speeds, and in the mountains.”
“It is two meters per second
at ground, Sacha.” Vasily lit a cigarette and sucked
in the smoke with a sour look. “Three meters per second
at 2000 meters. We’ll be bouncing like rubber balls on
the bomb run.”
I flip the top up on my gold Chaika
watch, and see that it is time to board. Overlord, the American
AWACS, will be waiting for us and soon the GAZ jeep will come
to pick us up. When we take our places, I scan my cockpit,
in my No. 11 aircraft. All is in order. The crew chief signals,
and I start my left, then right engines, and close my canopy
as I hear Vasily’s jet, No. 12, start as well. We listen
in on Guard as we taxi, and roll down the runway for a formation
takeoff.
Set Condition 1-SQ for surface
action. General quarters, general quarters! All hands man
your battle stations! The alarms begin their shrill ringing
as the crew of the battlecruiser run. In its nerve center,
a bearded officer peers into an orange-lit radar screen and
checks his watch. “The Turk is too close this time,
Dmitri Alexandrovich. I will teach him to be more cautious
in the future. Weapons free, you may fire when ready.”
The cruiser Moscow shudders
as first one, then another SS-N-12 missile roar out of the
starboard launch tubes, dropping booster jets into the sea
as they pitch up into launch attitude. Some fifty kilometers
away, the Muin-I-Zaffer and her consort have a bone in their
teeth and are steaming for a confrontation. They had no idea
that the Russian Navy was playing for keeps, this time.
The Turkish ships react slowly, and
Zaffer’s consort pays for it with the lives of one hundred
and forty sailors. Three Standard SM-2 RIM-66 missiles miss
the incoming sea-skimmer, but with luck, the one following
it, the one meant for the Zaffer herself, is intercepted.
The first, however, impacts the other ship, setting her afire
and bringing both Turkish ships to a halt.
But Moscow cannot rest. In
her Combat Information Center, a new threat is on screen.
Overlord is calling. A pop-up threat,
at the Turk airbase. Their F-5s have scrambled. Vasily wants
to fight them. “One, permission to engage targets!”
 “No,
Vasily! Stick to the plan, let the Navy have them, but be
vigilant. Watch them on the American Link-16!”
I bring up DVB mode and select R-77.
I flip my radar on and off to initialize the Link to the E-3,
just in time to see the Turk aircraft turn to face me. They
are out of radar range, but now I have established the Link
16 with the Americans. Our noses are cold like the Borzoi
dog in winter, and yet I can see everything he does from nearly
100 kilometers away. But the Turk, he does not close! The
hated F-5 spins like a child’s toy!
On Moscow, her VLS cells on the stern
spit fire to the launch of two SA-N-6 missiles as her crew
cheers wildly. So far, one Turkish ship is dead and now, two
aircraft may join her at the bottom of the Black Sea.
The missiles fly true. The Turkish
aircraft cannot escape.
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